Work Text:
There’s an ache in his chest, deep and all-consuming.
Dick knows pain. It’s evidenced by the marks on his skin, the scars that litter his body. He’s been trained to withstand pain. To bear it. To hold out until rescue or until the inevitable opening for escape makes itself known. He’s held out under torture for longer than what should be humanly possible. He’s been broken, bruised, torn open, and mended time and time again. Gotten up even when he shouldn’t be able to, unwavering and unyielding. His years spent moonlighting as a vigilante has built up his pain tolerance to an unscalable level. He’s triumphed over so much. So much hurt, anguish, and grief. So, so much grief.
And it’s the grief that’s most prominent. That gnawing emptiness that expands and expands, never being filled. Grief weights on him, an ever-constant companion in his life.
Dick is used to pain.
So why does it hurt this much?
Dick feels like he can’t breathe. The ache in his chest climbs up and up like Ivy’s vines. It snakes around his neck and grabs it, roughly squeezing Dick’s throat from the inside. He imagines it in vivid detail. Can see the phantom fingers against his red pharynx in his mind’s eye.
There’s a heavy weight on his diaphragm, but this feeling is one that he’s more familiar with. This weight, this pressure, had only ever been on his back.
Atlas. The weight of the world on his shoulders. Dick has always felt a kinship to that myth. Because he knows the feeling. The duties, the responsibilities, the expectations. The weight of The First: The First sidekick, The First kid hero, The First Robin. He’s the eldest brother, the leader, the founding rock, an ever-standing pillar. All of that is heavy, a solid weight on his shoulders. Bearing him down. Forcing him through the intense bat-training so he could be strong enough to push through the ache. Push through and stand tall like he’s expected to.
He knew that weight. Had known it ever since he put on the mask and created the Robin costume from the remnants of his old acrobatics uniform. But now—instead of being nestled in the place it had carved out on his back—it’s pressing down, heavy on his chest.
And suddenly, it’s too much.
It’s crushing him, weighing him down. Unrelenting. Unbearable.
He can’t breathe.
Dick holds a blue domino in his hand. How did it get there?
His grip on the mask is loose. There is no steady presence of feeling at his fingertips. There’s none of the reassuring metaphorical importance he can feel resounding deep in his bones or the exhilaration of donning Nightwing. He feels nothing. The mask feels like… nothing.
He can’t breathe.
A whisper curls around his ear, breaking through the pain, the ache, and the pressure on his chest.
“Come to us…”
The voice is soothing. Dick can’t name who it is, can’t for the life of him place a face to the sound. But he recognizes it, chases the memory of it. There are notes of people he knows, voices that he loves. He can hear Bruce’s deep rumbling murmur. Can pick out Alfred’s reassurances, Jason’s covered accent, Tim’s cadence, Duke’s laugh, and Damian’s curtness. There’s Barbara’s steadiness, Cass’s soft-spokenness, and Steph’s exuberance. There’s Wally, Kori, Roy, and Donna curled around those three words.
But what really gets him, what really makes him turn and search for the voice like a man dying of thirst?
His mom and dad.
It’s everyone he loves, everyone he misses, everyone he wants to hold near and never let go.
How could he resist?
Dick turns, the suffocating pressure in his chest relenting to a sharp tug guiding him towards the voice. Like a moth called to a flame. And as he faces the expanse, he registers his location.
He’s on the shore. Above a storm brews, dark clouds blocking the sun. It creates a lampshade-like effect; the color of the light illuminating the space is more like blueish grey rather than bright yellow. The wind blows strong, his dark hair being playfully teased through its delicate hands. The refreshing sounds of the sea and wind fill his ears as he gazes out at the waves. But there’s…something. Some figure in the distance. Just beyond his gaze. Obscured by mist.
Before he can take a closer look, his ears pick up on more words, carried in the gusts of wind.
“You don’t want to be alone anymore, right?”
The voice rolls over him again, filling his mind, obscuring his senses until all he feels is…longing. Deep and immense, consuming him, curling into his lungs so there’s no room for air.
His family, his friends, all his loved ones beckon him forward. His feet pad their way across the wet sand. The water kisses his ankles, cool and refreshing. Like peppermint balm on his skin. The crushing weight bearing down on his chest morphing into a painful pull leading him out into the ocean.
“Closer…”
Every step, the rise and fall of his feet, coincides with the swell of the sea, and in turn, his next breath comes easier. Then it’s stolen away by the rising tide once more. A vicious cycle that he cannot help but fall prey to.
“Closer…”
The Nightwing mask falls from his grasp, his loose grip his downfall. Dick is used to that feeling, used to having things slip just between his fingers, used to watching what he loves fall . But instead of him being frozen—his horrified stare fixed on the descent of his loved ones going down down down—he only distantly registers the sensation and continues his trek. Because his mask doesn’t matter. Nightwing doesn’t matter.
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
“Closer…”
He keeps walking towards the mist. The splash of the waves in sound in time with the beats of his heart.
“Don’t you want to be with your family? Your friends?”
The voice croons in his ear, all honeyed and sugar-sweet assurance. He can hear it, feel it. He tastes it like he tastes the iron tang of blood that’s ever-present from the pressure. There’s no moment of hesitation, nothing waning his desire, his belief in the voice because that’s all he knows. The voice is all he knows. He wants it so badly. He wants his family so, so badly. Wants it because it will make the pain stop, make the grief go away, and relieve all the pressure so that he can breathe again.
“Yes,” Dick gasps, desperation coloring his tone.
“—never be alone anymore—”
There, in the distance, over the rolling dark waves and the bubbling sea foam, he sees them. The fleeting figures he caught a glimpse of before become more distinguishable as Dick trudges closer.
His family. Bruce, Jason, Tim, Damian, Duke, Barbara, Cass, Stephanie, and Alfred. All of them are there, waiting for him. Calling him. Lulling him in with the sweet promises of paradise.
“You’ll soon be with the ones you love…”
As he drags himself forward, he can make out Kori and Wally. Donna and Roy. More shaped forms appear as he walks, their features just out of his reach. But he can make it. If he could just blink away the black crawling into the edges of his vision. If he could just breathe. If he just pushes past the pressure, past the choppy waves that were calm and serene only moments ago, past the pain in his chest and the blood in his mouth…
“...and lost .”
Dick blinks.
It hurts!
Dick’s eyes fall close again, but this time they don’t open.
It hurts!
His existence is agony. The pressure has returned, and its presence increases tenfold. Suddenly, in a rush, he’s hyper-aware of the pain. The wounds on his mortal form that had been blessedly numb before are present now. The blood in his mouth is no longer an afterthought. Now, it’s completely consuming his senses. He must be drowning in it. Did the sea turn to blood? Is he being swallowed by the waves? Did he taint the waters with his presence? The cuts and bruises and blood all compound the weight on his chest. He’s struggling to breathe. He can’t breathe.
He’s suffocating, truly suffocating now.
“Soon…”
The voice has lost the soothing tones of his family. Now, it’s cruel. Not in tone or feeling but in the lack of familiarity. The promise of comfort that was the siren call luring him in is replaced by an absence that taunts him with his dreams. Toying with him, twisting his yearning into a sharp blade that plunges into his chest.
He’s drowning, being sucked under waves and waves of agony.
“...soon—soon it will be over.”
It hurts! It hurts! It hurts !
Dick wants to sob. His roiling emotions are a hurricane of conflicting feelings. Each one pointed, sharpened with an edge that amplifies his pain. The voice taunts him, the feel of uncanny valley slowly taking over the soothing tones of those he loved. It’s ice-cold shock and hot burning pain all rolled into one.
He’s numb, his veins turning to ice. His fingers must be blue by now because he can’t feel them.
“Shhh…”
He wants his mom and dad to hold him again.
“It’s all gonna be over soon.”
All he wants is his family …
“—and you will be—”
Is that too much to ask?
“—never alone again—”
He’s lying on his back, the hard surface unyielding. It’s dark and cold, and he can’t breathe. Then he can feel his head being cradled in familiar hands—no—gauntlets, the touch gentle and loving.
“—ing! Nightwing!”
He can’t see them, but he can feel their presence. His siblings crowding around him, around his prone form on the ground.
He doesn’t want them to see him like this.
“Open your eyes…”
They’re begging him, pleading with him. Part of him doesn’t believe it, bitter from the first trick with the voices. But this time it’s different. It’s not just one voice.
“Dick, please don’t give up.”
It’s all of them, separated and distinct.
“Richard, we need you.”
They’re hurt, and sad.
“Please wake up…”
He’d do anything for them.
“Wing!”
So why can’t he do this?
“Don’t leave us again…”
Dick reaches out—
“Hello, my little robin.”
Then, he falls.
The full moon hangs low in the sky, so bright the stars are swallowed up. The world is bathed in soft white-ish blue light. In between the trees that stretch to the heavens, there’s a path. It seems so natural, a simple existence.
“Mami! Tati!”
There’s a haze over his eyes. He watches as a little boy, black hair and clad in a red tunic with yellow sleeves and green shorts, walks hand in hand with his parents.
“Yes, little bird?”
It’s his mother’s voice again. Soft and melodious like a song. It was everything he’d remembered and more. It’s happiness delivered in sound waves.
“I had a really weird dream.”
The little boy swings his arms, and his parents squeeze back, like they’re trying to press their love into the tiny hands. Dick can feel the phantom feeling of them on his own.
He misses them.
“Why don’t you tell us about it?”
So Dick does.
Dick wakes slowly.
Where normally his honed senses and trained reflexes would having him jolting into alertness in a manner of a second, today something in him fights against consciousness. He wants to live in that dream, to hold onto his mother’s and father’s hands forever. Never let them go again. But as he drifts back into the waking world, his hand is still being held.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch, doesn’t do anything but flutter his eyes open. His injuries are numb, the pain hidden behind a drug-induced fog but still present. There’s a bandage curling around his forehead, he hopes it won’t itch. Dick’s eyes trail up the hand that was holding his, recognizing the man whose lax fingers were entangled with his own.
Jason sleeps in a chair beside the bed. His head is tipped over the back of the seat, cushioned by his leather jacket that’s draped along the wood. His hair is illuminated by the glow of the moonbeams shining through the window, making the white streak in his hair seem almost ethereal. His mouth is slightly parted open, exhaling soft breaths that are evened out by sleep.
The rest of Dick’s senses come back to him and he can finally pinpoint where all that warmth around him is coming from. His family surrounds him. Dick’s eyes roam over them, drinking in the sight.
Tim is beside him, propped up on pillows against the headboard, his chin resting on his chest as he sleeps. His hand is tangled in Stephanie’s messy curls as she sleeps soundly on Tim’s chest. Jason and Dick’s intertwined hands rest on her blanketed back. Cass is resting in the small space between Stephanie and Dick’s legs, her head pillowed on Dick’s blanket-covered hip. Damian is curled into Dick’s opposite side. His puffs of breath tickle Dick’s shoulder and his little hand rests on Dick’s forearm. Duke is beside Damian, mirroring Tim’s position. His head is tipped back and his arm is stretched across the headboard so it’s just above Dick’s own head.
Dick doesn’t turn his head, but he knows there’s an armchair in the corner of the room, right over his head. One that can see all points of entry and exit, right behind the window and just across from the air vent. The seat cushion is dipped under the weight of a man who has sat vigil for hours. On the window seat there’s a book that had been worn down by a man who held it as a close companion when serving his time in England. It is a book that comes out when one of their own is injured.
Dick smiles, a small soft thing just for himself.
He has his family with him.
Not all of them are present; Babs is probably still at the clocktower, finishing up for the night; his friends are all over, saving the world; and his dad and grandfather are somewhere in the manor, briefly checking up on the city or fetching something or the other from around the house respectively.
But, they’re home .
And, he’s not alone.