Chapter Text
Dick was still ignoring him, staring out into the distance with that stupid look on his face.
“Look,” Jason began,” I know you hate me or whatever but Bruce wants us to patrol together for some stupid reason so could you at least work with me tonight?”
“Hmmm?” Dick glanced at him, sounding confused. “I don’t hate you, it’s not your fault…I’m just mad at Bruce, that’s all.”
“ Sure ,” Jason said, staring at him in disbelief.
Dick, for his part, looked somewhat guilty.
Jason groaned.
Why did they always have to argue?
Why did Dick even bother coming over? Wasn’t he the one who left? Jason didn’t understand why anyone would leave when Bruce would give so much so freely. Nevertheless, everything Dick once had belonged to Jason now, and he wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.
It seemed that Dick didn’t even want to come over, so maybe it was just Bruce who wanted him back? He wanted the original, Jason just wasn’t good enough to measure up to the Golden Boy.
Still, it just didn’t make sense. What leverage could Bruce possibly have to make Dick come?
Jason wasn’t sure, but he was determined to find out.
“You may have failed me, Bruce. But I won’t let you fail him too,” the Golden Boy was saying. Is he talking about me? Jason wondered.
“Then stay.”
“I—” Dick cut himself off, “you planned this, didn’t you.”
Silence.
“You’re unfit to raise a child. Didn’t you learn that with me? Or do you just not care.”
Jason’s eyes widened. He should’ve known this whole ‘adopt an orphan’ thing was too good to be true.
“He needs me,” Bruce growled, “he’d be dead on the streets by now if it weren’t for me. You are not the judge of whether I’m fit to raise a child or not.”
“B—”
“ Quiet .”
Dick stopped talking.
Jason couldn’t see them, and he wondered what their expressions were. Bruce must’ve had a very terrible look on his face for Dick to just listen like that.
“ You’ll do as I say .”
“Okay, Bruce.”
Dick’s voice sounded hollow and wrong.
Jason crept away into the darkness, things to think about already piling up in his mind.
“You can’t just treat him like that!” Jason yelled.
“I’ll do what I want.” Bruce’s voice was clipped
“He’s your son!”
Dick stepped forward for the first time since the conversation began, looking at him with pain in his eyes. “I’m not his son.”
Jason spluttered. Bruce remained impassive. Dick’s face seemed to undergo a change, his expression smoothing out into something a little more blank, a little less genuine.
“He never adopted me, Jay.”
“What? Why not? Why do you even come over then?”
“That’s none of your business,” Bruce interjected, glowering.
Jason was indignant. Who does he think he is? “Of course it’s my business!”
He continued to argue with Bruce, and didn’t notice when Dick quietly slipped out of the room.
“The one time I defended you and you ran away? Left me with him ?” Jason snorted, “yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”
“Good,” Dick said, “you shouldn’t.”
The man still didn’t look at him.
Jason glared at his back.
“Whatever,” he muttered, “I thought you cared, but I guess you didn’t.”
As he turned to leave, he thought he saw Dick flinch at the words, but that couldn’t be right…could it?
“Were you never going to tell me?”
“Jason ran away.” Bruce said, turning to face him. “He ran away after that stunt you pulled. He didn’t think he could trust me because of you. And now he’s dead.”
Dick shook his head. “He ran away because he saw the truth.”
Bruce grunted. “Just like you did. But he wasn’t as fortunate as you. When I let you make your own reckless decisions, your injuries weren’t fatal. Of course, by the time I realized my error in that…”
“Are you blaming me ? I left, so Jason replaced me, and because I left he died?” Dick scoffed. “No, he left because he saw you for the monster you are. And he died because you couldn’t protect him and sent him out there before he was ready!”
“Don’t you dare blame me for Jason’s death!” Bruce roared, slamming his fist into Dick’s face.
He crashed to the ground and laid there, as if pinned by some invisible force.
“Tt. Grayson, you don’t seem to be distressed by Father’s death,” Damian observed.
“What? Of course I am, he practically raised me.” Dick said, then in a quieter voice, “I loved him. I can barely believe he’s dead.”
He stood there, staring down at the cowl in his hands.
“...He’s dead now. Gone. You can say what you wish about him. I want to know the truth.” Damian pushed.
Dick averted his gaze. Seconds passed as they stewed in silence.
“I—” He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. “We should get going, you know, crime never stops.”
Damian glared at his back as he turned and walked away.
“Father insists we do things his way. Ever since he returned, the others have complained about his methods. Why do you defend him?”
“We need him to keep the family together,” Dick said, as if he’d said it a million times before, “that doesn’t really work if everyone’s mad at him.”
“ Should they be displeased with him?”
Dick turned away. “Life’s too short to be displeased with family, Dami.”
“Richard? Tell me the truth, is Father preventing you from visiting?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. It was slight, and hardly noticeable, but Damian could tell.
“What? No, Dami, why would you think that?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not,” there was something off about his voice. “I’ll come over this weekend, alright? I don’t need Bruce’s permission, you’ll see.”
Damian wanted to push it, but he knew it would be foolish of Grayson to lie about such a thing. This was one, sure way to know if Damian’s suspicions were correct.
Grayson would either show up or he wouldn’t, it was clear just the way Damian preferred things in their relationship to be.
“Hey, you have to let me come over this weekend.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You don’t have to, but Damian’s starting to suspect something’s up. If you want to keep the secret past the end of this week, letting me come over would be a good idea.”
There was a grunt on the other end of the line.
“Fine. But don’t try anything with him. Remember, he’s mine.”
Dick swallowed. “Y—Yes sir.”
Dick bit through his lip. Blood trickled down his chin.
“Why don’t you spill all your little secrets, hmmm?” hummed the creepy witch, “ah yes, I can feel the powerful magic that kept you from talking before, but that’s all gone now. There’s nothing left but you , and me , so why are you resisting so hard ?”
He hadn’t wanted to activate his emergency beacon, but it seemed now he had no choice. His head was in agony, his considerable mental ability warring with the spell she’d put on him. This woman was stronger, stronger than even Bruce’s power. Dick could only hope that her abilities didn’t extend to combat, or any bat on their way to rescue him would be in serious danger.
Even if they did come and managed to rescue him, Dick would probably end up opening his big mouth and telling them things he wasn’t supposed to, things that could break apart his family. If only Bruce wasn’t off-world. With the way things looked, the moment he got back he’d tear Dick to pieces for spilling the metaphorical beans in some way. Still, he would rather let out his secrets to a sibling than spill them to this lady and watch her ruin his loved ones.
“ Tell me. ”
Dick shook his head, even as the pain built up in his skull.
“Every secret you know about every hero you’ve ever worked with. Strengths and weaknesses. How to take them down. I want to know everything. ”
No , he thought viciously, I won’t!
Dick awoke, eyes watering and lip bleeding.
“You can stop biting it now, Dickface, though how you kept it up even while unconscious is beyond me,” said a familiar voice to his left, “I got you away from that witch.”
“Th—Thanks,” he managed, letting go of his lip.
“What happened? ” Jason asked.
Which was a simple enough question with a simple enough answer, Dick felt that he could at least open his mouth to reply without spilling everything.
That was his mistake.
“I’d been tracking down this magic user who’d been wreaking havoc in both Blüdhaven and Gotham. She had a knack for getting information from people and liked to sell secrets to rival gangs and watch them create chaos in populated areas. She gave bad anonymous tips to police so they got caught in the crossfire too. I tracked her down but I got stuck in one of her magic traps and then she put some sort of truth spell on me and I really need you to go away or plug your ears or something cause there are things I have to tell you but I really don’t want to because—” Dick cut himself off, sucking in air through clenched teeth.
He looked at Jason pleadingly, silently begging him not to ask. Jason stared at him for a moment, clearly deep in thought. Then his expression shifted into one of guilt.
“Because why?”
Dick felt something break within him.
“Bruce would kill me if I told you.”
Jason’s eyes bored into his.
“You’re not lying.”
“I can’t, ” Dick said through gritted teeth.
“Would it help you if I knew the whole story?”
His mind blanked.
“…Yes”
Well now there was a truth even he didn’t know, not his conscious self anyway. Maybe there was something his subconscious knew that he didn’t.
“Tell me then.” Jason looked at him apologetically. “Tell me about Bruce.”
“He’s not human,” Dick began, “I think he used to be, a long time ago, but he became corrupted. He’s full of dark power, some kind of shadow creature I think. But he’s so intelligent and hides his true form well. His magic helps with that, probably. It took me a while to figure out what Bruce was and when I did I didn’t know what to do. I loved him, you know? But then one day I wasn’t enough for him and he fired me from Robin, told me to leave and never come back. His magic propelled me—”
“You guys always made it seem like you just decided to leave.” Jason muttered.
“Bruce made up the story to turn you against me. I went along with it. ” Dick choked out a bitter laugh. “Anyway, that’s when I realized he wasn’t my father. That’s when I figured out what he really was. I ran away to Blüdhaven and hid from him. Then one day I heard about a new Robin in the news, and the adoption of one Jason Todd. Bruce was emotionally and physically abusive to me. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let another kid go through that.”
“I don’t remember him ever being like that with me,” Jason sounded horrified.
Dick replied quietly, “He didn’t, that I know of.”
“I’m…I’m sorry Dick, I was a real jerk back then.”
“It’s okay, you actually did find out about him once, because of me. It’s part of what got you killed. After you came back from the dead, it was clear the Pit made you forget those memories, so the secret was safe. I was glad for it, too. Bruce would have killed you if you remembered.”
Jason gaped.
“So you did nothing? All this time, you knew and you didn’t do anything, just because he might kill one of us? Damian—”
“You really think I let my son stay with that monster by choice ?” Dick bit out.
His brother fell silent.
“Bruce’s magic can make me do anything he wants. He knows where I am, what I’m doing, what I say, all the time. His magic kept me from spilling his secrets, from doing anything he didn’t want me to do. It had less of a hold on me when I wasn’t in Gotham, but it still prevented me from saying anything. He made me come back to Gotham whenever he wanted, to help him, to help you, to help Tim. When Bruce was lost in time, his magic still had power over me, I still couldn’t tell anyone about him, so I knew he wasn’t dead. It was only a matter of time before he came back. When he did, he wouldn’t let me see Damian. I think he was jealous of my relationship with him. I had to beg him just so he would let me into Gotham to see the kid for a few hours. And for the record, Damian’s completely human, since Bruce’s body is technically human, even if his mind and abilities aren’t.”
“All this time…” Jason’s compassion seemed to be temporarily winning over his anger. “You’ve been fighting a losing battle against him, and you couldn’t even tell anyone.”
Dick looked away, trying to hide the wetness gathering in his eyes. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“We can fight him, Dick. He’s off-world on a League mission right now. It would take him at least a week to get back, so we have time to prepare.”
“Prepare how?” Dick asked, facing him, not bothering to hide the defeat in his tone or the resignation he felt.
Jason put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll call Zatanna or something. We can work this out. Together.”
Dick could feel the urge to tell the truth leaving him, Bruce’s dark magic swelling to the surface.
“Her magic is leaving me. B—Bruce, his—” Dick gasped. “You have to be safe, keep them safe. Please. No matter what, we have to save them from him.”
“Yeah, Dick, I will.” Jason’s eyes were filled with conviction. “We can do this.”
“Thanks Jay, I trust you,” Dick whispered, closing his eyes as darkness filled his mouth.