Chapter Text
Bludhaven was fraught with mobsters, corruption, and gang crime. It was consistent for all its follies, and Nightwing never once asked for anything else. He didn't need to go back to secret societies, alien invasions, warlords and conquerors from alternate dimensions, or the world's most dangerous, well, anything. He had more than enough to deal with without all that.
Without fairies.
Nightwing tied the final knot on the last missing child, leaving him the leader of a long train of elementary students. Each one had the glowing rope tied about their waist, and Nightwing tried not to feel paranoid that it would snap. It was rope literally blessed by the king of the fairies. It couldn't break, even if Nightwing wanted it to.
Besides, the rope was the least of his problems.
"They cannot leave!" screeched a voice, and Nightwing pushed forwards into the forest, praying that the wild overgrowth would slow down the misshapen creature behind him. "They have eaten of the fairy fruit!"
But Nightwing hadn't.
Which meant that he could still make it to the portal, and if the children were attached to him, he could pull them through.
"They belong to us!"
Nightwing snorted, pushing forward and trying not to feel anxious at how slow he had to move to keep the children from tripping over one another. "Then sue for custody. I hear family court is really busy, but I'm sure you can get in in around six months."
There was an inhuman roar, and a bead of sweat began to drip down his neck. The whole forest began to swim in his vision, and he gritted his teeth at the odd rainbow blur that outlined every shape, big and small. He'd been in this world for too long.
(And it did not want him to leave.)
"Children, come to me! Come to me!" the voice nearly sang, and the dirt beneath Nightwing's boots became almost sticky. It felt like the very dirt was trying to drag him down into it, and it didn't help when a little girl began to sob. The glowing lifeline around his waist dug even harsher into his costume. It would be a miracle if he didn't have an imprint woven into his skin for the next week. The children pulled to get to the voice, some trying to untie the knots.
"Stop trying to rekidnap my kidnapping victims!" Nightwing snapped. "That's rude!"
Something felt as though it caressed his face, and Nightwing squeezed his eyes shut. Whatever was there, he couldn't risk looking into its eyes.
(One of the fae had tried that at the beginning, had nearly laid a kiss on his lips. He'd realized just before he'd been just as trapped as the children.)
There was a pulse in his chest, and he reached out blindly to feel his way. It was starting to get too disorienting to find his way by sight anyway.
He led the children around a bend, a tree trunk squirming beneath his fingertips. He swallowed down the sick feeling of being in a world where the trees were so alive, dragging his feet into what felt like water but could have been anything from nectar to blood. He plunged into it, grateful when it only reached his knees. The threat of a child drowning clawed at something deep within him, and he prayed the water didn't somehow sense the thought and react to it. The grass giggled as he stepped onto dry land once more, and a child wailed a mourning sound that reminded Dick of cotton candy and bile.
He just had to keep going.
He had to.
The wind kissed his cheek and left gentle touches across his shoulders as a stone path practically materialized beneath his boots. The pulse in his chest grew warmer, and Nightwing knew he was getting closer. The magic spell from the helpful pixie he'd managed to befriend was guiding him truly back to the portal after all.
(He had hoped he hadn't been wrong to trust the pixie, but she had been his only option. Relief and guilt bloomed in his chest, but he didn't let it distract him.)
Leaves and flowers danced beneath his touch, and he barely jerked back in time before what felt like teeth on some kind of mushroom clamped down on his gloved palm.
"Oath breaker!" cried the fae behind him, and a little boy whimpered. "Thief of humanity, of innocence!"
"Can't steal what was never yours!" Nightwing yelled back. Though the Batman part of himself whispered that it was unwise to bait a nine-foot monster with gnarled wings and too many mouths, he couldn't resist.
Luckily, he didn't have to. He took a step past the tall grass, and warmth exploded within him. He opened his eyes and nearly had to squint at the golden light surrounding him. He had just entered a circle of light, mushrooms and flowers marking the perimeter of absolute warmth and comfort - the portal.
He spun around, hefting the rope and each child attached within the circle one by one. Though they squirmed and cried at first, when they entered the light, they would calm and stare around as though just waking from a long slumber. Nightwing had just begun to believe that the escape plan was going to go perfectly smooth when it came down to the last child.
His gloved hand passed over the line of flowers and mushrooms just slightly, clamping down on the rope when a harsh grip seared into his costume. He cried out as he was yanked forwards, but he managed to catch his bearings just enough to dig in his heels. Half in the circle and half out, his eyes flickered to the mousy child clinging to the monster before him.
It regarded him with giant, magenta eyes, not once blinking as it began to speak. "A curse on you! A curse on you who needs people and love like a parasite needs victims. I curse you! You cannot reach out until you reach in!"
Pain laced through Nightwing's whole being. From his rattling skull to the tiny bones within his pinky toe, he felt as though his life were being carved away. He let out a cry, loud and awful, and the beast looked far too satisfied as a giant grin spread across its horrific face, spittle dripping down in long stings. One dripped on the child's head, and Nightwing sucked in a sharp breath.
"Nightwing! Nightwing!" A little girl cried from within the circle of protection.
Another child whimpered.
And Nightwing -
Well, he couldn't leave them behind. Any of them.
"A curse for a curse!" Nightwing bullshitted, fingers still tingling from whatever had happened. "You who - who steals lives and familial joy. A curse on you! You cannot keep what you have stolen until you find forgiveness from all you hurt!"
It screeched, eyes wide and horrified. Its mottled skin began to burn where the child clung to it, and in its panic, Nightwing was able to yank the kid off. It gave a long, mournful wail as its victims found sanctuary within the circle. It kept screaming and shouting, and the children clung to Nightwing as he watched with a vague sense of satisfaction and disgusted curiosity.
"Huh." he said quietly. "I didn't think that would work."
There was a gentle tug on his hand, and he looked down into the eyes of far too many terrified children. "Mister Nightwing, can we go home?"
Nightwing softened, kneeling down. "Of course. Let's go home."
And Nightwing led them into the light.
He didn't realize there was a problem at first.
All the children made it home safely, and Nightwing was too exhausted to fill out the mission report, so he didn't.
He didn't the next day, either.
In fact, he stopped filling them out altogether.
He received a message from Batman three nights later demanding that he fill out his reports or give a reason why he couldn't.
Rebellion raised up from deep within him.
So deep, in fact, that he could feel it in his very bones.
He didn't answer the message, and he didn't write any reports.
He realized there was an issue when he got a message from Damian.
Will you be coming to the manor this weekend?
Dick went to reply, but his hands began to shake. He couldn't type a single word.
After an hour, Damian sent another message.
Drake's company alone is intolerable. Someone must corral him.
Dick could do nothing.
Nothing but think about the curse.
"You cannot reach out until you reach in." Dick whispered with growing horror.
R u mad at me or sumthin? Wally texted the next day. I was only jokin. Ur mullet phase was g8.
"I'm - I'm controlling." Dick tried a little desperately, holding his phone in a white-knuckled grip. "I want things to go my way, because I think if it doesn't that people will die, and I wouldn't forgive myself if I could have stopped it."
He tried again to force his fingers to move, but his hands stayed stubbornly where they were, unable to send a message.
Dick groaned, running a hand through his hair. A spike of anger shot through him that he could do something as unimportant as ruffle his hair but not something as meaningful as messaging someone he loved.
"I miss you." Dick admitted to the empty room. "I miss you like hell, but I don't want to intrude on your life, and I feel like if I leave Blud or Gotham for a second, something horrific will happen. I want to go back to the way things were when we were dumbass teenagers, and the world was ours."
It wasn't enough. His fingers wouldn't move.
His phone dinged.
I get it. Let me know when ur ready. Wally texted.
Dick wanted to scream.
At work, a coworker asked if he needed anything. His jaw clamped shut where he couldn't speak.
Family dinner night. It was Dick's best chance to get help. Surely a family of detectives would be able to see that something was desperately, horribly wrong.
However, when he tried to take his bike, his body froze up. He couldn't close his fingers around the handles, couldn't push down his foot on a pedal, couldn't even start the damn thing.
"They're my family." Dick whispered.
The wind whipped the words away, and he was left sitting there, unable to move.
"I don't trust Bruce the way I used to." Dick breathed out, staring at Bruce's number. His fingers refused to hit the call button, but he closed his eyes and prayed. "I wish I could. He was my hero once, but now he's - he's a person, and I don't think I can forgive him for that."
Like a miracle, his phone began to buzz. He hit answer before looking at the name, heart pounding.
"Hello!" a mechanical voice spoke. "We've been trying to reach you about extending your car insurance."
Dick pulled the phone away to stare at the contact name. All it read was scam likely.
He couldn't even scream.
The next day, he was so discouraged that when his phone rang, he almost didn't answer it.
Almost.
When he saw the contact name, he scrambled for his phone, barely picking it up before the final ring.
"Dick?" Tim's voice came though. "You there?"
"I'm here." Dick gasped out, relief echoing through his very soul. "I'm here."
"Is everything okay?"
Dick wanted to answer, but his very teeth clattered together against his will.
"Dick?" Tim's frown was so loud that Dick could hear it over the phone. "Dick, you didn't come to family dinner."
"No. I didn't." Dick said softly.
"And you haven't filed any mission reports or anything about patrol."
"No, I haven't." Dick agreed.
"Dick, please." Tim said. "This isn't like you. What's going on?"
Dick couldn't speak.
"You can talk to me, you know." Tim continued on.
But Dick couldn't speak.
"You don't have to do this alone. Whatever it is, let us help you."
But Dick still couldn't speak.
And Tim didn't know.
"Dick? Are you still there?"
There was a long, stretched out moment where neither man could speak.
Then the call disconnected, and Dick was left alone in his apartment.
Nightwing sat alone on a roof when there was a heavy sound - the sound of feet dropping heavily down and then footsteps approached. "Hey, dickface!"
Nightwing glanced back. "Hood."
The Red Hood dropped down next to him. "You've got everybody in a real mess."
Nightwing blinked at him.
"See, you got the brat locking himself up in his room, which made the old man kick him off of patrol which turned into a lot more fighting. Then there's the Replacement who insists that something is wrong, and the girls are somehow both in agreement with him and are fighting with him. And you're breaking Agent A's heart."
Nightwing frowned. "Huh."
"Huh?" Hood snapped. "That all you can say, you asshole?"
Nightwing's jaw snapped shut.
Hood tensed up, and even with the helmet, it was obvious that something had caught his attention. Before his stare could become too heavy or uncomfortable, there was a cry from down below.
"Why the fuck didn't you call for help?" Hood demanded. "I'm not a psychic! I can't know you need help unless you call for help."
Nightwing swallowed, jaw cramping at how tightly he was grinding his teeth together. He kept his mottled hand to his chest, at least one broken bone sending shooting pains all the way up his arm.
"Fine. Whatever. Don't talk." Hood snarled. "Come on."
Nightwing followed him to his bike, and soon the two were huddled together, speeding away to a clinic.
Leslie's clinic.
"Sit down." Leslie ordered as soon as they arrived. "What's going on?"
"This idiot got his shit rocked." Hood said, leaning against the door. "His hand took the brunt of the damage."
"How severe is it?" Leslie asked Nightwing. "Can you give me your pain level from a scale of one to ten?"
Nightwing tried to open his mouth, but he couldn't. The words couldn't escape the iron cage of his teeth, and his head pulsed with pain. It took every ounce of effort to move his hand from its cradled position against his chest, and even then, he couldn't offer it to Leslie. All he could do was let the damaged appendage hover awkwardly between them.
Hood seemed shocked speechless, but Leslie's eyes narrowed. She descended on his hand swiftly, face hard before she ordered "X-ray. Now."
Hood stared at Nightwing, X-rays clenched in his hand. "What the fuck is this?"
Dick leaned back in the giant chair before the Batcomputer, a weird mix of anxiety and relief. Everyone else surrounded a table with his full body X-rays scattered about.
On each and every bone, big and small, were long inscriptions in a language that frankly wasn't human. It was oddly entrancing and entirely horrifying to look at. Though his family debated the words and what they meant, Dick closed his eyes and let their voices carry him away.
He knew exactly what they meant.
He couldn't reach out until he reached in.
Literally.
Until he peeled back his flesh and carved away the curse on his bones.
"Dick." Tim called. "I brought you something."
Dick blinked, looking up as Tim carried down a plate with a sandwich and apple slices on the side. Dick couldn't help smiling as Tim sat the plate down in front of him.
"I have some questions. I don't know how many you can answer, but anything helps." Tim said.
"Sure. I'll do what I can." Dick said, grabbing one of the apple slices with his still functional hand.
"What mission were you on when this happened?"
Dick smiled. "I was on a missing child case. At first, I thought that I was tracking down a killer. I didn't have much hope of finding any of the kids alive, but I got lucky. They were in Faeryland."
Tim blinked. "What?"
"Faeryland. I'm sure there's lots of legends where it's called different things, but that's what they called it." Dick shrugged. "So I followed a kid that was sleepwalking into a bit of woodland, fell into a portal, and there we were. The kids had already eaten the food, so they were trapped, but I wasn't. I made some friends, managed to get the kids, and we got out."
"But things didn't go that well, did they?"
Dick frowned, setting down an apple slice. "No. Words are magic down there. Everything is magic. So when the fae kidnapper spotted me, it -"
Suddenly, Dick's jaw clamped tight. He sucked in a sharp breath before looking away, unwilling to see the look on Tim's face. A shiver of shame went through Dick, and he swallowed heavily.
"That's really good." Tim said, though his voice was tight. "Really helpful. Thanks, Dick."
Dick blinked, a strained smile on his lips for just a second before it disappeared.
Tim hesitantly reached out and touched his shoulder. "Don't worry, Wing. We're gonna figure this out."
Dick wanted to believe him.
"I have torn through eleven Irish and four Scottish fairy tales and spell books." Damian told him, ire heavy in his voice. "However, I suspect that the closest human language may be further to the east. Even then, should we be able to translate it, I do not think we have a way to break the spell. For that reason, I believe we are wasting our time when it would be better spent trying to capture the enemy."
Dick smiled. "It doesn't hurt to be prepared."
"It seems to hurt you." Damian argued.
Dick couldn't reply.
"Does this look familiar?" Bruce asked.
Dick blinked, looking up from his dinner. Everyone had been having a rather subdued meal (as all meals had been since the curse) except for Bruce who hadn't come to dinner until now.
He held a book that looked like it was only barely held together by the mildew and mold collected along the spine. An illustration of a beautiful white castle with red vines stringing up its side caught Dick's eye, and slowly, his gaze drifted to letters that looked somewhere between archaic and alive.
Dick looked up, laying a finger on the crumbling picture. "That's where I was. The children were held in the highest tower."
Bruce nodded, the dark circles beneath his eyes unable to hide grim satisfaction.
"Get in, losers!" Stephanie announced. "We're going to Faeryland!"