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Dick knew he should’ve given Bruce a heads-up when the trail of the drug dealers he was tracking meandered back to Gotham. More than a heads-up, he should’ve turned the case over to him—most vigilantes didn’t like someone else butting into their city. Even if Dick hadn’t, he should’ve at least dropped a courtesy call to make sure there were no ruffled feathers.
But it had been Dick’s city once. He had been Robin just a half year ago, and Dick had every right to go flying through the shadows of Gotham. Fuck Batman.
Besides, it was just a little recon. Find out where they were getting their supplies from, and where they were sourcing the raw material. And then he could tell Bruce—prove to him that Dick was capable of taking care of his own cases, and all by himself. It wasn’t ridiculously idiotic to set up as a solo vigilante in a new city at the age of eighteen, or all the other adjectives Bruce had used before Dick had finally had enough and left.
He didn’t have to listen to him. Bruce wasn’t his dad no matter what he thought, and Dick was ready to fly on his own.
Never mind that he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks, that the police academy made him want to claw his own skin off, that his resolution not to touch that stupid fucking trust fund grew weaker and weaker by the day—
No. Dick could do this.
He ducked into the abandoned building, one escrima out, steps too quiet to be audible. The place was strangely humid, and he took a second to pull his rebreather on before venturing deeper. It almost felt like a greenhouse.
Dick turned the next corner and stopped dead. Ah.
Put the source and the lab side by side. Efficient.
The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway, accompanied by the sound of hushed voices, and Dick quickly scrambled up the greenhouse walls. There were enough vines to make it easier, and he pressed himself against the upper corner just as the door opened.
Two people in lab coats entered, chatting about the ball game coming up. One of them paused to check the propagations along the center table while the other waited a half step behind. The air in the greenhouse was really muggy, and neither of the two were wearing gas masks, so Dick took off the rebreather and scrubbed some of the sweat off his face.
“You think they’ll be ready by next month?” Lab Coat #2 asked Lab Coat #1 after she finished talking about the ball game.
“I hope so, or the guys in ‘Haven aren’t going to be pleased.”
“We can’t work miracles here, they should know that. It’s difficult enough to hide this stuff from Ivy.”
“They’re planning on getting a new backer next month, and then it’ll be out of Gotham entirely,” Lab Coat #1 replied, and when they were done checking the propagations, they both left the greenhouse.
So something interesting was coming up next month, and they would be moving out of Gotham. Was it better to wait and have this battle on his own turf, or start messing with it now, in Batman’s territory, with the possibility that Batman would find out it was him and level him with that disapproving why-are-you-like-this glare?
Well.
When he put it like that.
Dick’s face stretched into a smile as he dropped silently to the ground. Petty destruction it was.
The propagations were easy to destroy, delicate as they were, and Dick indulged the mischievous side that hadn’t died with the Robin suit, and went around dumping way too much water and fertilizer to drown the other pots. He didn’t realize he was grinning until his cheeks started hurting, and he took a moment to lean against the table and laugh.
He’d forgotten how much fun it was to spoil evil plans. Some part of him still felt settled in Gotham, felt safe, and he hated that he couldn’t help it. This had been home for so long, and Bludhaven was a nightmare of a city. Gotham had hope and Bludhaven didn’t, and the difference was painful.
But he was changing that, he reminded himself. People had started to paint the flared blue bird in alleyways, and it was getting better. He had done his part to play the light to Gotham’s darkness, and now it was Bludhaven’s turn.
Dick straightened up and dragged his gloved hand over his face to wipe off another layer of sweat. It was seriously sweltering in here—
His palm was glittering.
Oh shit.
Dick spun around the room—was it the soil, the fertilizer, please tell him it wasn’t contact-based—but he’d just rubbed it all over his face so he supposed that didn’t really make a difference—and saw the flowers on the vines shimmer with the same silvery sheen.
He scaled back up and grabbed a couple of blossoms, tucking them away in a small bag, before forcing himself to calm down. Breathe normally. He didn’t feel off—well, he felt itchy, but he was pretty sure that was psychosomatic, and the faint dizziness was just the humidity, and—
You got tagged by an unknown contaminant, the Robin voice in his mind reminded him. He knew the decontamination procedures.
The thought of going to the Cave like this was enough to make him feel physically ill.
Bruce was going to be insufferable, and they’d just end up arguing again, and some part of Dick curled up at the thought of facing his former foster father’s disdain. He fucked up, and he didn’t want Bruce to drag him out of the mess and make him feel two inches tall.
He was an adult.
It was his job to fix his own mistakes.
He could do this. He knew how to test bloodwork, and extract toxins, and break them down to create antidotes. Sure, it was Bruce with the advanced chemistry knowledge, not him, but Dick had watched him enough to know how to do it himself.
Even if this wasn’t fear toxin. Or cuddle pollen.
He could do this. Dick took one last deep breath, and headed for his motorcycle.
Dick managed to get back to Bludhaven without any trouble. No new symptoms, unless he counted the pit of shame that was collecting in his gut.
He forced it aside. Bruce would never know. It would be fine. It took some time to jerry rig a synthesizer in the small storage shed that was Dick’s new base, but soon he had it humming away analyzing what was in the flowers and a vial of his own blood.
No new symptoms. He was fine. Nothing was going to happen. Dick had learned his lesson, he’d be more careful next time.
He’d spent too many years in Gotham. Not every strange thing was out to kill him. It would be fine.
It was, possibly, just a little difficult to detect strange new toxins without the Batcave setup, or the Watchtower setup, or the Titans Tower setup. It was possible that Bruce had a point about how many years it had taken him to get Batman to where he was today—and how many of those years Dick had spent alongside him—and starting from scratch was a stupid and prideful thing.
You couldn’t fly without a safety net without a surplus of both stupidity and pride, though.
Whatever the toxin was, it would degrade in his bloodstream, and Dick had noticed no symptoms. He would be fine. He set the synthesizer to run more tests, and dragged his aching body to bed.
He felt worse in the morning after only three hours of sleep, but a mug of over-sugared coffee stopped the room from blurring in and out, and Dick headed to the academy for the day’s training.
The lack of sleep did not help, and every friendly pat felt like a blow from a steel bat, and Dick was wincing by the time training ended, nearly collapsing as soon as he got home.
He’d take a night off from patrol, it was fine, he was running a hot bath to wash out the aches.
The synthesizer reported no new comprehensible results.
He was sure he’d gotten enough sleep this time, but he still felt run down. The bruises throbbed like bone-deep aches, and Dick found himself flinching away every time someone brushed against him.
He made it home before he started jumping at noises, and got out the bruise cream—he hadn’t been in a bad fight, and yet his soreness was on par with that time he went one-on-one with Croc—
There were no bruises. Dick tentatively poked up and down unmarked skin, but he felt nothing. Huh.
It wasn’t quite dread, but it was difficult to swallow all of a sudden.
The synthesizer still hadn’t matched it to any known toxins, and Dick drew another vial of his blood and fed it into the system.
The toxin wasn’t degrading. It was increasing.
It was past time he admitted he’d fucked up.
Dick could’ve gone running to Titans Tower, or the Watchtower, or even Babs, but word would snake back to Batman eventually, and Dick preferred to get the lecture over with. Besides, if Dick was really careful, he could reverse-engineer a toxin without ever telling Bruce who the antidote was for. Win-win.
Luck seemed to be working in his favor, because the Batcave was empty when he drove in, and Dick poked into a few corners to confirm that Batman was out on patrol. He headed to the synthesizer, and first drew his blood before putting in the last of the flowers. This machine was a lot faster, and it hummed away in the background as Dick paced.
“Hey, Dickhead.”
Not as empty as he’d hoped, then.
“Jason,” Dick turned around with what he hoped wasn’t as plastic a smile as it felt, watching Bruce’s new kid hop off the stairs. “Not on patrol?”
Oops, that definitely had a bite to it. Dick had tried to let the whole Robin issue go, and he was mad at Bruce not Jason, but sometimes he couldn’t stop his voice going cold and sharp when his anger crystallized, and Jason’s challenging stare didn’t help matters.
Jason shrugged as he walked closer, “I may have replaced everything in Bruce’s room with Green Lantern merch.” Dick stifled his snort. “I’ve been benched till ‘I’ve understood the error of my ways’,” Jason mock-growled, adding air quotes, and Dick felt his expression split to a genuine smile.
“Nice job, Jay,” he said, raising his hand for a high-five—and remembered the toxin a second too late.
He tried to yank his hand back, but Jason was faster, and the kid grinned in victory after slapping Dick’s hand. “Ha! Getting slow in your old age, Dickface?”
His hand felt like it had been pulverized. It took everything he had not to scream as he lowered it, fingers trembling, and half-curled them to make sure it wasn’t as broken as it felt.
“Don’t let Alfred hear you talking like that,” Dick’s voice said, more level than he expected, “Did you send a pic of it to the League?”
Jason’s expression rippled to shock, and then growing glee. “No,” he breathed out, eyes wide with the possibilities, “Shit, you’re right, that’s perfect!”
“Is the stuff still there?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be taking it down,” Jason waved a hand as he turned back to the stairs, “Want to see?”
“Nah,” Dick said as casually as he could manage, gesturing to the synthesizer, “Running some tests. Send me a picture.”
Jason’s expression sharpened to Robin-calculation for a moment, scanning over Dick and the machine. “Everything good?” he asked.
“Found a new toxin,” Dick shrugged, and felt the plastic smile stretch his cheeks, “Your synthesizer works better than mine.”
Jason answered that with a dismissive scoff before bolting for the stairs. Dick waited until he was out of sight before collapsing into the chair and letting out shaky breaths. The agony was already fading, but the memory of the white-hot pain lingered.
Dick stared at the synthesizer and willed it to work faster.
The footsteps announced Jason’s presence first, and Dick had to fight the urge to leap out of his chair and put some distance between them. “Took a bunch of pics,” Jason announced, getting closer, “How do I send them to the League? Through the Batcomputer?”
Dick made a light tsking noise. He just had to pretend like everything was normal till the machine finished creating an antidote. “You mean Bruce hasn’t given you Uncle Clark’s number yet?” he asked, and swiveled in his chair to face Jason.
The kid was looking at him, stupefied. “You call Superman Uncle Clark?” his voice squeaked, and Dick laughed.
“Now I definitely have to give you his number. Come on,” Dick made grabby hands, and sighed when Jason didn’t throw his phone and instead crossed the distance to carefully put it in Dick’s hands. Dick at least did a good job of controlling his flinch at the brush of skin.
“Do you want Aunt Diana’s number too?” Dick asked slyly, and took a side glance to peek at Jason’s flush. That hero worship had been easy to ferret out. Jason muttered something under his breath, and Dick chuckled and entered Diana’s number in as well. The kid deserved it for decorating Bruce’s room with Lantern merch.
“There you go,” Dick gave the phone back to him, and tried to pretend like he didn’t jerk back the second it was in Jason’s grip. “Make sure to get a picture of Bruce’s reaction.”
“He’s going to bench me for a month,” Jason said, half-pleased and half-mournful.
“Tell him I dared you,” Dick suggested, “He’s always ready to believe the worst of me, anyway.”
Shit. That came out more bitter than he’d planned. Jason was giving him an awkward look, and Dick turned back to the synthesizer and forced the rage down. He was over it. He was Nightwing now, and he lived in Bludhaven, and he was over Bruce.
Nightwing didn’t have a partner. Nightwing didn’t need a partner. He was a free bird, and no one could keep him chained down.
Dick reminded himself that he was happier now.
The machine kept on humming on, results flickering up one by one, and Dick pressed a key to print out the analysis as the synthesizer worked on a possible antidote. Batman’s patrol would go on for another couple of hours with no Robin to chivvy home to bed, but Dick would hopefully be long gone by then. He could update Bruce on the case when everything was wrapped up.
Dick didn’t realize Jason had walked up to him until the kid spoke up. “So,” Jason said, right next to him, “What’re you—” and Dick couldn’t hear anything after that, because Jason slung an arm around his shoulders to lean against him. A casual touch, except it wasn’t, because Jason’s arm around his neck was a noose and the hand against his ribs felt like it was tearing his ribs apart.
“Dick? Dick?!” Someone was gasping, loud and choked, like they’d be screaming if they had enough breath, but Dick was being strangled and he desperately twisted away from the blinding surge of pain.
It blinked out, leaving echoes as Dick shuddered against cold stone. And then it came back, hot and angry and branding on his shoulders, dragging him like there were hooks under his bones, and Dick was screaming now, and he could just about make out a high, panicked voice over the noise.
Jason. The Cave. The toxin.
“Stop,” Dick forced out between wordless shrieks, “Stop touching me.”
The hooks disappeared. The pain receded to vicious throbbing as Dick took gasping breaths against the floor, shaking too bad to curl up. Everything hurt, and his face was startlingly wet.
“Dick?” came the quiet, terrified whisper, and Dick wanted to cover his ears and block everything out. “I—I’m calling Bruce.”
“No!” burst out from Dick’s throat, and he shoved up to his elbows in sudden desperation. Jason was crouching next to him, wild-eyed and panicked. “Don’t call—” his arms gave out, and he toppled backwards, and Jason lunged to catch him.
It felt like shark jaws tearing across his skin and ripping through muscle and bone.
“Don’t touch,” Dick managed to hiss without biting his tongue off, everything was blinding, everything was fire—“It hurts.”
It took longer for the agony to recede this time, longer for his sobs to peter out, longer for Dick to crack open blurry eyes to see Jason hovering over him, pale and stricken.
“What happened?” Jason asked shakily, “Dick, what—is that what you’re running an analysis on—what’s going on?”
“Toxin,” Dick admitted in an exhale, “Doesn’t react well—to touch. ‘M synthesizing an antidote.”
“We should call—”
“No Bruce,” Dick snapped, fury rushing into the hollows that pain carved out, “Don’t call him!”
Jason was wavering, but his expression was firm. Pained, but firm. “You’re—you’re hurt, Dickie,” Jason said softly, “I need to call him.”
“No, Jason—” But it was too late. The kid had already gotten up and run out of sight. Dick squeezed his eyes shut and focused on breathing and tried to ignore the jagged hole inside of him.
Fuck, he thought miserably. He could do nothing but curl up and wait for the consequences.
Dick had managed to push himself up and crawl under the table—ignoring Jason’s hovering—and had nearly slipped into a doze before he startled at the roar of the Batmobile.
His stomach sank lower.
Dick waited, tense and braced, as too-loud footsteps made their way towards them. “Where is he,” came in Bruce’s voice but with Batman’s intonation, and Dick shivered harder.
“Under the table,” Jason motioned, the fucking traitor, and Dick set his face into a scowl as boots came into view. Bruce crouched down after.
He was dressed in the Batman suit with only the cowl off—not that it mattered, because his expression was eerily blank without a mask, no emotion but the faint hint of disapproval that had dogged Dick ever since he left the Manor. Bruce’s expression tightened as he observed the way that Dick had wedged himself into the back corner with his knees pulled up.
“What happened?” he demanded.
Dick—couldn’t. He couldn’t listen to a lecture, not like this, not when he was jittery and weak and—and he wanted his dad, he wanted someone to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay, but that wasn’t going to happen, and even his arms wrapped tight around his shins couldn’t keep him together.
The first sob burst out after a fight, but the others followed like a dam had been burst, and Dick couldn’t resist, shaking apart with each one as they carved out of him, leaving him flayed and bare and vulnerable.
“Dick? Dick—Dick, please get out from under there—”
“Don’t touch him!” Jason interjected stridently, and Dick curled up further.
“Dick,” Bruce’s voice increased a register as Dick kept crying, and it reached the level it had been when Tony Stomas had accidentally kneed him in the face at school and Bruce had gotten there to see Dick’s white shirt absolutely drenched in blood. “Dick, chum, please tell me what happened.” Dick cracked open an eye to see Bruce’s expression somewhere between frantic and desperate as he visibly suppressed the urge to reach out to him. “Please just tell me what’s wrong,” Bruce pleaded, and something in Dick cracked.
“I—I got tagged by some kind of pollen. It causes some kind of hypersensitivity to human touch,” Dick reported, hoarse and hollow, “Two nights ago. A warehouse in Gotham.” He could see Bruce’s expression narrow. “Bloodwork and the pollen’s in the synthesizer,” Dick motioned up, and ducked his head back against his knees.
He didn’t need to see the disappointed look on Bruce’s face. He could recall it well enough.
He heard the synthesizer being fiddled with, and Bruce’s low-voiced instructions to Jason, and footsteps retreating. “Dick,” came Bruce’s level tone again, and Dick huddled tighter, bracing for the harsh words. “Can you get out from there?” He’d rather not. The corner was a paltry protection, yes, but a protection nonetheless. “It’s more comfortable in the medbay, and I need to take your bloodwork again.”
Of course he did. He was the fucking Batman, and he’d never been able to take Dick at his goddamn word.
Dick was too tired to argue. Crawling out was doable, but he trembled all over when he got up, and only the memory of how much it hurt forced him to keep moving under Bruce’s watchful eye. By the time he half-collapsed on one of the medbay cots, he was drained, physically and emotionally, and he curled up on his side as he watched Bruce move around.
Bruce placed the blood draw kit on the bed beside him. “Can you do it yourself?” Bruce asked, “Or should I—”
“No,” Dick cut him off, shuddering, and reached for the kit. Sticking the needle and waiting for the vial to fill up was a simple task, but by the time Dick finished and taped a bandaid in place, he was exhausted. Bruce’s silence certainly didn’t help, not when Dick was braced for him to start his low-voiced tirade.
But Bruce just took the vial and left, and Dick was forced to wait on the cot, nerves singing with tension and dread.
He flinched at the footsteps, but it was just Jason, holding a blanket in front of him like a shield. Dick narrowed his eyes, and Jason stuttered to a halt, looking upset.
Dick exhaled, and relented. He couldn’t really blame Jason for calling Bruce when Dick was writhing on the ground and screaming, it wasn’t like Jason would’ve been able to create an antidote, or that Dick was in any shape to have finished one before Bruce got back. “Is that for me?” Dick asked, and Jason visibly brightened.
“Here,” Jason put the folded blanket on the bed and offered him a hesitant smile, “Bruce can’t get mad at me this time.” Dick was startled into a raspy laugh when he realized it was a Green Lantern blanket, and he did feel better once he was wrapped up in it. “Are you going to be okay?” Jason asked, quiet, and Dick could feel all of his anger melting at the kid’s concern.
“Bruce will make sure of it,” Dick smiled wanly, because it was true. However Dick felt about it, the fact didn’t change that Dick was safe here, that Bruce was going to find a cure, that this awful sensitivity would stop.
Dick just wasn’t looking forward to what came after.
Dick was sleeping. Or maybe dreaming, he heard Bruce’s voice calling him chum, and telling him about an antidote, and he remembered extending an arm and watching hazily as a needle depressed in, but the world retreated again after that.
“Dick? Dick, sweetheart, can you tell me if it’s working?” A gentle pressure on the back of his hand. “Does this hurt?”
No, Dick thought. Or said. Or thought he said. The pressure withdrew, and he mourned it.
“It’s okay, chum,” the fingers came back, and stroked through his hair, and it felt so nice, and Dick hadn’t had it for months and months. “You can sleep now.”
But wasn’t he already sleeping?
Dick felt…warm. And safe, like he was Robin again, and covered protectively in Batman’s cape, even though that life had been ripped away from him.
He was covered in something though, and nestled against something too warm to be a pillow, and there was something rubbing gently against his head and it felt like it was drawing the loneliness out of him, drip by drip by drip.
“You know,” came a high, too-casual voice, “He didn’t want me to call you.”
The rhythm against his hair stuttered, and stopped.
“Was practically begging me not to call you,” the voice continued, and the warmth shifted away, like it was going to leave. Dick tightened his grip with a loud mental no.
“Jason,” a deeper voice sighed.
“I’m just saying,” the casual voice continued, “He’s your son.” Something frizzled down Dick’s spine, a spark of alarm even through the haze. “Maybe you both should remember that.”
Something shifted behind him and bony limbs pressed against him, accompanied by a lot of wriggling.
“I don’t think all three of us will fit on this cot, Jay-lad,” Bruce said, with a kind of weary amusement, “Go to bed, please.”
“Dick didn’t give me a hug,” the voice pouted, “Dick always gives me a hug, and he didn’t this time, and it’s your fault. You go back to your bed.”
“I would,” Bruce said dryly, “If someone hadn’t done some redecorating.”
“Guess you’re all out of luck then, old man.”
Bruce sighed, and the hair stroking came back. “I’m sorry, chum,” he said, quieter, “For ever making you think that you couldn’t come to me.”
He sounded sad. It was Robin’s job to brighten up Batman. But Dick wasn’t Robin anymore. Was he?
Fingers combed through his hair in a gentle, repetitive pattern, and all his thoughts dissolved.
Dick woke up sore and aching and strangely contorted, but an arm forced him still before he could stretch. “Careful,” a low voice cautioned, “Jason might fall off.”
Dick blinked, and tried to force himself to wake up all the way. He gave up and pushed in the opposite direction, and the arm let him, and Dick was soon sprawled out on top of someone else, his head resting on their chest and rising up and down as they breathed.
There were fingers moving gently in his hair. So that hadn’t been a dream.
“You can just give me the lecture now,” Dick said quietly. He was so tired he could go back to sleep.
The fingers stopped stroking.
“Do you know what you did wrong?” came the rumbling voice.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Dick squeezed his eyes shut. “Came to Gotham on a case and didn’t tell you,” he said dully, “Got hit with pollen and didn’t go through decontamination procedures. Scared Jason half to death. Was reckless, stupid, and childish. Am I missing anything?”
The fingers gently tucked a stray lock of hair out of his face, and Dick tried very hard not to cry.
“You’re not childish or stupid,” Bruce said firmly, “You take too many risks and I worry because I’m used to being your safety net, chum, and now you have none at all.” His next words were softer, “You don’t have to come to me if you’re hurt. But you have to go to someone. Please.”
Dick didn’t—there was something wriggly and hot inside his chest, and making his face feel tight, and he pressed his face against Bruce’s shirt and breathed slowly until it subsided.
“I’m not a kid,” he said half-muffled, which he supposed detracted slightly from his point.
“You’ll always be my kid.” Wow, that wriggly feeling came back quick.
It took longer for Dick to recover from this one. Bruce didn’t usually come out and say it, and Dick—never asked.
“I mean, I’m not Robin anymore,” Dick said once he regained his composure, “I’m not—I’m Nightwing. I’m not your partner anymore.” I’m your equal, he wanted to say, but the words were small inside his own head.
There was a long silence, and Bruce’s fingers began stroking his hair again. “The city’s big enough for the three of us,” he said, his voice strained-casual, and Dick pushed up enough to see Bruce’s face, because Bruce had never offered before.
But those steel-blue eyes were sincere, and Dick—Dick missed being here, missed his dad, and never quite believed that Bruce missed him too.
Until now.
Dick gave him a smile before snuggling closer, and twisting to wrap an arm around Jason and keep him from falling off the cot. He didn’t know if he could give up the lure of freedom that Bludhaven represented…but even free birds had a nest.