Chapter Text
Week One
He must have read her letter 100 times. Analyzing her spare, neat, decisive handwriting word by crushing word. That perfect printing of hers made it all seem so oddly businesslike.
“Dick, I love you more than you could possibly know, and I can never repay you for being here for me during some of the hardest years of my life. But-
He’d stopped on that ‘but’ the first few times, because he knew exactly what was meant to follow, and yet he’d found himself hoping anyway. He’d chosen all of this, a place close to Gotham, a noble purpose for Nightwing... Barbara. But Barbara doesn’t choose him anymore, and it all feels so bitterly ironic to him.
Senator Barbara Gordon, it has a nice ring to it. And being The Oracle was never going to be the only thing she wanted out of life. She wanted to change the world, not just save the day, and the closer she got, the more it became apparent that he wasn’t meant to be the man at her side as she made her auspicious climb.
He never stood in her way, not even once. Through all the trips back and forth from Washington or the State capital, the weeks without more than a few rushed conversations between them, even as he felt her slipping away he knew it would all be worth it in the end. He’d made the choice to give up The Titans because his family in Gotham needed him more. That kind of selflessness wasn’t supposed to blow up in his face, and yet...
He folds the letter and shoves it into his bedside drawer. Now is the time to process. Barbara had been his girlfriend in name only for the past three months, and now she isn’t even that. It hurts, he can feel the dull, pounding ache spreading through his chest. But he doesn’t get up from his bed, doesn’t call up Bruce to borrow the Batwing so he can make a last-minute flight to Washington to beg for her back, he just closes his eyes, pushing out the hot tears, and he tries to sleep. Maybe in the morning, his life will make more sense.
Week two
Gar posted a new Instagram story, he’s on top of the empire state building with some pretty girl he met in Kenya when he was filming an anti-poaching PSA. They’re a cute couple, and Dick starts typing a message
“Proud of you kid, miss you every day”
But before he can hit send, he erases the whole thing, replacing it with something a bit less loaded.
“Cool pic”
He turns off his smartphone. No more social media, it’s bad for the mental health. Also, he doesn’t need to see another post congratulating Babs on being the first parapalegic Senator from her state, and the youngest period. It’s always that same picture, Babs, looking perfectly put together in her new glasses, her copper-colored hair gathered into a high, smart bun, her tall, unnervingly handsome and accomplished campaign manager glued to her side, a steady hand on her back.
Dick doesn’t think she ever slept with him, Babs wasn’t a cheater. But what exactly is stopping her this time? Nothing. Campaign manager guy is probably giving her shoulder rubs in the war room over her favorite Chinese take out right about now.
Week 3
At the end of the day, Dick Grayson is still a superhero, always has been, always will be. It’s hard to worry about his personal life self-destructing when he’s busting up trafficking rings. So ever since the break-up, he focuses on nothing but the endless job of keeping the streets of Bludhaven safe.
But even crime in this city takes a break sometimes, and when it does, all he can do is sit in his apartment, regretting everything. Bruce is fine, the best he’s been since Alfred died. He’s got his son, his sidekicks, and last Dick checked he was even talking to Selina again. How sad that his 55-year-old former guardian is doing better in the love department than he is?
It’s not that he can’t get another girl if he wants. He’s never had too much trouble in that area. But he's starting to wonder what the point is. Dating civilians always comes with its share of complications, none of which he has the capacity to deal with in the wake of his latest heartbreak. And dating heroes, heroes like Barbara, that never seems to end well either.
At least it’s nobody’s fault this time. Not like with Kory. That had been nobody’s fault but his.
Week 4
“You need a vacation,” Donna says, the screen flickering on account of that lousy Themysciran internet connection. She looks good, happy, the view of an idyllic sandy beach visible beyond the balcony railing in the background.
“Vacations are for people who don’t have a city to protect,” he tells her.
“Oh come off it,” she says. “How many vigilante friends of yours would be willing to take your place for a week?”
Roy already offered, because Donna’s not the only one who senses he’s at a bit of a low point right now. Being a superhero is supposed to mean being above all of that petty romance stuff, it means being able to shake the pain off and keep it moving. But it’s not shaking off, and everybody can see it. Once the breakup fully dawned on him, he’d thought about going to Barbara, about winning her back. They’d broken up twice during their relationship and he’d gotten her back both times, surely he could do it again, but something feels different now. For once he starts to realize that he was always the one doing the chasing, always trying to make things right between the two of them. Maybe what needs to happen this time is to simply let it be.
“A vacation, huh?”
Week 5, day one
He settles on the south of France, because nothing ever seems to go all that wrong there, it’s the place wealthy people always talk about jetting off to when they want to get away from it all, whatever “it all” is supposed to mean when it comes to people who can afford such a ritzy vacation. And Nice is supposed to have some of the prettiest beaches the world over. The last time Dick was on a beach, it was for a stakeout.
He feels guilty, even after everyone insists that he deserves a few days without the weight of Bludhaven and his breakup on his shoulders. Donna reminds him that taking some time away for himself is just the thing he needs to return to his duties with a clear head, Roy's already unpacked his duffel bag and parked himself in front of the wall of monitors back at Dick's apartment, Bruce offers him the private jet, only Damian gives him grief over the idea, because of course he would.
On the flight over, as he ignores his champagne and stares sadly out of the window, he finds himself wondering how his life might be different if he was always the type of guy who treated himself. It was easier with Kory, he thinks, before immediately wondering why that thought would enter his head unannounced. Finally, he knocks back the flute of Dom Perignon and reclines the seat back so he can try to sleep, no more thinking about Barbara, and definitely no thinking about Kory. Putting himself first is supposed to mean exactly that.
Week 5, day two
This is stupid, he realizes over and over again as he lounges on this beach chair, looking at the sea churn. Is he just supposed to sit here, letting the turquoise blue waves lurch forward and pull back? Surrounded by the carefree families and friends groups and lovers having the sort of fun he stopped having years ago? He shouldn’t have gone alone, but the problem when all of one’s closest friends are superheroes is that none of them have much time for frivolity, and the ones that can make the time have families of their own. He and Babs had talked about starting a family once or twice, but decided each time that they had too much ahead of them to go for it just yet. On the inside though, Dick wondered if there was such a thing as the right time in their world.
Kory never saw the point in waiting for anything, and he knew that kids were no exception, she--
No, no thinking about Kory, he tells himself again. It’s pointless to think about her. He’s lonely, that’s all, but still, she creeps into his head again almost as quickly as he’d pushed her out of it. So he gets up to take a walk down the shore, hoping to stop himself from going on that masochistic mental tour of their beginning and end.
It's to no avail. He’d loved Princess Koriand’r, enough to wonder more and more about marrying her. With Raven and Gar off to college and their own independent hero’ing pursuits, Dick and Kory had been free to start their lives just for the two of them. She’d invited him to accompany her in Tamaran, where she’d rule in her brother’s place while Ryand'r was on his two-year-long diplomatic crusade. Two years with his best girl in an intergalactic paradise sounded like just the thing Dick had needed at the time.
But then the family he’d left behind for her and the Titans had completely fallen apart. With Alfred dead and Barbara paralyzed within the same month, with Bruce caught in a cycle of despair unlike anything Dick had ever seen, he’d had no choice but to go home. And although Kory had fought him at first, fought him like hell, in the end she’d given him the space he needed to go his own way, like she always had.
“Just promise me you won’t lose yourself to that place Dick Grayson,” she’d said to him, before pressing a bittersweet kiss to his lips. He could taste her tears. Even then, she knew.
She would have found some sort of alternative to carrying out her Tamaranian obligations if it meant being there for him. But he hadn’t wanted her there, witnessing the trauma of trying to put all of the pieces of his old life back together, so he left her behind, left all of them. For a while, he thought maybe they’d find their way back to each other, that it would only be a temporary break. But he wasn’t prepared for how absorbed he’d become in that world again.
It had started with Barbara’s tears. Before she learned she could be just as powerful in the chair as she was out of it, if not more, she’d cried the most heartbreaking, frustrated tears he’d ever heard, clutching to him for dear life, shattered by everything she’d lost in such a short time. And all he wanted at that point was to be anything to her that she needed.
He’d dated Babs for nearly a month when Kory came to see him in Gotham, out of the blue, after 10 months without a word exchanged between them. She was ready to be with him again, ready to pick up where they left off, and if things hadn’t changed so drastically in so little time, he would have been ready too. She sensed it when she hugged him, and kissed him on the lips and he couldn’t respond.
“Do you still love me?” she finally asked, frustrated by his evasion.
“Kory, you know I-
“Dick, you know very well what I mean. Not a someone you will always love or who occupies a special place in your heart. Do you love me in the way that means forever. In a way that we never have to find excuses?”
And after an eternity, he did the hardest thing he ever had to do, he said “No.”
It wasn’t true, but he needed to say it. His loyalty wasn’t to Kory anymore, it was to his girlfriend, who counted on him. As much as his heart still ached for what could have been with his guileless space princess, he wouldn’t let himself be split in two. He loved them both, it wasn’t something that could be helped, if he was going to be with Barbara though, he would be with her completely.
And he had been, as she learned to adjust to her new life in ways that surprised and impressed even him over the following three years. She’d been the Oracle for no fewer than four different superhero teams at once, all the while determined to shake things up in Washington.
Because of her, he’d done exactly what he told Kory he wouldn’t do. He lost himself to Gotham, although maybe not in the way she once feared. In any case, the day of that fateful lie he told her, was the last time he ever saw her.
Week five, day three
Until now
After breakfast at the hotel, eight chapters of the new Erik Larson, and an afternoon of perfectly skilled surfing that still makes him feel like a dumbass, he decides to go home early, knowing that no amount of activity will make him feel the way he's supposed to, no matter how fancy and gorgeous the backdrop. He shakes the saltwater out of his hair, and heads back toward the hotel, figuring that at least he tried. They can't possibly blame him for that. With a surfboard under one arm and the book under the other, he makes his way through the loose, white grains of sand and bits of shell, determined to be back home by the next day.
That's when he sees her, making him do a double-take that sends the board and the book careening into the sand. He'd recognize her pretty dark skin and chaotic red curls anywhere. Of all of the places for an ill-fated vacation, it had to be here. She’s standing on the edge of a small rocky bank. She poses gracefully in her flowy white dress, barely concealing the stylish metallic gold bikini she has on underneath. As the waves crash against the rocks and the water splashes up onto her bare feet, a photographer snaps away at his camera. Suddenly Dick is frozen solid, not knowing what he’ll do or say if she spots him. It doesn’t feel real, she’d just been on his mind again, completely against his will, and now she’s here, like some sort of a twisted joke. The last time they talked it was a complete disaster, surely she’ll want to punch him in his idiot face. He quietly turns away, but just as he does, he hears his name in that sweet, familiar voice.
“Dick? Dick Grayson?”
And in the next second she’s off of the rocks and crashing into him, hugging him tight on the middle of the beach, and the way he didn’t realize how much he missed those back-cracking embraces of hers. They're both a little damp from the sea, but she still feels warm, just like she always does. “Oh my God how are you? It’s been years.”
“It has, three of them actually,” he says nervously. Although she doesn’t look even a tiny bit older, in fact, in the warm south of France glow she looks the same as she did the first time they ever met.
“You look so good!" she says, seeming to mean it. “Where’s Barbara, I wanna say hi.”
At the sound of Barbara’s name, the big, nervous grin he didn’t notice on his face, immediately collapses.
“Did she not come with you?”
“No, she’s in Washington actually, DC.”
“Right, she’s a senator now, you always did like powerful women Grayson.”
“Um, actually, she kind of… we kind of broke up.”
“Oh no, why?” she says, her eyes worried. And Jesus, how does she do that? How is there no anger or judgment in her voice?
“She just… wanted different things, is all. It was pretty recent.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Are you here by yourself? You didn’t bring a friend?”
“I kind of wanted to be alone.”
“Oh fuck that, I’m taking you out for drinks, my treat.” She turns to face her photographer. “Pack it up Charles-Henri, I’m done for the day," she says in perfect French.
“Kory, we’re only halfway through the shot list,” the man says back in English, his Parisian accent thick and heavy.
“Then you’re bound to find something brilliant in there. See you tomorrow.”
Before anyone has the proper chance to argue, her arm is hooked around Dick's, and they’re making their way to the oceanside bar.
Maybe he'll go home tomorrow instead.
Stay Tuned Folks!