Chapter Text
“Anyone home?” Dick called out as he walked through the Manor’s entrance into the foyer and started making his way to the kitchen. At this hour, that was most likely where Alfred was, working on making supper.
As he made his trek there, Dick couldn’t help but examine the place, like he did every time he came to the Manor he had grown up. He had only come back a handful of times ever since his mission with Spyral had drawn to a close a few months ago and his secret identity as Nightwing was made a secret once again. He kept expecting to see a dramatic change, having been gone for so long things were bound to change, but there never was one. There were a few updated items, like a new chair or new TV or a new photograph on the wall, but it was still the same house, in physical appearance that is. It didn’t really feel like it though. Every single time Dick came back, it felt less and less like home.
He supposed that that was actually a good thing. It meant that he was grown up and had to make his own home. Birds don’t stay in the nest they were raised in forever after all, but it still hurt. Then again, maybe it was just because he no longer felt that welcome anymore. While Damian and Alfred had forgiven him for faking his death after his capture by the Crime Syndicate, Tim and Jason had most definitely not. Dick had tried to get in touch with them multiple times, but Jason never took his calls and completely ignored and avoided him if they were ever in the same place, and Tim only talked to him if it pertained to a case.
Bruce, was complicated, which really shouldn’t have surprised him. His adoptive father had seemed happy to have him back. Once he got his memory back that is, but there was hardly any communication between them after Dick started going after the Court of Owls. That was one of the first things Dick ever learned about Bruce. He sucked at communicating.
Reaching the kitchen’s open door, Dick pushed those thoughts out of his head. He was here to see his Dad, Grandfather and little brother. He wasn’t going to let his issues ruin the time he had set aside specially with his family.
“Ah, hello Master Dick.” Alfred greeted when he saw Dick enter the room. Dick opened his mouth to respond, but paused when he saw the butler wasn’t alone. Sitting at the island, was Tim. He didn’t know that Tim was going to be here. He thought he was back with his team of Teen Titans.
“Hey Alfie. Hey Tim.” Dick responded with a smile. Tim glanced over at him for split second, registering his presence before turning back to his laptop, apparently deciding to ignore him. Dick longed to hug him and ruffle his hair like he used to, but he knew that that would not go well.
“How are you doing this afternoon?” Alfred inquired, moving to prepare some tea.
“I’m doing good.” Dick answered, plopping himself down on a chair at the island, though not on the one right beside Tim, trying to respect his younger brother’s space. “How are things here?”
“Quite well, though Master Damian is still rather irritated at Master Bruce’s insistence of going to school and Master Bruce is working even more than he was before.” Alfred informed him.
“Well, maybe we should start secretly switching him to decaf in order to make sure he sleeps.” Dick suggested.
“I’m beginning to think along the same lines.” Alfred replied with smirk.
Dick smiled back, then looked over at Tim and asked, “And how are you doing Timbo?”
“Fine.” Tim mumbled back grumpily. Dick bit back a frustrated sigh, but before he could say anything else, he heard small footsteps approaching. Looking over at the door, Dick spotted his youngest brother come into the room.
“Hey little D.” Dick said with a smile, standing up and walking over to Damian. Upon reaching him, he immediately wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug.
Damian, predictably, tried to pull away but Dick knew it was half-hearted, even as he said, “Grayson, must you do this every time you see me? It is extremely unnecessary.”
“Of course it’s necessary Dami.” Dick told him. “I missed you.”
Damian tsked but didn’t say anything. He simply let Dick hug for a few more seconds before Dick dropped his arms and raised one hand to ruffle his hair. Damian scowled and pushed his hand away, but there were no death threats. So Dick counted that as a win. Actually, since he returned from Spyral, Damian had hardly ever uttered death threats against him. While Dick knew that his little brother cared about him, it was nice to not hear those almost constantly.
“How long are you staying?” Damian asked, walking over to Alfred who had just finished making the tea and was now currently pouring it into three cups. One for Damian, one for Dick and one for Tim. No doubt Alfred’s way of trying to limit Tim’s coffee intake.
“Just for the weekend. Can’t leave Bludhaven alone that long. The crime there is still really bad.” Dick answered.
Damian frowned, clearly not happy, but accepted it and said, “I assume you will be coming on patrol with us then.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Dick replied, plopping himself back down on the chair he had been sitting on before. “Especially not the after-patrol milkshakes.”
Damian gave him a small, rare, grin, but dropped it when Dick looked over at Tim and said, “You’re going to come too, right Timmy?”
“Probably not. I have a lot of work to do.” Tim answered as Alfred handed him his cup of tea.
“Oh come on Timmy. I haven’t seen you in so long. It will be fun.” Dick said, still smiling even though the indication that his brother still wanted nothing to do with him was like a knife to his chest.
“Can’t. Maybe next time.” Tim responded before quickly scooping up his laptop and mug and left the room. Dick watched him leave, unable to keep the sad expression from his face, but didn’t try to stop him.
B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B*B
Dick swung through the air from building to building to building with his grapple, a wide smile on his face. He had missed this. Had missed flying, the wind in his face and hair. The freedom. He didn’t get to do this much when he was with Spyral. He had always loved flying. No matter what happened or where he was, he would always be home in the air. The fact that he was also in Gotham helped. As crime ridden at it was, it would always be his home.
He was on his own at the moment. When patrol had started, Dick teamed up with Damian while Tim stayed in the Cave doing research for some case he was working on and Bruce patrolled alone. Since it was a fairly quiet night, he and Damian went for milkshakes early before he sent Damian back to the Manor. The current Robin argued about it, but Dick knew that he had a major school assignment due soon that he needed to work on. Promising his baby brother that he’d follow soon, Damian reluctantly headed home.
Swinging his way through the outskirts of Gotham, Dick started to turn to head home when something caught his eye. Between an abandoned warehouse and old, rundown apartment building, he saw the red and blue lights from police cars. While that wasn’t really strange, especially in this area, it was a little strange to see someone watching from the rooftop. After a few seconds, Dick smiled as he recognized the red helmet he was wearing. Deciding to see what his other brother was up to, he started heading over to the apartment roof to join him.
“Hey Hood? How’s it hanging?” Dick greeted, landing gracefully on his feet.
Jason turned to look at him and though he was wearing his helmet, Dick knew that he was glaring at him, especially when he said with harsh tone, “What are you doing here?”
“Just came by to visit. Thought I’d join the fun.” Dick answered with a grin. Jason stared at him for a few seconds before he shook his head and turned back to look down at the street.
Dick couldn’t help but feel disappointed at Jason’s lack of response. He should be used to it by now. Even before he faked his death, he and Jason had a rocky relationship. At times, it seemed to be getting better, but then something would happen and then Jason would go back to ignoring him and everyone tied to Bruce. He had somewhat hoped that his brothers would be happy to see him once they learned he was alive. He was happy when he learned that Jason was back from the dead. Though he wasn’t happy to hear that he had become a crime lord. But, if there was one thing that had become clear very early on, Jason was not Dick.
“So what’s going on?” Dick asked, coming to crouch down beside Jason, looking down at the scene below. He saw three cop cars and an ambulance but there was no rush of activity like there would be if there was still danger or if someone was badly injured and needed to get to a hospital.
“None of your business.” Jason hissed, not bothering to look at him.
Not letting his brother’s anger get to him, Dick grinned and said, “I have ways of finding out you know.”
“Been tracking these new drug dealers for the last week or so. They’ve started selling to kids.” Jason informed Dick, handing him the binoculars. “According to my sources, they set up shop in that warehouse, but the cops have beaten me to it.”
“So, what’s the problem?” Dick questioned with a confused tone as he looked down at the street again, with the binoculars this time.
Pointing over to the side where the police cars were, he answered, “That.”
Looking through the binoculars, Dick saw that there wasn’t anyone in handcuffs or any civilians hanging around. While in this part of town, people tend to stay in their homes at night, especially when the cops were around, it was a little strange no one was being arrested. At first, Dick figured that the cops had already taken them to the station. But then he noticed the body bags near the ambulance. Five of them to be exact.
“Someone killed them, and I need to know who.” Jason said as Dick lowered the binoculars from his face. Before he could responded though, another voice, a much deeper once asked, “It wasn’t you?”
The gruff voice from behind had both former Robins turning around. On the opposite side of the roof, stood Batman, the bottom of his cape twitching in the gentle breeze. Many people would’ve jumped in surprise or shake in fear, but not Dick or Jason. They were both used to him showing up out of nowhere. But while Dick gave him a warm smile in greeting, Jason tensed up and clenched his fists.
“No a**hole. It wasn’t me.” Jason answered, sounding more annoyed than he was when Dick had arrived. Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “I’m not stupid enough to stick around my own crime scene.”
Not wanting to deal with a fight between Bruce and Jason, Dick clapped Bruce’s shoulder and said, “Come on B. Let’s go see what Gordon has found.”
Bruce stared at Jason for a minute, then wordlessly went over to the ledge and jumped. Dick shot Jason a grin then jumped after the Dark Knight.
They landed near the opening of a dark alley. Batman, being the overdramatic crimefighter he was, enjoyed sneaking up on people, including the police. Luckily for him, Commissioner Gordon was, not only present at the crime scene, was also close to the alley. Close enough that he saw them both come down. Guess Batman wasn’t going to be giving him a heart attack tonight, Dick thought to himself.
“Batman.” Commissioner Gordon said, but it wasn’t until he walked over to the Dark Knight that he saw that it was Nightwing with him. Smiling at the other hero, he said, “Nightwing, good to see you son.”
“You too Commissioner.” Dick replied with a grin.
“What happened?” Bruce immediately inquired, getting straight to business as usual.
“We got an anonymous tip that some drug dealers that were new to town were working out of the warehouse here. So my deputies checked it out and found the dealers beaten to death.” Gordon revealed, gesturing to the building beside them.
“A rival gang?” Dick questioned. When it came to gangs, they were either taken down by the cops or Batman, or taken out by other gangs. Especially new and inexperienced gangs.
“I don’t think so.” Gordon responded, shaking his head. “There’s a furnace inside. Someone torched all the product. A rival gang would’ve just taken drugs and sell them themselves. And gangs tend to kill by stabbing or shooting, or, occasionally, by fire. These men were beaten to death.”
“Bane?” Bruce suggested, frowning in thought.
“Still in Arkham.” Gordon informed them, scrapping that theory, then tilted his head to where the filled body bags lay as he said, “And then there’s this.”
Bruce and Dick followed the Commissioner over to the bodies. As soon as they got there, Gordon zipped the body bag open. Dick couldn’t help but wince when he saw the person’s face. It was so completely swollen and bloodied that it didn’t even look like a real face. That wasn’t what Gordon wanted to show them though. He pulled out the victim’s hand, revealing an owl-shaped burn, no, brand, burned black on the back of his hand.
“All of them have it.” Gordon told them.
“An owl.” Bruce mumbled, then looked up at Dick, who had paled at the sight. He knew that owl symbol, knew who it belonged to and it was clear that Bruce knew it too.
“Yup.” The Commissioner confirmed, gently placing the hand back into the bag and zipped it up. “Any idea who it could be?”
“One. Keep me updated. I’ll be in touch.” Bruce responded, then turned and vanished in the shadows. Dick followed right behind him.
Instead of heading back to the roof where Jason was waiting, they went into the alley. While normal people felt uneasy about being in the shadows and dark alleys, right now, Dick felt comfort in it. It hid the fear that was no doubt on his face. However, he was sure it did little to hide it from Bruce. The billionaire was very good at reading him, most of the time. Then again, Bruce was probably the only one who knew why Dick would be so scared of the man who killed those men.
“It’s him, isn’t it? Owlman?” Dick whispered. To anyone else, he would’ve sounded like he had just been running or something, but he knew to Bruce, he sounded absolutely terrified. And if he was being honest, he was.
Despite the time that passed, Dick never forgot about Owlman. It was kind of hard to forget the person who had a face nearly identical to your father’s, wanted to turn you evil and ended up locking you in a bomb where the only way out was to die. And of course there was the fact that he, along with his evil teammates, revealed his secret identity on TV, forcing you to hide until it could be fixed. But Dick thought that Bruce and the Justice League had dealt with him. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any sign of him since we took down the Crime Syndicate.” Bruce said regretfully, avoiding Dick’s eyes that widened in shock.
“That was so long ago. Why is he here now?” Dick questioned, though he had a small inkling as to why the villain would suddenly return now.
“I don’t know. But until we find and capture him, I want you to stay at the Manor.” Bruce told him, finally turning around to face him.
“But,” Dick started but was quickly cut off.
“Dick,” Bruce grabbed his arm, effectively getting Dick to stare up at him, seeing the worry all over his face, “don’t fight me on this.”
Dick stared at his adoptive father. It was rare to see him look this worried, especially when he was in the cowl. No stranger would ever see it though, only those who knew how to read his face would be able to tell, and Dick could definitely tell. As much as Dick wanted to assure Bruce that he would be fine, that he was an adult who could take care of himself, if he was being honest with himself, he was terrified of Owlman. He scared him in a way that not even the Joker could.
“Okay.” Dick quietly agreed, nodding his head.
“Good.” Bruce whispered as he let go of Dick’s arm, relief replacing the worry on his face.
“What about Jason, Tim and Damian?” Dick suddenly asked, only now remembering that Jason was up on the roof waiting to hear what happened here and that Tim and Damian were staying at the Manor. All three of them would be asking questions and as far as Dick was aware of, none of them knew anything about Owlman.
“I’ll, talk to them.” Bruce responded, glancing up at the roof where Jason was most likely still waiting.
“And tell them what?” Dick wondered.
“That there’s a new threat in town and you’re helping me out with it.” Bruce replied, clearly only thinking of that now.
Dick tilted in his head in thought. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it would no doubt get very complicated very quickly. Tim, being the overly curious person he was, would definitely try to look into what they were doing. Damian would forcefully try to include himself in what was going on, not at all liking when he was left out, and Jason, as he was the one who was looking into the drug dealers, would demand answers almost immediately. But Dick didn’t really have a better plan, so he nodded his head and said, “Okay.”