Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Heart of Gotham is dying. I do not start out this entry with anything less than an undying hope I know all of the citizens of the now city-state somehow hold onto. It’s no secret that Gotham has fallen into deep disrepair, that those who can make a change have fallen into despair, our very own Police Comissioner Gordon retiring years ago.

Corruption has corroded our foundation and has shattered the heart of the people. Though we always knew Gotham courted chaos in a perpetual dance of balance in the universe never has it been more obvious than it’s been in the past 7 years. Our city is trapped in nothing short of a war for it’s honor, for its dignity, and for its life. They say that the shadows in Gotham speak, and right now they mourn every death that will haunt her streets from here on out. Many of her people have accepted this destruction, going numb to the pain that courses through their veins. But, like me, there are people who are growing tired of complacency.

I have accepted that the powers that be will kill me for this simple blog post. I am mindful of the fact that my words are treasonous to our reigning government, and I understand that despite that I have a platform. And in my last moments I reach out to the rest of the world, not begging for help, but begging for you to really understand my last words. Even now I fear that they will find me before I can post this, that my final act of rebellion will be a quiet one. I fear that the algorithm will suppress my voice. 

Above all, I hope that you’ve all come to know me as someone who values the truth. I started this blog post for my novice journalism attempts, to hone a craft so lost to time and the greed of big producers and papers. This is my truth. This is Gotham’s truth. I will be her voice for those who are not born to her streets cannot hear her screams. Since Gotham has been forcibly seceeded from the United States most of the world has been shielded from our truth. Our truth is deadly, and many have paid the price of speaking succinct words of our suffering.

We didn’t know how good we had it seven years ago. We didn’t realize how much we had come to rely on Batman and Robin and Batgirl. He didn’t realize how much they did for us. How hard they fought to protect us from the monsters who no longer resign to lurking in the night. Though Batgirl - Batwoman now -  has come back, in the 5 years wherein she disappeared our world has been turned topsy turvy. Villains rule our city through puppet politicians who are to cowardly to host their own pipinions anymore. They shake as a gun is held to their head and they do not renounce the demons who have taken over.

We don’t expect them too.

Charity has become rarer than the bubonic plague. You will be loathe to find a generous bone in the city. Everyone has learned that survival is based not on community but on selfishness. You don’t know who has become the eyes of the villains who rule over us. People are dying. I’m so tired of everyone I love dying.

We all see the efforts batwoman makes, but it’s not enough. Not anymore. The lucky neighborhoods have their own heroes. Individuals who still believe in the good. We don’t deserve them, they are better than the rest of us combined. The Spoiler, The Signal, Red Hood, Batwin, Azrael, the masked Hero of Bristal, they can only do so much. This is me following their lead. They work with what little they have, and so to must I.

Batman is presumed dead. Robin left us for New York and the Teen Titans. He has not looked our way since he left. I can respect him for that as much as I can hate him for it. He is a hero who doesn’t need a single city to watch after anymore. 

The U.S has given up on us. But a lot of us haven’t given up. We’re done asking for help because no one helps us. This is my call to those who live in Gotham to do something. To help your heroes, to be your own hero. We cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to our suffering. We cannot be complacent in their rule over us.

This will probably be the last blog post you will ever get from me. Thank you for listening. Thank you for seeking out the truth.

• Icarus

________________

“I can’t do this anymore!” Babara yells as she gets out of the broken down and worn batmobile. She doesn’t have access to the same pot of wealth that Bruce did. She’s been stuck using the stuff that Bruce and Dick have left behind.

She rips off her mask, not a cowl like Bruce’s, rather more similar in style than the domino mask that she used to use so frequently. Her heart is racing, still seeing the bullet just barely miss her face. She can still feel the adrenaline under her veins, the cuts she’s sustained probably stings like a bitch but the shock that she feels numbs the pain.

Stumbling through the cave, dodging around the stalagmites, she makes it to their medbay. It’s understocked, ill-prepared. She’s not the richest motherfucker to ever live and most of the bat supplies was supplied and stocked by Bruce. She’s always been well off, but she’s not wealthy. And doing this whole thing takes money , more money than she ever assumed.

She doesn’t have state of the art technology, and the only reason the batcave hasn’t fallen into complete disrepair is because Alfred still lives in the Wayne Family Manor. He keeps everything clean while Babs leaches off of his generosity. She hisses as the cold disinfectant hits her open cuts. None of them look deep enough for stitches, thank fuck. Using her good arm she wraps up her forearm. Thankfully there wasn’t any sort of gunfire. She doesn’t know what she would do if she was shot.

Despite knowing Alfred’s gait by heart, the familiar tapping of his dress shoes after dirtied and smooth stone, she can’t help but tense, reaching for one of the batarangs she keeps tucked in her utility belt. Only when the doors open, showing the old butler, does he relax completely. He shakes his head seeing her put the batarang back in her belt.

“I see tonight wasn’t the easiest of night Mistress Babarba,” he says. Despite the years they’ve known each other, she’s yet to convince him to drop the honorifics. She feels as though it may be a stress thing, like he may actually explode if he can’t butler someone.

It’s an odd duo they’ve found themselves in, but a partnership that has been beneficial for both of them. Babs needs someone to watch her back, Alfred needs someone to serve. “Has it ever been easy since Bruce died?”

Babs hadn’t even known who Batman was when he died. All he remembers is walking into school for Dick to pull her aside. The news had already broken the press, every newspaper was plastered with the title ‘Bruce Wayne dead’ or ‘Young Adoptee becomes Gotham’s newest Billionaire CEO’. She was ready to offer her condolences when Dick handed her the invitation to the funeral.

“He wanted you there,” Dick had said. Before she could ask why he was answering. “We’re too stubborn, that’s what he always said. You grew on him.”

“I’ve never even talked to the guy.”

Dick had shaken his head. “Babs, he was Batman . I’m Robin. You’re Batgirl. Did you never try to figure it out?”

Babs had bitten her lower lip. Looking back they were so young, so naive. She had so many questions and in hindsight she should have asked them. Without someone to guide her this whole thing had fallen apart. “No. I didn’t.”

And yet, Bruce had given her everything she would need to continue her journey into vigilantism. He thought that she had seen his vision - had truly understood his mission. She tightens the cap to the disinfectant, looking up to the ceiling. She didn’t. She failed him. And in those years when she ignored her calling Dick left. And they lost contact. And the rogues took over Gotham.

Alfred wasn’t surprised when she pulled up a few years ago proclaiming her right to fight as Gotham’s protector, he sighed but helped her. He understood her pain, her conviction. He knows what she’s capable of.

“The solitary life has never been your forte,” Alfred says as he shakes his head. He places the first aid kit back, pulling out a sling - one that’s near falling apart. She doesn’t know how she’ll explain this one to her work. At this point most of them probably know, but don’t say anything. She can be thankful for that.

The cave is cold, and her suit’s only so thick. “Does it look like I have a choice here?” She rolls her eyes. She’s always been better working on a team. When she was younger she wanted to do things by herself, but Babs was always more confident when there was someone there that she trusted to watch her back. Bruce always saw them as a liability, of that she’s certain, but she (secretly) liked working with them. 

Dick was always annoying. But she was there for her. She wishes he was still here for her. She knows shes not subtle about checking the news for what he’s doing with the Titans. Robin has become a hero in his own right, going beyond the legacy of Batman.

He left. They always knew he would. They didn’t talk about it much, after Bruce died that didn’t really talk at all. He was going to end up back in foster care, until he managed to get emancipated. He didn’t tell her he was going to do. He didn’t trust her anymore. Not in the way she once trusted him.

“You could always reach out to Master Richard. That boy still has a bleeding heart, you know,” Alfred sighs as he folds up one of the bloody towels that Babs had used in the car to staunch the bleeding. He slides places a cup of juice on the surgical table next to the cot she sits on. She accepts it greedily, the sweet taste hitting her parched lips.

Babs shakes her head. “The last four times I wrote to him he didn’t respond. He doesn’t want to hear from me. I’m going to respect that. I’m just another person in his past.” Yet she’s seen it, how Dick will respond to any plea for help, any except for the many plea’s from Gotham. If she asked – but Batman hadn’t needed help. He had been doing everything perfectly by himself. He just happened to end up with two sidekicks.

Batwoman should be able to hold her own too.

Her hands shake, she knows that she’s failing. There’s too much crime. Corruption runs too deep now for her actions to even mean anything. She needs to do more, but she can’t. If she wants to be able to live outside of being Batwoman she can’t devote anymore time to her nighttime activities than she already is.

She stares down at the dirtied floors. Despite Alfreds best efforts, the once white tiling had turned a muddied brown - some of the darker spots are where blood had dripped onto the ground and wasn’t cleaned up in time.

“I don’t even know what I’d say,” Babs whispers. Her voice is tight with unshed emotions. Everything hits her at once.

It’s utterly hopeless. The politicians are all puppets, her own boss works for a Rogues gang. The judicial system has fallen to hell, despite her brother’s best efforts the GCPD is more a joke now than ever. Her dad’s retired to the west coast. And she’s alone. She’s utterly alone. Every criminal she incarcerates ends up on the streets before she can even leave. Arkham asylum is gone, destroyed by various mobs throughout the years.

Alfred grabs a blanket from one of the cupboards. He unfolds it, and with the kindest smile he wraps it around her shoulders as if she were still a child. “I would start with, Hello.”

He doesn’t even say anything earth shattering nor scientific. He simply holds her close as she cries into his shoulder. He’s a man who has seen war, and yet his bloodied hands are still steady and kind. They don’t deserve Alfred, they don’t deserve him at all. She let’s him comfort her as she steels her nerves.

The worst thing that Dick can do is not respond. It’s not like it would be the first time he did so. She shakes her head. The worn wool of the blanket is comforting despite how it scratches against her face. She takes a deep breath. The entire world doesn’t have to be on her shoulders alone.

Babara just isn’t sure she’ll know how to work with Dick again, not when they’ve both changed so much since they last worked together. It’s been 7 years… 7 years can do a lot to a person. She glances down at her scarred hands. She would know.

________________

Dear Richard Grayson,

You have always wanted to do good. I remember meeting you at Gotham Academy, a shy kid who had everyone fooled. They all saw you the perfect angel, and for the most part they were all right. Like, I remember how some kid - you didn't know and who didn't know you - tripped and fell. Despite the way that mischief seemed to follow you in later years, that one moment in time defined how I would forever see you. You were lost in the long twisting hallways that all seemed to look the same back then and yet you still helped that kid up and offered them a bandaid for their scraped knee. It was stupid. No one else batted an eye. It was a normal occurrence, a child running too fast down crowded corridors with untied shoelaces. Yet you helped. 

It came of no surprise when I later learned that you stood as the cities boy wonder. You, who defied gravity in the gym class, who cursed out authority figures behind their backs, who told me the best way to charm a cop, was Robin. It made so much sense that I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out sooner. Did I hate it? Yes. But it wasn't a surprise. 

We haven't talked in a long time. The last time I messaged you was five years ago when I first donned the title Batwoman in Bruce’s absence. You didn’t respond. You hadn’t responded in a long time. It’s one of the many reasons that this letter will come off stilted and formal. I didn't want to talk after that, and you didn't want to talk either. We went our separate ways after Bruce's presumed death. I respect that. I respect your choice to distance yourself from Gotham and to find solace in the Titans. But I am not you. I stayed. And I have watched Gotham fall into disarray without you.

You’re good, Richard. You chase adventure. You always told me how you missed traveling the world in the circus, how you missed meeting all those peoples and experiencing all those cultures. You got your wish to travel again. I’ve seen in the news your exploits, how you save the world from crises when the Justice League needs a break. The Titans have become a formidable team in their own right. I’ve noticed Duela isn’t amongst your ranks anymore, I hope that she’s still in good health.

I know you've seen on the news too. I know that you’ve seen that we're ruled by villains. You are a hero of the United States, and I understand that that no longer means that you can help Gotham. I wish that there was something more than I could do for this city but I was a child when I was left the sole protector of the city.

My dad retired, did you know that? Shortly after Bruce died, I suspect that he’s known about Bruce’s secret identity for a long while, but he never confirmed his suspicions – plausible deniabailty, you know how it goes. After Bruce died, he retired as police commissioner. The city will never see another Police Commisoner as good as him. Not anymore. When Bruce died I gave up vigilantism, and it wasn’t until my dad moved away and retired that I took up the mantle once more as Batwoman,

 In those years where I struggled by myself the city broke and in my new found expertise I can't piece it back together. I have tried too, but crime and corruption are so rampant that I can’t do this. I at least can’t do it alone.

You have no strong ties to Gotham. No family, no sense of connection due to birth. You have always been a person carried around my the winds, who goes wherever he is needed and that has never been Gotham. Gotham has never been your priority like it’s been mine and Bruce’s. You have inherited a company and a manor that sits on her soil though. And yet I understand that there is no love between you and her. But I need help, Dick.

I am begrudgingly reaching out. You know that I would never do this unless I were desperate. I would never do this unless I didn’t see any other option. I am smart. I am a detective, and for once I need more than just my wits. Please help me, Dick. Please come back to Gotham, at least until she's whole again. You don't need to stay forever, you don't have to. But I can't do this alone anymore

Best Regards

-- Barbara Gordan 

Dick Grayson folds up the note. Sighing to himself he sticks it back into his pants pocket. The cab driver pulls up to the gated entrance of Wayne Manor but no further than that. Sighing to himself he hands the expectant driver a wad of cash for his trip. God knows that this guy is charging him extra because he’s being ferried to Bristol. This is why he doesn’t talk about his dead foster father. He didn’t ask to be left in the will. But that’s just the kind of person that Bruce was.

There’s a death in the air, it’s prominent as soon as Dick steps out of the vehicle. It sits heavy in the air, threatening to suffocate Dick just from standing there. Gotham has always been plagued by darkness, it courses through the very being of the city, and yet this is different than Dick remembers. 

It’s been 7 years. So much has changed. So much that Dick doesn’t want to acknowledge. He doesn’t want to even think about the last time he was here… which was for the reading of the will after he had become an emancipated minor. He just couldn’t have done the whole foster kid thing again. It worked out in his favor once, and he wasn’t eager to try his luck a second time.

The cab speeds away after Dick grabs his suit cases from teh trunk. He lifs up his shades, resting them ontop his heas as he stares at the manor that once housed him as a kid. He got into so many pranks and such when he was younger. It’s hard to think that Alfred would let it fall out of order, which the butler hasn’t since Dick has made sure to keep the man on a paycheck. He’s not sure Alfred would have left the manor even if Dick had fired him.

He wishes he could say that tis’ good to be back without deliberation, however he can’t. He never thought he’d ever be back in Gotham. He never thought that he’d fight crime. But Barbara had asked him, and he has a stupid bleeding heart that refuses to deny an earnest call from a fellow cape.

God, he really needs to learn how to say no.

Dick punches in the same code on a worn down keypad, it’s the time that Bruce’s parents were killed. The man had always had such an obsession with that time, perhaps it would have done him good to go to therapy. The plane ride into Jersey had been a short but exhaustive one, and then the ride into Gotham had been worse. He could do for something good to eat right about now..

The gate swings open, creaking as it does so. He starts making a mental list of what he needs to do around the manor. The hedge bushes had overgrown, and moss grows through cracks on the sidewalk. He manually closes the gate, whistling long and low about how familiar everything looks. It’s nto different, it’s just older.

He supposes that he is too.

Dick doesn’t need to knock on the door, he pulls out his key and with a satisfying click the door swings open. He steps in, not as speck of dust rests on any of the picture frames or furniture that sits in the greeting hall. It’s just as he remembers it, creepily so. He shakes the bad feeling from his shoulders, letting the tension flow out of his system. 

“Alfred?” Dick calls out, his voice echoing through the empty halls. It was weird living here when there were only three (occasionally four) of them, and it’s going to be even weirder when there’s only two (he doesn’t know if Barbara has taken up residence in the house). He takes a deep breath. “I’m back.”

Chapter Text

Alfred comes down the stairs, hesitant and unsure. His shoes clack against polished yet worn hardwood floors. There’s still a few familiar stains from one or two ambitious art projects that the butler never could quite lift. “Master Richard?” The shock is evident in his voice, concern and awe mixing in his furrowed brows and smiling mouth. Old and tired features are just as expressive as Dick remembers.

It’s odd, to him. To be back in a house he spent so much yet so little of his life in. He pays taxes for the property, for the land that the Wayne’s have lived on for generations. He still owns majority stock in Wayne Enterprises. He’s intrinsically tied to Gotham, to his birthplace as Robin the hero. There are still pictures of a younger him on the walls, with a smiling, happy, alive, and present Bruce. It’s all so odd.

Haunted hallways still infect his dreams. Like a poison in his brain, even as far away as New York, he can’t help but think about this place. The place itself is as odd as the mix of emotions that tear apart his stomach with guilt and hope and regret. He has been everywhere around the world, has seen and helped people of all walks of life. Yet, his wandering wanderlusted spirit still craves molding alleyways of Gotham.

Dick deftly holds up the letter. “I got Barbara’s letter?” The statement coming off more like a question.

He winces. When did Bab’s become Barbara? When did they become strangers who grew up together? When did this rift tear them apart? Dick supposes it must have been when the Titans became a team on par and as notable as the Justice league.

“Oh!” Alfred lends on the ground level, still taller than Dick is. His hands fold neatly behind his back as he stands up straight – prim and proper. 

“Yeah I–” His mouth is dry, words catching on thorns in his throat. As Robin he’s given global addresses, he’s talked to world leaders. As Robin he stood toe to toe with Superman, having condemned the actions of the Justice League.

He folds up Barbara’s letter, putting it back into his pocket. As Dick Grayson he freezes in the only childhood home he still has. His mouth is like a desert as he tries to string together a semblance of coherency. For 6 years Alfred helped raise him, for six years he was there to lend a helping hand. And now? Now he doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t think coming back would make a lump form in his throat.

If he had known he wouldn’t have come back at all.

If he had known the way that everything has changed, how he has changed – how within moments of landing at the airport he could tell how much time had passed he wouldn’t have come back. He’s not even sure why he came back.

He got the letter. They used to send constant letters, back before phones were cheap and they could instant message whenever they pleased. They used to send letters, and then the time between those letters lengthened with a Sorry for taking so long, until they stopped. He doesn’t remember who stopped responding. He thinks it was him.

To receive yet another letter from an old acquaintance when he was once again mourning Bruce’s perceived death… it was nostalgia, probably, that drew him back to the blasphemous city of sin.

Dick clears his throat, the hallway is drafty and cold. “Delightful! Mistress Barbara will be most pleased when she comes around tonight.” Somehow it feels like he never left, with Alfred slipping into a familiar role.

Somehow he still feels like a kid.

“Right, um,” Somehow, he feels like a stranger — in a house that he owns. “Is my room still…” There? The Same?

“Dusted with newly pressed sheets, and right where you left it, Master Richard.” Alfred’s smile crinkles the corner of his eyes with wrinkles that show his growing age. “Though if you prefer a different one, I can get one all set up for you.”

“I’m good, thanks, though.” Dick takes a deep breath, like Bruce he’s now the head of the house. Alfred is his butler. This is his house, by deed and right. It doesn’t feel like it should be. It feels like he’s stealing something so inherent to Bruce. It feels like he’s starting to fill both of his fathers shoes.

He does make a mental note to perhaps hire on more staff, Alfred would hate it but he’s getting up there in age. He’s toyed with the idea of selling the property on more than one occasion, but whenever he started going through the process he could never stomach it. Generations have lived on this land. Grown up on these grasses. He couldn’t sell a piece of history to a sleazy businessman who’d make apartments down in Bristol.

Bruce, no matter how much Dick hated him in some moments, doesn’t deserve for his family's legacy to be tarnished like that.

“As for dinner, shall I cook something up?”

His stomach growls as if on cue. “Yes – please.” As Alfred turns to leave Dick stops him. “Um-” why is he so hesitant? So skittish? Why can’t he speak his mind? He takes a deep breath. “Nothing too fancy. Not when it’s just us.”

There’s the slightest, reassuring smile before Alfred nods. “Of course, Master Richard.”

He watches as Alfred wanders down the hall to where Dick knows that the kitchen is. He sighs. After every successful mission, Victor, Donna, and Roy would make this big dinner to celebrate. They would all contribute, keeping the rest of them out of the kitchen while they worked. They would take turns looking out for Lian while the rest were busy.

Is it possible to be homesick having only been gone for a day? Because despite how much Dick admonishes the others and grows sick of their antics, Dick misses them and their activities. It’s a big mansion. But it’s always been an empty and lonely mansion.

With a sigh, Dick grabs his bags and makes his way up the grand staircase. He left all of his Robin gear at Titans Tower, planning to have Vic boom tube it all to Cave after he gets resettled in the manor.

Alfred must be fairly bored, seeing as how there’s not a spot of dust anywhere. Not on the banister up the stairs or on any of the pristine picture frames. Bruce hadn’t loved showing off his wealth, while the whole place screamed old money, there was no flaunted with gilded busts of himself like Dick’s seen in other people.

More than the pictures, of smiling Bruce and an excited younger Dick, are the portraits. There’s one of Martha and Thomas Wayne, each with a hand on Bruce – who’s notably missing both of his front teeth in the picture. It’s painted, from what Dick can remember, with oil paints. Bruce once told him that it had taken hours for the painter to finish. But Bruce had loved every moment.

From what Bruce had told him, his favorite part had been when Alfred’s predecessor had hung the portrait. There are dozens, following the Wayne lineage back to when the manor was first made.

The most recent one is the one that gives Dick pause. He had never taken the Wayne last name. He hadn’t wanted to be adopted. He hadn’t wanted Bruce to replace his dad. In a way Bruce never had, and in a way Bruce replaced him in all the best ways. Dick sighs, placing down his bags to trace out the features that were painstakingly imprinted on canvas.

It’s his face. With baby fat clinging onto his cheeks and lithe body. He never took Bruce’s last name, but Bruce had insisted that they did one. Maybe he should have. Bruce died before Dick could ever make up his mind. Now that Bruce is dead, there’s not a single thing connecting them besides some outdated legal papers.

Bruce stands directly behind him in the portrait, both his hands on little Dick’s shoulders. Somehow the portraiture had captured the pride shining through Bruce’s microexpressions, down to that familiar glint in his eyes. They had fought a lot, maybe too much. Maybe Dick had just been insecure.

It feels wrong, and guilt swims through his gut as he takes a step back and looks down the line of portraits. Bruce is the last of the Wayne line. And Dick is the last thing Bruce left behind. He wonders if the other Wayne’s would look at how Dick Grayson moves into the manor and feel disgust at this intruder for stepping upon these ancestral wooden floors.

He turns his head around, making his way into his bedroom.

Everything is the same. Just as he had left it after the funeral. A ‘fan’ made poster of Batman and Robin lay torn up on his carpet. There’s a poster of the Flying Graysons and a few prints of Haley’s Circus untouched still on his walls. The curtain is drawn. There are textbooks still piled up on his desk. There’s various picture frames, shattered, laying against the wall or turned upside down that Dick knows is either a picture of Bruce, Bruce and Him, Batman, or Batman and Robin.

It’s odd. Everything about this situation is odd. Sometimes he remembers how it used to be Batman and Robin. Now it’s just Robin. Rarely anyone thinks of Robin within the context of who he used to be at Bruce’s side – anyone but him that is.

There are flight plans strung up on his cork board. That along with books researching the legal process of getting emancipated. He hadn’t wanted to find yet another family, he couldn’t do that and still work with the Titans and fight crime – in the midst of so much chaos in his life that was one of the only things that had stayed consistent.

Well, that and Alfred and Barbara. The two people who he had pushed away through the years are the two people who had grounded him the most in the most turbulent time in his life. 

Dick’s careful to step over glass shards, noting the bright green paint that coats his walls. He places his bags on the twin sized mattress. Maybe he will ask Alfred for a new room, at least while he gets this one cleaned up. He doesn’t want to… change too much. But he does need to clean out the dresser and closet of clothes that fit him back when he was 15. He’s no longer fifteen.

The first thing he does is pull back the curtains. He had chosen this room because it had a view of the gardens. Wayne Manor sits upon acres of land that stretches into the forest down the way. He hadn’t wanted to see Gotham from his window. It wasn’t like there was anyone else to claim the Family wing rooms. He props open the window, letting the chill air flood through, drowning the melancholy.

He stands there for a while, surrounded by everything he used to be. Surrounded by his childhood, his anger, his resentment. He’s surrounded by his mistakes. With a sigh he resolves to head to the laundry room, where, if nothing has changed, Alfred should keep some garbage bags.

Low and behold they’re still there. With gentle, reluctant hands he picks up shards of glass with great care. He turns over the picture frames he had desecrated in the hurt of losing yet another family. It had been too much loss too quickly. He had been fully settled, only for his life to be ripped away and reset once again.

This time, as he notes every single memory carefully captured for posterity, he cherishes them. He cherishes the thoughtfulness in the candids, the way that Bruce’s smile isn’t the fake one he wore at galas in portraits. He cherishes the realness of them. It’s going to take more than a few hours before this is all cleaned up, but he makes a dent in the damage. He’ll need a vacuum to clean up the tinier glass particles.

There’s a buzz. A while ago, Dick doesn’t quite remember when, but Bruce had a PA system installed into the whole house so that they could all better communicate when they’re on opposite sides of the house. It saves time, and time is money – or something like that.

“Master Richard, dinner is ready if you’ll do me the honor of joining me in the dining room.”

The dining room, with a table built for what feels like 50 awaiting him and Alfred – the two of them and nobody else. How exciting – note the sarcasm.

Dick presses down on the answer button. “Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute, Alfred.”

Nothing was ever quiet at Titans Tower. It probably didn’t help that their headquarters was a giant ‘T’, branding them as the heroes. After the Tower was destroyed a dozen times they built an area underground where most of their main operations happened. It’s where their rooms are, where training areas are, where their mainframe and biggest database is. Even the Tower, when most people are underground, is bustling and alive. A stark contrast to what Bruce has dictated to be the normal at Wayne Manor.

This is going to take awhile to get used too.

____________________________________

Dick tries to unlock the Batcomputer. As the sunsets over the horizon he wanders his way back down to the cave. The password on the clock is the exact same as it was – Martha and Thomas Wayne’s time of death. That much is the same. So is the path from the stairs down to the Batcomputer.

The only difference is a few more spots on the ground, dried blood if he has to guess from Barbara’s stint as Batwoman. He starts typing in Bruce’s password to access the Batcomputer, sitting down in the spinning office chair.

Of course he’s kept tabs on Batwoman, not Barbara, but Batwoman. When her first sighting had occurred it was the only thing the Titans brought up with him. Did he know her? Was she abusing Bruce’s legacy? It didn’t take long to put two and two together and figure out who Batwoman is. Barbara taking up the cape and cowl wasn’t something he had seen coming, but was something that made sense.

There’s a loud buzzing as the Batcomputer spits back that he entered the wrong password. That… can’t possibly be right. Bruce hadn’t changed the passwords at all since Dick’s known him. He’s had an obsession with his parent’s death that couldn’t possibly be healthy in the slightest – not that Dick has coped in the healthiest ways himself.

He wants into the batcomputer because he knows that Babs would have taken extensive notes on everything. Dick as an outsider has gotten the censored version, but he needs the details. He needs to know on a fundamental level what’s going on. That’s not going to happen if he can’t get into the computer.

If he can’t get into the computer how can he help?

He tries Martha and Thomas Wayne’s death date? Wrong.

Then Dick tries their death time. Wrong.

Then the day Bruce got Guardianship of him. Wrong.

The Day Batman Debuted. Wrong

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Dick slams his hand against the desk in frustration – making note of the worn and weathered wood that hasn’t changed. He knows it’s the same desk from all those years ago as his fingers trace over where he carved his name into the surface. It’s still there, preserved for years.

So much has changed. Yet everything unimportant has stayed the same.

The crashing of the waterfall shifts, a distinct noise that Dick can pin as someone entering the cave. It’s subtle, near silent. But Dick knows it to be true. He swallows back thick saliva, the thought of confronting Barbara after so long of silence between them is terrifying. Maybe it’s more so the thought of confronting the consequences of his actions that truly scares him.

He’s never been great at that.

There’s the sound of a revving motorcycle, the tires as rubber rips against stone. The subtle hum of the engine as it comes to a stall in front of him. Dick recognizes the Batwoman costume from the camera’s he’s hacked into, he knows the costume from pictures in the news. He knows that this is his best friend – was his best friend. It’s different now.

Barbara doesn’t wear a helmet while she drives. Her suit is a mix of familiar and unfamiliar elements. Her color scheme has gotten darker, wherein she used to match the light grays and green-blues of Bruce’s Batman suit, her’s in more on the blacker side. His old Batman logo, from his costume before he died, is sewed onto the chest of the obviously reinforced armor. She taps the side of her mask as the whites of the eyes retract showing her real eyes. They make eye contact. Her eyes are a different shade of green, a deeper forest green that seems more tired – quieter, than it was before.

“Dick…” Barbara says as she takes off her mask. Her hair is short, considerably shorter than she used to wear it. She has it pulled back into a small half up - half down ponytail, yet it’s a very small ponytail.

Dick smiles, offering a little wave. “Hey–” he takes a deep breath. “Long time no see?”

“ Dick,” She hisses in just the right intonation that he knows that Barbara is not saying his name. Yeah he deserves that doesn’t he. She drifts her motorcycle into the vehicle bay before taking off her ochre-reddish gloves and throwing them down on a random cluttered table.

That’s something he’s noticed, there’s a lot of random tables, cluttered with various gadgets that are half way deconstructed and halfway built. He doesn’t quite understand what they’re attempting to do in here, but it doesn’t seem efficient or effective. Maybe that’s something that he could help out with.

Barbara stares at the watch on her wrist and glares at the Batcomputer. “Y’know, a heads up that you were coming back would have been nice. Nicer than a message from Alfred a few hours ago saying ‘by the way, Richards in town!’” She rolls her eyes, pulling the Batcomputers keyboard closer to her.

“I know, but there was the chance the letter would be intercepted and then–”

She snorts, cutting off Dick’s flimsy excuses. “Yeah sure. Mr. BigTime couldn’t find my phone number and shoot me a text. Sure.” She types in a flurry of letters, numbers, and symbols, and the Batcomputer opens with ease.

“You changed the password.” It’s not a question, more a comment. Change will become the death of him it seems.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” She pulls up a few folders in the system and updates them. “Bruce didn’t have the best password safety, he used the same 3 variations for everything. It’s safer to change it.”

Dick knows that. If anyone had figured out that Bruce was Batman it would have been over for their systems. The Batcomputer and general mainframe could have been hacked within seconds. Everyone knows about Bruce’s parents death. They could figure out their death date and death time and suddenly they’d be able to find everything.

He’s finding he doesn’t like change. He can’t fall into their old banter, their quips, their easy back and forth because that doesn’t exist. The people they were when that happened doesn’t exist anymore. He’s staring at a stranger with a familiar face.

“I’m here to help.”

“Suit up then. I still have a patrol route I need to hit tonight.” She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t look at him .

Dick shifts from foot to foot. The giant cave never seeming smaller, the hanging stalactites feeling more like a threat than anything else. He shakes his head, trying to clear his storming thoughts. It painfully doesn’t work.

“Vic’s bringing all of my stuff tomorrow. It was too much of a threat to ship it, or pack it with me.”

Barbara’s eyes shift to the cases of suits on the far side of the cave. Next to it is a door that leads to a closet full of even more suits – Bruce had a phase where he needed a million colors of the same suit. They didn’t question it and called it his midlife crisis. A few of his old suits are also stored back there as keepsakes .

“I highly doubt I fit into my teenage suits, Babs.” He raises an eyebrow, taking note of how Barbara flinches at the familial nickname for her. Guess they’re really not that close anymore.

She shrugs. “It was an idea, Mr. Paranoid. It’s whatever. I’ve been cleaning up this city by myself for months. What’s one more day? I know I don’t compare to your Super-Friends or whatever but… Just make sure they don’t stay in the city. Okay?”

No Meta’s in Gotham. He’s familiar with the concept, though it’s never made too much sense to him. It seems… hostile. It’s not as though Dick doesn’t understand the sentiment, Gotham has plenty of problems caused by relatively non-Meta problems. There’s the corruption, the pollution, the to some extent normal Rogues. Most of the Rogues that Gotham has, at least the more important ones, are all non-metas. Sure there’s Poison Ivy, but she’s an outlier. And Dr. Freeze. But those are people of Gotham who didn’t start out as a meta.

He also understood Bruce’s wishes to keep Meta heroes out of Gotham, meta heroes bring with them more meta villains. Think the Flash’s mirror master, or Intergang from Metropolis. No Meta’s in Gotham. It’s Bruce’s way of keeping things more on the down low in General.

“Victor has his own problems with the Titans. Slade’s still wandering who knows where. Don’t worry, he’s only helping me move my stuff to be more subtle.”

Barbara visibly relaxes. “Thank you.”

There’s this wall between them that Dick doesn’t know how to break down, he’s not sure he wants too.

With a sigh, Barbara pushes the office chair towards Dick. “You wanted a debrief? You could have just… asked.” Dick scrunches his nose, humming as a non-committal response. He didn’t think he’d have to ask. Maybe it was presumptuous to assume that he’d be let in that easily. He’s the more experienced hero out of the two of them. He’s a leader, a fighter. He’s saved the world just as Bruce had.

“So then. Debrief me.”

Hostility. Between them is a wall made of barbs, and to tear it down he’d have to bleed. He’s not willing to do that.

Barbara rolls her eyes. “Fine then.” She pulls up a few different files. “Bruce died, assumedly-”

-”Let him go, Barbara.”

“Like I was saying. Bruce died. You left, and I was a kid so I stopped fighting crime the way we all used to. It was a slow process at first. But Batman, despite being blamed for the problem of masked lunatics on the street, was also the solution. He was the only one to go toe to toe with them.

“The Police couldn’t handle all of the pressure. The thugs and goons and gangs took over the streets faster than the GCPD could keep up with. Dad’s – was. Dad was trying as best as he could. I got into a situation with the Joker, not as Batgirl or Batwoman, but as Barbara. And Dad took the bullet for me. And he was the last good one.”

His hand curls around the arm of the chair, digging into the plastic. If he had been there– he couldn't think about what ifs. Because that didn’t change the past. He did a lot of good away from Gotham. But Dick can’t help but wonder if Barbara blames him if he’s already blaming himself.

“I’m sorry, Barbara. Jim was a good man,” he offers.

Barbara waves him off. “I know he was. It was after he died that I took up the mantle again. I called Alfred, we met up, made me a new suit using a lot of the old material here in the cave. He’s my guy in the chair.” She shakes her head, as if banishing an unwelcome thought. “I needed to retrain my body. It took half a year to be back in the right condition to be able to go out, but – by then it was too late. The Rogues had taken over Gotham. The Mafia was flourishing. You breathe in corruption in every single breath. I’m trying, but a year after I took  up the mantle we got Seceded.”

“Yeah.” Dick takes a deep breath. “Who are the biggest players?” It’s just another mission. It’s not worth it to get emotionally attached again. He’s going to be leaving soon enough. He has to do what he always does, keep a thin line of detachment in his thoughts. Methodical. Logical. In and out.

He breathes in. He breathes out.

“Penguin has taken over the Diamond District. Black Mask has overtaken Crime Alley and adjacent.” Barbara pulls up a map that color codes everything by the main players. “The Docks are all split amongst different smaller gangs but is mainly overseen by the Mafia.” She points again. “Joker has taken over Old Gotham while fighting with Two-Face over the area around the Court Houses and GCPD headquarters.”

“There’s a lot to do,” Dick says, whistling low under his breath. 

There’s the clicking of shoes against stone. Dick opens a drawer, pulling a swiss army knife and holding it in her hand while Babs takes out a batarang. They both whip their heads around to the stairs, where Alfred is walking down with some ceramic cups on a silver platter. He shakes his head.

Dick’s only mostly surprised that the swiss army knife is still in that same drawer. He puts it back, a twinge of something twisting his gut. Distance. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. He needs to maintain his emotional distance.

“Yeah,” Barbara offers a sadder smile. “Yeah there is. We need to take back each district one at a time. It’d be helpful if you could come out tonight to see the real damage. It’s a lot worse once you get down into the dirty of it all.”

“I would but–”

She narrows her eyes, grabbing a cup of tea from Alfred. “But you’re too good for it. I get it. You couldn’t be bothered to get your robot friend to bring your shit here tonight.”

“I didn’t even know–”

“Piss off about ‘flights’. You have zeta tubes. And boom tubes. You have a million and one ways to get here.” Barbara takes a deep breath, a sip of her tea. “I get it. I do. You’re big time now. But Gotham? Gotham is all I have left . I’ve gotta get going, I’m burning moonlight.”

“Babs–”

She grabs him by the collar of his shirt. “Richard fucking Grayson if you call me that one more time I swear to god I will chop off your dick.”

“Noted.”

Barbara is gone before Dick can grab his own cup of tea. He takes his own sip. This? This is going to be a lot more work than he could have imagined. It was bold of him to assume that he could come in and take the lead on a mission that isn’t his. He’s here to play support. But Support isn’t something he's intimately familiar with.

Cheers to a hard few years ahead of him.

_____________________________________

When Dick wakes up in the middle of the night it’s too a blazing alarm that just wouldn’t shut up. He groans. It’s not weird to get a mission alert at fuck all at night, especially since they deal with worldwide and sometimes intergalactic problems. Aliens don’t really care about your day/night cycle when they’re trying to attack.

It doesn’t get easier to wake up.

It also confuses Dick greatly when he opens his eyes to realize that he’s in a spare room in the Wayne Manor. With an alarm blaring. He hears Alfreds frantic walking, long strides but never running.

Dick throws off the gray/beige comforter, racing after Alfred as Alfred makes his way to the Batcave. The alarm eventually subsides, but even under the coat of a tense silence Dick doesn’t talk. He doesn’t know what to say, what to ask. He simply follows behind Alfred like a lost puppy. Nothing is the same.

Everything is different.

Everything is the same.

Alfred flies down the stairs, surprisingly limber for his old age. Dick’s not sure why the alarm went off, nor why Alfred seems so upset. It makes sense once they get to the medbay. There Barbara sits, bleeding out. A gun wound that oozes sticky red.

Without thinking as Alfred sits by her side, Dick grabs the first aid cart, wheeling it over to him. Alfred nods, not bothering to smile as he grabs tweezers from the cart. The bullet is still in her side. Dick doesn’t know how to make himself useful.

He’s useless.

He grits his teeth, opening the mini fridge and grabbing an apple juice to hopefully help with the blood loss. He licks his lips. Barbara doesn’t wince. She doesn’t cry. She stares off into the distance, her eyes glazed over with cruel acceptance.

She accepts the bottle without a word. She doesn’t flinch when Alfred stitches her up. She leans a head against his shoulder. “I’m tired, Alfred.”

Not knowing what else to say Dick says, “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Barbara says. There’s no bite. It would hurt less if she was angry. She’s not angry. She’s tired. Dick can see it now, the deep eye bags, the gray hairs at 20 years old. He would cry, but he hasn’t earned it. Not yet.

Alfred at this point offers a small, consoling smile. “It’s perhaps not my place to speak. But Mistress Barbara has been in more near death experiences than Master Bruce ever had been. It’s quite the accomplishment.”

“I’m out there,” Barbara says. “Every night I’m out there.” She closes her eyes, taking a sip of the apple juice. “I’m running the rat race. There’s no finish line. Sometimes I get shot and wonder what the point of coming back here is. There is none, is there? Because I’ll go out tomorrow night. I’ll get shot again.”

“I didn’t know–”

“How could you? I don’t… Dick I don’t fault you. But I hate you. And I love you. And I don’t know.” Her voice breaks, wet with emotion. “I just don’t know.” 

They’re still kids. A little bit at least. He never went to college. He never got a job. He’s still the same hero he was when he left. Barbara is better than him. She’s worse than him. They’re two people from the same fucked up past. She’s suffered more than him. He’s suffered more than her. 

There’s no competition.

“I’ll be out there tomorrow night. I promise.”

“The bats scared Bruce. Did he ever tell you that? The bats scared Bruce. He became what he feared to protect those he loves.” Barbara holds up her hands, staring at them, still distant as she does. He wonders what she’s seeing. “I’m so scared. I’m scared of myself. And maybe that’s what it means to be a Bat. Maybe that’s what neither of us understood back then when we were nothing more than sidekicks.”

Maybe there’ll be time for more conversations. But Barbara falls asleep, a single tear falling down her face.

“I’ve fucked up, Alfred,” Dick whispers, not wanting to wake her up.

“We all mess up sometimes, Master Richard. You have the rare chance that not many people get. You can mend the tear, fix what is broken. It’s best for you to go back to bed. I will monitor Mistress Barbara’s vitals tonight. Tomorrow. I have a feeling. Will be a long day.” 

In a numb like stupor, Dick returns back to the guest room he had claimed. In an empty manor. Knowing that his childhood best friend had almost died every night he had fallen asleep with a full stomach in a warm bed.

Chapter Text

There’s a story Dick remembers Bruce telling him, before he understood the weight of the mask. This was before he understood the true freedom of flying, unhindered by the fabric of the big ring. It was before he ever took flight as Robin, as Batman’s sidekick. It was a story about caring, it was a story about kindness, it was a story about not forgetting who you are nor where you came from.

He told it to Dick a few days before Dick was enrolled in some hoity-toity Prep school, Gotham Academy was brilliant but it was also made up almost purely of people who had trust funds that could pay to feed entire galaxies for years. And Bruce was scared, maybe more scared than he should have been, that Dick would forget himself amongst his peers, that he would get bullied and force himself to assimilate to better protect himself.

His mother had already instilled in him the values of staying true to himself. Plus Gotham Academy couldn’t hate having a circus freak at their school for long, not after his tryouts for their men's gymnastics team, not after he won them trophy after trophy, after trophy. He also punched a lot of the people who tried to make fun of him, “always be ready to defend your beliefs physically,” his father had told him. Because there will be people who hate him for being, and so he must be prepared to defend himself and the beliefs that are inherent to his existence.

But that’s besides the point, and Dick’s getting distracted. The story Bruce told him goes like this, there is a woman on the corner of the street. She is begging for money. A foolish man wouldn’t give her a dollar for fear of it going to booze. But they do not see the cold, they do not understand the hunger, the foolish man does not understand that he could lose it all. A smart man would take sympathy. An even smarter man addresses the problem.

They help get the Woman on her feet, give her a job, help her get her bearings. And once she’s on her feet, she becomes famous, she becomes rich, and she sees the foolish man on the street begging on the street.

She knows the hunger, she knows the cold, she knows that money will go to booze or cigarettes, or really anything to keep himself sane. She does not care. She does not judge. She gives him what he needs. And she gets him help. It becomes a cycle. Because there will always be pain and there will always be suffering, and there will always be foolish men.

Dick didn’t understand it. It definitely sounded like a proverb that a billionaire would say. It’s a proverb that only America could create, the belief in making yourself something great. And Dick still doesn’t understand it. But he thinks he understands the core of it.

Because he is a foolish man. And he’s not quite sure he’s ever been anything more than that. Not that he turns his head from suffering, not because he does not try to address problems, but here he sits and he understands what it truly means to not understand what you have, and how easily you could lose something.

He didn’t know what he had till it was gone, and now it hurts, to be facing his regret in the flesh.

Barbara looks better than she did last night. Of course she’s bandaged under an oversized t-shirt that she must have raided from Bruce’s closet, or that Alfred got for her from Bruce’s closet. It’s nice that those clothes are getting used even after his death. He didn’t really do anything after Bruce was pronounced dead. He lived in limbo for a few years before trusting the Manor and everything inside of it to Alfred and his better judgment.

Dick was never all too connected to it,  but Alfred was. Alfred’s family has been serving the Wayne’s for generations. 

Alfred and Barbara eat breakfast as if nothing has happened. It’s bacon and eggs and waffles. And it’s not Vic’s cooking, but it’s just as good. Once again he finds himself missing Titans tower, there’s a ping of homesickness since he hasn’t considered Gotham home in years.

“So, back for a night,” Barbara says, rolling her eyes. “How does it feel?”

“The same.” He lies. It’s different. It’s weird. It’s so familiar but it’s like everything has been moved to the left since he’s last been here.

Maybe it’s the haunted feel of the hallways, the way he can’t walk through them without thinking of better times, maybe it's’ the way that he’s grown. He was nothing more than a child the last time he was here. Maybe it’s because it’s still alive , Alfred and Barbara have kept it alive if not slightly empty. But there’s still that same feeling of energy that buzzes through each room.

Alfred clears his throat. He sits at the head of the table, where the patriarch or matriarch is supposed to sit. It’s where Dick’s mom sat. It’s where Bruce sat. He supposes it’s where he’s supposed to sit. But it’s not where he belongs, and he understands his place is not as the Wayne Heir, but as some sort of trespasser.

It does not help the mood, that clearing of the throat. Because Dick grips onto his fork, his knuckles turn white and he meets Barbara’s eyes from across the table. “We can’t just ignore the fact that you were shot last night,” he says at last.

The building tension is ready to erupt. Nothing good is going to come of this conversation but what else is he supposed to do? What else is he supposed to say? She almost bled out while Dick was meant to sleep.

He didn’t get a wink in afterwards. All he could see every time he closed his eyes was her funeral. He could only see himself at another funeral, grieving one more piece of his childhood. He can’t lose her, but he already has, and isn’t that something? Fearing the sands will slip through your fingers when you don’t have any left because they already have.

No matter how much he wants to cut through this tension he knows that he can’t he knows that it’s not a rope or a string. It is a brick wall between them, and then a chasm beyond that. He will have to take it apart brick by brick and attempt to build a bridge and he knows it will go poorly. But he has to try, he has to at least attempt to. It may drive him mad to be here and not be able to do anything.

“It happens all the time,” Barbara shrugs, “Multiple times at night. Gotham isn’t the same anymore, it’s just the price to pay.”

“No it’s not!” Dick’s furious, maybe because everytime a titan gets hit he’s able to bench them, the group agrees not to go out injured. It only hinders the group and your own recovery. But he guesses that Barabara didn’t have that luxury. There’s no one else out there to look out for her, there's no one to pick up the slack when she’s injured.

The only reason he doesn’t slam his fists against the table is because the metal fork would dent the wood that Alfred has spent so long keeping pristine. He will not ruin the man's hard work. Though the table is already damaged from years of use, it’s water stained, it’s got gunk from other experiments Dick did when he was younger.

He’s also always hated it. It’s long, the formal dining room is separated from the kitchen so that the ‘help’ could bring in platters of food for the rich visitors. But it’s painful, to be three people at a table meant for 20. The whole Manor is empty, and that emptiness bugs him.

“If I rest for even a night things will get worse! And do you know who’s fucking fault that is?” She’s blaming him.

Of course she’s blaming him, he’d blame himself too. But she’s also ignoring the part where she stopped. And Dick knows she stopped because they talked about it before he left for New York again. She couldn’t do it, she was a scared child. And so she stopped. This is just as much her fault as it is his.

He couldn’t have prevented it all by himself.

She couldn’t have either.

“Godamnit, Barbara what did you want from me? I was 16.”

“So was I!” There’s no tears in her words, but Dick gets the feeling that if this had happened earlier then there would have been.

He knows he’d be crying, pent up frustration, and anger and guilt and grief all coming back in some sort of weird concoction of tears. But there are no tears on either side, just a building tension, a building anger that is so palpable that Alfred begins to sweat.

“At least I didn’t quit. I just needed friends and family.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“If you don’t want my help I’ll leave!” Dick says, and he knows he doesn’t mean it but it comes out as if he does. His words are tense, but they carry the confidence of a man who’s been lying his whole life. Once you start you just can’t stop. Barbara glares at him.

They’re both standing up, challenging each other.

The only reason they don’t lunge for each other and start brawling it out comes down to two things, most likely anyways. The first reason is Barbara’s stitches and healing bullet wound. She’s probably still recovering from the blood rush, and it for sure still hurts. The second reason is the boom tube that opens at that moment.

Vic walks through with Donna at his side. Oh thank the everloving fucking stars for that. Babs knows Donna, if not well but they’ve met before and it’s so much better than Kori coming through. That would just be… awkward. But no, his friends are here and he’s in his element before.

His shoulders relaxed and he hadn’t even realized that he had raised them.

Barbara sits down with a thud and crosses her arms. “Gonna introduce me to your friends, Richard?”

Dick licks his teeth and shakes his head, no one calls him Richard. His parents hadn’t even called him Richard. It’s so weird, he doesn’t even consider it his name despite it being on all of his legal papers and despite having to sign it on legal documents. It’s not his name and he knows that Barbara is just being petty.

“You know Donna Troy,” Dick says, gesturing to her. “Troia, and former Wonder girl.” That’s how they met, that’s how they all met. Well, it’s how they bonded. They bonded over being sidekicks, over having legacies to uphold. They bonded over having parents or mentors that are great, that you’re stuck in the shadows of.

Donna walks over, “It’s nice to see you again, Gordon. Condolences for your loss, and I’m so sorry we haven’t helped with Gotham.”

“Thanks,” but it’s bitter and sharp. It’s something you do out of niceties and not because you’re actually thankful. You can tell that Barbara doesn’t like that they’re here. You can tell that she hates that they’re kind even more.

Dick clears his throat as Alfred walks around and takes their plates, figuring that Breakfast is over even if they’re not done eating. It’s a smart move. “And this is Vic, Cyborg.”

The boom tube closes and Vic waves hello. “Nice to meet you, I’m Victor.”

“Victor Stone?”

Vic’s eye twitches for a second before he smooths over his features and smiles again. He’s still not talking to his dad much. “Yeah, lucky guess?”

“Not many miraculous Cyborgs out there, named Victor, who can open Boomtubes, which is Apokolips Technology.”

“So, smart,” Victor looks Barbara up and down. It’s not in a checking her out kind of way, it’s in an appraisal sort of way. Because Barbara is smart, she’s the smartest woman that Dick knows, and he’s met a lot of people throughout his time on the Titans, he’s recruited a lot of them, he’s worked with a lot of them — none of them compare to Babs.

She’s brilliant, she’s perceptive, and she’s witty. She’s got an eye for details, and she can remember so much more than your typical person. If it’s not her who became batman over him (though he never wanted to be Batman) he doesn’t know who else would do it. She’s perfect for the role, yet he sees how it’s twisted her and he remembers why he hates the mantle.

“You can say that. Batcaves downstairs, Dick can show you how to get there. You can get all your shit in, and then we can go patrolling tonight.” Barbara stands up, grabbing a bag Dick hadn’t noticed and slinging it over her shoulder. “I have work , so, take your time.”

She’s on her way out before she stops for a moment. She turns around and smiles, but it’s small and it’s forced and it’s not real. “It was nice to meet you two.” Then, perhaps in a smaller voice, she adds, “Thanks for taking care of Richard for the past few years.”

And it’s a reminder that she still cares, she cared enough for her to think of him — to ask him for help and to be willing to put up with his bullshit. It’s more than he deserves. And he hates how the manor feels emptier with her leaving. Alfred comes in with Tea, not at all surprised that Barbara has left.

Dick is reminded of the foolish man, the one Bruce warned him about. The foolish man didn’t know what he had, and how close he had been to losing it. He cannot just be a smart man, he needs to be the smarter one. He needs to fix the problem at the root.

He knows that he needs to apologize, to recognize that she has done wonders for the city, that news outlets report about her efforts, that he has kept tabs on her to make sure she’s still alive. But he is too prideful at the moment. He is too proud.

Dick is his fathers’ son. He is too stubborn to admit when he was wrong. But Donna places a hand on his shoulder.

He expects wise words from her, as she often seems older than she is. But That’s not what comes out of her, despite her calm she is not wise, she is just honest. And it’s that honesty that Dick loves, because she doesn’t tend to sugar coat the hard truths.

“You messed up,” Donna says. “Really badly. And you’re going to pay for that, for a very long time.”

“Thanks Donna,” It’s a soft thanks. One that is intimate between two childhood friends, two people who have seen each other through the worst.

“You also fumbled the bag,” Victor adds fairly unhelpfully.

Dick shakes his head. “We broke up when I was 16, plus I have Kori now–” Victor tilts his head. And in a mocking version of the moment he just had with Donna he says. “Thanks, Vic. You are sooooo helpful.”

Vic shoulders Dick playfully. “Now show me where this Bat prison is so we can get all your gadgets back.”

_____________

It’s always weird watching people explore the Batcave for the first time. It’s an amalgamation of natural and manmade. There’s computers embedded in places that had naturally worn away from the years, they had turned various outlets into their own rooms. They took advantage of the waterfall and rivulets, leaving the stalactites alone for the bats that call the cave their home. Dick thinks, mindlessly, that if anyone is going to enjoy the dichotomy of it, it’s going to be Vic. Maybe that’s presumptuous though.

Donna slides her hand over the smoothed stone, looking at the stained floors – her own heeled shoes clacking and echoing on for eternity. It’s silent as they walk through the halls for a while. None of them want to be the first to broach the inevitable conversation, but it’s something that they all know that they need to talk about.

“Bruce was still figuring this all out when he took me in,” Dick comments. He sticks his hands in his pockets, remembering the construction he had watched Bruce and Alfred do by themselves. There had been Lucius Fox too, but he hadn’t done much of the installation, rather he came up with a lot more of the plans. 

The cave had only grown in those years. Those sacred eight years where Dick had contributed his own designs, his own contributions. They had added multiple lockers, multiple costume storage rooms, after Dick had joined the fray. There’s small capsules with the costumes that Dick had grown out of.

He stares at those masks, and the masks stare back.

Vic’s eyes are more affixed onto the technology. It’s Wayne tech, or at least it’s supposed to all be Wayne Tech. There’s a few things laying around on stainless steel tables that Dick can tell has a flair of the stuff they give out to police officers. Barbara wouldn’t have had access to Wayne Tech, and he doubts she knew anything about Lucius. Why Alfred didn’t tell her he doesn’t know.

Donna stops at the giant penny. “Dick,” she says. “Is this really a good idea?”

And there it is. The thing they’ve all been dreading. The waterfall crashes in the background and if Dick strains his ears hard enough he can hear Alfred busying himself upstairs – probably getting Tea ready for the guests.

“It has to be,” Dick says. It has to be because he doesn’t know what to do if it’s not. “We help people, Donna. What about Gotham?”

“What about the world!” She argues, crossing her arms. “Listen Dick, I get it, you grew up here for a while, but the Justice League just can’t do what they used to. They need us. The galaxies need us.”

Dick stares back at his first Robin costume. He remembers the first time he had met Bruce. He remembered his parents falling, the sickening crunch as their bones broke and all the angles they jutted about. He remembers seeing the sharp bits come out of their skin, blood seeping into the dirt of the Big Top floor, he also remembers seeing Bruce. He remembers when Bruce gave him this outlet, let him be Robin.

Being a hero hadn’t been about helping people, not way back then. It had been about anger, about channeling that anger. It had been about finding who had killed his parents and bringing them to justice. It had then, after Moroni was sentenced, been about the people. Because there would be other kids out there facing the same thing he and Bruce had faced and those kids wouldn’t have the money to stop the injustices nor the skills to put it all to rest.

Then came those kids, taken by Mister Twister, and he couldn’t say no. Neither could Wally or Garth so then there had been the three of them, and then Donna, and then Roy, and then they had grown. They could help. They could be like the Justice League, not wanting to be caught in the crossfires of their mentors legacies though they had carved out their own name. The Teen Titans, later rebranded to just The Titans.

But Gotham. Robin would not exist without Gotham. Whether Dick Grayson would ever admit it out loud, he is only who he is because Maroni killed his parents in Gotham, because Bruce had seen it happen in Gotham. Gotham is in his blood, even if he lives in New York and even if he spends all his time on the Watchtower. Helping Gotham is the penance for Gotham helping to make the Titans in its own twisted way.

“I’m useless in space missions,” he jokes. It’s not that much of a joke. For any mission that requires interplanetary communications they tend to make him the guy in the chair. He doesn’t know how Bruce did it – compared to all of the powers around him. He can’t speak languages like his friends can, he can’t breathe in the vacuum of space. They’re okay without him.

Vic slides his metal fingers over some of the gadgets laying around, picking them up and spinning them around to see every angle. “No kidding.” Donna lets out a frustrating sigh. “But, D, you’re still important. You’re like, basically our leader.”

“Raven, Kori, You, and Donna, and literally anyone else is good at leading when they need to.” He calls the shots because it’s what he got used to watching Batman. He’s got a keen eye for strategy, for moving his friends around the battlefield like pawns on a board. They know that he’s good so they don’t question it most of the time.

“It’s still going to be odd, I don’t like it. Why don’t we bring the Titans in here and fix up Gotham. Then you can leave Barbara behind to watch it in your stead. You never wanted anything to do with this city before, why now?”

Dick licks his lips, he has to think through his words carefully. He has to make them understand. Bruce had a strict ‘No Meta’s in Gotham’ policy. But it was more like a no outside help rule. There are probably plenty of Meta’s in gotham. He has to respect the rules put in place — that Barbara upholds. 

Instead of answering right away he flips open the cover on his watch and the CCTV footage of Gotham is pulled up in a hologram that floats above it. Most of it is static, but when they do find working footage there’s struggle, there’s death, there’s crime. It’s the same thing, just slightly different every single time. 

“Gotham is not a place for most heroes. You can’t just punch the problems and expect them to fix themself. They will come back, and they will come back worse. These aren't alien invasions. This isn’t Slade. This is corruption, flowing through an entire city and inspiring the worst of the worst to get worse. This isn’t going to be short. This isn’t going to be easy.”

Donna smiles, it’s soft and it’s a concession. The three of them all know that this is what was going to happen. They all knew that after they helped him move in that this would be goodbye. It’s why he asked them not to bring Kori, he couldn’t say goodbye to her in good faith.

“You’ve got a bleeding heart, Dick,” Vic says as he puts down the gadget.

“Don’t we all?”

Donna nods. “Vic, get the boomtube open? We’ve got everything packed up for you Dick, all we need to do is carry it across the threshold.”

“Then it’s goodbye, man,” Vic adds. There’s a building of pressure, a swirling of energy before the boom tube opens with a pop. “You’re gonna be missed.”

“I’m gonna miss you all. But you can’t stay here and help. This is something that me and Barbara need to do on our own. Consider me off radar if it helps you. On a Coops mission.”

They don’t say anything more after that. They just keep going. They drag box after box into the batcave. And then after that they help him unpack, finding homes for all of the stuff he had managed to build up over the years. It’s bittersweet, even though he knows that he’ll make it back to them one day, he wasn’t joking when he said that it would take awhile.

Corruption has always been rampant in Gotham, always stubbornly at its core. But there’s something different, it’s like you can see the corruption in the walls, in the floors, like it’s finally rearing its ugly little head, like it’s finally professing its presence. And that? That is going to take a lot more to clean out than anything else. It may be years, and he’s telling them to treat him like he’s already dead because he knows it’s a real risk that he may die.

Saying goodbye isn’t something the Titans do. They don’t even say ‘see you later’ because that’s a promise they may not be able to keep. They don’t say anything. They just leave, it’s easier that way. There’s no promises to be broken, no sorrow. If anything they say ‘I love you’ as a reminder that they are friends, as a reminder that they care. That way if you don’t have another chance to speak to each other then there’s no words left unspoken, there is only the truth plainly stated.

Dick looks at his Robin costume, all hung up and so similar to his eight year old costume and yet so different. It’s going to be weird fighting the same people he fought years ago, that he fought as a child. God, what a mess that he’s gotten himself into.

“Are they gone?” Barbara asks when she zips into the cave later that night. Dick had gone back up to the Manor proper to hang out with Alfred and get his civilian life squared away there. 

He didn’t need a job, he had enough money that he could have retired before he was even conceived and live a nice, healthy, long life multiple times over. No, and he had said goodbye to his friends from New York before he left Titans tower, and he had explained to the places he was friendly with the staff that he’d be going back to his childhood home for a bit. They all looked terrified, it wasn’t a secret that he was Bruce’s son, but they had wished him luck.

The big thing that he needed to get squared away was the state of Gotham from Alfred’s point of view, and get his stuff all unpacked.

It’s almost as if this whole thing is just another job, just another process for him to go through as Robin. He’s the world's greatest detective after all. He rolled his head around, sitting at the Batcomputer still unable to log in.

“And they’re staying gone. They won’t be interfering.”

Barbara nods, and he swears he could almost see her smile at that. He’s giving up everything to help her, and she’s not doing much in the way of compromising, it’s becoming unbearable. It’s becoming frustrating.

“Then suit up, Boy Wonder. It’s time we show you the new ropes.”

She’s not in costume yet either, but he’s not sure pointing that out matters.

____________

The streets of Gotham are the same, and that’s to say that the layout is exactly how Dick remembers it. It’s all slightly different due to how he’s grown since being 16 years old, but his feet still follow familiar paths as they cut across rooftops, flying through the smoggy sky. He coughs up once or twice, having grown unfamiliar to the smoke that’s dense around the city.

Barbara doesn’t even flinch. She just stops, mildly annoyed at having to slow down for him. He supposes that there’s a lot of ground to cover for one person each night, and the fights constantly breaking out under them in the alleys below don’t help. She stops and she breaks up each and every one. She takes names, making notes of them on a small yellow pad that she tucks in the pocket of her costume jacket.

Dick’s escrima are sheathed at his hip next to where he puts his grappling hook, but Barbara carries no weapons on her person. She shakes her head as he takes down half of the people, tasing them as he turns out the electric part of his escrima.

“You’re still using those?” She asks.

“Hey, when you’re good, you’re good,” he smiles. She does not return the smile. Instead, she pressed a button at the side of her mask and white lenses slid over her eyes.

She grabs out her grappling gun and flings herself back onto the roof. He scowls, finishes tying up the last of the fighters and joins her back above. She doesn’t miss a beat, running again. He’s always one step behind her, and he’s not even sure what they’re doing or what’s going on because she’s not talking.

When he has a moment he grabs a birdarang out of his pouch and throws it down at her feet. There’s a tense second where Barbara just stares at where the birdarang has buried itself in a thick coat of mold, mildew, and moss. The concrete up here is practically cracking from mistreatment and poor management.

“What?” She snaps.

“You need to talk to me,” he hisses under his breath. It’s not like with the Titans. With the Titans they’re constantly talking over comms and constantly communicating about various strategies and tactics. They’re a well oiled machine and sure most of them can pick up on what the others want to do, but a lot of them aren’t psychic. Things work when people speak. If you get frustrated because someone didn’t do what you wanted them to do without having clearly stated you wanted them to do it then that’s on you.

They’ve had a lot of fights to get where they are, and it feels like Dick’s having to have this same conversation again. He’s forgotten that Barbara has worked alone for so long now. She’s probably just not used to having to communicate with a partner anymore.

Barbara turns her head back in the direction she’s going. “About what? We’re fighting crime. What else is there?”

“I need to know what’s going on. I need to know what you’re writing, why you’re writing it. I need to know the big players, the new gangs. Everything. What have the Rogues been up to?”

“You wanna know?”

Dick sighs, because maybe just maybe they’re getting somewhere. And maybe, just maybe they’ll be able to move forward after this. “ Yes,” He practically sighs out. His celebration is early, as what happens next isn’t better communication – which was a pipe dream that wouldn’t be fixed in a night — Barbara pushes him off of the roof.

His reflexes are quick enough that he stops his fall with his cape which Cyborg made to stiffen not into wings but rather a glider of sorts. He lands without a thud, his feet squishing into piles of trash. It smells like something’s died in the pile, and he doesn’t doubt that a lot of things have. From what he can tell Waste Management hasn’t been on the streets in months.

There’s probably a dead body in one of the bags. It’s that thought that has him jumping out and onto the concrete floor of the alleyway.

“Jesus christ, B,” he mutters. And his heart pangs because how many times did he say that about Bruce? It’s like they’re…. Of course they’re one in the same, they were shaped by the same man in the same city by themself.

And Commissioner Gordon isn’t in Gotham which means she must truly have been alone. Fuck. He runs a hand through his hair and starts pacing the streets. There’s not much to do other than get his own information. He’ll work through the city as strategically as possible. He’ll skip over The Narrows and Park Row for now, knowing that those will be the worst of all.

So for now, he’ll stick to the shadows and to the ground. For now he’ll observe.

And observe he does. There’s a lot to take in, it seems like most everyone is part of some sort of gang. They sport some sort of gang symbol and oftentimes if two people are wearing different symbols they get into fights even if they have nothing to fight over. There’s no cars on the streets except for one or two nicer ones that everyone leaves alone, Dick’s theories are crime families like the Falcones, or someone like Penguin or Black Mask.

He makes mental notes, but wishes for a pad like Barbara has. That’s why she carries it. There’s too much movement to take in.

Certain streets are covered in markings regardless of the smaller gangs that crowd each and every alleyway. Dick takes a deep breath, starting with the Docks that don’t smell like sea water but rather like rotting corpses. He’d throw up if it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t want to give away his location.

The markings are very distinct, very pronounced, and very terrifying. Joker. The symbol of Joker spray painted on every single warehouse, every single wall and on the floors of places. People walk around laughing in clown masks. They don’t seem like they’re in trouble, or to be causing trouble but he makes a bet that a lot of people join up with these guys because they provide protection.

He wonders if they come back to their day jobs and pretend like they don’t kill in the dead of the night. He wonders if that’s become the norm, if everyone has a bit of blood on their hands now.

“My my my,” There’s a cackle from a shattered window of the warehouse Dick stands next to. Glass shards coat the walkway, as none other than Duela Dent squats in the shadows. “Never thought I’d see a little birdy around these parts again.”

She smiles, it’s not the same twisting smile as the Joker, but it’s something that attempts to mimic it. There’s red face paint stretching from the corners of her mouth to her ears. She sports a crown on top of her head, one that almost seems to be made from bones. It’s a sickening feeling, staring at her again, because it has not been seven years since he has seen Duela Dent. Duela had been a Titan for a moment or two, they had been trying to give her healing and catharsis.

She had come back.

Her outfit is grungy — tattered. There’s a layer of filth over her long green vest and purple crop top. But she looks good other than that. And the crown. It looks like someone had gotten what she wanted. The thing about Duela is that she’s not actually Joker’s daughter, no, she never has been. She’s the daughter of Two-Face, Harvey Dent. A man who Bruce has pained himself to try to help over the years. But Duela is just as lost as her father, and despite her stint as Harlequin on the Titans she came crawling back once crime began to blossom in Gotham again.

“Duela,” he almost sighs her name. Despite how bad things are, it’s nice to know that some things stay the same.

“Aye, right on it too. I thought you were still leading them Titans. No luck? Wanna play charity like Dad?” The problem with Duela being back in Gotham isn’t that she’s necessarily a dangerous foe or a good Rogue, the problem is that she knows too much.

She knows his name, his face, his father, his fathers secrets. He never kept a secret from her – he wanted to show her that he meant it when he said he wanted to help her. But it seems as though she hasn’t spilled any of it, otherwise his name would be in the papers and so would Bruce’s and Babara’s. They would never know peace and could quite easily get arrested for it. It’s not like they go by the laws 100% of the time. But Duela knows how to play a good game, she likes to have fun, she likes the chase as much as Joker does. So she keeps her mouth shut.

“It’s a favor to a friend.”

Duela nods. “So Batsy 2.0 got you back here. Tell her thanks from me. You make this city so much more funner. I do hate it when it gets boring.”

A love for the game. But Dick would be foolish to take this as friendship, he’s on guard, hands on his escrima. “Will do, Duela.”

“Oh!” She sighs, leaning against the sharps of glass that didn’t quite break away from the edges of the window. “It’s gotten so calm. The chaos has quelled. Leaving order. I fucking hate order but Daddy isn’t doing anything about it. He’s ‘waiting’, I say he’s washed up. But to each their own I suppose.”

Dick takes a step back. “It was real nice to see you again, Duela.” Before he can grab his grappling gun she snaps her fingers.

People surround him in an instant. She smiles and wrinkles her nose. “Didn’t think I’d make it easy on ya’ just because we’re old pals?” Her lips curl in a cruel sneer. “You really don’t know me at all, Wonder Boy.”

He expected it, he just didn’t want it to happen. The fight is 10 on 1, Duela not stepping in to fight. He takes about five of them, each with a kick to the stomach, the sweep of their feet from under them, or something similar before he’s up in the air, flipping off Duela. She’s laughing, waving goodbye to him.

The rest of the night is not smooth. No, he gets laughed at, a lot. There’s so much laughter, the gangs taunt and tease him before he takes them out, the Rogue henchmen he runs into are no better and he makes a bet that the Rogues themselves would be worse. They don’t actually expect him to kick their asses. They don’t actually expect him to be the real thing either.

There have apparently been fakes trying to do the same thing as he does and he cusses out the civilians for being so stupid. They should be hiding away, they should be trying to stay safe. He’s been shot at too many times to count, each time the bullet grazes him adrenaline shoots through his veins. It’s only due to the reinforced fibers of his costume courtesy of Karen that he doesn’t have to go back to the Batcave.

He takes a sweep from the West Docs to the Southeast Edge of the city. East End is a safer area to be in, and Dick understands this before he even enters it. That’s not to say that East End has ever been that nice, it’s an area stricken with poverty like much of the city, but one that has been famously under Catwoman's protection for as long as Dick can remember.

It’s underdeveloped, compared to the rest of the sprawling city and the tight knit complexes of The Narrows. The houses are shorter, though still sporting a good three to thirteen floors depending. There’s drug dealers trying to peddle whatever laced shit they have, actually trying to get Dick to buy a few grams of the stuff.

He declines.

It’s a quick abrupt transition where Dick see’s the Joker symbols switch over to Cat paws and claws. There are slashes across brick walls, spray painted collars too. There’s still prostitutes working the streets, but he doubts that they make much and he doubts many of them will make it back to their apartments by dawn.

Dawn, closely creeping. He knows that Catwoman's territory stretches to the ocean, so there’s no point in scouting it out. It’s best to leave now before he has to confront Selena on all of it. He doesn’t want to talk to Selena. The last time they saw each other was the funeral. They didn’t talk at the funeral. No one really talked to him at the Funeral. He filed for emancipation and then he fucking left.

Selena… Her relationship with him was nearly as complicated as her position in the hero world. She was a cat burglar, she stole. But she helped people. She was the definition of a true vigilante if Dick had to say it. She’s kind and good, and breaks the law because she’s bored on a Tuesday night.

Bruce had been infatuated with her. She had been infatuated with him. They were day and night, or night and night he guessed. Two different halves of the same fucked up coin. And he didn’t want to see her.

The world has different plans for him.

“Richard?” It’s a hushed thing. His assumption was that he would be safe because it looks like he’s on the outskirts of her territory, but also he’s stupid for thinking that. Of course she’s going to watch the borders more than the heart, this is where all the territory disputes no doubt happen.

There’s not going to be as much strife between the people she protects, but there will be trouble with people from other gangs. No doubt turf wars have become more and more common over the years. A nearby street lamp flickers, and one a bit further down the row pops completely. It leaves them in a warm yellow light.

He doesn’t turn around. “Not in Costumes, Catwoman.”

Dick knows Selena, and Selena knows him. It’s one of the things that Dick still couldn’t wrap his head around, despite telling people his own identity, despite taking Duela in. He couldn’t understand Bruce’s judgment when it came to her. It’s weakness, he supposes, or maybe it’s that craving for something meaningful and real outside of costumes and capes and masks that despite having Dick still craves.

He knows she nods, it’s something she would do. He can’t turn around. He can’t look at her. If he looks at her then he may cry, he might see everything he lost when Bruce died. He might see Bruce, and he can’t do that tonight. He’s been so good at ignoring those facets of Gotham. He’s been so good at ignoring those feelings of abandonment. Because it happened twice.

Twice he had been left by the person he had called Dad, twice he had been left to live when he would rather die. Twice now he has turned his back on everything he’s ever known. And he cannot process that, because she is proof that he still had people in Gotham. Barbara is proof that he still had people in Gotham. There’s people for him in Gotham, but if he admits to that then he admits to a mistake.

“Robin,” she says after a moment. “It’s good that you’re back.”

“So I’ve heard.” He tries to calm his emotions, to school his face into a true neutral. But his voice wavers and his hands shake where he has them balled at his sides. This is not the night for this. He should have taken another day or two to get reacclimated to the city before patrolling, before confronting the consequences of his actions, before seeing all of the ghosts of his past made flesh.

Selena drops down from the fire escape she had been on — he can hear the rattle of metal as she jumps. She circles in front of him. He refuses to make eye contact with her. He stares at her feet, but her hand makes its way to his cheek. She lifts his head, and he does not fight it. They’re the same height when Selena is out of costume, but right now she’s taller than him and he looks up into her eyes and sees that same deep sadness he had seen in his reflections.

“You look so much like him. And it’s so funny because that shouldn’t have happened.”

Dick fights back the tears that prick at the corner of his eyes. He squares back his shoulders — puts on a facade that he thought he had lost. “Please not tonight,” he begs.

Selena nods, a kind mercy. She’s never been that violent, true crime like most Rogues do has never been her style. She’s too good for it, is what she told Bruce. She doesn’t have the heart for needless destruction. “You need to help Batwoman fix this city. It’s not fun to steal when it causes wars. That’s never what I did. But I’m not a hero. So I saved what I could. You can do so much more.”

“No one’s taking me seriously,” even to his own ears he sounds like a petulant child. “They treat me like I’m the same kid—”

Selena brushes a thumb under Dick’s mask. “You have to make them respect you. You left, what claim do you have to these streets anymore? You need to prove yourself.” She pauses, thinking over her next words. “These streets will always think of Robin as a sidekick. Out there? Dick out there you have made a name for yourself as your own hero. But here they still remember when you slicked back your hair and said Holy cheese balls,” she laughs under her breath.

He thinks of Barbara, of her becoming Batwoman rather than staying as Batgirl. A change, an assertion of who she is becoming and who she will be. He needs respect, he needs something new. But that’s a terrifying thought. He has only ever been Robin. The name and colors have always been in honor of his parents, of their death and what they meant to him as a hero.

There’s nothing else that could even start to replace them.

“What do I do?” Who do I become?

Selena shakes her head. “I cannot control that for you. I promise though, when you know you will know.” She turns Dick’s head, directing it to stare at Wayne Tower. “If you still want to make a difference while you think that over, there’s always a way.”

Chapter Text

“Alfred!” Dick races down the main staircase the next morning.

He and Barbara did not end up seeing each other for the rest of the night. He came back after talking to Selena, after catching up with her and hearing stories of himself when he was younger. But that’s not what stuck with him. Wayne Enterprises technically belongs to him by inheritance. It’s a family business, even if it’s a multinational conglomerate it has been in the Wayne Family for generations meaning that as Bruce’s only living heir it goes to him.

Selena was right when she said he could make a difference in other ways. Bruce never just did work as Batman. Wayne Enterprises had about 70 different charities under its name. Not only that but he held thousands of fundraisers every year, and participated in thousands more. For most millionaires charities are an excuse for tax cuts, for Bruce his money was his second weapon. He used it to better Gotham.

Gotham has been crumbling because Wayne Enterprises did not understand the importance of keeping these charities afloat. And with Dick insisting on not taking over his position as majority shareholder, and owner of the company it fell into the hands of the board of directors who no doubt have ruined the company.

If he wants to make a change while he’s workshopping a new hero persona this would be the way.

Alfred seems shocked, double checking the clock as it reads 8:30 am. “Good morning Master Richard,” he says. A cup of coffee hasn’t been started yet, but Alfred starts brewing a pot as soon as he sees Dick. “You are up awfully early.”

Dick smiles. “Could barely sleep. I ran into Selena last night.”

“Ah, Ms. Kyle. How is she doing?”

“The best she can be,” he confesses. Because Selena Kyle has always been a name of worth, and Catwoman has always been a villain of respect, but both have been dwindling over the years due to the morals and ethics she insists on adhering to. It’s noble but it’s also foolish.

Alfred nods, “that’s all we can pray for, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Dick sits down at the island bar. “Does Bruce have any suits, or are there any suit stores nearby? I know none of my old ones would fit me.”

“Suits?” Alfred stops for a moment, staring at Dick. He puts the pieces together quickly enough. It wouldn’t be a surprise, at least to anyone who knows him and Selena. Selena would have planted the idea, sure, but Alfred also understands that after examination that Dick would have come to the same conclusion by himself. “Well, I suppose I can organize a fitting. You and Master Bruce have remarkably different body types so his suits would not fit you even had you been the same height as him.”

“Thank you, Alfred.”

“If you want to truly make an impact, I would recommend going into Wayne Tower just as you normally dress. Surely you’ll make a statement. Most of the time Master Bruce didn’t even bother to change out of his Pajamas before going into meetings.”

Dick tilts his head back and forth. “I’ll stick to nice jeans and a button up. I don’t think going in wearing sweatpants is the best idea.”

“Most intuitive,” Alfred smiles as he pours Dick a cup of coffee. “I will confess that I do not have breakfast ready for you.”

“That’s fine. You can cook something small now, I don’t need anything big or heavy.” He shrugs, tapping his fingers against the warm mug body as he waits for it to cool down before taking a sip. “Could you tell me about what’s been going on with Wayne Enterprises?”

Alfred’s smile turns taught as he places a skilled on their gas burning stove. Bruce had wanted to switch over to induction for years but didn’t have it in himself to take away a remnant of the original house (it wasn’t part of the original house, the original house had a wood burning stove). Still.

There was the clearing of a throat, as the ignition to the stove. “What would you like to know?”

“As much as you can tell me.”

Turns out that’s a lot. Alfred has been keeping tabs on the business as one of the things that Bruce left behind, he had been working with Lucius to make sure things were alright, not good but alright, until Lucius was forced into retirement by the Board. Dick scrunches his nose as bacon sizzles on the stovetop.

Wayne Enterprises has cut almost all of their public facilities, and public social welfare. They’ve cut multiple charities — including the Martha and Thomas Wayne Orphanage. Dick licks his lips, his mind already racing as he thinks of how the fuck he’s going to fix everything. It also turns out that they’ve cut employee salaries, their benefits, and have increased the prices of their products to exorbitant prices.

Fuck.

By the time that his breakfast is in front of him he no longer has an appetite. Still, he manages to get a few pieces of bacon and the sunny side up eggs down before he throws up at the idea of everything Bruce built being torn down and replaced. Ship of Theseus and all of that, this isn’t the same Wayne Enterprises that was built upon the foundation of caring for the city.

“They’ve also sponsored multiple corrupt politicians, Rogues, and I believe that they’ve paid off multiple judges to look the other way when they skip on taxes and false income reporting.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” he pushes his plate up the island to signal that he’s done. “I’ll be back later tonight. I don’t know how long this is going to take.” Honestly? He doesn’t know if he could do it all alone.

He thinks of Barbara, of her struggling as Batwoman alone. 

No, fixing Gotham is going to have to take some sort of team. There’s too much to cover, there’s too much corruption, too many villains. That’ll be something else to think about. He’ll also need to convince Barbara of it when they meet up that night to go over the patrols of the night prior. The thing is, he can’t bring in the Titans. So who else does he bring in?

It’s something he pushes to the back of his mind at the moment. There’s other more pressing things to handle in the morning. The daytimes can be about handling Wayne Enterprises, the nighttime can be left for the Rogues and for Robin — or whoever he becomes.

He finds some nice dark blue jeans and tucks his white button up shirt into it. He doesn’t have any kind of nice shoes with him, he doesn’t often need a pair, and he doesn’t have a nice coat or sweater of any kind. He ends up sliding on his grubby sneakers that have been his for the past four or five years and a navy gray zip up that he stole from Roy a few years back.

Alfred readies one of the cars for him, and since he needed to make a few phone calls Dick lets him. He didn’t know that he was still paying for a chauffeur, but he’s pleasantly surprised considering he needed to be able to have his full focus on his phone calls.

He tells the driver to go to one of Dick’s favorite coffee shops that’s on the way to Wayne Tower. He’s half certain it’ll still be there considering that everyone in the area knew that it was some sort of money laundering front — still some of the best damned coffee in the area though, and he’ll stake his fortune on that.

Dick only starts panicking a little when his phone is left to ring against his ear. He closes the divider between him and the driver, muttering “pick up” under his breath rapidly.

Then he’s put through, and is met with a very confused “Can I help you?”

________

To say he’s relieved when he sees Luke sitting with a cup of coffee outside on some of the metal chairs is an understatement. Dick gets out of the car, making sure the Chauffeur knows that if things start going south he has permission to drive away.

It’s nicer during the day, that’s not to say that it’s nice but that’s to say that his theory about most people having a day job is probably accurate. They’re probably not good jobs, but if there’s one thing that the current Mayor enforces it’s probably exorbitant taxes that almost no one can pay for.

Luke actually looks surprised when he sees Dick. He stands up and holds out his hand. Dick claps it and they pull together to pat each other on the back. “While I live and breathe you’re really back. My old man said it was never going to happen,” Luke says with a twisting smile.

“What can I say,” he shrugs. “Thought it was time to finally get serious.”

“Sure, that’s it Bird Boy,” Luke sits down and pushes a cup of coffee towards Dick. It’s something that Dick accepts without hesitation. If there’s anyone Dick trusts with his secret identity it’s Luke.

They grew up together, not as friends necessarily but Lucius and Bruce were close, so they saw a lot of each other. They had ended up losing contact way before Dick ever left for New York, because they had never been close. Luke had his thing, and Dick had his. They were both aware of the elephant in the room, or maybe more aptly the Bat in the Mansion. Luke never seemed too put off by it, and he never brought himself into that kind of life. Dick can’t blame him.

The conversation starts off easy, it’s a conversation of two people getting to know each other again. It’s catching up, and it’s good laughs. For a while. Turns out that once Gotham had been ceded from the United States, Luke was forced out of the Army since he was no longer a U.S citizen, forcing him back to a city he didn’t have any love for.

In that regard, Dick can relate.

“But let’s cut the Bullshit,” Luke places his cup down on the table in front of them. “What do you want from me?”

Dick smiles, mimicking the movement with his own cup. “What makes you think that I want something from you?”

“You have the same look Bruce had whenever he talked to Pops,” Luke smiles, lazy as it stretches across his face. “So what do you want, Wayne?”

Hearing someone call him that triggered something in his brain, he wasn’t quite sure what and it sure as hell wasn’t the first time someone used that last name with him – but coming from Luke it held a different sort of meaning. There was weight to it, a weight that came with the knowledge that Gotham had been built and maintained by the Wayne Family for so long. And now, when Luke said it, it felt like he was telling Dick that it’s his turn.

Or he’s overthinking things that he’s so prone to doing.

“Luke. You’re incredible. Double Major in Chemistry and Physics, and your engineering knowledge—”

“Nope,” Luke crossed his arms, his leather jacket folding over well maintained muscles. “You sound just like the old man. I know what you’re going to ask and my answer has been no for years now. It’s not changing anytime soon.”

Dick sighs. “I need help , I’m not so dumb as to think that the Board of Directors will just let me take over. I need to replace upper-management and I don’t know the first thing about running a business much less–”

Luke cuts him off again with a sharp laugh. He shakes his head, staring at Dick while Dick flounders for the right words to say. There’s a string to follow, just like any video game, to get the results you want. He could see the way that Bruce would work through it, the way he spun his stories and his sentences, worming into people’s minds.

He could see it, the right path that he would need to convince Luke of joining on to Dick’s whole plan. He doesn’t get the chance, he’s too slow, he can’t find the right wording – the diction disappears as Luke grabs his coffee cup. “It’s nice to see a Wayne be humble about it all. But I’ve got my own problems at the moment, and I’m not going to drop it all for you. Good luck with Wayne Enterprises, Dickie. You’re gonna need it.”

Dick bangs his head against the table, watching Luke put his helmet on and zoom away on a rather sleek looking Motorcycle. He checks his watch, he knows he’s running out of time but he had been hoping to go in with some back up. They’re going to fucking eat him alive despite his right to the company.

He wasn’t lying when he said he knew jack all about running a business. He should have paid more attention when Alfred and Bruce were monologuing about duty and responsibility and when they were bitching about Upper Management and the Board of Directors and. Fuck. He hits the table, fuck it all.

He calls up his chauffeur. Well, there’s no use delaying the inevitable. He finishes the coffee as his driver pulls up to the curb. He hops into the car as dread pools in his stomach. He’s not getting through this, is he? Holding his breath, Dick prays to whatever god cares to listen to his pleas.

Who is he kidding? He’s pissed off too many of them over the years for them to give a fuck about his problems.

If he’s doing this, it’s not going to be through the grace of god, it's going to be with his own two hands and his own wit. He’s led a team of superheroes before, how much harder could a business really be?

_______________________

Wayne Tower is one of the biggest buildings in Gotham, it stretches up past the clouds. There’s no special keycard to get in, there’s no special keycard to access the elevators, there's nothing special about it. It’s just a big brick building that happens to produce most everything all the time. With over a dozen different subsidiaries it all comes back to this building where the corporate bullshit happens.

Each floor exists for one different division of the company. For example, Floor two through ten happens to be for Wayne Tech as it’s largest subsidiary. Underground floors allow for experimentation and laboratories, though each subsidiary also had their own headquarters for that kind of jargon. And thank god for that. 

No one stops him, he keeps his hood up, waiting for his big reveal. Dick knows that he’s underdressed, that he’s out of place. He can feel the eyes of familiar security guards on him as he moves through the neat lobby.

It’s a sharp contrast to the rest of Gotham, not a speck of dust and not a scuff on the linoleum floors. Each person coming in and out of the elevators is in finely pressed suits, almost no one was business casual, which is a shame considering that Bruce had mandatory pajama days. Dick will bring those back, he’ll bring back some fun stuff that all the employee’s groan at.

Corporate mandated fun days sounds like something he’d suggest if he were 12, now that he’s closer to 20 it’s something he can enforce. Isn’t it fun, the passing time. He almost makes it into the elevator before a gruff hand hits his shoulder and spins him around. 

Same old Charlie, large, hulking man that used to run an underground fighting ring. Bruce took him in and made him head of security, and Dick made sure his life was hell after already knocking him down a few pegs as Robin. “You can’t be here, man,” Charlie huffs out.

Dick stares up at Charlie’s balding head. Same old Charlie. Dick holds his hands up in surrender. “No,” he says slowly, lowering his hood down. “I think I can be, or has all of Gotham truly forgotten about me?” He smiles, watching as one by one eyes turn on him. 

There’s silence for a few sacred minutes before the whispering starts. And once the whispering starts, it doesn’t stop, growing and building as they all come to the same realization — things are going to be a lot different. Even if Dick doesn’t take over as CEO, he’s still the majority shareholder by a wide margin — a gross margin even. Always more than 52%, no matter how much trading he’s done over the years he’s kept Wayne Enterprises above 52%.

“Richard?” Charlie asks. He narrows his eyes, searching as if trying to see through a disguise.

Dick bows, as theatrical as ever. If they’re going to gawk like he’s a performer on a stage he might as well give them all a show. “The one and only, I’m afraid. Heard there was a meeting with the Board of Directors, and was hoping to show my face. That’s not going to be a problem is it?”

Charlie looks over to the Secretary who frantically types away at her computer before nodding. “Not at all, Sir. I’ll personally escort you.” Once they’re alone inside of the elevator Charlie adds, “I don’t think your presence will be much appreciated, Sir.” He adds it under his breath, as if betraying a secret. “Things may get messy.”

How much messier could a Board Meeting be than a U.N council session. He's been to multiple of those before, and they could get nasty, especially when there’s cameras as people play up their reactions to gain better reactions from the general public.

“If it does get messy?” Dick says as he takes off his sweatshirt, smoothing out his shirt and adjusting his tie. “Just let me handle it. New York is quite a place after all. Nothing compared to Gotham, but— I’ve learned a thing or two from my stay there.”

Charlie nods, and Dick would be lying if he said that the knowledge that there was someone watching his back wasn’t a huge comfort. He breathes easier, it’s something familiar that he hasn’t had since he came back to Gotham. Barbara has been too distant for the past two days to be any sort of comfort and those two days of constant vigilance and paranoia have been eating away at him.

Don’t say that Dick is not efficient. 

He ditches his coat on some random chair in the hallway, opening the door to the meeting without so much as knocking. “Sorry,” he says with all the fake pleasantries he’s learned over the years. “Am I interrupting something?”

There’s stares. And as the people stare at him Dick keeps his shoulders back and his chin held high. He scans over the room before his eyes land on who he assumes is the acting CEO. because this man, too, is familiar to him. And unfortunately for Dick, he hates Waynes with a burning passion. 

“Very much so,” Jacob Kane stands up from where he sits at the head of the table. “I didn’t know you were back in town, Richard.”

“Back in town and better than ever,” he hits back with the same distant intonation. Every conversation with Jacob Kane is one that is a minefield. If Luke had been let go from the Army, then ten thousand dollars says that Jacob was too. Dick has been tracking who the big players in the company have been=, he knew that after him, Jacob had bought out the most shares. It doesn’t surprise him to see them there.

Jacob tilts his head. “Why are you here?”

Dick clasps his hands together. “Come now, Great-Uncle, you mustn’t be that dense. I know that pollution can do things to your brain but not this badly.” He should be more wary of the words he says, but Dick honestly couldn’t give a fuck.

“We’re in the middle of a very important meeting, come back to lay your personal troubles at my feet later.” Ah, so that’s how he’s going to play it. For one, Jacob has never made it a secret that he detested Martha for getting with a Wayne, it’s just one of the universal truths that people accept. The world spins, time flies, and Jacob Kane hates every single Wayne with a burning passion.

For two. Dick is in fact a lot richer than Jacob Kane is. And so if he’s implying that Dick needs money from him, he’s sorely mistaken.

“It’s a matter of inheritance,” Dick says. Charlie is at his back, a looming figure that cracks his knuckles. Yeah that works. “Bruce left this company to me. He left all of his shares to me. So I believe that that seat is mine .”

Jacob sits down, laughing. “You’re kidding me? That’s what this is about.”

“I’ll gladly bring in my personal lawyers, and we can settle this through that. Or. You can give up your acting title, and allow me to finally do what I have been entrusted to do this whole time.”

There’s a moment where they’re staring at each other, looking each other over and appraising the situation. Jacob Kane is older than Bruce was when he died, but he doesn’t look like him. His hair hasn’t started graying, still cut in that same military style that would have been expected of him. He hasn’t let his facial hair grow out and there's no 5 o’clock shadow creeping in. He’s maintaining the appearance of youth while creeping into his 70’s.

At last, Jacob speaks, it’s slow – thought out and measured in a way that it shouldn’t be. It’s like he’s been preparing for this eventuality, like he always knew that Dick would come back. There’s some sort of twisted pride in his words, “Alright. I’ll concede. It’s what Bruce Wayne wanted for his company, so who am I to deny a dead man his last wishes?”

It’s almost too easy. No punches, almost no threats. There's something off about what he’s doing.

What’s he planning? The thought strikes Dick like a train. Jacob Kane is stepping down because he’s planning something else, planning something that has nothing to do with Wayne Enterprises. He’s always been a step ahead, and it looks like he’s using Dick as another of his stepping stones to something greater.

He makes a mental note to look into more of Jacob Kane's moves over the past few years, since he would have been kicked out of the U.S Army that is. Dick narrows his eyes, taking a seat at the head of the Board meeting table while Jacob heads over to the door.

The meeting itself goes by in a slow drawl, each and every person there hesitant about Dick Grayson — and why shouldn’t they be? He left, and he left them all behind. He’s done nothing of note as far as they’re concerned.  But he raises questions where he knows they should be raised, he questions things he can see that they don’t expect to be questioned.

There’s a lot of weeding he’ll have to do with the amount of underhanded policies that the Board and Shareholders have put into place after Bruce left. It’s not a surprise, they were always looking for ways to undercut the good that Wayne Enterprises is supposed to handle. He’s got his work cut out for him, not only running a company but also restarting said company.

He doesn’t propose anything yet, because if he proposes things no one will buy them. He has to establish himself as the CEO and then order people to do things. He can’t waste time navigating bureaucracy that will systematically favor those who have retained their place for decades. No. He has to cut through them.

He also has to get rid of most of upper management. Things to do, people to piss off. He rubs his temples as the Board goes over stocks, prices, profit margins. It doesn’t go over his head, he’s used to having to manage a Budget, after all he did almost single handedly fund the Titans and assisted in continuing the funding that Bruce set up for the JLA.

There’s multiple times where he wants to punch someone for saying something stupid. No, Mr. Dobbs, we are not going to use that tax loophole to get out of paying those taxes. Who are they even paying taxes to, they aren’t part of the U.S anymore. The fucking mayor? Alright so who’s the mayor?

Turns out at the moment it’s the fucking Penguin. Because of course it’s the Fucking Penguin. Oh, there’s an upcoming election? Who’s on the ballot? Fucking Penguin and Joker . Dick resists the urge to throw himself out of the many many windows that make up the meeting room. He takes a deep breath, it doesn’t surprise him that Two-Face is running for District Attorney, what does surprise him is learning that Selena Kyle is also running for District Attorney. Though he supposes that since Gotham no longer has to follow United States Law that being a lawyer has become that much easier.

After the Board Meeting is dismissed Dick remains in the room, taking notes on his phone and realizing that he’s gonna need a new laptop since he left his at Titans Tower due to very very incriminating stuff on there — Dick Grayson isn’t supposed to be Robin so of course he left behind as much of his technology that proves that he is in the Tower.

Okay that leaves a few suits, Laptop, he should probably get a watch because rich people always seem to have nice watches. He needs to review and talk with everyone in Upper Management to figure out who he needs to cut and who he can keep. Then there's the heads of the department, not just the executive positions that he’ll have to talk to.

Who even is their head of HR at the moment?

After writing down literal pages of notes and to do items he makes his way to the top floor where all the Executives have their offices. He opens the Chief Executive Office with ease, only to realize that Jacob had barely changed it since Bruce had been in the office. It’s all so familiar, Dick remembers jumping from the old and darkened furniture — pressing his grubby hands against the floor to ceiling window panels and staring out over the city.

Everything the light touches, kind of moment for younger him. Wayne's influence spreads near and far.

He slides the name tag that says it’s Jacob Kanes office out of the door and adds another note to get a new one for himself in the near future.

Before he could get to the chair though, it spins around.

Platinum blonde hair slicked back in a high pony and two golden colored money pieces that match the shade of hair of her straight across bangs flick with the motion. Her legs are crossed over the office chairs arm. She smiles, looking too similar to a cartoon villain. “Miss me, cousin?” She says.

Dick could weep right then and there. “Bette,” he breathes out.

Chapter Text

Bette Kane is not your typical messiah. In fact, if asking any paparazzo or interview specialist, she would not be described as such. She would sooner be described as a menace to society. She's brash and blunt and doesn't sugar coat her thoughts no matter how uncouth they might be. Sure she knows how to act in public, but that doesn't mean that she does. The gossip columns call her unkempt the same day that social media praises her as the peak of fashion. Still, seeing her right there in his office, in front of him, it was like a breath of fresh air. She's his savior, there's no doubt about that.

Now, Dick Grayson has never been close to his supposed uncle, and Jacob Kane has detested him for just as long. Their relationship has always been strained and strange — purely transactional even in the early days. Jacob Kane has never seen Dick as one of his own, Dick has never truly been part of the family in Kane's eyes. The contempt was righteous and rough between the two of them. The same cannot be said for when Bette and Dick met. It was like two jigsaw pieces slotting together. Though, by all technicalities, they were legally second cousins — the way they bicker and interact you'd think them siblings. This tore Jacob and Bruce into pieces considering their own petty rivalry, but they never came between the two.

Dick was Robin, and Bette had been the first Bat-Girl. They were a dynamic duo, even before they knew that they knew each other out of costume. They had their moments, especially at the beginning when Dick was upset there was someone out there copying him and his very personal costume — but Bat-girl more than proved herself. Bette helped set up Titan's west, their first attempt to branch out when they started getting to large for Titans East. She was the defacto leader of the West and was in regular talkings with Dick about how to improve their administration on that side of the country. Though hanging up her costume to focus on her career every so often she'll work with the Titans to help them.

The Kane's were as intrinsic to Gotham's history as the Wayne's were. Two long, ancient lines that went back to the founding of the city in the colonial days. If you take either family out of the equation the Gotham foundation collapses, and you're left with a shell of what the city was. Thus, Barbara can't get mad that Bette is here — well she can and she probably will, but logically it's not breaking any promises that Dick made or anything. He agreed not to bring in Titans. Bette is both retired as a Titan and a Gothamite at least by inheritance.

"Holy shit, Bette," he steps towards her and they embrace with a short hug. "God you're really saving my ass here."

"Dude, I heard you left the Titans." She presses her hand up to his forehead, pushing back poorly gelled and combed hair, "If anything this is a wellness check. Are you feeling okay?"

He turns away from her, avoiding her gaze. "I owe it to the city—" the excuse sounds weak even to his own ears. This has nothing to do with the city nor the people in it. This is his guilt, the stuff that's been eating away at him for years. Barbara asked him to come, and he abandoned her when she needed him most, what else was he supposed to do?

Bette pinches the bridge of her nose. She's dressed up to the nines. With a white button down shirt over a black pleated skirt. A brown waist coat goes over her shirt, and a red tie lays messily on top of that. Her hair is curled and pushed back with a simple black headband. She's put together, the picture of perfection, not a single thread is loose on any of her buttons.

"You have a savior complex, Dick." She brushes some lint off the shoulder of his suit. "We've been over this. We have all been over this with you."

"It is not a savior complex," but he has has this conversation… with everyone… multiple times. He likes helping people, he likes doing good — and maybe somewhere along the line he fell in love with the rush of being a hero. You cannot have Dick Grayson without Robin, he's been Robin longer than he wasn't. There's a tie to superheroism in his gut that can't be separated from the rest of him.

At his heart he is a hero. He saves the world. He talks to politicians. He condemns horrid policies and uplifts the best ones. Dick has protested on the streets as Robin, he's saved the world with the JLA as Robin. He is Robin, and Robin is him. There's a pounding in his chest, a string that always draws him towards the places that need his help the most. And at the moment? That place at the moment is Gotham, and maybe that's driven by years of guilt that haunted his nightmares, but that's a secret between himself and his dreams.

"It so is," Bette picks up a pen, hopping onto the desk as she spins it. "But that's not what I'm here for. At least not totally." She looks him up and down. "Is that how you went to the board?" There's nothing but judgment in the way one side of her lip tugs up in disgust.

"Yeah—"

Bette interrupts him, "Oh good lord." She takes a deep breath, and lets out an already exasperated sigh. "Why couldn't you pay attention to Bruce when he tried to teach you about being a socialite, or a businessman."

"Because I thought he'd be here forever," Dick snaps. Bette has the decency to flinch away from the fire on his voice. He loves Bette, he always has and he always will. She's the family he needed when he didn't know he needed it, a breath of fresh air away from Bruce when Bruce seemed too overbearing. Going from the circus to a rich kid? It was quite the jump and Bette helped him with that.

That being said there will always be that single fundamental difference between them, a small crack that at points seemed like a ravine. She was always rich, she grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth, getting whatever she wanted. Dick didn't. He didn't want for anything when he was in the circus, but that's because he had everything he could ever need. He knew what it was like to not live with excess, he knew what it was like to be normal. Then one day all he knew was excess, he had more than he could ever dream of, and more than he could ever want.

Dick balls his hands into fists, his fingernails digging crescent moons into his palms. "I didn't want to believe that a second father of mine could die. So I didn't pay attention, because I was a kid and I wanted to be nothing more than that. I didn't know what being an heir meant…"

"Well now you do," her words are still blunt and clipped, but there's a softness to them that wasn't there before. She doesn't point out how Dick almost never refers to Bruce as his father, or how he never really talks about those nasty feelings of being cursed that have bloomed and blossomed from where they were deeply seeded in his psyche. "Now you knows what it means, and now you're going to have to learn." She crosses one leg over the other, red Mary Jane a statement on her feet. "You might still feel like a Grayson, and you might only be here for vigilantism." She once again sighs, floundering for words for a second. "But here's the thing, and you know this just as well as I do. Change? In Gotham? That starts with you, and it starts with my family. Fix the Wayne name, Dick, and the rest will come easily."

He glances out of the large window, it's one way so he can see out but no one can see in. The Gotham skyline looks so different when you're inside a building versus on top of, and he can't quite explain it. It feels smaller, like everything is right there at his finger tips when he's in the office. He is the architect when in the office, everything is his to fix and repair and mend. He can stitch back the hole ridden fabric. He presses his fingers against the cool glass. Everything's a short distance away: a walk, a drive, a bus ride. Gotham is almost claustrophobic when he sees it from this vantage point.

But when the wind is in his hair? When he's bounding from roof top to roof top, the adrenaline pumping through his veins? That's when the world of Gotham is all he needs. It's vast and expansive, and there's nothing keeping him rooted in a single location. He was born to move, to never know one place as home but to embrace the world as his own. When he's swinging on a grappling line Dick can go wherever he want, the city sprawls for ages as he bounds freely across the streets.

When he was younger he took no pride in being a Wayne. He shied away from it, fearing he insulted his late parents, that he couldn't be both. He didn't want to lose his heritage for the rich mans life. Bruce had tried to teach him what it meant to carry that weight and that heritage, to be the next in line to a throne made of history and wealth. He had ignored it, pushed it away. He had thought that Bruce would be with him forever, he had thought that by the time it was Bruce's time he'd have a biological child — one eager to take the name.

Bruce barely even had a single stable relationship. Maybe his best bet would have been with Talia Al Ghul, but Bruce always got so distracted — it was rocky at best. Whatever could have been never will be. Maybe the next bet was Selena, another Gothamite though technically a transplant, Bruce had been smitten with Catwoman in a way that Dick couldn't understand. Selena wasn't the type to have children this easy, and she never wanted to settle down in those early days. Bruce never had a true heir, making Dick stuck. He's carrying a title he never wanted, living a life he actively scorned and ran away from.

He ignored Bruce about which fork to use for salad, or how to talk, or how to walk. He didn't know the right handshake, or the right words to say. All he knew was how to lead, and he could do that decently well. But a leader alone will not make a Wayne. Dick was royally fucked… he glances back over at Bette — his virtually royal second cousin. She sits with all the poise of a princess, like a queen ready to rule over her kingdom. She knows. She embraced it. She's brutal, but with the kind of cold precision required of the best surgeons.

"I'm not a CEO," he whispers. He runs a hand through his hair, pacing through the decadent and too large office. "I don't know the first thing about running a company. I don't do things alone!"

"Then delegate. You're a leader, Dick. But leaders know when they need people to step up." She catches the pen she's been twirling in her hand. "If you don't cut the rot then it'll consume you. You need people you can trust. People to replace the maggots that make up the C-suites right now."

"I tried, I talked to Luke but it would have been nicer if he cussed me out." Delegate, what a fucking laugh, to delegate you need people who know what they're doing. Dick doesn't even know people who know things! He's floundering.

Bette tilts her head back and forth. "Then let's start with something you do know."

"And what's that?"

She grabs a manilla folder that was sitting on the desk, she tosses it at Dick and despite how badly he wanted to let it hit him and fall to the ground — his instincts would not allow that. He catches it with lightning quick reflexes and opens it. Inside are various lists, memo's, and biographies. He raises an eyebrow and Bette only smiles in response.

Bette smiles. "You're a detective, you know the facts. Thought I'd bring you some normalcy." She leans back, bracing herself with long arms. "Charities, for the most part, are the things that have been hit the hardest. It's hard to promote welfare in the worst of the Rogues factions. In there are all the people who've been laundering from the charities, who have been holding back efforts for the sake of the Rogues. They exist in the pocket of our biggest political players at the moment." She leans forward, "And Dick? Mayoral elections are going to be starting up soon, so I'd get ready for that hell."

"Democracy still exists here?" He starts skimming over the papers. There's so many names, so many charities, so many subsidiaries of Wayne Enterprises. The one that catches his eye is a name he's seen around before, but that's for sure going to be a problem for the future.

Bette shrugs as she bounces one of her knees. "Yes and no. If you consider Penguin raiding Riddler, and whoever winning being the Mayor…"

"And people are going to want my input…" he sighs, closing the folder. "Fuck I'm in over my head."

"That's why I'm here." She gets off of the desk and walks over to Dick just so she can patronize him by patting him on the head. "Now get reading Mr. CEO. You have a lot to catch up on. And when that's done, we're going to start business lessons and brainstorming!"

Dick collapses on the overly comfortable desk chair and pulls the papers out of the folders, spreading them across the desk. "You're kidding me." Bette was in fact not kidding him, and for the rest of the work day they were going over normal ass business things — especially when it came to running very large businesses. Dick got acquainted with the other C-suites, and thanks to Bette's biographies he knew exactly who he was firing first.

Well, maybe they'll get a visit from Robin before the end of it.

___________

"Richard," the taught voice of Barbara cuts through the white noises of the cave that had been slowly lulling him to sleep despite Bette's bubbly chatter. Even as the time for patrol drew nearer he couldn't find the energy to get out of the chair, it was so comfortable and he was so tired.

That's one thing he took for granted maybe, the way that Bruce could do literally everything on like 4 hours of sleep a night. Don't get Dick wrong, he's normally used to little amounts of sleep, that's just how big battles and war often worked. You didn't get the luxury of knowing when your next meal would be, when you'd next be able to sleep, when you'd get the liberty of being human. Dick's used to pushing through things.

This is a different sort of tired. One that he couldn't easily push to the back of his mind. It wasn't that his limbs were sore or that he had been bleeding profusely. It's worse. It's a social and mental exhaustion that tugs on him, and tempts him back into the comfortable desk chair. He didn't know that this kind of thing could be so tiring. Spattering on a smile, and shaking hands shouldn't have been that stressful, and yet he can already feel gray hairs forming in his scalp.

How Bruce didn't get into an even earlier grave, he'll never know. Right now he just wants to bash his head into the computer. That particular action will have to wait because now he has to deal with Barbara's hissy fit. God for a woman who's been the 'sole protector' of Gotham, you'd think she'd have an ounce of maturity in her body. She's as cuddly as a cactus.

"Barbara," he retorts without looking at her — keeping his eyes shut tight.

"We had a deal. You made a promise."

He lets out an exasperated sigh, listening to Barbara's angry thudding throughout the batcave. "Yes. I did. I did not break it." Dick Grayson is utterly and perfectly aware of his own stupidity, he knows when he's made a mistake, he cannot allow himself to say that letting Bette help him was one of those mistakes. He needs help, they need help. They need more than just the two of them if they wanted to take back Gotham.

Hell! Half of the goons laugh at him when they see him on the streets. They don't take him seriously, despite the fact that his team rivals that of Superman's. They don't care, they see the (slightly modified) costume and they remember the nine year old. That's another problem he'll have to fix in due time. One problem at a time though, one foot in front of the other. The problem at the moment is Barbara's rage, which cannot be tamped and cannot be drowned.

"Then why," Dick can hear her tap her foot, over and over and over. "Is she here? Of all fucking people, Richard!"

"I—"

A hand on his shoulder. Bette had hopped down from the desk. "I can defend myself, Dick. Don't worry about me." She smiles as she stares at Barbara. "I don't know what Dick promised you. But I assure you, that I belong here. One of us was the first, and it wasn't you." She let's her passive aggressive smile — all lips no teeth — stretch across her face. "If you get to fight crime here, then so do I. My family's been here longer than yours has, Gordon. Speaking of family… where's that dad of yours now?"

Silence, stretching thin between the three of them. It's tense, wrought with complicated feelings, all tangled into a ball that would be impossible to unknot. The bats above them chirp in irritation as they all start to head out for feeding. Sunset bleeds through the waterfall, making the water run a deep red. God, there's going to be a fucking murder in this cave tonight, and he can't tell if he's going to be the one dead, or the one hiding the evidence.

When Barbara doesn't respond Bette tilts her head, "Thought so." She grabs her mask, already in her old Bat-Girl attire. "Oh and Barbie? Stop being such a martyr. The victim mentality isn't cute." They're toe to toe, with Barbara being only a bit taller than Bette is. They're staring each other down, neither one backing down.

Barbara licks her teeth. "Don't call me that."

"Or what, Barbie? Gonna kill me?" Bette is near manic as her smile grows, spreading into teeth. Barbara doesn't respond. Bette boops her on the nose and waves a hand as she makes it to her motorcycle. "Ciao, Bella!" She says. "I'll see you on the streets."

Once Bette's gone Barbara walks straight over to the punching bag and punches as hard as she can, it makes a distinct thudding noise. "I hate her! Why!" She spins on Dick. "Of all people! I would have been more okay with Starfire, and I hope you realize that."

Dick waves his hand dismissively. "Yeah… I didn't ask her. She showed up at Wayne Enterprises today."

"What business do you have there?"

"Barbara…" his words are slow and a bit slurred, leaving him worried for the events that were to transpire later in the night. "It's my company? It's my business. I'm both the majority stockholder, and CEO by Bruce's will. Bette's been helping me all day, I don't know what I'm doing in that tower but she does."

Barbara crosses her own arms, "Doesn't mean I want her in my cave."

"It's not your cave." He stands up, grabbing his own mask. He's opening a can of words that he probably doesn't want too — but it's late and he's not thinking straight. The nights also just beginning, meaning that he's got a whole hell of a lot of work to do. He doesn't have time to put up with Barbara's bullshit and he needs to shut it down and shut it down fast.

Bette and him decided that the easiest territory to perhaps take back would the Riddlers. So that's where they were starting, it requires a general recon mission which would be what this night is all about. Stakeouts and good roundups.

"I'm sorry?" She takes a step forward.

He shrugs. "Last time I checked it was my cave. Just like it's my mansion upstairs, and my company that all the tech comes from. You don't have rights to this cave that no one else has."

"I've been working on cleaning these fucking streets! You've been lazing around with the Titans for years. Did you not stop to think that maybe I've earned this place. I've earned the Batsymbol."

He takes a deep breath, sliding the mask over his face like he's done so many times before. "I'll take a lot of shit," he puts his eskrima in their holsters. "But never, ever, fucking insult my team again." His voice goes gravelly and low as he says it, not intentionally so, but he has to work to tamp down his own rage. "Maybe you don't like it because you can't understand why I left, but I'm a hero, Barbara. And maybe I'm not taking gun shots every night but it wasn't like I was slacking off in New York. I made the Titans into something, we mattered. The rest of the world is just as much a shit show as Gotham is. I'm here as a favor. The second you decide you don't need me, I'll happily leave because there will always be another threat. You asked me to come back. Remember that."

They stand, on near opposite ends of the cave and Dick is reminded that though he remembers Babs — Babs no longer exists. Babs died off when Bruce did, and so did Dick. They're both two different people, polar opposites and yet the exact same. They both want to do good by the people, but that means getting over this schism first. They've both always been stubborn, now their obstinate natures might be the truest death of them.

He doesn't know how they can bridge this gap… it's a Sisyphean task. Every time they make progress, something fucks them over and they're back at the start. They're butting heads more often then not, long repressed emotions resurfacing with every interaction. This was the girl he loved once. She's no longer than same girl, she's not even a girl. He wonders how he looks to her. They need to work together, he needs to convince her to let him get more people to help them — he knows that's a tall ask. Dick also knows that two people cannot make a meaningful change against a system practically designed to fail.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but it's stubborn and through gritted teeth with white clenched fists.

He grabs his keys. "No. You're not." He shrugs again. "But that's just how you are now, I guess." Jesus fucking Christ they have a lot of work to do before they can ever fix Gotham. Because first, apparently, they need to fix their relationship.

______________

Gotham is nothing like New York. That much is apparent to anyone with so much as a brain. The streets aren't well maintained, not to say that New York is great with their roads, but at least they have roads. Dick is finding himself dodging pot holes and jumping over general rubble strewn about haphazardly. It's like the pavement has been replaced with cobblestones and they've reverted to horse drawn carriages. A tornado could have wound its way through the city for all he knew with how much debris is in his way. Good thing he's not a horrible driver. His bike is fairly old, but it's reliable - it let's out an uncomfortable squeal as he rounds a corner.

Maybe he should get the Robin bike tuned up.

There's nowhere quite like Gotham. He told Barbara that everywhere suffers, but after traveling the galaxy's he can confidently say that there's nowhere else that attracts the worst of the worst quite like the cess pool that is Gotham. Sure, he's fought demons and devils and Anti-Christs. He's faced invading aliens and supernatural threats and have been forced to embrace hi sown mortality. There's no threat that Dick hasn't seen — and yet Gotham remains a special place full of misery and the thick smog of malice.

It doesn't matter how many people he takes off the street, five more pop up like the weeds they are. He can't help but think of how efficiently he'd be able to clear up Gotham if he had his team with him. He could see Starfire, and Cyborg, and Raven, and Joey, and Donna , and everyone so clearly in his minds eye. They'd be dividing and conquering rather than conquering the divisions. They were a tried and true team , practically reading each others minds as they worked. They were young kids when the team first started, young enough that their lives wouldn't be the same without each other.

As Dick takes a deep breath, breathing in gunpowder and smog he reminds himself that this is Gotham. Gotham problems require Gotham solutions. He knows how Bruce would want him to fix this problem, and so he'll honor that legacy. Bruce deserves some sort of grace from Dick, even despite the years that have passed. Maybe Bruce was a shit bag sometimes, maybe he hadn't been fit to be a guardian, but maybe Bruce also gave Dick the only outlet that felt meaningful to him.

He comes to a stall in a mold strewn alleyway that's covered in Riddler purple and green spray paint. The colors drip from lazily stenciled question marks. Ditching his helmet, stay safe while driving, Dick scales up the rickety fire escape. The rust from it comes off on his leather finger less gloves, and the stench should have been enough to nauseate him.

It doesn't.

Dick's spent long enough in Gotham that there's nothing that the city could throw at him that would startle or disgruntle him. He can't be disgusted by something that… admittedly smells and feels like home. The rough cinder blocks under his hands as he hoists himself up onto the actual roof is a pleasant feeling, one of pleasant late nights spent with Bruce. He was never one for homes before Gotham, but Bruce made him sentimental and before that his home hadn't been a place but rather the circus itself. Sue him for loving each part that made up his childhood. He takes a deep breath, and each breath he takes is like reliving that childhood — that sick scent of decay that never quite leaves the air.

It's like Gotham itself is a rotting corpse that they're all living on. If you listen close enough you can hear the whistling sighs of her ragged breaths, and if you stand still enough you can feel the faint beating of her black sludge heart. He looks out across the city, at everything that he's known and yet is now a shell of what it used to be. Reconnaissance was the name of the game for the night, get intel and report back so that they can make a better judgment on how to proceed. They need solid plans, plans that won't necessarily fall flat. No plan is fool proof, but as long as they're not fools it doesn't have to be. He sighs, pulling out a telescope, peering around the part of the city that Riddler calls his.

It covers the university campus, and the university students are still allowed on and off the premises. He didn't take Riddler to be a proponent for higher education but he supposed that most of their Rogues were genius types with PhD's and theses under their names. Goons covered the streets, talking to each other — laughing and joking around. It seems as though there's a very tepid peace at hand. It's hard to say how Dick and Bette's presence will change that. The second that all three of them are caught together it'll be a blatant statement against the current regime. It might make things harder, tensions will surely rise.

He sighs.

There's no easy way to go about it, though. Even if they keep away from each other, Robin returning is a return of Batman's legacy — even if Barbara tried to keep it alive it wouldn't have been the same. The very essence of Robin is damning, it's telling the Rogues that they're next, that Gotham will go back to it's status quo. He doesn't show it, but he can feel someone's arrival — the slightest shift in the air. It grows warm where it wasn't before. He does not allow himself to flinch, does not allow himself to twitch.

Dick understands that his movements must be sure and defined. He ears the softest clink of metal against concrete, so he twists. The telescope at a strangers neck like a sword. "Nice try." He quickly glances over the newcomer. Said newcomer has on a complicated bit of machinery, one etched with batman's symbol on his chest in soft glowing blue light. It's reminiscent of cyborg, all mechanical with very few soft chinks. The fact that it was so quiet is disturbing in a way that Dick can't quite describe. If it wasn't for the jet pack wings that fold back into the back with a very soft whirring noise then he wouldn't have known about this guy.

"I heard you were back in town." The voice changer is good, it distorts the voice and unless you knew what to look for you wouldn't even realize it was a voice changer. There's the slightest metallic echo at the end of the words as the stranger speaks. Under that… The bastard. "We're not enemies."

Dick lowers the telescope so that it's directly over the symbol. "I think I can figure that out for myself."

"We have the same goal, so put down the… telescope?" The stranger looks Dick up at and down, flicking between said telescope and his eyes. "Really?"

"I once beat Slade to a pulp with a kids squeaky chicken. I don't need weapons…" his sentence drifts as he scans over the 'stranger'. "Whatever your name is." He collapses the telescope and puts it back in his utility belt, and that simple action puts the 'stranger' at ease.

The stranger sticks out his hand, "You can call me Batwing."

The more he talks the more that Dick gets the sense that this guy is familiar, really familiar. Though he'll wait a bit longer till he throws accusations and assumptions around. You know what they say about assumptions after all — they can get you and your loved ones killed. Dick shakes Batwing's hand, the tech looking all the more WayneTech by the second.

"Nice to meet you," there's a level of ice because he's about 85% certain that this is Luke Fox, which meant that Luke was very much lying to him all those times that Dick asked him to join the titans. 'Not a vigilante' his ass. What's this then? You know, the tactical battle armor with a built in jet pack while patrolling the streets of Gotham, that screams vigilante.

"Likewise. I didn't think I'd ever think I'd see you on these streets again," Batwing steps up next to the edge of the roof top, glancing down at the alley on the opposite side of the building that Dick had scaled. "Seems above your pay grade at this point."

Dick huffs out a laugh. He will admit, Gotham in the grand scheme of things does seem a bit novice. "A friend asked me to help her out." As long as they're pretending that they don't know each other, Dick might as well have some fun. "And I help out my friends when they're desperate. After all, I have the experience she doesn't have."

Batwing goes silent before turning his head, eyes covered by a straight bar visor. "Batwoman, I presume?"

Dick shrugs. "Don't tell her I said that, I think it was a moment of weakness." He stretches out his shoulders, lifting one arm over his head. "I don't know if you've spoken to her recently, but one conversation and —" Dick whistles. "Is it wrong that I want to punch her?"

He speaks as though Batwing personally knows Barbara, becauase he does. Though the two weren't close, you couldn't exist in that sphere and not talk to each other at least a few times a year. They didn't go to the same school, but Barbara was a close friend of Dick's and would often times end up at Wayne Towers when Luke was also there.

"You're going to be the death of me, Robin," he says. As though he knows that Dick knows that he's Luke Fox.

It crosses Dick's mind that they probably both know that the other knows that they know. Does it make sense to keep up the bit? Not at all. "Want to go take our anger out on some drug peddling goons?"

"Riddler's people don't often peddle drugs. That's going to be Penguin and Black Mask."

Dick paces the length of the roof. "Yes, but, see, we can't attack Penguin and Black Mask outright quite yet. That's going to be more political and strategic. We can go straight after Riddler, if he hasn't gone off the deep end since I last saw him it shouldn't be too bad!" He's biting his thumbnail and Batwing shrugs.

"We can go find some goons, sure."

Backing up straight so that his feet were on the edge of the root top he allows himself a shit eating grin, "Then try to keep up — Newbie." He kicks off the crumbling concrete, back flipping as he pulls out his grappling gun — it's a single fluid movement, practiced and perfected over years of showing off.

He has always loved the air, the exhilaration that comes every time he reaches that perfect climax in his arc, letting go to grab onto another building. It's an adrenaline rush that he'll never get used too — better than any other drug that he could ask for. It's connection to his parents, to his parents parents, to everyone who performed before him. This one moment, this freedom is him remaining connected to his roots. He's not forgetting where he's come from, he's adapting to the life that he's chosen to lead.

After Bruce died there was nothing stopping him from going back to Haly's circus, except… He remembers Starfire that night, comforting him when he needed it most. He's been a vigilante since he was nine years. There was no other option for him, in his mind — after that night he decided to go after his parents murderer, this was it for him.

And he's long accepted his fate. That one decision is going to lead him to an early grave, but what wouldn't have? He'd always be a daredevil, an adrenaline junky. If he's going to die he want's it to be to the fall — the same exact thing that killed his parents.

No net, he thinks as he sails through the skies — flying for just a moment. No net, just as his parents always insisted.

Batwing takes to the skies with his jet pack, and Dick can't help but think about how that's such a cop out. Some of them don't need magic or technology to fly, some of them soar — they're above the clouds with or without assistance. He swings, and he bounces, and he bounds across historic district buildings that should have gotten maintenance years ago.

"You're quick," Batwing says as he falls into pace next to Dick.

"Have to be," He slides to the end of the roof before sending it over the edge, he grabs the fire escape on the next building over, moss slick under his hands. He propels himself up and over. "You ever have to try to keep up with K.F?" He can't, like physically Dick cannot keep up with Wally West — no one can, but that's not the point. Even when Wally goes slow, he's still leagues faster than everyone else in the tower.

Batwing barrel rolls over to Dick's other side, coming to a landing once they both spot their targets. "No. I haven't."

Dick pulls out his eskrima sticks, "Yeah. I know, Batwing. Let's go kick ass yeah?" He drops down without anymore fanfare, leaving Batwing to trail behind him. Rolling to catch his fall he lands smack dab in the middle of the group of Riddler colored goons.

The goons don’t come to attention at once, they've gotten lazy is what's happened. They're not used to vigilantes patrolling the streets, or people opposing their brutish ways. They don't seem alarmed, or scared. They're relaxed, hands in their pockets, guns all still in their holsters — though Dick knows that the safety's are ticked off. Enough of them raise their eyes to tell Dick that of all heroes they weren't expecting him.

“Look it! Look it, Joe!" One of them pushes the guy next to them, pointing at Dick like he's some sort of zoo animal. "Little birdies come back to hurt us.” One them taunts.

Dick’s eye twitches. He remains silent, doing a small spin to check out how many there are. He’s killed gods and fought beside god, and this is what he gets upon returning to Gotham. They don't take him seriously, but that's their loss. Flicking on the switch to electrify one of his sticks he throws it at the guy who taunted him. The stick lands with a large thud, and the guy starts convulsing on the ground — not dead, but also he was not going to be getting it back up.

Dick's eskrima sticks are typically tied to his belt, easy to retract but also easy to ditch if he should get into a spot of danger. He presses a button and the stick returns to his hand. He sweeps out his leg, getting into a fighting stance. "Who's next?" He asks as the laughing around him halts, everyone staring at the goon he's already taken out.

A lesson then, don't fuck with him.

Batwing descends, standing next to Dick.

All hell breaks loose.

You ever dodge bullets before? Because Dick has. It's a regular occurrence in his life, something his doctors probably wished wasn't true. People who attack him always love to forget that his team is made up of fucking maniac. His girlfriend can do worse than a gun, and that's just because she can! People have never had to deal with Roy taking trick shots for the shits and giggles, and he's more deadly with a bow and arrow than any of these guys are with guns. Is it hard when every single person circled around Dick pulls out a gun at the same time trying to shoot at him at point blank range? Yeah, a little bit. But Interpol is worse.

He drops down as the bullets fly, most of them forgetting that they're in a circle so their bullets end up hitting allies rather than enemies. The ones that don't make their target are bad shots and their bullets ricochet around the alleyway. "Watch it!" Dick yells.

He pulls out some marble looking pellets from his utility belt and throw them on the ground. He flips a switch on his mask as they explode with fog, blinding everyone around them. Dick laughs, letting his voice echo and bounce around the small area. He gets up and flips over to one of the goons not already down, he hits his stick in their groin, another one he stabs in the gut — they both double over.

For every goon that Batwing takes out, Dick’s able to take out two or three – maneuvering with the shadows. Batwing is less experienced, but that doesn't mean he's a novice. Batwing has obvious boxing training — not martial arts, his movement's aren't precise enough for that. No, it's obvious that he's strong, that he's lithe, but his movements are clunky and not indicative of any specific form. Dick slides in and out of vision, flipping over people’s heads and diving between their legs. It’s a dance. It’s his job. This is his life.

When the border patrol is all taken out and the fog clears Dick licks his teeth. “Big sack of armor restricts your movement a bit, don’t ya think?” He hoists himself up onto the first level of the fire escape, hanging off of it as he talks to Batwing — feet dangling over the edge as he kicks them back and forth.

“I don’t have the same training you do.” Batwing wipes his mouth of spit before staring up at Dick. "We aren't going to fight the same."

"Yeah. I know. But still, why not use any of the fun toys Lucius put into that suit?" He asks.

Batwing doesn't move, but his shoulders bitch with his breath. Dick recognizes the suit without fault. It's a prototype that Bruce and Lucius had been working on together, to perhaps sell across the world for protection. It was deemed a failure and left to rot, too much liability if the machinery were to go wrong. Lucius kept it as a just in case as far as Dick knew. Look who got their hands on it now.

Luke turns his head, "how did you know about that?" He avoids Dick's gaze, trying to pretend that he doesn't know that Dick knows that he's Batwing and Luke Fox at the same time. Just like how all those years Lucius and Bruce never once talked about how Bruce is Batman, yet it was a tacit unspoken understanding the two of them had.

"The same way you know that I'm Dick Grayson, Liar," he says the word slowly — enunciating every phoneme. He stands up and pulls out his grappling gun. "Next time I as you to join the Titans, don't tell me you're not a vigilante. "And say hit to Lucius for me next time you see him!"

Always having to have the last word, Dick shoots out his grappling gun and whisks away back to where he stashed his motorcycle, leaving Batwing and Luke to grapple with what they've said. He'll try to contact Luke again in a few days, try to get him back on track.