Archive of Our Own

—

This situation was, unfortunately, one that Dick Grayson was very familiar with. That didn’t mean he liked it— quite the opposite, really, he had become an escape artist for a reason and that reason was that he hated the helplessness that came along with being trapped, and especially being kidnapped. Every time he woke with his head pounding and realized his limbs were bound and his comm was missing, his one singular goal was to get out of that situation as quickly and efficiently as possible.

He didn’t have a comm with him, that night. He’d thrown it to the ground at Bruce’s feet earlier that day before jumping on his motorcycle and fleeing, furious, all the way to Bludhaven. It’d been a long time since he and Bruce had fought like that— his family wouldn’t be expecting to hear from him for a while. 

The first thing he became aware of was the throbbing, stabbing pain in a few specific spots on his wrists, ankles, and neck; quickly followed by the unusual position his arms had been forced into, twisted up behind his head with heavy metal around his wrists, pressing against what he was pretty sure were some small but nasty burns. He pulled up on them, slowly and carefully, only to be brought up short by the resulting pressure against his throat— the hard metal edges of a collar digging into his skin as a curl of dread flickered in his gut, bringing him to full awareness. Assessing the rest of his situation didn’t reveal anything better— he was lying on his stomach, and his legs were chained together tightly, with thick cuffs around his ankles and chains running all the way up around his legs before attaching to a metal band around his waist. He tried to twist, to bring his ankles up toward his head where he could, hopefully, fish a lock pick or a knife out of his boots and get to work on the cuffs, but he couldn’t do that, either, the movement halted by what he realized was a long metal pole or rod of some sort running down the length of his back and legs, from his neck to his ankles, attached securely to his restraints and keeping his body stretched out straight. 

Okay. This was… not ideal. He’d dealt with worse, of course, but with his wrists chained behind his head like this, he couldn’t see what he was dealing with; and whoever had taken him, clearly they knew what he was capable of— there was almost no give in any of his restraints, each cuff seemed to have been welded shut and they were on so tightly he was worried for his circulation, and they’d stripped him of all the gear he could feel from his position face-down on the floor with some sort of heavy cloth bag over his head. Beyond that, his stomach wouldn’t stop swooping alarmingly, like the floor was moving, swaying side to side in a regular rhythm. He didn’t know who had taken him, or why, or when; the last thing he remembered was patrolling near the docks in Bludhaven, anger at Bruce still bubbling in his gut. An ambush, then? A trap?

There was the sound of a door opening, and Dick went very still. Footsteps on the floor, moving towards him. 

“He’s awake,” a gruff, male voice announced, calling back somewhere behind him. A moment later, a wide hand closed around his bicep, and Dick tensed, prepared for hurt, but he was only flipped over into his back. Then the bag was pulled off his head, revealing the dimly lit cabin of what looked like a small fishing boat. The swaying made a lot more sense, all of a sudden; as did what had happened to land him in this situation, because he recognized the man looming over him, face set in grim, serious lines.

“Marvin Walsh.” Dick tried for a smile, but he knew it didn’t reach his eyes. “Wish I could say it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, but, uh,” he pulled on one ankle, making an appropriately dramatic clank, “this is pretty unpleasant, actually."

Dick had spent a good part of the last two weeks trying to shut down a new human trafficking operation running out of Bludhaven; interrupting meetings, rescuing victims, and generally making himself as much of a nuisance as possible to their business. Despite the time he’d put into it, he’d been struggling to find any concrete evidence for who was in charge of the damn thing— but two days back, on what was looking to be a disappointing Friday night, one of the hidden cameras he’d placed had returned footage that showed a man he later identified as Benjamin Walsh picking up an envelope tucked underneath a loose windowsill, left by a known member of the trafficking ring. A bit of digging revealed that Ben and his younger brother, Marvin, ran an online flower shop— a business that was doing suspiciously well. The Walsh brothers were rich, and while that in and of itself wasn’t proof, it was certainly a lead, and it put them at the top of Dick’s embarrassingly sparse suspect list.

His research also told him that where one brother went, the other wasn’t far behind.

“It’s about to get a whole lot worse for you, Nightwing,” came a second, older voice, and sure enough, Ben Walsh entered Dick’s field of view and crouched beside him, leaning in close and reaching down to run two fingers along the underside of Dick’s jaw, forcing his head back in an instinctual effort to avoid the touch. Dick pulled his lips back in the beginnings of a snarl. 

“That is, unless you tell us where you’ve hidden our merchandise,” Ben threatened. 

Dick may not have had much room to maneuver, but as it turned out, he had just enough to slam an elbow into Benjamin Walsh’s nose. 

He swore, stumbling back and clutching a hand to his face; Dick grinned and prepared to make a witty remark, but an instant later Marvin was on him, forcing Dick’s arms to the ground beside his head and pinning them there with a knee on each before reaching for his belt and pulling out something very, very familiar: 

One of Dick’s own escrima sticks. 

“I won’t tell you a damn thing,” he said, trying to pull his arms free, twist his head to bite, anything, but he was thoroughly pinned down, and there was nothing he could do but brace for it as Marvin slammed the escrima into the side of his head. 

He tried to move with the hit, but there was nowhere to go; his neck was wrenched to the side, stopped by the metal band around his throat, and his head spun dangerously for a few long seconds, but he forced himself to keep his eyes open and shoot the most determined glare he could muster at the man practically sitting on his chest. 

The click of a button push, and electricity crackled off the end of the escrima.

“Took us a few tries to figure these out,” Marvin admitted. “Some nasty security you have on there, but we got it.”

Obviously not nasty enough, was Dick’s last coherent thought before the end of the stick was pressed against his collarbone and turned on. 

He’d been tortured before. He’d been tortured worse, far worse; this was nothing new, nothing even particularly impressive. Still, Dick’s body seized up, and he arched away from the point of contact as well as he could— either they hadn’t managed to tune the intensity, or they’d cranked it up on purpose, because this was almost as high as the sticks would even go under normal circumstances. It’d be enough to knock most people unconscious; it was only thanks to a lifetime of training that Dick stayed awake, panting and shivering when it finally stopped, teeth hurting from how tightly he’d clenched his jaw. 

“You feel like talkin’ now?” Marvin sneered, “or are you gonna keep being stubborn?”

It was a line so cliche that Dick couldn’t help but grin up at him, more a baring of his teeth than anything else. “Go— go to hell,” he stuttered. 

“He’s not gonna fuckin’ talk, Marv,” Ben hissed, coming to stand beside Dick and his brother, holding his still-bleeding nose. “He’s Nightwing, we’d have better luck askin’ a brick wall.”  

Marvin hummed and pressed the end of the stick to Dick’s throat, just under his chin. Dick’s breathing stuttered, and his face tilted up without his permission, trying to get away, knowing that this was going to hurt like hell. 

He’d been tortured before. He could do this. He could do this. 

“What do you say, then, we sell him off? Can’t be hard to find a buyer, make up for what he lost us.”

Ben grunted a negative. “Too risky. He’ll escape if we give him half a chance. I say we just get rid of him now.”

Dick’s heart rate picked up despite his wishes, and he willed himself into a state of calm. There was nothing he could do with the other man still sitting on top of him; he just had to wait, to bide his time, and choose his moment when it came.

“But we only just got started,” Marvin complained. 

Ben huffed and walked toward the door. “It’ll be another five before we’re at the drop site. You can have your fun until then.” 

Marvin grinned, and Dick did his best to sink into himself, to go away for what he knew was coming. Nightwing was about to be tortured; but he was Dick Grayson, unfortunately occupying the same body, but only there as an observer. He wasn’t going to hurt, that was Nightwing. Dick was the centre of calm in the storm, he was distant and unaffected, this was happening to someone else, not to him. 

It wasn’t enough. Pain lanced through him, white-hot and inescapable and all-consuming, the smell of burning skin filtering up into his nose before the point of the stick shifted and jabbed into his collarbone again, and then to the opposite side, and he couldn’t help but writhe against the agony of it as the bitten-off remnants of screams he couldn’t quite suppress forced themselves from his lungs, and he choked on air and stop make it stop make it stop I won’t tell you anything you bastard—

Eventually, it did stop. Eventually, Dick realized all he was feeling were his own muscles spasming and the deep, aching pulses of pain where the escrima had touched skin or burned him through his suit. He couldn’t stop shaking; none of his muscles seemed to be listening to him; he couldn’t seem to breathe right, and he must have barely been hanging on to consciousness because one moment he was laid out on the floor and the next he felt cold wind across his face and opened his eyes to a shockingly familiar sight. 

Gotham city twinkled down at him, her skyline just visible through the early-morning fog. His thoughts weren’t quite stringing together coherently; but he had enough presence of mind to know that Gotham meant Batman, meant Bruce, meant Dad— and meant he had a chance, however slim, of rescue. 

“Bat— Batman,” he whispered, barely above a murmur, head spinning. Only— no, Bruce wouldn’t be able to hear him, would he? His comm was gone. These people had taken it— or had they? They must have. Why else would it be missing?

He was being dragged across the deck by both of the men, one holding each arm, still thoroughly chained to that awful metal pole. It was as they fixed the upper end of it to some sort of small crane-like device near the railing— used to haul nets full of fish on board, he was pretty sure— that Dick came back to himself enough to realize how absolutely screwed he was. 

He was lifted up into the air, hanging off the pole— his wrists and by extension his neck now taking the brunt of his weight. He tried to keep his arms strong behind his head, to take the pressure off his throat, but it was difficult to do when none of his muscles were responding properly, when he was tired and scared and he needed to get out of this, right now, but he didn’t know how and Ben Walsh was attaching a heavy anchor to the bottom of the pole under his feet while Marvin operated the crane and lifted him up higher, and higher, and swung him around as his stomach flipped and he could barely even breathe— but he needed to breathe, he was hanging out over the choppy waves of Gotham harbour and he needed to breathe—

 “So long, Nightwing,” Ben saluted him mockingly from behind the railing. “It’s been a pleasure.” 

It was at that moment that Dick realized he was going to die. 

Superman, he thought, a last, desperate plea— he managed to lift himself up with his arms, just enough to suck in a single, frantic breath as he opened his mouth to shout as loud as he could—

“Su—!”

He fell. 

—

The rush of falling through the damp air of Gotham was, perhaps, one of the sensations Dick was most familiar with. This fall was like home to him, and while he normally would have had a grapple or something to land on or catch, there was still a single moment, suspended in the air as it stole the words from his throat, where he felt a strange sort of calm. Maybe some part of him expected a last-minute rescue, for him to be snatched out of the air by some ally or another; or maybe this was a mercy being granted to him, a tragically short moment of peace to steel himself against what would come next. If it was the latter, it wasn’t nearly enough. 

A shock of cold flooded his system and forced his muscles to seize as he crashed through the water, fully submerged and surrounded before he could even process that he wasn’t airborne anymore— the panic followed a half-second later, the instinct to kick back to the surface nearly overwhelming him as the pressure squeezed around his lungs, but he forced it down deep inside himself; he didn’t have time to panic, not when he was sinking faster and faster, disorientation worsened by the way the water darkened around him until he couldn’t see a damn thing and all he knew was down. 

How long until he ran out of air? He’d been struggling to breathe before he was dropped, and he doubted he could hold his breath for longer than a minute. How deep was this part of the harbour? He didn’t know exactly where he was— he didn’t know how long he would be sinking for— he didn’t know how he was going to get out of this or if he even could, and the pressure around his chest and in his ears ratcheted higher and higher until finally something gave out in his head with one pop and then another, and twin spikes of pain drove into his skull through his ears and everything hurt.

Dick had almost drowned before— had been in very similar situations to this, in fact, chained to something heavy and sinking fast, counting the seconds before unconsciousness would take him— but it had never felt quite so hopeless. He had never hit the bottom thrashing and desperate, lungs already burning and begging for air; never been quite so certain that there wasn’t enough time. 

The restraints were welded shut around his limbs, too tight for him to slip no matter how he contorted himself or what he dislocated. His only possible hope was the point of connection to the anchor— it was clipped on with not much more than a simple, heavy-duty carabiner, and if he could just reach it he could detach himself and— and what, swim? He couldn’t swim restrained like this, and he couldn’t reach down below his feet anyways because he was still fused to this goddamn pole and he was going to die. 

He didn’t want to die. 

He had a date planned with Barbara, a little less than a week from then— Saturday night, and he’d sworn nothing would get in the way, he wanted to make it work this time, prioritize her like she deserved. It was nothing fancy; he’d made dinner reservations at a place they used to take breaks on the roof of during patrol, back when they were both young and the world hadn’t scarred them quite so much. He’d been planning to spend the night at the manor, afterwards, stick around for Sunday brunch; but after his fight with Bruce he wasn’t so sure anymore, and he’d been considering asking Barbara if he could stay over at her place, so they could spend the day Sunday, together, too. 

It didn’t matter now. He wasn’t going to make it. 

His chest spasmed with the need to breathe, but he knew there was only water, and he hoped he could hold out long enough to pass out before he gave in. 

He was going to miss the sky. He wished he could see it one last time; to fly through the crisp night air with his friends and family, doing their part for the world for as long as they were in it. He wanted to share a mid-patrol coffee with Tim, to teach Steph to do flips, to stand and clap for Cass at her ballet recital, to watch Damian grow and learn and become his own person, get to know Duke better, and see Alfred’s proud smile. He wanted to help Jason find his place in the family again, and reintroduce him properly to his friends from outside of Gotham; all the heroes Dick had worked with, in the Justice League and the Titans, all the people he would never get to see again.

And Bruce. Bruce. His dad— his dad, his mentor, the person who had made him who he was and who had always tried his hardest, even if he hadn’t been perfect. Dick’s last words to him were full of anger, telling him to stay away; to leave him alone, to stop trying to control everything, you’re such a fucking stalker, Bruce, I’m not a kid anymore!

He could really do with some of that patented bat-overprotectiveness, right about then. With the darkness pressing in all around him, his lungs burning and begging him to take a breath, thrashing against his restraints, trying to reach down to the anchor with his feet or yank his hands free from behind his head but he just— he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t.

I’m sorry, Dad. He might have sobbed as the air finally punched itself out of his lungs, and he tried not to inhale, but it was hopeless, all of it was hopeless and the water burned as it flooded his nose and mouth and throat, and he coughed, and his lungs filled with cold cold cold and it hurt, God it hurt, like thousands of tiny needles ripping him apart from the inside and he convulsed, writhing in his bonds, all thoughts reduced to a mantra of air I need air I need to breathe please please please—

There was no air. There would never be air ever again. 

He waited for the darkness to press into his mind, for the pain to fade along with his awareness, for death to take him. 

And he waited. 

And he waited.

He gasped and coughed and shook and twisted and struggled and the pain did not end. He couldn’t see he couldn’t hear he couldn’t think, but surely, surely it should have ended already; it must have been minutes that he spent, suffocating, drowning, pleading for unconsciousness, but it didn’t come. 

What was happening to him? 

It was supposed to be peaceful. It was— there was supposed to be a moment, before death, where everything faded away and he could drift into oblivion, and he could feel it, so close he could almost taste it, like pressing up against a glass wall and feeling warmth on the other side, but he was trapped in the freezing cold depths of Gotham harbour, his body begging for air that he could not reach and he was not dead.

Oh fuck. He wasn’t dead. 

The minutes dragged on, a slow, torturous agony, and despite it all Dick was alive. At what he thought must have been twenty minutes since he was thrown into the water, he wondered to himself if maybe this was a good thing— for whatever reason, he wasn’t dead, and that might give him a chance to be found. Anything, anything to make this stop; if it wasn’t death, it would be rescue, and that was just as well, if not better. Around five minutes later, he realized that nobody knew where he was, nobody was waiting up on him, nobody was even expecting to hear from him for— well, for a long time. How long? Hours, at least, hours before his family woke up and started spamming him with messages, memes and jokes that he would be expected to respond to, and then they’d realize something was wrong, right? 

He’d just fought with Bruce, though. He usually took a few days to calm down, after an argument like that, and they’d all gotten better about giving him his space. Surely, though, if he didn’t respond to any of their messages, they’d get suspicious? 

He didn’t know how long it was when he realized that no, they wouldn’t. He had absolutely no idea how long it would take his family to realize he needed help, let alone find him and fish him out. Hours, or days, or weeks even, and he sobbed in pain and fear, his diaphragm still spasming like he’d only just taken in all that water, like there was still hope for him. He tried to calm down, to breathe normally— even if it was all just water, horrible, disgusting, cold water— but his body rejected every effort, and it was a very, very long time— he didn’t know how long, everything started to blur together— before he seemingly wore himself out, muscles burning from the strain of struggling to free himself and fighting to breathe, and his movements slowed. He still hurt; he hurt so much he struggled to comprehend it, an ache down to his bones, but despite how overwhelming it all was, he didn’t have the energy to fight it. And so he drifted, praying for it to stop, begging any entity that might hear him to just kill him and get it over with. 

No, he thought he heard, a moment and an infinity later. You are not done.

He wasn’t done. He wasn’t. He knew that, and he didn’t want to die, but this was far too high a price to pay.

Please. Please, let it end. 

There was no response in the cold, silent darkness. 

It was all too much. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, finally he slipped toward unconsciousness; and Dick Grayson fell into what one might generously call sleep. 

—

12:35 pm

Bruce: Dick. You left some things here. Do you want them?

12:52 pm

Bruce: I’ll set it aside. 

—

3:47 pm

Babs: Hey, I heard about your fight with Bruce. I’m here if you want to talk about it. 

5:20 pm

Babs: Just let me know. 

—

10:03 pm

Tim: lol check this out

Tim: https://youtu.be/Q4FlTasSdnU

Tim: Skateboarding hamster!

10:15 pm

Tim: awwwn cmon you’re not ignoring all of us, are you? 

10:33 pm

Tim: Alright. Sorry. 

—

Dick dreamed that he was flying.

He took off from the roof of the Clocktower, leaping and falling before gliding low over Gotham’s rooftops. It was a rare, clear night, the air cold and dry, a light wind at his back as he soared, far more stars twinkling overhead than should have been possible in this big of a city. 

He lifted himself up higher, taking in the city from above as he stretched and flipped and danced in the air, and then he moved out towards the harbour, diving towards the water and pulling up at the last second to glide low over the unnaturally still surface. The stars reflected back at him in the water, and he dipped his hand into them, cold and beautiful. His own reflection was happy and free, hair floating around his head despite how he could feel the wind whipping against his face, the darkest parts of the Nightwing suit speckled with stars, and behind him stretched the shadows of massive black wings. 

They caught the wind so beautifully, letting him soar as he stretched them wide, as he lifted higher from the water with one great flap, and it felt good. It felt right, even, like he’d had these wings his entire life, like he was made to fly, and so it came as a horrible shock when a gust of wind hit him from the side and flipped him over and he was falling.

He hit the water with a horrible crack, the air forced from his lungs by the shock of cold as the wings which had lifted him so high soaked through and dragged him down. He clawed at the water, desperate to reach the surface that twinkled just out of reach, but his wings were too heavy and he was so cold and desperate, animalistic fear curled around his lungs and the last of his air left him in a stream of bubbles, and he tried to catch them but there was only water, there was only water and he was going to drown and—

—

Dick woke to darkness and to cold, to lungs full of water, spasming and coughing, salty tears never falling as he drowned and drowned and drowned. 

—

It took longer than Dick thought it would for the hallucinations to start.

That was probably because of the pain, he figured; it served as enough stimulation for his mind to focus on, between the stabbing agony in his chest and the stinging and throbbing where he’d been burned and the rough scrape of silt and whatever else was in the water cutting up the inside of his throat, he didn’t have the bandwidth to hallucinate. But sometime during his second day in the water, the pain all started to blur together, leaving him numb and cold and alone. 

They started as blinking lights, twisting shadows, a spark of hope; he thought he heard something, an odd hum, like the whir of machinery or the hiss of air in a diver’s tank. Had he been found? Was rescue coming? 

He tried to speak, to call out into the darkness, but there was only water. He tried to reach out, but his hands remained stubbornly chained behind his head.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see, or hear, or could he? 

Maybe he could sleep, again, let himself pass out from the pain, from the cold, and simply drift. 

Maybe he would never be found. Maybe he had died, and this was hell, and the faces he couldn’t quite make out in the dark were punishment, too, for all the lives he hadn’t saved, all the people he’d let down. Maybe this was justice. Maybe nobody could hear him beg. 

Through it all, his back itched. 

—

He was sitting around the dining room table in the manor, his entire family around him, smiling and laughing and happy. 

So why was he so cold? 

—

Something brushed against his face, gentle and soft, and Dick jerked his head up. What—? Who—? Was that a hand? It must have been a hand. He felt a sob tear out of his chest, ice like a hundred knives clawing at his throat. 

Dad.

Bruce was there. Bruce was going to save him. Dad, please, I’m so scared.

Dad? 

He was alone. 

—

He was falling, the water rushing towards him, the wind cold against his face as he screamed—

"Superman!"

He never hit the water. Instead, he found himself held securely in the arms of Superman, Clark Kent’s reassuring smile aimed down at him, and he could have sobbed in relief. He’d made it. He was going to be okay.

Bruce was waiting for him on the shore, and Dick collapsed into his arms, shaking and crying silent tears as his dad held him close and safe and alive. 

“You’re okay. You’re okay, chum, I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He was safe.

—

He was rising up, up, up out of the water as it whipped against his face like wind. Someone had found him. He was going to be okay. The light above him was bright and present and coming closer and closer, and— and he was getting out, he was going to feel the air on his skin again, to see the stars, he was going to get out.

The darkness pressed in around him, cold and lonely save for the voices whispering in his mind. 

—

“Nightwing, wait, hold on— you don’t have to do this!”

“Oh, I think I do,” Dick said, the words distant and muffled, and he dropped Benjamin Walsh into the water.

—

The itching in his back had spread down his spine and turned painful, and he wondered if something had bit him, or if this was another hallucination. It didn’t really matter, though; it was just more pain. 

—

It was Jason, this time. 

Jason’s face in the water, horror etched into his features. Jason chained to an anchor, coming to rest on the sea floor next to him, writhing and struggling, desperate to get free. 

Help me, he whispered, screamed, please, god, no, not this.

Anything but this.

—

He didn’t know how long it was when he realized the itching biting pain in his back had become an almost unbearable pressure, like his bones were trying to push out through his skin, forcing it to stretch and distend beneath the Nightwing suit. He didn’t know what was happening. All he knew was that it hurt, and he was cold, and none of it was real. He preferred the dreams. Or was this the dream, and his family and flight the hallucination? 

It didn’t matter, in the end. It was all the same. Cold, and dark, and alone. Drowning and drowning and drowning. 

—

The Nightwing suit was painfully tight.

—

He was flying, again, soaring over Gotham, watching his family flit from rooftop to rooftop far below. The wind whipped at his face, cold but refreshing, and he enjoyed the peace while it lasted; because the harbour called to him, the dark surface of the water pulling him down lower with every pass, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before it dragged him down again.

—

Something had torn through the back of the Nightwing suit. Starlight danced around him, shadows deep and twisting, and there was Jason, again, but smaller— Robin, before he’d died. 

“This is what it’s like,” Jason told him, “to be abandoned. To know that nobody is coming.”

I’m sorry, he wanted to scream, I’m sorry, please don’t leave me here. 

—

There was something brushing against his arms, up behind him, real and present, but it couldn’t be real— it didn’t make any sense. Because it felt like a whole other set of limbs stretching out of his back, like another pair of arms, almost, but wrong, and— and fuzzy, kind of, like a baby bird. 

Who would put a baby bird down here? 

—

He was flying, and falling, and drowning, and cold cold cold. 

—

Wings could not help him, beneath the ice-cold waves. They only dragged him down deeper. 

—

Bruce checked his phone again, frowning down at the screen. Still nothing— no word from Dick since their fight, not even when he asked if he’d be coming back to the manor for brunch again that week. 

The worst part was that this time, Bruce knew he was in the wrong. He’d pushed too hard; asked for too much, too fast, demanding trust he hadn’t earned over the pretense of safety when he knew full well that Dick could handle himself. And now, he could track him down, give in to this urge to seek him out and put eyes on him, but— no. 

No, because if he let this anxious gnawing in his stomach win, if he went against Dick’s express wish to be left alone, all he would accomplish would be to push his son further away. He had to let Dick come to him, this time, had to trust that he would do so in his own time, when he was ready. 

It was Saturday night, nearly a full week after their fight, when Jason— the Red Hood— dropped down onto a rooftop next to Bruce on patrol. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you did, old man,” he started, and Bruce suppressed a flinch at the vitriol in his tone— things had been getting better, with Jason, but they weren’t perfect yet. “But you’d better fix it. Other people are getting caught up in your bullshit.”

Bruce tilted his head towards his second son, a silent question. 

Jason crossed his arms. “Dickie had a date planned with Babs for tonight, and he ghosted her. No call, no text, nothing.”

Bruce’s heart sank. It was one thing for him to ruin his own relationships with his children; another thing entirely to put their other relationships in jeopardy. He nodded his acknowledgment.

“What, nothing to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, trying not to choke on the words, and Jason went quiet. 

They stood in silence for a long moment, staring out over Gotham, the harbour just visible over the buildings. Bruce found his eyes drawn to it, that horrible gnawing anxiety growing stronger and stronger, something inside of him insisting something was wrong.

Jason broke the silence. “I’m worried about him,” he admitted. “You know how he gets. He isolates himself. It’s not good for him.”

“I’ve been overbearing,” Bruce responded, dropping his gaze in shame. “My presence isn’t what he needs.” 

“Then send one of the kids,” Jason shrugged. “Little Timmy can handle his big brother in a funk. He’s good at that.” 

“Maybe,” Bruce agreed. “I’ll consider it.” 

“Yeah, well, consider it quickly,” Jason scoffed, backing up, clearly intending to end the conversation. “Let me know if you hear from him.”

He stepped backwards off the roof, and disappeared into the alleyways below. 

—

Tim agreed to go check on Dick after brunch on Sunday. He arrived at his brother’s Bludhaven apartment around three in the afternoon, and he wasn’t home when he got there.

That wasn’t the worrying part, though. What set alarm bells off was the fact that the vegetables in his fridge had started to go mouldy, and the few dishes in the sink looked like they’d been sitting, untouched, for over a week. As he made his way through the apartment, the whole place felt stale, like him being there was wrong, like he was somehow intruding by disturbing the quiet. Tim found himself walking silently, peering into the bedroom and finding Dick’s civilian phone on the bedside table and clothes strewn over the bed; a quick glance into the hidden compartment in his closet revealed his Nightwing suit was gone from where he kept it. The whole scene looked like he’d just gone out on patrol, but that didn’t make any sense— it was much too early to be patrolling. 

He called Bruce.

“Tim? Is everything alright?” 

“Dick’s not here,” Tim reported. “It looks like he hasn’t been here in at least a few days. He left his phone.”

Bruce was quiet on the other side, and then: “I see.”

Tim swallowed roughly and looked around the apartment, suddenly wishing he had his Robin suit on, even if it would have only made him more conspicuous. Every instinct told him this was more than just his older brother out drinking and crashing on friends’ couches— this was bad. 

“B, I think something’s really wrong.” 

On a hunch, he put the phone on speaker and navigated to social media, checking the forums where some civilians posted hero sightings; there was usually at least one sighting per patrol, at least for the flashier heroes. 

The last sighting of Nightwing was reported Sunday night, almost a full week ago.

Dick was gone.

—

It was another week before they finally figured out what had happened to him.

A week of searching, putting every other case on hold, hoping beyond hope that they would find him in time, knowing that Dick could be anywhere, could have had anything happen to him— had one of his enemies taken him prisoner? Was he being kept in some cell, too injured to escape, waiting for rescue for two weeks all because his family had been trying to give him space?

Jason would kick himself harder if it would help them find him, but as it was, he spent most of that week in Bludhaven, using every contact he could think of and making some new ones, patrolling and interrogating every petty criminal he stopped for any information they could offer. 

Apparently, Nightwing had been looking into a new human trafficking ring before he went missing. The prevailing theory was that he’d gotten in over his head without backup, and been captured and sold off to some rich asshole with a vendetta; but they couldn’t find any evidence of such a thing taking place. They even managed to contact Deathstroke, but if he was to be believed, he hadn’t heard anything about a bird for sale. Tim and Babs were scouring the internet, Bruce was tapping connections in the Justice League, but still, no word of him. Nothing.

The trafficking ring had been run by a pair of brothers named Marvin and Benjamin Walsh. They’d skipped town about ten days after Nightwing’s disappearance, right around the time the Red Hood started making noise about it. Tim tracked down their plane tickets; they’d gone to Mongolia, and it didn’t look like they’d be back. Their operations had shut down as a result— but that didn’t mean the people involved had all vanished. 

“Yeah, man, it seemed like a good gig— but then Nightwing, well, you know, and they didn’t realize who they’d pissed off, so it all went belly up.” 

Jason went very still at the words— this wasn’t quite pure luck, he’d been staking out these docks for the last six hours, but it was the first real information he’d found on the Walsh brothers angle. 

Two men were leaning up against a shipping container, smoking cigarettes and, apparently, trading gossip.  

“Sucks,” the second sympathized, “it's always hard to lose a good job.”

“At least they were smart enough to run, instead of letting the Bats bring the whole thing down on all our heads.”

“Really didn’t think we’d have to deal with them out here— you know I came to Blud in the first place to get away from those freaks.” 

“It’s not right,” the first speaker agreed, “we were only supposed to have the one, and even that was starting to get on my nerves.”

Jason felt uneasy. Something about the way they were talking about Dick in the past tense, maybe. 

He landed on the ground in front of the two with a solid thunk, and they both startled, fumbling for weapons before Jason aimed a pistol at each of their foreheads. 

“Take it easy, now,” Jason drawled, tilting his head slightly and letting the voice modulation in his helmet imbue the words with all the threat he needed. “No weapons. Cooperate, and nobody gets hurt.”

They glanced at each other uneasily, but clearly Jason’s reputation had preceded him, because they didn’t go for their guns. “What do you want, man?” The first of the two asked. 

“Just some answers,” Jason replied levelly. “You worked for the Walsh brothers— where’d they take Nightwing? Who’d they sell him to?”

He watched real fear pass between both of their eyes, as the one who had spoken lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and placation. “They didn’t sell him, Hood. They, uh— he’s dead.” 

Jason nearly shot the man then and there, green stealing over his vision for a moment as he fought for control. “What do you mean, dead?”

Because he couldn’t be dead. Nightwing— Dick— his brother couldn’t be dead. 

The man swallowed nervously. “Nightwing was on their tail. They managed to bring him down— not sure how, I wasn’t there for that part— and they brought him out into the harbour, trussed up like a turkey.” He jutted a thumb behind him, toward the docks. “It was all foggy and shit, but they went out with Nightwing on board, and came back without him. If I had to guess where he is, I’d say somewhere on the sea floor. You’re looking for a body.”

He was looking for a—

No—

Nightwing—

Dick was—

When the green faded from Jason’s vision, there were two bodies at his feet. 

—

Dead.

Dead.

Dick was dead, and they hadn’t even known for two weeks. Bruce had been too late, again, and the weight of this failure was enough to crush him. 

But he didn’t have time to fall apart. Not when his son was still out there, murdered, his body tethered to the sea floor somewhere near Bludhaven. Not when he had a mission, now, to find him and bring him home. 

The following week of searching was, quite possibly, the hardest week of Bruce’s life. At least when he’d lost Jason, he’d had a body to cradle, to bury, to mourn. At least all his grief had had somewhere to go, even if that was to work himself into the ground alongside him. This pain was raw, tearing him apart inside while he channeled it all into finding him. 

He would never forget the way his stomach had dropped to the floor when Jason had told him, over comms, what he’d learned; or the way he’d returned, shaking, lost, to the cave, then to the manor, and slept in his old childhood bed. He would never forget Tim’s immediate denial, no, that can’t be right, that can’t be— he can’t be— or Damian’s shocked, hurt silence, or the raw sound that had torn itself from Stephanie’s throat, the way Barbara had sobbed, quietly, or how Cass had shut down, expressionless, emotionless. 

For that week, the world didn’t feel real.

Clark had confirmed that he couldn’t hear Dick’s heartbeat. The look on his face in that moment was burned into Bruce’s mind. 

Like Tim, Dick’s Titans had insisted that it must have been a mistake; until Clark shook his head, once, and Bruce had watched all of the hope slip from their faces, replaced by grief. They’d all offered to help. Bruce had agreed.

He’d had so many people who cared about him, who loved him so deeply. And he had died alone and afraid. 

Despite the collective efforts of his family, the Titans, and Superman, they were unable to find Dick’s body anywhere around Bludhaven, and gradually the area they searched grew wider and wider. In the end, though, none of their powers of speed or superhuman strength brought his son home; and one by one, emergencies called them away, until it was down to the Bat-family once more. 

It wasn’t lost on Bruce that there may have been nothing to find; for all he knew, those damned Walsh brothers had killed him on board, cut his body up into hundreds of tiny pieces before scattering them in the open sea. They could be chasing after nothing.

It was with these thoughts that Bruce returned to Gotham, Sunday night, exactly three weeks since Dick had gone missing. Since he had been killed. He settled on a rooftop, stared out over Gotham harbour, and tried not to let his emotions consume him. He would not break down. He would find him. Whatever it took, however long he had to search, if he had to trawl the entire bay his damn self he would do it.

He wasn’t sure what drove him to check Gotham harbour. All their evidence said that Dick had been taken from Bludhaven, there was no reason to expect for his murderers to have taken him all the way to another city before throwing him over. Maybe it was the way the early morning fog was drifting over the waves, leaving the entire city feeling dark and damp, and the water itself barely visible— maybe he was just drawn to it, some invisible force insisting that he look deeper. Whatever it was, Bruce looked out into the harbour and thought if I were dumping a body, I’d do it right there. 

  He was already prepared to descend underwater; had been wearing a modified batsuit with a rebreather face mask and carrying aquatic gear all week. It was a simple thing to make his way into the harbour, to push himself deeper with a miniature diver propulsion vehicle, to follow his intuition out into familiar depths.

“Hey, B, where are you?” Jason asked in his ear. If this nightmare had done one good thing, it was getting Jason back on their comms consistently. 

“Gotham harbour,” he responded, turning his light on brighter and trying to see through the murk and muck. 

“Gotham? Any reason?” Barbara probed.

She sounded exhausted. They all were, though; after a week of bad news and dead ends, it was hard to be anything else. 

“Just a feeling,” Bruce said, and then he saw it.

It didn’t register as a body, at first; just a ball of darkness floating in the shadows, the glint of his flashlight off metal near the sea floor. 

And then Bruce saw a flash of blue and the outline of a black-clad foot under the dark, swaying form, but above the metal which resolved itself into an anchor.

The whole world seemed to slow down as Bruce moved forward, as he reached a hand out to that ball of darkness and found it to be— soft, almost, like fur, or maybe—

Feathers.

Under his hands, great, dark feathered wings unfurled from where they’d been wrapped around the body chained to the anchor. His hands were pinned behind his neck, pushing his head down with his elbows tucked around as far forward as they could go; his position was slightly curled, as defensive as he could manage with the straight metal rod he’d been chained to. Long tail feathers were pinned under the metal, splayed out in a wide fan with the ends trailing in the current. Despite the hunched posture, the black and blue suit was unmistakable; as was the way he glanced up and met Bruce’s eyes, mouth opening and closing like he was trying to speak, the same word over and over, calling out to him as his body twitched weakly.

Dad, he was saying.  

It was Dick. And he was alive.

—

He’d had this one before. 

It was one of his favourites; gentle hands parting the protective curtain of feathers surrounding him, a face resolving out of the darkness, and his dad was there. He would lean towards him, desperate for warmth, for love, for help. 

Dad, he would say, Dad, please, help.

His dad would always cup his face, just like that, expression and body language full of open disbelief as he brought a hand to his ear. He couldn’t hear what his dad was saying— too much pressure in his ears, in his head— but he could read his lips through the clear protective mask, and he liked to think his subconscious knew what the man would say. 

“I found him,” he would tell the others. In his mind, there were always loads of people looking for him; it was a comforting thought, even if it meant more faces for the shadows to taunt him with. 

“He’s alive.”

His dad would reach around his head, try to free his arms only to run into the same problem that had kept him here all this time. “Restraints are welded shut. I need to get him air,” he would say, and fumble for a rebreather, press the device between his lips. 

Didn’t he know that his lungs were already full of sea water? 

“Breathe, Dick, come on.”

Dick. Right— that was him. So kind of his subconscious to remind him. Dick smiled at his dad, letting his forehead fall forward against the cowl with a gentle thunk. He could almost imagine the hands cradling his face were warm. 

His dad moved away, and Dick mourned the loss, but a moment later he was detached from the anchor that had held him to the ground, and there was an arm wrapped around his middle, under the wings, holding him close; and then he was being pulled toward the surface. He let the rebreather fall out of his mouth; he didn’t need it, and it stopped him from pressing his face into his dad’s shoulder as he was carried to safety. 

He liked this dream, even though the next part was, objectively, awful. 

They broke the surface, and Dick felt air on his face for the first time in— in—

He felt air on his face, the wind cold and biting, and he looked up, but there were clouds in the way of his stars. His dad took them to shore and laid him out on his side, then did… something, Dick didn’t much care what, one wing was shifted out of the way and then there was a sizzle and a series of clicks down the length of his body and the metal binding him to the pole went slack, then the link between his wrists, and finally he was moved to his back and his dad hovered over him, both hands poised over his chest, and Dick hated this part, but he knew it would be over quickly. His dad pressed down on his chest— once, twice, three times— and Dick’s entire body spasmed like it used to do all the time, when he’d not been in the water for very long. His wings and tail were a deadweight behind him, soaking wet and heavy with it, but his dad still managed to lift him up and turn him on his side so he could eject enough of that awful, disgusting water from his body to suck in air.

That first gasp felt like heaven, despite the way the cold air scratched down his throat like sandpaper, and relief flooded his entire system— he was alive, he was free, hacking water up on a damp bank while his dad brushed his hair out of his face and even though everything still hurt, this was perfect. 

This was his favourite dream. His dad holding him close, Dick clutching him back, the both of them sobbing and shaking apart— his dad had taken off his gloves at some point, and the lower part of his mask, so the hands on his face and the kisses pressed to his hair seemed to suffuse every point of contact with warmth. 

He didn’t know the last time he’d felt warm. Dick held his dad tighter.

His hearing returned slowly, faint and muffled, like he was still underwater.  

“Dick,” his dad was whispering, rocking them back and forth, “I’ve got you, chum, you’re okay, you’re okay…”

Dick couldn’t stop shaking. He was still so cold.

“Dad,” he said, stuttering badly, “Dad, I’m— I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

His dad shushed him. “It’s alright, lad, I’ve got you, you’re okay.” 

He didn’t dare close his eyes. “Can you stay?” He asked. “Please. For— for a little while?” 

“Of course.” He was squeezed impossibly tighter. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

The sound of a motor approaching from the water made Dick flinch, and a moment later a boat pulled in alongside them, and heavy footsteps splashed through shallow water before coming to a stop some five feet away. 

“Bruce. Is that…?”

Jason. His brother.

“It’s him,” Bruce confirmed, and Dick untucked himself just enough to twist and reach for Jason. 

“Little Wing,” he rasped, a simple plea. 

“What…?” Jason wasn’t moving. Jason was staring at him, helmet left behind somewhere else, his eyes flickering between Dick’s face and his wings. “This isn’t possible,” he said.

“It’s happened before,” Bruce replied, quiet and awestruck. 

Dick whined, and Jason took a step closer. “Dick?”

“Jay,” Dick insisted, “c’mere.”

“You have wings.”

Dick let his head loll back, staring up at the dark, cloudy sky. “Yeah,” he sighed. “It’s just a dream. It’s— it’s a good, uh, good dream.” The sky was too dark. “Wish there were stars.”

Jason’s eyes widened, and he crossed the remaining distance before dropping to his knees beside Dick and their dad. He pulled off a glove, too, and set his fingers on the side of Dick’s neck, feeling for a pulse. His hand was warm. Dick didn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything but freezing cold, even in his dreams. That hand then moved to his shoulder, and then toward the mass of dark feathers splayed out behind him at awkward angles. 

“Can I…?”

Dick nodded. 

Jason slowly, carefully reached down and lifted the closer of Dick’s wings, folding it so it was securely tucked against his back. Then Bruce shifted him so that Dick was laying further on top of him, and Jason could fold in the other one. Dick sighed contentedly and let his limbs be moved; then he felt something— something bad, something poking him under his feathers, and he grumbled and shook his wing out again, lightly whacking Jason in the face with it.

“Dick, calm down, I’m just trying to help,” he tried, but Dick grumbled again and made a pained sort of whine. 

“Hurts.”

The hands trying to fold his wing closed paused, and moved instead to open it up wider. “Where does it hurt, Dickie?”

Dick huffed and tried to will Jason to see the problem. This dream sucked. 

His dad ran his fingers through Dick’s hair, and he revised that opinion. 

“Inside,” Dick said eventually, shifting and trying to splay the wing open wider. All this movement was exhausting. 

Jason carefully moved around the wing, and Bruce shifted some of Dick’s weight to him, so that Jason could get a better look at what he was doing. As he started picking through the feathers inside Dick’s wing, looking for the source of discomfort, there was the rumble of an approaching car— and then the Batmobile pulled up on the road closest to them, and Tim hopped out of the driver’s seat, rushing around the car only to stop and stare.

Dick smiled up the bank at him, trying to reach for him but finding his arms stuck on the other side of his dad and Jason; instead, he made another sort of whine that turned into a plaintive coo. 

When that didn’t work, he said “Tim,” and Tim startled and moved again, half-sliding down the rocky embankment leading to get to them.

“Dick? You’re— what happened?” He asked, moving around them to get a better view. 

Dick smiled and settled back down against his dad. “Good dream,” he said. 

“I found him in the harbour, tied to an anchor,” Bruce explained quietly. “I don’t know how…”

Jason found the culprit in Dick’s wing; a small stick had somehow gotten lodged between the feathers near the elbow joint.

“Your wings are filthy, Dick,” Jason grumbled, trying to wipe his hands off on his pants. 

Dick shifted them, and— yeah. All of him was kind of gross— that was just what spending an eternity chained to the bottom of Gotham Harbour would do. He nodded his agreement, trilling sadly. 

“We can get him cleaned up back at the cave,” Bruce decided, and Dick chirped his agreement this time, and then Jason folded his wing in against his back and his dad lifted him up into the air. He held him like a small child; mindful of the wings, which were still soaking wet and incredibly heavy and which Jason helped to hold up. Getting him into the car was a challenge; in the end, Dick was set down across the back seats on his side, so one wing could drape down into the foot-well and his tail feathers weren't crushed against the seats.

When his dad let go of him, a spike of panic shot through him, and Dick reached out and managed to grab hold of his cape. “Dad, no,” he begged, “you said— you— stay, please, Dad.”

Bruce glanced between the others, and after a round of nods Tim got back into the drivers seat while Jason took the passenger side and Bruce maneuvered into the back seat so that Dick’s head was in his lap. It was a tight fit— the wings took up a considerable amount of space, and Bruce was not a small man— but he didn’t care about any of that when he could keep his hands clasped around an edge of the cape and press his face into his dad’s hip while gentle hands carded through his hair. 

This was a very good dream.  

—

Alive.

Alive.

Dick was alive.

Tim hadn’t known what to expect when he pulled up in the Batmobile, but it wasn’t Bruce and Jason kneeling on the ground, soaking wet and cradling Dick between them. And it definitely wasn’t for Dick to coo up at him while Jason fished sticks out of his massive black wings. 

He had thought that maybe Bruce had lost it; that he’d arrive at the scene to find his adoptive father sobbing over a Kevlar suit and a fish-eaten corpse. The comm chatter hadn’t made a whole lot of sense; Bruce said Dick was alive, and then that he wasn’t breathing, and then he left the channel. After that it had been a lot of voices all clamouring over each other, shouting distances and estimated arrival times, demanding answers that Tim didn’t have. As the closest and the one with the car he’d headed straight there; the others would be meeting them in the cave. As the one who now did have answers, it was Tim’s job to explain to everyone else what had happened.

He wasn’t entirely sure where to start. 

The moment he turned on the main comm channel in the car, the space was flooded with voices.

“If father has found Richard’s body—” Damian— he was tense. Stressed; but who among them wasn’t?

“He said he was alive!” Steph, trying for hopeful, falling short somewhere around disbelieving.

“He also said he wasn’t breathing, I hardly think—”

“Can someone wake up Duke?” Barbara cut in; they’d all been staying at the manor, since Dick went missing, except for her— she hadn’t left the Clocktower. “I’m on my way to the cave, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” 

A flash of movement caught Tim’s eye, and he glanced in the rearview mirror to see Batgirl— Cass— turn onto the road behind him on her motorcycle. She offered him a small wave. 

Tim steeled himself, hands on the wheel. “We’re returning to the cave,” he started, and the whole channel went silent. “We have Dick with us. B fished him out of the harbour. I don’t know how,” he stressed, “but he is alive. And,” Tim added, before anyone else could start talking, “it looks like he’s… well, developed some metahuman abilities.”

“He has wings,” Jason cut in. “Huge bird wings. Nothing that should have stopped him from drowning. He seems mostly fine otherwise, at least physically, but he isn’t saying much and he won’t let go of Bruce and he’s absolutely covered in harbour muck and what he does say doesn’t make much sense.”

After a shocked pause, Babs’ voice came through the car speakers. “How long…?”

“He was chained to an anchor,” Bruce said, softly, “he’s been talking about us like we’re not real. He’s… not very cognizant. I think he may have been down there this whole time.” 

“Three weeks?” Steph asked, sounding faint, and Tim could practically feel the horror washing through everyone on the line. “And he's not dead? So he’s just been…”

On the ocean floor, alone, cold, drowning— for three weeks. 

Tim met Bruce’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and saw in them a grief and a guilt that was entirely too familiar. 

The drive to the cave was blessedly short, traffic almost nonexistent so late at night— or rather, early in the morning, the edge of the sky just starting to lighten through the clouds. 

Alfred was waiting for them in the cave, an extra-large medical gurney at the ready which Bruce gently deposited Dick down onto. Cass parked beside the Batmobile, and the others— except for Babs, who wasn’t quite there yet— had been waiting at the Batcomputer, and they all crowded around as Tim shut off the car and moved to follow. 

Dick stared up at all of them with a fragile smile on his face.

“Some space, please, everyone,” Alfred chided, and though he was lacking the usual force behind his words, everyone obeyed; forming something of a perimeter around them as Alfred pushed Dick toward the medical bay. He still wouldn’t let go of Bruce, which made maneuvering into the room and assessing his condition difficult, but Alfred was brisk and professional. He first set about removing what remained of Dick’s restraints, thick metal cuffs that had been welded shut around his wrists, neck, waist, and ankles, before he cut away the Nightwing suit. It was already thoroughly ruined by its time in the water, ripped in places and visibly slimy; there was no salvaging it. Dick was left in his underlayer, including a tank top which seemed to have been burned in a few places, and Tim catalogued his visible injuries with a critical eye as Alfred wiped his face and neck clean with a damp cloth. 

He didn’t appear to have any broken bones or dangerous bleeding, but there were some nasty bruises on the side of his face, and serious burns everywhere the restraints had been— likely from being welded on to him, and aggravated by struggling. Different burns traced down his neck, collarbones, and chest, which Tim recognized as electrical burns. All of his injuries were in a strange state; crusted over and old looking, but not healed, per se, more like his body had been fighting infection this entire time, which shouldn’t have been a surprise based on the state of the harbour. Aside from being monitored for secondary drowning, he needed antibiotics, a decontamination shower, and to get warmed up as soon as possible. 

Alfred must have come to the same conclusion, because he started moving Dick toward the showers; Tim shared a glance with Jason, and then with Alfred, who looked between the two of them— silently gesturing, after a moment, for Jason to follow him and Bruce. Tim received a nod, which he understood to mean you’re in charge.

Jason and Bruce started stripping their outer layers as they followed Alfred, and Tim turned around to face Steph, Cass, Damian, and Duke. “Everyone out,” he said, “come on, with me.” 

It was as they all filed out of the medical bay and gathered around the Batcomputer that there was the sound of another car pulling into the cave, and a few moments later a wide-eyed Barbara came sprinting toward them. 

She saw them all gathered there and came to a stop, breathing hard, and then she crumpled. 

Cass, having seemingly predicted the fall, was at Barbara’s side before she could hit the ground, and helped her limp the last few metres and collapse into the Batcomputer chair.

“You should not walk,” Cass chastised. 

Duke nodded. “D’you have your chair?”

Barbara gestured back the way she’d come. “In the car— but that’s not important right now.” She sat up straighter, glancing between all of them like they were hiding Dick somewhere behind them. “Is he here?”

“Grayson is in the medical bay,” Damian reported. “With Father, Pennyworth, and Todd.”

Barbara nodded and moved to push herself up, but Steph put a hand on her shoulder.

Barbara brushed her hand off. “I have to see him.”

“No, Babs,” Steph shook her head. “Alfred told us to wait.”

Tim was starting to feel the effects of his adrenaline crashing, and really wished he had a chair to sink into. “We need to give them space,” he said. His hands were shaking. “We need to…” he trailed off, lifting his hands and running them through his hair as he searched for the right words. “We need to update everyone, find the people who did this— what if they knew and this was part of their plan and—” Tim was breathing too fast. He carefully measured his next breath. “We need to make sure he’s okay,” he finished.

Steph came up beside him, wrapping an arm around him so he could lean on her. “We’ll figure it out,” she told him. 

“Right,” Tim said, staring toward the medical bay. “Yeah. We will.”

—

The decontamination shower was unpleasant, but definitely necessary to get all of whatever they’d brought out of the harbour off of them— all three of them, that is, not just Dick and Bruce. Jason hadn’t realized how filthy he’d managed to get just by helping get Dick into the car, but maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise— the wings, as it turned out, could hold a shockingly large amount of dirt in them. The showers were made to be wide enough to accomodate several people, which was a godsend, but the wings were still large enough that stretching them open to clean presented a challenge in the space.

They did their best to talk him through it, but Dick spent nearly the entire experience clinging to Bruce and warbling sadly in a display that made Jason’s concern grow exponentially higher. Those sounds were not human. But then again, for having been chained to the bottom of the harbour for three weeks, he was actually surprisingly present and cooperative if not exactly coherent; making his displeasure known but not fighting anything they tried to do, even when what they were doing was trying to support his deceptively-heavy waterlogged form while spraying him down with a mix of compounds designed to neutralize Gotham’s many toxins and hazardous chemicals as well as it could, and get the majority of the muck and slime off of him as it did. It wasn’t fun, but Bruce and Jason worked together to get it done as quickly as possible, and Dick was all too willing to cling to one or both of them, which made it easier, in some respects.

Once they’d finished with the chemicals, it was down to warm water and soap, and Dick absolutely melted the moment they turned the water temperature up. complaints turned to happy chirps, his entire body relaxed, and Bruce had to brace against a wall just to keep them both upright. Jason was left in charge of the water; he turned the detachable showerhead to a wider spray and held it in one hand, using the other to maneuver Dick’s wings and try to get between the feathers as best he could. Dick fluffed up helpfully, ruffling his feathers every so often and leaving Jason somehow even more thoroughly soaked with each shake and flap.

Jason ran his fingers through the fluffy feathers near the joints, teasing out stubborn bits of grime before rinsing them away with the water. Dick trilled happily, fluffing his feathers up again and leaning even further against Bruce.

“That feel nice, Dickie?” Jason asked softly. “Not too hot, huh?”

Dick hummed, pleased, and swallowed like he was trying to find his voice. “Warm,” he said, smiling, almost giddy, eyes half-closed like he was fighting to stay awake. He trilled again, settling into a sort of rumbling sound— was he purring?

He was purring.

When they were nearly done, they stripped the last of his clothes, rinsed him and themselves off, and replaced them with a fresh tanktop and soft shorts, provided by Alfred and already modified with slits cut down the back to accomodate his wings.

“This will have to do for now,” Alfred nodded, while Jason helped secure the new clothes onto his freshly towel-dried brother. “We can acquire more suitable clothing in time.”

“His wings are still a mess,” Jason pointed out while he changed out of his own wet clothes. The decontamination solution had done wonders for the wings, getting the majority of the dirt and grime off and revealing that the feathers beneath were not a pure black, but rather a very dark, glossy blue, with pale grey specks in the smaller, downier feathers near the upper edges; but they were still messy, full of dander with feathers poking in every direction in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable. “Don’t birds need to, like, preen and shit?”

“Language,” Alfred chastised, but it lacked any of the usual heat; they were all adjusting, it seemed, to Dick’s new feathered state. “And yes, although the priority remains warmth, medical care, and a decent meal.”

Bruce transferred Dick’s weight to Jason so he could change his own clothes, and Jason tried to encourage Dick to hold his wings out so Alfred could blow dry them, which turned out to be unnecessary; the moment Dick felt the warm air through his feathers, the wings seemed to snap out all on their own, practically filling the entire medical bay and expelling most of the water themselves with an instintual fluff and shake. Everything else was soaked, of course, but that wasn’t Dick’s problem, or Jason’s, for that matter. Alfred sighed dissaprovingly, but didn’t seem to begrudge Dick for it. Jason understood the sentiment— he didn’t think he could begrudge Dick anything just then, in the face of his sheer relief that he was even alive.

Jason and Bruce sat Dick down on one of the beds, and Alfred approached with a cup of water and several pills, setting about coaxing him to drink while Jason turned and went to update the others. Six pairs of eyes snapped toward him the moment Jason stepped out into the Batcave, and he met each of them in turn, observing the hope and guilt and fear in all of their faces before he sighed and started to speak.

“We got him clean,” Jason told them all. “Alfred’s getting some food, water, and antibiotics in him. We’ll need to watch for drowning complications.”

“He survived for three weeks underwater,” Duke pointed out.

Jason shrugged. “We still don’t know how, though. Better safe than sorry.”

“Where did the wings come from?” Damian demanded.

“We don’t know,” Jason sighed. “We barely know anything more than any of you.”

“Can we see him?” Barbara asked.

Jason held her gaze for a long moment, took in the guilt and worry there; she felt responsible for this. They all did.

“Yeah,” he said, “just be careful. And be gentle. He's not badly hurt, but he’s not in great shape either, understand?”

Nods all around, and they flooded the room.

Dick perked up when he saw them, mostly-eaten nutrient bar in one hand as he chirped and waved like a little kid. They all approached slowly, but Dick set aside the remainder of his food to reach out impatiently, making demanding little sounds until they were all right in front of him, within arms reach.

He grabbed Damian first, pulling the ten year old into his lap and holding on tight, peppering the top of his head with kisses. Damian, to everyone’s surprise, allowed this treatment— for a few moments, anyway, squirming his way free when Dick started purring. He apparently deemed Tim a suitable replacement, because the next thing any of them knew the teenager was tucked against Dick’s chest like a teddy bear. To his credit, Tim didn’t try to move.

Next was Barbara, who approached in her wheelchair and reached out a hand. Dick smiled at her, practically beamed, taking her hand and pressing kisses to her knuckles. Beside her, Steph laughed, and Dick shot her a grin. Cass caught his gaze for a moment, moving toward his wings and gesturing soundlessly. Dick smiled at her, too, and nodded, and she settled cross-legged on the bed next to him and started picking through his feathers, straightening them out and setting them to rights. Jason thought that seemed like a great idea, and sat down on Dick’s other side. Duke hovered in the background, eventually moving to join Alfred in tidying the medical bay; he hadn’t been in the family long, so Jason wasn’t surprised to see that he felt a little awkward with all the emotional displays.

Bruce attempted to move toward the door— probably trying to give his kids space, which was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place— but Dick whined in distress the moment he stepped foot on the threshold. “Dad,” he called.

Bruce moved swiftly back into the room, at Dick’s side in an instant. “What is it?” He asked, worry pulling at his eyes; but Dick only reached out a hand and grabbed hold of his dad’s sleeve, pulling him in closer so he could get a better grip.

“Stay,” he said, a simple order.

Dick held Tim close, rubbing his face into his hair and purring again; and all the while did not let go of Bruce.

“What can we do?” Tim asked, leaning further into his brother’s hold.

“Master Dick needs rest,” Alfred told them all. “Given that he is reluctant to be away from Master Bruce at the moment, I suggest you all move to his room.”

Bruce did have a ridiculously huge bed. It would be more than big enough to accomodate Dick’s wings— and they could all pile on, avoiding the problem of who got to stay with him while he slept.

“Sounds good,” Jason agreed.

Moving him was easier said than done; Dick tried to carry Tim, despite the fact that he could barely walk himself, and they ended up with a compromise where the teenager kept as close to him as physically possible, tucked up against his side (and helping to support Dick’s weight) while everyone else worked to maneuver him into the elevator, up to the manor, and then into the family wing. Once they made it to Bruce’s room, though, things got significantly easier; Dick practically dragged them all into bed, depositing Tim on one side of himself before grabbing Bruce with one hand, and then reaching for Damian, and then switching to Jason, and twisting to look wide-eyed at Barbara— and then he apparently realized he didn’t have enough hands to hold onto everyone at once and made just about the saddest coo Jason had ever heard.

They all got the message and climbed on after him. Tim continued to be used as a teddy bear, which was just as well; kid could do with some extra sleep, anyway, and it seemed like being purred on by his newly feathered brother was going to do the trick. Jason, meanwhile, got back to his task of combing through one of Dick’s wings; Cass resumed her work on the other one, which had since stretched out to cover Tim like a blanket, and Barbara managed to ease herself underneath next to him and sat near the headboard to help. Damian took it upon himself to manage the tail feathers, and Steph leaned against the footboard, phone out, quietly taking pictures.

After about ten minutes, Dick’s purrs started to stutter; but he seemingly refused to fall asleep, shaking his head every few seconds like he was trying to force himself to stay awake, tension creeping into his body that looked an awful lot like fear. Bruce leaned forward over Barbara, reaching to pet his outstretched wing.

“What’s wrong, chum?”

“Don’t wanna go,” Dick sniffled, and Jason realized he was crying.

“Don’t want to go where?” Bruce asked softly. Jason had an awful, creeping sense that he already knew the answer.

“Back— back to the— the water. Don’t make me,” he twisted to stare imploringly up at Bruce. “Please, dad, don’t make me go.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Bruce told him, fighting to keep his voice steady as everyone else stared, still and silent and horrified. “You’re safe now. You won’t go back there ever again.”

A sob shuddered through Dick’s body.

“This isn’t a dream, Dick,” Barbara whispered, reaching to cup his face in her hands. “This is real. You’re safe. We’re here with you.”

He just shook his head sadly.

“We’re real,” she told him again, “and we’ll all be right here when you wake up, okay?”

He looked from her to Bruce, who nodded and stroked his wing again. “We’ll be right here, son.”

After another moment of distress, Dick nodded, although he seemed more resigned than reassured. He snuggled down into the bed, and Steph retrieved an armful of blankets to pile on top of him and distribute amongst everyone. Dick held Tim with one arm, and reached across him to hold Barbara’s hand with the other, and Jason settled down at his back, running his fingers through his feathers and hair as soothingly as he could manage.

It seemed to help, because it only took a few minutes for Dick to relax again, and finally slip into sleep.

—

Dick woke up buried underneath several blankets, the sound and warmth of his family surrounding him; Tim tucked in close to his chest, Dick’s hand tangled in Barbara’s over him, with a wing stretched out to cover them both; Jason was behind him, Damian using his lower back as a pillow, and Steph sprawled across his legs. Cass was somewhere, he knew, and he could feel the weight of Bruce’s gaze on him, simply watching, comforting and protective. Dick woke up slowly. He woke up content.

Dick woke up warm.

That fact brought him, abruptly, to full alert. He wasn’t supposed to be warm, he was never warm, not since he went into the water, not even in his absolute best dreams, no, he had always been cold, cold down to his bones and in the depths of his soul, never ever ever was he truly warm—

Except for in his last dream, where he’d gone to sleep surrounded by his family, just like this— all of them together in Bruce’s bed, after he’d been rescued. He remembered it all; being pulled out of the water, clinging to Bruce like a little kid, going back to the manor and everyone looking at him like he was a miracle, Jason gently coaxing weeks worth of filth off of him, out of his— his wings—

It couldn’t have been real. Surely not. He was pretty sure he didn’t really have wings.

But he’d been warm.

He was still warm.

And this— this felt real, in a way that nothing had in a very long time.

He opened his eyes, and he saw Bruce watching him carefully from a chair beside the bed. He had a book in his lap, which he set aside before leaning forward onto the bed, reaching out and brushing Dick’s hair back out of his face. Dick tried to move closer, but he didn’t want to wake any of the others, so he settled for leaning his head into the touch.

“How are you feeling, son?” Bruce asked, voice barely above a whisper, and Dick broke.

He started shaking, and couldn’t stop— tears sprung to his eyes, and it was a struggle to breathe evenly enough to speak, but he had to speak, because he had to know—

“Is this real?” He asked.

Bruce froze up, for just a moment, and then every visible part of him softened into sadness, and he cupped his hand around the side of Dick’s face, warm warm warm.

“Yes, this is real, chum. You’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” Dick repeated numbly, still shaking, struggling to understand. “I’m— I'm out of the water?”

“Yes, you’re out of the water. You’re okay, now,” Bruce assured him, tracing warmth over his cheekbone with a thumb, and that was all well and good except— except—

Dick shifted, and his wings shifted, too. “No,” he said, “no, it can’t— I don’t—”

“This is real, Dick, I promise,” Bruce said, and Dick shook his head.

“No,” he choked back a sob, “no, the wings, dad, this can’t be real, I have wings.” He shut his eyes and braced himself, waiting for the dream to dissolve around him, for the water and the cold and the pain— idiot, he was an idiot, he should have just let it play out, enjoyed it while it lasted, he just had to go and ruin it all.

Bruce tugged lightly at his hair, just enough to get his attention, just enough for him to open his eyes and stare up into a face so full of understanding and care that Dick almost didn’t recognize him.

“The wings are real, too,” he said. “It would seem that you’re a metahuman.”

This was real. It felt real, it felt more real than anything had in a very, very long time, and if this was real then— then he was safe, he was really safe, and he had wings.

He let out a distressed trill, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. The movement woke up Barbara, of course, who saw he was awake and tried to move closer, which woke up Tim, who stretched and shifted until his face was no longer hidden underneath Dick’s massive wing.

“I’m a metahuman?” Dick whispered. That— that couldn’t be right. He’d always been a non-powered hero, that was like— that was his family’s whole thing—

“Not necesssarily,” Tim yawned. “I actually think there might be magic involved; a meta-gene alone doesn't explain how you survived for three weeks underwater.”

“Three weeks?” Dick felt faint. He hadn't stopped shaking.

Bruce took Dick’s hand between both of his, holding it firmly and yet so, so gentle. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry that it took us so long to find you.”

This was real.

This was—

Dick scrambled up out of bed, several younger family members being dislodged with indignant squawks— he might have hit Jason in the face with a wing— and managed to clamber over Tim and Barbara to get to Bruce, collapsing in his lap and throwing his arms over his shoulders, clinging to him with his face hidden away in the side of his neck as the first sob tore its way free from his chest.

This was real.

He was free.

They had found him.

“Thank you,” He cried, wailed, really— “thank you, thank you—!”

A hand came up to his back, running small circles between his wings, and Dick sobbed harder. He couldn't seem to stop.

“It’s okay, chum,” Bruce soothed.

Suddenly Dick needed Bruce to understand, more than he needed anything else, but it was hard to speak through the pure emotion shuddering through him. “I was so scared, dad,” he managed, trying to get himself under control for one moment. “I was— I was cold and it hurt and I was so scared.”

“I know,” Bruce said, and held him tighter. “You’re okay. I've got you. It’s okay. We’ll figure everything out.”

And even after all that had happened— all the pain, all the cold, all the screaming matches and betrayals and fragile reconciliations— Dick found that he believed him.

—

Dick flew properly for the first time three days later, after Leslie looked him over and cleared him of any physical health complications from his ordeal. He started out on the grounds behind the manor, a large sloping expanse that eventually gave way to forest, testing his new abilities in the darkness of night.

He ran downhill, wings stretched wide, and let instinct and exhilaration carry him into the air. He’d been practicing, in a sense, during what passed for sleep in the water— literally dreaming of this moment, of the wind catching in his feathers and lifting him up into the night sky. It was as if he’d been meant to fly his whole life— every grapple swing, every drop in an aerial silk, all of it had been meant to prepare him for this. This was who he was; the wind, the sky, the freedom of flight. He had paid for this freedom with weeks worth of agony, but now that he was there, on the other side, he couldn’t bring himself to resent that fact.

He completed a wide loop, circling back towards the manor and waving down to his family, far below.

“How’s the air, Dick?” Jason asked, voice crackling slightly in his ear.

“Amazing,” he said, grinning, and he laughed into the wind.

He tucked his wings in, let himself drop into a dive, then flared them back out so that the excess momentum shot him back up again. It was like dancing, instinctually weaving air through feathers to bring him exactly where he wanted to go, to move exactly how he wanted to. He banked hard to the side, and with a flick of his tail feathers completed a quick sideways roll before levelling out. He felt like he could breathe, really breathe, for the first time in his life.

He headed for the manor, flared every feather wide to slow his approach; then he let his legs drop, and with one great flap he landed softly on the highest point of the roof. The air was crisp and clean, with a light breeze at his back, ruffling his feathers. Below him lay Gotham city, rising out of the ink-black sea.

Above him was a sky full of stars.

—