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Dick Grayosn became Robin at nine years old. Fresh off the recent trauma of his parents death and the rest of his family being ripped away from him. He became an only child of a semi-distant single father and a grandfather who spoke in professional tones. He’d been around from the beginning, long before any of the villains bothered to mellow out. Before they realized just how fragile a child's bones could be. Richard Grayson had the distinct honor of nearly dying to calendar man once or twice, because this was Gotham and everything was designed to be lethal. He’d been exposed to so many toxins and poisons and venoms and this and that that he was immune to even Cranes' most potent blends. It had taken years to develop the immunity, sure, and Dick still suffered some side-effects every once and a while, but what were a few hallucinations, sleepless nights, and mental breaks in the face of never having to deal with a toxin again.
Dick’s blood kept pinning as meta-human when they all knew it wasn't . He was fairly sure he would never donate blood again. He didn't want to know what his blood would do to whatever poor bastard received it. To be fair, most vigilantes couldn't donate blood, they’d been hit with too many knives or needles or been covered in too much goon goop from stab wounds and unknown substances. There was a high risk of blood-borne illnesses jumping from knife-attack to knife-attack.
(Some other hero picked up a side-kick a few years after Dick had been chosen, the poor kid hadn’t lasted long, they managed to pick up HIV after getting hit with an already bloodied knife, they were dead within two years. No doctors treat vigilante illnesses, and no one knew the kid's ID)
Worse than the questionable state of Dick’s blood, he’d been kidnapped…. by some… less than fun people. At least that’s what Dick assumed. Bruce seemed to think he did nothing but run away, he didn't. Shure, he had confronted B and stormed off, but… but more often than not, he made noise when he left, kept a tracker on, told someone where he was staying. Not always, but those outliers were enough that Dick’s frequent 3 day blackouts where his trackers would just go dark were apparently labeled as ‘running away’. Dick didn’t even know who’d taken him, and neither Batman nor any other hero believed he hadn’t just left of his own volition. He always woke up in some back alley surrounded by feathers and a viscous black substance. Alfred looked at him with silent disappointment whenever he reappeared, tired and cold on the manor’s doorstep. (he woke up feeling stiff and frozen, sometimes his blood looked off, he started to wonder if those pings of meta-human were more accurate than he wanted to admit).
He trained for Robin things, and played nice at Galas, he listened to fake smiles and cat calls and people talk like he wasn't even there. Bruce might be annoying but Bruice was insufferable. Some older woman put something in his drink. ‘Shhh pretty boy this is going to feel good’ Dick never breathed a word to anyone. It wasn’t like anyone would believe him, and besides the lady technically hadn’t hurt him, there was no lasting damage.
Batman only trained Robin in some things, in how to land a hit or throw a birdarang, he trained Dick in how to be light on his feet. He didn’t let Dick learn to fly . He’d grown up in the air, he knew it, felt safer up there than anywhere else. He was untouchable in the sky. Batman refused to let him truly shine until he could prove his worth, but the man also didn’t let him train to do that. Flips and ‘show-y’ moves were never on the bat’s list of training. Alfred simply hummed and claimed Bruce would train Dick with what he felt was important, when he felt it was important. Kate just scoffed at the idea that a flip would be more useful than a punch.
Robin showed up at Harley Quinn's aerial warehouse, it was just one of her safeouses but it had an aerial gym in it.
“Batman won’t let me learn what I need,” Robin said. “Teach me” she had been away from Joker long enough to be partly clear headed; to have cleared most of the drugs from her system and to be able to hold a conversation. Her makeup was also lighter, so she wasn't as bruised and battered. She’d return to his side in time, Dick knew this, she always did, but for now she was fine. She wouldn’t hurt Robin, not without the bat or the joker nearby, and if she tried…. Dick knew he’d be able to get out in time.
“Puddin’s gonna be mad t’ me f’ I do that”
“B’s gonna be mad at me ” Robin countered. They both grimaced, Harley once left a bag out for Robin, when she’d been sober for a few weeks longer than she’d been now. It had been full of green and yellow concealer.
The two ended up pushing each other to do more and more complex moves each time they saw each other or came to blows. They fought for their lives more times than they could count. More often than not, their relationship was dangerous, they’d come to blows even when they were on good terms. One would say something and between the bruises and breaks, they’d throw each other off buildings and learn to fly without any line or net to catch them.
Robin learned to fly on wings that were constantly at risk of breaking, and he soared. Harley flew because if she didn’t keep moving she’d drown.
Dick was held (mostly against his will) by Slade, multiple times. Trained by the man, molded. He knew every way to kill and never told the Titans where he’d disappeared to. Never told the bat what had happened. Not even Barbra knew. He fought with B, he fought with the Titans, he disappeared and his tracker disappeared, he woke up 3 days later surrounded by feathers, or he clashed with a mercenary with the smell of copper in the air. He certainly learned a thing or two about running away. It wasn’t like anyone would really miss him. They rarely even noticed he was gone. The titans would ask, and Dick would brush it aside, it wasn’t like they needed to worry. The titans had their own mentors to avoid and their own mysteries to hide. Who was Dick to add another when he watched his team carefully craft their movements around whos mentor could hit the hardest.
Kori would whisper about returning to the stars, she said she’d find a place where they’d all be safe, far from heroes or villains, far from the justice league or mentors who hit too hard in spars. It was nothing more than an idol fantasy. Dick rarely indulged. Bruce loved him in his own way, and that should be enough. The man had taken him off the streets and kept him from juvie. He’d given him a home and food. He’d given him Robin. It should have been enough. Sometimes Dick wondered what would happen if Bruce died. Sometimes he dreamed about killing the man.
The Titans fought to keep other kids from joining. Dick didn’t know how to feel about that. Shouldn’t he want other kids to get the same chances he did? A family? A promise of protection? A chance to be something greater than himself? Wasn’t that the point of being a hero? Kid Flash always seemed so hungry, they had enough rations at the tower, but Wally still hid food in his room whenever he could. Dick told a prospective titan, a little shape-shifter, to stay out of hero business. He’d been overjoyed when the kid found a job as an actor instead. (Was it wrong to live a cavilan life? Were they denying the planet the safety they deserved? If every hero quit it would be a disaster, the young ones were insured, so if anything happened, the planet would be safe.) The Titans would whisper about danger and prompt their mentors to discuss how awful it was to have a mentee. They’d discourage the supers from searching for protegees. Donna’s arms were covered in burns, Wonder-Woman would never accept anything but perfection for one carrying her colors, never any answer but the absolute truth and the lasso guaranteed she would be told every secret.
Dick was fifteen when he decided he just couldn't be Robin anymore, choked by fights against Bruce and a desire to step out on his own. He crafted Nightwing from a legend and a feeling of safety he’d never felt. He was sixteen when he realized he only really felt safe in Titans Tower when he realized he couldn’t stand Bruce’s disappointed silence or Alfred’s clipped words. He disappeared of his own volition for the first time in years, only to get grabbed and held for six months for ‘training’ by Deathstroke. It had been a long time coming. He was sixteen and a half when he started working on moving out. Then one morning they found Raven up with runes carved into her body. No one ever told Dick how it happend, she’d died of blood loss overnight and no one had seen it coming, there were no answers on the security cameras; Babs hadn’t even been allowed to try and look for any. The team fractured after that. They fractured again when Garth died. It was a brutal fate for an Atlantean to die of thirst. Kori spent more and more time off earth, Dick searched for apartments, he could barely stand the suffocation of the tower. Not when there were still so many little titans joining.
Dick was seventeen when he had an apartment in bludhaven and plans to dismantle corruption in the police force from the inside out. He was, as always, a stupidly optimistic kid. He was lucky he found a few people in his department with the same goal when he eventually joined, they’d take the world by storm. If it only took one person to make change then Dick fully believed he could do it. It was only a few months later, B brought home some replacement kid for the empty house. Dick, didn't really plan on seeing the kid that much, it wasn't his problem.
Every single cop who’d joined with the goal of decreasing corruption was dead, corrupt, or kicked within six months. Dick himself had been booted the moment he refused to participate in the brutalization of a homeless man.
‘Shhh pretty boy’ someone whispered in his dreams, Bruice was off making a fool of himself in a distant corner. Kate wouldn’t spare him a single look. Alfred wasn’t there and Babs didn’t have to go to these things very often. Dick was alone and someone was talking about his body like there was no one in it. The kid B took in…. The kid B gave Robin too might’ve taken the last parts of Dick’s family from him, but…. Dick had always been a heart-throb, he had no problem weaponizing that. Babs said he was being self sacrificing when Dick walked back into the manner and decided to meet the kid. She didn’t know the half of it.
The kid was fierce, clearly from a rough place. He was far too subtle about stealing food from the pantry, he had go-bags hidden throughout the manor. He was fast and quiet , his eyes were defiant and burned . He hated galas. He liked school but had no friends. He spent his free time fucking reading . Made Dick feel bad for getting his GED. Dick kept one eye on him every time the two were around socialites. He didn’t stay at the manor full time. He just couldn't, he knew Bruce loved him and he loved the man back, he loved Alfred and in a lot of ways the manor had been his home just as much as the circus had. But the love the two elders gave was quiet and suffocating, it was colder than Dick knew how to handle. Not when it felt like his soul was burning.
Nineteen fucking years old and the goddamn joker took his little fucking brother. Jason had run off to Ethiopia and the Clown disappeared seemingly off the face of the earth, with Jason in tow. Nothing remained but a periodic ‘proof of life’ update in the form of blood or photograph of injury. No one could figure out where Jay was being held, not even when his kidnapper was in Arkham, a different villain would deliver the goods. Dick did his best to search, between patrols in Blud and off-world missions he couldn’t get out of. He was exhausted but determined to find his brother if it was the last thing he did.
Timothy Jackson Drake showed up three months into Jason's disappearance and demanded to be allowed to help. He spent hours pouring over the pictures and videos that they’d been granted. He searched warehouse after warehouse. Then B put him in a Robin suit . Tim had been excited to be able to help more. Dick had been horrified B was trying to replace Jason before he was even dead in the ground. If anything, Tim should have gotten his OWN costume. Dick felt like his soul was burning. He felt like his body was freezing. B pushed Robin too hard, he’d heard bones snap during a sparring match but Tim was so good--so skilled and Jason was still out there!!
They got a video, Joker showing Jason the new Robin.
Tim sobbed for hours, he wasn't trying to replace Jason, he was trying to rescue him. He didn't WANT to hurt him! He didn't! He was so sorry, he’ll leave now! He tried to insist it’d be better if he disappeared! It’s everything Dick can do to convince Tim his detective work got them all closer to finding Jason than they’d gotten in months . He burned. He froze. He screamed. Because he was losing two brothers at once. One locked in eternal torment with the worst person in the world. The other was so scared of existing he’d tear himself apart to disappear. Tim fought for Robin, he strived for perfection in a way neither of his predecessors ever could. He woke and walked with the guilt of being nothing but a replacement and kept going. They were so close to finding Jason. They had to be .
Dick screamed. (Titans died in the background. It felt like static, there were more and more teen heroes every day. The chances of surviving teen heroism were only 60%)
Then Babs gets shot. And it’s all hands on deck.
“He’s in Arkham,” Tim whispers, months after Jason disappeared. It doesn't make sense, the only time they get videos is when Joker’s out of Arkham. Tim claims the videos are pre-recorded, he finally broke into the meta-data, and the tiles on the floor, apparently Selena told him, look like Arkham. There’s other stuff, something about sound and lighting that Dick doesnt get. For the first time in so long, Dick has hope. Tim just found their best lead yet.
They never get to check it out.
There's a link to a livestream.
Jason’s been moved to another location. He replies in monoton a monoton “yes sir” or “no sir” he obeys with perfection when the Joker tells him to put his hands on the table so he can snap chains around his wrists and break every bone in his hand with a fucking crowbar. He barely whimpers but his eyes are filled with tears. There’s a brand on his cheek. It’s been eight months since they lost him. A bomb was placed on the table. Tim and Babs found the location and everyone rushed out the door.
The warehouse went up in smoke. They bury Jason’s body in the family plot.
Dick was twenty, or maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t fucking matter anymore. He’s not sure it ever did. Time rarely makes sense in Gotham. It runs too fast, or too slow. It never seems to be consistent. Gotham is a city at war with change. Everything stays the same and everything changes and it all warps together. He’d been out of the city so much, dealing in Bludhaven, off planet, at the tower, here and there and around and about and sometimes he’d return after a week to find he’d been gone for a month, never knowing if the date on the calendar was wrong because it got improperly calibrated or if something else had happened. Sometimes he returns from weeks long misons a day late. He can barely track it, not between Gotham and Blud and the vacuum of space. There are ways to work around it, but with everything happening, Dick just tries not to drown in it all.
Dick tried to be there for Tim and Steph who just appeared one day, he tries to do flips with Harley when he sees her but she’s even more out-of-it than normal and he only feels safe in titans tower or Bludhaven.
Then a woman called Marriage makes him only feel safe in Bludhaven. He doesn't feel like leaving his city much anymore. Kate calls to tell him he’s being pathetic. The titans do fine with Tim anyway. Dick knows Tim’s not being included in family things he can remember Alfred’s cold voice every time Dick ran away “I care for this family , I care for the Waynes, if you chose not to be one you may take care of yourself” he remembers having to find his own dinner on those nights or pick the lock to his room but…. He was just so tired… It’s not like Bruce or Alfred or even Kate were ever that interested in doing family things. Dick doesn't know if B even thinks of Tim, of Robin as a kid the same way he thought of Jason or Dick as a kid. Besides Steph’s doing alright. B’s easier on her, doesn’t push too hard in spars. Last Dick heard he wasn’t even sparing with her . Dick wonders if B’s bothering to train her at all, but he must be. Right? B cares about his city, and he cares about the kids. He’s hard on them because he loves them. He pushes them so far because he wants them to be safe in the face of rouges. He wants them to live and that’s important. That’s what Dick’s always been told, and he’s heard that from people under lasso interrogation. So it’s fine, because Bruce is still hard on Steph, he expects Spoiler to be perfect, and lets her go out as Robin when Tim’s off on missions. It’s fine because she must be getting training. So Dick stays in Bludhaven and lets it be.
Besides, Stephanie had others in her corner. She’d started to run with Ivy the same way Dick ran with Harley, with flesh wounds and bruises and the risk of broken bones. Ivy seemed more than a little amused by the spitfire, and Steph was well on her way to learning how to survive.
Then the Joker threatens Tim with Jason's name in his mouth and he beats a man to death with his bare hands. Dick never could bring himself to regret it, even when Batman revived the man and had Dick spend a week in solitary to think about his actions. Alfred refused to even look at him for months after that.
Bludhaven was safe, it was safe, then it was raining and Tarantula and Dick wondered why he ever let his Pretty Boy reputation grow.
Sometimes Dick wonders if he’d ever truly grown up. He feels stuck in a body too small, with a mind full of emotions far too big to be his own.
Sometimes Dick watches Tim jump from building to building, racing Salina and wonders if everyone decided to find a villain to adopt. Sometimes Dick spends a week in ‘Haven and doesn't bother to check Gothams calendars; he can't bear to know just how long he’s been gone.
Dick had almost no where to go. He stayed at the manor more but every second was suffocating. His apartment was on the top floor and every time it rained he could feel phantom hands on him. The tower belonged to Tim now. Dick found himself staying with Babs or Steph more and more, with Tim when the kid invited him over to Drake manor, Tim insisted he had a nanny, Dick…. Was tempted to move in full time just to escape the static and never call him on the lie. It was better for both of them . B pushed the kid too hard, and his absentee parents were assholes when they were around from what little Dick could gather. Steph was at that mannor just as often, avoiding her father or just existing near Tim.
It was probably best to stay with Babs, she was living part time in the clocktower, recovering from surgery after surgery. B kept putting her through them. None worked, only increased her pain. It was nice to be able to support her as she thrived as Oracle despite constant recovery time. WI invested more and more into experimental surgeries, each came with a higher risk factor and greater price tag. The commissioner couldn’t pass them up, not when it came with a chance of saving his daughter. Even if the woman in question didn’t need to be saved. Kate claimed Babs should be grateful that they’re bothering to try and fix her.
Babs screamed and yelled that she’d prefer to be broken forever if it meant she got a choice about her own body. Dick told her she wasn’t broken, and Barbra told him to shut up.
Then the red hood showed up. No one knew his identity outside the mask. He caused chaos and destruction but stayed in his side of town. Until he tried to kill Tim. Tim acted weird about it, B was avoiding something. Dick wanted information but…. Tim was loyal to B, and B said not to say anything. Dick couldn’t blame Tim, gods know Dick was more than aware of the consequences of disobedience. He didn’t know if he’d fare much better if B told him not to share. In fact, Dick knew he wouldn’t, he never did tell Wally his real name.
He’d never told anyone of the way low-level goons occasionally went missing, or how Bruce so often seemed to know when Arkam breakouts would happen before they started. He never spoke a word of the name Carrie, or the bloodstain he’d found on the flood of the cave when Dick had returned from a months-long escapate outside of Gotham.
Hood was inconsistent, his killings were either violent or painless. His gang was fierce and efficient and often acted independently. Hood’s gang never said a word about the man, they were so loyal to their leader it was almost terrifying. It took Dicks attention so dramatically even his neighbors noticed the new focus.
Cluemaster’s plans were only getting more violent, he’d started to target Spoiler specifically, for running his plans. She ran circles around him while everyone else focused on the chaos Red Hood brought. Dick wanted to give her more attention, but she insisted it was fine. She could handle herself. Dick restocked her medical supplies and offered extra safe houses when she needed a place to crash. Alfred claimed the girl should be able to handle herself. Alfred only cares for family .
Daiman Al Ghul Wayne was a tricky thing to palace, he had secrets no one could uncover and mentioned once or twice a mysterious older brother from the league of goddamn assassins. He tried to kill Tim once, but the two bonded eventually over something . If Dick had to guess, it was B being like. That. again.
Or Selena, Dick wouldn’t be surprised if Tim bribed the kid with access to Cat-woman’s pets. That was good in a way Dick didn’t know how to explain. It was good to have the little robins off with a rouge to teach them to fly. It was good to be away from B…. and Catwoman… was far gentler than her fellow sirens, Dick’s brothers didn’t need to worry about Harley breaking them in a drugged up stupor, they didn’t need to worry about clipping their own wings on a move they should’ve never been attempting. It was good.
Wasn't it?
(but then why? Why was it good to be away from B? To be with a villain?)
(Alfred cares for family , so Damian would be fine)
(wouldn’t he?)
For a time, things calmed down. Red Hood settled into his territory, he avoided the bats at all costs, but the death count was slowing down. B treated the man like a criminal and tossed him in and out of blackgate. Red Hood had avoided Arkham for now but it was only a matter of time. His gang managed to operate with near perfection even when their leader was locked up. East End and crime alley especially started to feel like their own sub-reality.
Sometimes Hood’s good would disappear, and the man would tear apart Gotham looking for them. None ever reappeared but the red hood gang stopped appearing outside the alley entirely after the 10th missing person.
Then Tim disappeared, B insisted it was Red Hood, Hood himself claimed otherwise. Damian believed Hood, he was given the Robin costume “to help look” less than months later. The echoes of history started ringing in Dick’s ears. He fell victim to his own panic in the batcave one night. Dick hyperventilated until he blacked out and when he woke, Alfred scoffed and reminded Dick he’d missed breakfast, so he’d have to find something to eat on his own.
Red Hood said he’d keep his ear to the ground to see if he could find the little bird. He said the kid had appeared in his territory a few times and they’d settled something. It made Dicks heart shutter in its chest but he kept silent.
The elder superboy kept flitting around Gotham trying to find the missing bird. The rest of Tim’s team appeared sometimes. Their movements were as stiff as the titan’s had ever been. Dick didn’t know their IDs, child heros kept those names as quiet as they could, lest other heroes or villains get word of something they shouldn’t know. Impulse looked as thin as any young speedster did, he flitted about and his balance seemed slightly off. The little wonder had characteristic burns on her arms, but otherwise seemed alright they’d been wrapped and treated so she shouldn’t be in too much trouble. The elder superboy would only appear for a few moments. Dick never managed to get a true read on any of them before the Bat chased them away. As near as Dick could tell they looked like they’d come from a hard day of training, light bruising, no breaks. It was a relief to know the young heroes seemed to be at least mostly alright.
Something set Hood off during the Arkham outbreak a while later Hood ran into Nightwing he’d been covered in blood and trembling ever-so-slightly. He hissed something only half comprehensible, Babs managed to translate it from the staticky mess later.
“check previously used locations for little birds, its only a guess and I fucking hope I’m wrong but look in the fucking bassment” then he was gone.
Next Dick heard it was B calling for backup, the crime-lord had arranged an elaborate trap to try and get Batman to kill the Joker. The end result was everyone unscathed except for said crime lord, a gaping slice carved from his throat. Dick frantically ran through field meicin as the Arkham ambulances approached. He barely had the chance to process the hysterical thought that it might be a good thing this guy was going to a hospital right now, he wasn't sure the man would make it otherwise.
It had been six months since Tim disappeared, worryingly close to how long it had taken for Jason to be… for… (two months longer and--). Hood had been in Arkham for a handful of those months (everything blended together). Dick had been looking everywhere . He’d been called off planet multiple times and he’d barely stayed long enough to do whatever needed to be done. Time warped and stagnated and Dick could barely tell one day from the next.
Eight months since Tim went missing, the amount of time it took for Jason to be killed . HOW WAS HE THIS INCOMPETENT?!? Steph kept getting into more dangerous fights. Spoiler was getting targeted with worse and worse violence. B threw Damian hard enough to give him a conclusion during training. More fucking teen heros fell off the map. Kate managed to get a good enough hit on Dick during training to leave him with busted ribs.
(Wally had texted once, an article about child abuse. Dick didn’t know what to think. He didn’t. B was good , right? Dick wouldn’t have left his siblings in an abusive situation? Right? But…. but… Damian had a concussion and he still remembered the snap of Tim’s arm when sparing went too far, and someone had killed raven right under their noses and--)
(Damian spent more time in Drake manor than Wayne manor, Steph was usually right there with him, and Dick popped in and out. No one said a word to B)
Hood's words echoed in his mind “check the basement” and “used locations” what could that possibly mean . No one even knew who took Tim, let alone where he could be. Dick had spent months coming through every basement he could find and all he’d gotten were more 3 day blackouts, disappointed words from B and harsh sparring matches that often left Dick even more useless than before.
Damian approached Dick with a letter in his hand “Timothy requested I give this to you should he ever disappear for an extended period of time.” he said. Dick read it slowly and carefully. Red Hood was Jason Todd, dipped in a lazarus pit. B knows. He doesn't know I do. There were other notes, details and plans, contingencies and personal details, but…. Fuck…. If Red was Jason…
“Check the basement” the words echoed in his head. He’d been asking Batman for a chance to search Arkham for so long…….. “Check the basement” Steph had tried to get info from Catwoman but she’d only paled and refused to say a word. Harley hadn’t been much help either, she was covered in a thick layer of makeup and she’d been more drugged than Dick had ever seen her the few times he tried to talk. She was rarely out on her own anyways, she’d been spending most of her time next to the Joker, blood usually spilling out from open wounds with a faraway look in her eyes. Ivy had barely been seen in Gotham since the disappearance, her gardens were wilting and filled with toxic spores B had deemed impossible to remove.
Batman refused to accept that Tim might be held in Arkham, there had never been any evidence that Jason was held there in the first place, he said, despite Tims own words to the contrary, words that were STILL IN THAT FILE. Besides, how would Red Hood know where Jason had been held? Alfred dismissed the idea outright, and refused to hear a word of it. Kate just called Dick desperate.
“They’re gone,” she said, “get over it.”
Dick felt like his body was freezing, he felt like he was on fire. He could barely breathe. He coughed up blood and every part of it looked wrong. He dreamed of creatures with claws and amber eyes.
(abuse, wally had said, comes in many forms, mental, physical, emotional. He disappeared off the face of the planet a few weeks back, along with a handful of other young heroes, partuarly any little speedster who looked a touch too thin.)
(Dick hoped Kori had found that mythical safe place, and had spirited them all away to a better future.)
Babs checked the Arkham security files. Hood had completely vanished from them, that unfortunately was unlikely to be a good thing. It only meant anyone could take him without the staff's knowledge. They’d put Jason RIGHT back in the same situation they’d left him in. not only that but they left Tim there too.
Black Mask beat Stephanie to death. She flatlined eight times in one night. And B sent her back to work the next day. Dick could barely think about that because she was alive and there was a chance brothers were not. (they’re gone, get over it.) There was a chance the Joker was targeting robins, there was a chance Damian and Spoiler could be next or. Or they’d been tormented into something completely unrecognizable. Dick couldn’t get into Arkham without the bat knowing. He couldn’t run that mision on his own and he couldn't drag Steph who hadn’t even begun to recover or Damian who was still so small into it. Not when they didn’t know what to expect. Not when there was a chance they were wrong.
Dick felt like every nerve in his body had been flayed. He threw up blood and saw his siblings ghostly forms wandering in his apartment. They screamed at him for leaving them behind. Their bodies were battered and beaten. Something in Dick’s chest SCREAMED to escape. He felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out.
Harley found Dick losing his mind on the top of a tall tower. She looked horrible. She broke out of Arkham on her own only a few weeks before; she'd been trying to distance herself from Joker for the past few years. Her recent Months-Long relapse had been small all things considered, but it clung to her like a sickness. Before recently she’d been dating Ivy, and avoiding him like the plague. She’d even broken out of Arkham on her own without him. Dick didn’t know why she’d gone back recently, but he was glad she’d pulled herself out for now.
“Are my broth-” Dick started he usually avoided asking her things like that, especially when she had such clear hand-marks around her throat
“I’ll send you a map birdie,” she whispered. “I hurt them…” her eyes were far away. He didn’t know if he’d have it in him to forgive her. His hands twitch with the want to take vengeance for his little birds, but Harley had given him the key to their safety. So he took a breath and spoke again.
“Make up for it by helping me get them out”
“Red used to talk about kids she’d run into in Gotham, said there were a few from the east end who’d shelter in her gardens. kittycat talks about a kid with a camera who ran on rooftops. Little birds are so fragile. We’ll be there. It took so long for my girls to pull me out. We’ll pull your birdies out too.” Harley whispered, and Dick remembered tussling on rooftops and falling, falling, falling, with the knowledge neither would bother to catch the other. With the knowledge that each fall they survived taught them to live through the next one.
“We’ll pull them out,” Dick agreed.
Damian and Dick went after their brothers without B’s knowledge, Steph and Babs distracted him and Batwoman while the boys and Gotham’s sirens ran through tunnels and followed the sound of screams. The two looked awful . They were brought to one of Dicks safe houses. It hadn’t quite been a year since the two were taken. The rehabilitation would take a long time. Harley explained as she pulled out antitoxins and scientific papers on drug recovery, they’d been lucky, Joker was playing a long game with the brainwashing this time, the plan for Tim, to turn him into some sort of Joker Junior, would’ve taken about three years total, though it could have been rused (something that would have FULLY broken him) if an emergency occurred. And the plan for Jason would have been finished by the end of next year.
Slowly, they rehabilitated the pair, They moved them to Drake manor under the Bat’s nose. Damian was ridiculously helpful, as the two worked towards recovery, Tim’s face was pale and there were streaks of green in his hair. Some chemical seems to have reacted poorly to the lazarus water in Jay’s veins and it occasionally glowed a toxic green even beneath his skin. His eyes lit up nearly whenever he felt strong emotions. If Dick was being honest, it was a rather useful way to gauge his brother's emotional state.
Dick hid his brothers because Batman couldn't know where they were. Normal children shouldn’t have to hide their siblings from their family. Normal children didn’t need to worry that their father had been aiming a kill shot at their brother's throat. Damian found doctors who’d be willing to keep quiet in exchange for safe passage out of Gotham. They spoke of the dangers of pain, of letting the body heal, of not overdoing it. Dick thought about broken bones and sparring matches. He thought of late night missions and running drills until collapse. He thought of simulations done with real guns and every injury he’d been ordered to ignore. If the body needed time to heal or else it would gain damage, not become more resilient, than the way they all trained…. Didn’t make them stronger… it could only make them weaker. But B always said it was to toughen them up.
Dick didn’t feel strong. He felt helpless.
(he wondered where Kori was, was she with Wally, and every other little hero who’d disappeared? Did the ones who’d become echoes of their mentors remember the stories they used to tell as kids? He wondered if any of them would ever feel safe)
Cassandra Cain appeared out of nowhere, no one could figure out where B found her, only that she quickly starts trusting everyone who’s not him much more than B himself. Slowly the others start trusting her too. She’s great with the two highly traumatized and injured boys. She’s great with Damian, Steph and Babs. She’s the perfect person to keep the small team living in Drake manor a secret. They all have their own apartments they appear at often enough, and Damian spends most nights at the manor. Cass never breathes a word of it to anyone.
Jay and Tim’s wounds are horrific. Tim has the scars of a sliced smile on his skin, Jason has a ‘J’ brand on his cheek. The two are inseparable. They panic when not near each other, and whisper in tones no one else can really understand. Jason wraps himself around Tim when he breaks out in laughter he can’t control. Tim hums and whispers who knows what when Jay goes catatonic. They both scream and threaten and attack each other and still cannot handle being apart. They’re possessive over anyone they deem ‘theirs’ and that slowly extends to the whole family. They forget things and misremember and graphically describe every way to kill a person. And somehow they never leave wounds that last quite as long as B’s roughest spars. Or K’s harshest training. Somehow Dick feels safer leaving his family with two mentally unstable torture victims who’d been drugged up and taught to kill and maim than he did leaving them with Batman and Alfred. Babs, Steph, Damian, Cass and Dick himself work endlessly to try and help the duo recover, the Sirens stop by for dinners. No one tells B where they are.
Time goes by his name most of the time or JJ and rarely junior. Not that anyone was about to call him that. Jason doesn't tell anyone his name, and between the scarring and the height and the age Dick doesn't think anyone would recognize him. The blood test Dick ran independently confirms his Identity, he’s not sure what to do so he asks. Between the memory issues and the torture and death, Jason says he bearly knows who he is anymore. They call him Jay; Tim giggles.
“Jay and JJ” he chirps as he dances down the hallway of his too-big manor. Tim calls Jay ‘Mockingbird’ most of the time. No one ever asks about who Jay was before and Jay never says a word about it. Dick thinks Babs knows, Dick doesn't know how much it matters, that Jay was Jason. That Tim was Timothy Drake. They’re both here now, alive and recovering. That’s all Dick really cares about.
It’s all he should care about but sometimes the J’s hurt each other and sometimes Dick doesn't know what to do. Sometimes he flinches when one tries to present the other for punishment because they assume they’ll be hurt.
Stephanie watches Tim carve open Jay’s autopsy scar, she sees Jay cut patterns into JJ’s back. She takes a breath none of the others knew needed to be taken and asks if the blood helped. She's a spoiler in every sense of the word. She points to the duo and says she’s not going to let the Joker win. She’ll spoil his plans and throw herself into papers on mental health and bodily autonomy.
Dick wonders if he should really be letting Damian and Cass return to the manor as often as he does. They have each other but…. K threw left Damian with a fractured bone in his leg last week.
The birds stop letting anyone stay in Wayne manor on their own. It’s mostly to protect Damian. Even if they can’t prevent sparring matches and late nights and cases gone wrong and crime they can keep him near someone. Besides, Cass doesn't like being on her own either. The birds can catch each other and give themselves a palace to fall. It’s almost too much, between Drake Manor and Wayne manor. Both with people who need to be monitored. But Tim and Jason are relatively self sufficient, except when they’re not.
Besides, Alfred cares for family, Damian is blood, and Cass is the only bird other than Jason who ever got legally adopted. Dick had aged out of the system still labeled a ward.
Duke Thomas’s parents are brutally murdered by the Joker, he’s a meta, one of the rare Gotham metas. Batman hates metas, Gotham only hates outside capes.
The joker makes a comment about “trying again” with another bird. Dick ends up in blackgate for that kill. The Joker still lives.
Jay’s hair has more white patches in it. Not from the lazarus waters like Dick initially thought. He just gains more white whenever he claws his way back from death. The clown figured that one out. No one knows if that was the source of his newfound inability to. Just. stay. Dead. But Dick earns himself a week's stay in Arkham killing the damn clown more times than he can count. The bastard died laughing every time. (he would’ve been in Arkham longer but the Sirens broke him out and B’s only response was to send Dick on another off-planet mission)
One of Barbra’s dozens of surgeries goes even more wrong than usual; she spends weeks in recovery.
Stephanie’s dad starts targeting spoilers like there’s no tomorrow. He left her nearly comatose in the middle of a warehouse surrounded by goons with ill intentions. Dick barely got her out in time and B sent her out in the field the moment she could walk again. ( shhh pretty boy, the whispers in Dick’s head feel like hands on his body). Batwoman scoffed and pulled Steph aside for intensive training. She only needed to stay in the hospital for a few days by the time K was done with her.
B makes Cass do speech training and she keeps returning worse and worse. Dick doesn't trust her doctor. The one Damian found urges her to stop going. That doctor flees Gotham within a month and Cass is left medically unattended again. They’re running out of renegade medical professionals. It’s lucky that most were willing to give the birds--especially Damian--a few crash courses before they fled.
Eventually Tim and Jay return to ‘business as usual’ over a year and a half (or at least that’s how long Dick think’s it's been) after their initial disappearance. No one reacts. Jay decides it’s beneficial to run a crime empire and pretends there’s an actual grudge against all the bats, as if the bats are an entity that include the birds. It’s actually highly useful, they get more info and can track drug and weapons trade. It also keeps Jay with a group of people determined to watch over him . Which soothes Dicks’ nerves. Tim becomes Red Robin but secretly sketches designs for a different bird entirely. (Cuckoo spends time with Red Hoods gang, a ‘low level enforcer’ they wear a full bird mask to be entirely unrecognizable). Dick breathes a little easier knowing two of his siblings are frequently surrounded by people who try to keep them safe.
B ‘dies’ and Dick takes the cowl. No one else should go though that. It slowly starts to destroy him. Everyone knows it’s a different Batman, even if they don’t know the details. The justice league looks at him with distrust in their eyes. They call him weak and soft. Alfred scoffs any time he complains. K barely says a word to him. The justice league says he’s too soft on the younger heroes (there’s so many new faces and so few old ones, and some of the old faces are just as hard on their mentees as their mentors were to them). In a sick way he gets it. He gets it when he sees a goon throw Robin a bit too hard, and his first thought was ‘if Damian had just taken the hit better--’ he flinches away from that thought.
He dreams of his family sparing against Batman, of broken bones and bruises. He dreams of Alfred’s cold disappointed stare whenever someone ends up injured. He dreams of Batman’s voice whispering “do better” with a bruising grip on his siblings arms. Only he was the one to layer those injuries on his family.
Someone’s little protege flinches away from Batman and Dick spends an hour throwing up.
Tim finds evidence of B’s survival. They spend hours debating whether or not to save him. They don’t really have a choice. They need to pull him out before their timeline gets corrupted. Besides, Batman has to exist. Dick shouldn't have to be batman. His family claims the mask is killing him. He can barely tell over the constant numbness in his limbs.
Tim gets captured by Ra’s al Ghul while trying to find the right materials. He loses an entire organ. There’s something else he won’t talk about. Dick thinks he knows. Jason nearly tore Gotham apart looking for Tim. It was the first time the two had been separated for longer than a few weeks. Jay’s gang become trigger happy and aggressive without cuckoo to settle them. Crime Alley is silent in solidarity for the lost little bird. Three historic gangs disappear , their members vanishing in the night. Dick can’t help but be relieved that Babs was running interference, and Batwoman had left the country. Jay is covered in blood more often than he’s not. Dick is sure the thugs deserved it, he can’t bring himself to care. He’s half insane with worry for the child he failed again. When Tim returns it all calms back down. All things considered Dick thinks it could have gone worse. Even if it was awful to live through. No one in the family died, and if there’s a handful fewer criminals in Arkham then… Barbara already doctored the medical records and the footage so no one needs to know how that happened.
Cass gets captured just before they get Batman back, her father rips her vocal cords out as punishment for her escape. B makes her get a harsh, dangerous, and often ineffective surgery just to assess the damage when he returns. Most doctors had advised against it, but Batman is her legal guardian. She clings to Tim and Jay and Damian and Dick and Duke and Steph and Babs. Her tears are silent. She never manages to look Batman in the eye again.
Duke’s powers put him at risk. Batman demands perfection especially from the little meta. Duke jokes that it’s better Batman’s focusing on him and not Damian, and the kid scowls and says he can handle himself just fine. Duke should worry about himself, especially when B insists on testing the limits of the teenager's powers. Duke ends up half blind more often than he can see.
Stephanie’s dad gets her killed . She faltlines again and Dick hates that sound, he remembers it from the last time she’d been brutalized. Only the steady beep, beep, beep of the heart-rate monitor doesn't start up again. Cluemaster had tried to drown her in acid. The damage was extensive; she'd been burned down to the bone. She died in pain, Dick didn’t know if she’d been aware enough to know she’d been surrounded by medics and a good portion of the family who loved her. She’d been bonding so well with Signal. Her funeral was widely attended. She’d been the light of Gotham for so long. Alfred placed a single flower on her headstone and for one horrible second, Dick wondered if it would be so wrong to kill the man who’d never seemed to care about any of them.
Ra’s still targets Tim. It's getting worse and worse for both of them. Tim’s less stable from the attention and Ra’s people keep mysteriously disappearing. Tim giggles about it and breaks into fits of uncontrollable laughter when he thinks about it for too long. He runs into danger and nearly breaks cover to laugh as Red Robin. Cuckoo starts appearing more and more often near Red Hood, often parched nearby, giggling or playing back the voices of others.
Bab’s surgery, the one to correct the previous one, goes so wrong it looks like she’s going to die. Jay unmasks in her hospital room. It’s not like she didn’t know, but she deserved to have her family nearby. Dick screams at B for not saying anything (he’d hidden Dick’s brother from him for YEARS). Batman says the child Jay used to be dead long before the explosion. Everyone flinches. Jay leaves when Batman threatens to call the cops and send him to Arkham where the fucking Joker is .
Batman says the child he’d loved as a son died years ago and never returned. Tim flinches. Every bird in the room is a walking corpse and there’s not enough air to breath.
Alfred agrees with Batman, Jason died the moment the Joker got his hands on the boy. Dick lashes out at Batwoman before she can open her damned mouth. They both walk away with bleeding wounds and broken bones. Dick dreams of time and wonders why he still looks so young when it feels like he’s lived a thousand years.
They just lost one family member, and another’s in the hospital potentially dying. Dick drinks and drinks and fucking drinks. He has to be legal at this point, so what does it matter that he can barely keep himself on his feet. He calls Slade ‘you owe me a favor’ the Joker’s death by morning. Turns out the bastard was only immortal in gotham. Of fucking corse Slade figured that out. Babs' heart stops beating by the end of the week.
Dick screams. He disappears. His coms go out. He wakes up. A week later. His eyes are amber; he starts wearing contacts to hide from the Bats. His family--the birds--swarm him and refuse to let him out of their sight after that. It makes him feel so warm . He loves them so much. There’s always one of them nearby. They were so worried when he vanished. It had been his first disappearance in a long while.
They noticed, they’d always noticed when he’d vanished. The only reason they never said a word had been because the Bats insisted on not speaking about it, but now . They refuse to lose him again, not when they’ve lost so much already. Dick feels warm and he thinks, with his birds he’ll never feel cold again.
Tim insisted on researching Dick’s disappearances, he refused to let another bird disappear. He refused to let another one of them be captured and tormented not after Stephanie had been killed, not after Jason, not after himself, not after Dick. he won’t let the same fate befall any more family. Soon everyone has a custom tracker hidden just beneath the skin.
The court of owls explains so fucking much. Dick suddenly starts remembering several of the times he was held by them throughout the years. He throws up, he’s not full talon. But during the whole ordeal he’s turned significantly further. He wears makeup and contacts when he sees Batman. just like the rest of his family. Just like how Tim covers his too-pale face and dyes the green stripes in his hair, just like Cass who paints over the scar on her throat because it upsets Batman, just like Damian who’s been hiding lazarus-green eyes behind contacts for longer than Dick can remember, just like Jay who hides his face behind layers of masks, just like Duke who washes away his exhaustion and hides whatever scars he’d managed to pick up. They all hide because it’s all they know how to do. They hide because the justice league doesn't like to see scars, they hide because they’ll find matching ones carved into their bodies if they don’t. Heros are perfect so perfect is what they must be.
Gotham can’t handle metas, that’s what Batman always claims. The damage to Duke’s vision slowly started to add up, until the rogues started to take notice. He's left unprotected during the day. The birds do their best to give him backup, but there’s only so much they can do with a limited team and Batman’s constant insistence that Duke go out as often as possible. Duke gets shot out of the sky, and two-face runs him over. He dies within an hour. Such an unfitting end for a vigilante, to die in a car accident.
Dick screams.
He is going to get his siblings out by any means necessary. They deserve to survive. They will survive.