Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lois shows up at Clark’s desk in the middle of the afternoon with the look on her face that she only reserves for tragedy.

Clark’s first thought when he sees it is that he hasn’t seen it in a long time. Things in Metropolis have been fairly calm the last few months; no new monsters or aliens from other planets come to claim or destroy Earth. No new threats to the whole of humanity. Just some petty thieves and the same-old same-old that Clark has dealt with a hundred times over. For a moment, even, he started to think he knew what peace felt like.

But now Lois is in front of his desk with that crease to her brow and the tremor to her bottom lip and Clark remembers in one snap second what fear feels like.

Immediately, he scoots forward on his chair, his eyes are widening behind his glasses as he blinks up at her and asks, concerned, “What happened?”

She props her hip against his desk, her belt making a clicking sound against the wood, her arms folded tightly over her chest. It isn’t like she’s angry, though, or putting on a front. She’s holding her forearms tightly with manicured nails, and it honestly looks like she’s trying to keep something in, like she’s trying to protect the heart that’s beating beneath her ribcage.

Clark can hear it. Thump, thump, thump. It’s a faster rhythm than her usual. He’s tempted to stand but doesn’t want to draw attention to them so, instead, he reaches out to gently rest his hand against her hip, staring up at her expectantly from where he’s sitting in his stupid rolling chair that can’t quite stay still.

“Hey,” he says, voice low. “Talk to me, Lois, what’s going on?”

He’s already running through a hundred different possibilities. The fact that no one else at the Planet seems to be slightly worried or amiss insinuates that this is personal. That this is something only she knows… and that makes it all the scarier.

Lois sucks in a heavy breath through her nose before looking up at Clark beneath mascara-coated lashes. Her eyes are red-rimmed like she’s been crying or, at the very least, fighting the urge to. It seems to take a second to steady her voice before she says, “This morning, uh, Cat Grant told me about a story she’s writing.”

Clark frowns, confused. This isn’t usually how Lois expresses discontent when Cat gets to stories before her. She’s usually all spitting curses and pacing and planning the next catch, but now she’s eerily still, using Clark’s desk to keep her upright, her body slouched and tired.

Lois rolls her lips and meets Clark’s eyes. “It’s about Nightwing.”

And with three words, Clark’s blood is sprinting cold through his veins. His stomach does somersaults like an acrobat, like a little kid dressed in red and green who said Superman was his favorite hero. A story about Nightwing. A story about Nightwing that has Lois leaning against Clark’s desk with heaviness in her red-rimmed, watery eyes and tragedy in her expression.

But Nightwing can’t be… Dick can’t be… he can’t be dead, can he? He’s only twenty-one, for God’s sakes, he can’t be dead. But Jason was only fifteen and if one Robin can die, so can another.

Clark’s mind is running wild, tripping over itself as his thoughts try to formulate a coherent sentence. What if it’s the Joker again? What if he took the same crowbar and beat Dick’s head in without thought, without care, without remorse? What if Dick was lying there in a puddle of his own blood, skin stained red? What if he’d called for Bruce—called for Clark, even—and no one heard him? What if he’s dead and he died alone?

Clark’s pulse is increasing.

He talked to Dick not even a full week ago, he can’t be dead. They exchanged a few texts to see how he was doing in Blüdhaven. Dick had said proudly back with too many emojis attached, finally got a TV for the place! It’s not exactly the Batcave’s computer, but at least now I have cable! and Clark had offered to let Dick use one of his many accounts to watch whatever movies he wanted.

Just last night, he saw that Dick was watching Dirty Dancing on his Hulu so he can’t be dead.

He just talked to Bruce earlier today to say Dick was doing alright because Bruce always asks anyone but Dick how Dick is doing and Clark said he was fine but—but he’s not fine.

Bruce would have told him if Nightwing was dead, wouldn’t he? Oh, God, what if he doesn’t know? What if Cat Grant just got access to the story? What if no one else has heard yet? What if it just happened?

What if Clark is going to be the one to tell Bruce he has to bury a second son?

There’s a lump the size of a planet in Clark’s throat and his heart is going the speed of light as he stares up at Lois and forces out, “He’s not—?”

He can’t be.

He’s so young; he can’t be.

“He’s alive,” Lois replies without letting a beat of silence settle because she must see the horror that’s painted across Clark’s face like a stain, and she uncrosses her arms to interlace their fingers on her hip, squeezing Clark once to reassure him.

Carefully, Clark’s heart begins to steady its panicked rhythm.

It isn’t as though Dick is his son; he’s not. But he’s still family. He’s Bruce’s boy; that makes him family.

He swallows the planet down and murmurs, “So what—?”

What could a story about anything other than death be about to make her look the way she looks?

“Listen, it—” Lois lets out a sharp sigh and shakes her head in disbelief— “I honestly can’t imagine being in her shoes and wanting to run a story like that. It’s sick. I—I’ve talked with Perry about it to get her not to write it, and thank God he agrees it’s out of our jurisdiction but—” Her upper lip twitches in disgust, her voice churning with the same revulsion— “But if she got a hold of it—”

“Lois.” Clark stares at her, worried and confused. “What is the story about?”

Even with the reassurance that Dick isn’t dead, none of what Lois said makes him feel the slightest bit better. If he’s not dead, what could the story even be about? What could elicit such a tremor in her hands?

And it certainly doesn’t help that when she lifts her eyes again, there’s genuine hurt in her gaze. Something raw. Something untamed and hurt and palpable, so much so that Clark can’t help but ache by proxy.

She says quietly, like saying it any louder would make it too real, “Nightwing saved a young girl, uhm… in an alley in Blüdhaven from—” she rolls her lips and breathes through her nose again— “A rapist. Apparently, he got there just in time.”

Clark lets a soft breath of disgust slip between his lips. He wants to believe people are good, he truly does. But some days it’s hard to believe. Days like this, when he hears about young girls in alleys having to be saved by superheroes… that’s when he doubts it the most.

He nods, urging her to continue. There’s nothing horrible about the story yet, not really. Nothing worth the Daily Planet’s attention. It would have been horrible had Dick not arrived, but he did. He showed up and he did what he always does; he saved someone.

“She was still really shaken up by everything and…” Lois sighs, still clearly trying to maintain her composure. “She told the police that questioned her after the fact that Nightwing made her feel better by saying that the situation wasn’t her fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Clark iterates, brow pinched in, still worried and still perturbed, still holding Lois’s hand tightly.

Even she seems uncharacteristically shaken and she hears about horrible things every single day. He can feel her heartbeat in her wrist. Faster than a rabbit’s. Thump, thump, thump.

“And she told him that she wished that she could be a superhero like him—” Lois inhales once more, sucking air in through barely parted lips— “because then that sort of thing would never happen to her. Because it doesn’t happen to superheroes and Nightwing… ”

Lois trails off for a second, collecting her thoughts, staring at Clark like she’s hoping that he will fill in the gap for her because it’s too hard to speak out loud. He doesn’t because he doesn’t know what she wants him to say. He can’t begin to fathom it. What could she be alluding to? His brain is doing laps to try and find its way to the answer.

She continues heavily when Clark doesn’t, “Nightwing said that it happens even to superheroes.”

Clark’s eyes haven’t left her face. His forehead crinkles and his mouth opens as he tries to figure out just why Cat Grant is running a story about this—about Nightwing innocently telling a little girl that even superheroes get hurt sometimes—his brain still fumbling to keep up. Except, wait, not just hurt. It’s not that superheroes get hurt, it’s that they—it’s that they can be—

Wait. Oh God?

Lois looks at him with sad eyes, her fingers playing through his as she murmurs, “He said it happened to him, Clark.”

For a moment, the words don’t process. They merely hang in the air right between Clark’s face and Lois’s mouth, taking up space between them, dark and foreboding like a cloud of fog. Clark blinks through the mist with unseeing blue eyes behind the frames of his glasses, trying to get his brain to make sense of it. Any of it.

He said it happened to him.

He prompts, tongue feeling thicker in his mouth by the second, “What do you mean?”

That even superheroes get hurt. But that girl wasn’t just hurt, she was—

And Lois spells it out so horribly in a simple sentence, “He told her that someone raped him, Clark.”

Somehow, kryptonite would hurt less.

Lois presses on, not taking the time to register the horror-stricken look on Clark’s face, “When he was her age. And Cat Grant was planning to run a story called ‘Even Superheroes Need Saving’ about it. She wanted the whole world to know within the week that Nightwing was a victim of child sexual abuse. I mean, how fucked up do you have to be to—”

Somehow, of all the awful, revolting things about that monologue, the one Clark gets hung up on is when he was her age. He fumbles, “H-How old was the girl?”

How old was Dick when…? God, Clark can’t even think it. He can’t conceptualize it. Rape? But—God, but…? He hates himself that the first thought in his head is but Dick is a boy like that’s some kind of fucking reason. The second thought is how did Bruce ever allow that to happen? How did Bruce ever let Dick out of his sight long enough to let it?

“Sixteen,” Lois answers gravely.

Sixteen. Sixteen years old. That’s just a kid. That’s just Bruce’s kid. Dick wouldn’t have even been Nightwing yet. He would have still been Robin at sixteen. He would have been all red and green and silly spandex, just the bouncy, flip-flopping kid that ran around so close to Batman’s feet it was like he was trying to make Bruce trip over him, nothing but a puppy excited to be involved. The kid that still stared in awe at Clark whenever Superman came into the cave.

Almost the same age as Jason.

Clark feels nauseous.

He can’t put the words rape and the image of that smiling boy next to one another. It feels wrong. It feels so so unbelievably wrong that it makes his stomach flip.

Who? Who would have hurt a child—that child, Bruce’s child—in that way? How could anyone? What sort of sick person would even be capable of it?

Just the thought has Clark pulling his hand away from Lois so he can clench his fist in his lap. If he were to pull something into his grip now, he knows he would break it. It wouldn’t take any super strength to do so. So he lets his own blunt nails dig into his palm instead.

His brain is on a loop of who, who, who? But the who doesn’t matter, not anymore. Dick is what matters. And it was so long ago now that the perpetrator has probably long since been dealt with. Surely Bruce has already handled it.

Clark shivers at the thought of how Bruce handled it. No one in the world would want to be on the receiving end of that kind of rage.

Sixteen is so long ago… and Clark never knew. How did he never know something like that? He’s running through every image of Dick he has categorized in his brain; all the dimpled grins and cheery one-liners. He never showed even a fraction of having experienced something like that… should Clark have been tasked with looking for signs of it? Or is it reductive to assume that Dick should have ever shown any?

“I got Perry to shelve the story,” Lois is saying, voice still rough. “But if Cat found the body-camera footage and interview transcript then—”

Clark nods, collecting the information. “Then someone else will too.” He’s already standing from his chair, Lois’s eyes following him. He says, “I need to—I should call B.”

Lois nods and says as she starts turning to leave, “I’ll tell Perry you went home sick.”

Clark is already reaching for his phone as he turns and rushes down the stairs of the Daily Planet, headed for his car.

God. A story like this getting out… it will ruin Dick’s life. It would ruin anyone’s life, to have their most intimate secrets like that shared with the world without their consent. Clark hates how angry he is right now at that sixteen-year-old girl, but… he can’t help it. He can’t help feeling furious that she would share information like that, even if she is a child.

But, more than the damage to Dick’s psyche, this could spell disaster for his secret identity. If there’s any ties of his personal narrative to the one he said while in costume—

This is bad.

Clark calls Bruce on his way to Dick’s place, the second he slides behind the wheel.

It’s rare for Clark to call him, especially without a preceding text to warn Bruce about it, and it’s even rarer when he calls Bruce’s personal phone as opposed to the one he keeps hidden away in the Batcave.

Thus, he answers after the first ring. He must sense urgency.

Bruce’s voice comes through the speaker skeptically, a clear frown audible in his tone. “Clark?”

“Hey. Bruce,” Clark replies, knowing his voice is clearly strained, syllables wrung tight. How are you supposed to start a conversation like this? He’s realizing he should have come up with more of a plan before he called him. “I just, uh—I wanted to check in.”

Suddenly, he feels rather foolish for imposing on Bruce’s afternoon like this. Especially given the nature of… Dick and Bruce’s current circumstances, and that Clark knows Dick won’t mention the situation to Bruce on his own, and he probably won’t accept help either, because he’s just as stubborn sometimes as the big bat. But this is the boy’s father; he deserves to know about what’s happening. What will happen. Especially for the potential of future fallout.

Just because Lois handled Grant doesn’t mean there won’t be other writers. If she could find the interrogation transcript, anyone could. It makes Clark’s skin pebble with gooseflesh to even think of it.

Bruce asks, clearly noting the tremor in Clark’s voice, “Clark, what happened?”

Clark lets out a heavy sigh as he stares through the windshield of his car, glasses balanced precariously on his nose. He could fly, of course, to go see Dick, but he doesn’t want Superman to show up on his doorstep. This isn’t about superheroes; this is about people.

He just wants to be Clark Kent talking to Dick Grayson today.

He says, tired and hurt, “It’s about Dick.”

Bruce is quiet for a moment. He takes in a steadying breath that no one but those close to him (or those with super hearing) would probably be able to notice. When the words come out, they’re edging on the side of Batman’s inflection, rough and deep. “What about Dick?”

He’s good at hiding fear, but not from Clark. Clark notices the way his voice hitches. The way it almost sounds like a threat.

“He’s alive,” Clark feels the need to tell him, and he doesn’t miss the exhale of relief that meets him in return, one that Bruce may not have even realized he let out. Clark won’t let him linger in the gratefulness for long though, quick to ramble out, “I’m on the way to his place now to talk about it. It’s just that—Well, he saved this girl, and he told her about what happened to him when he was a kid and she ended up telling the arresting officer about it, and a Daily Planet reporter got hold of the body-cam footage, and she was going to publish a story about it, but don’t worry! Lois talked to her and got it taken care of so it won’t be coming out of the Planet but if she got the video then—”

“Wait, wait, slow down, Clark, what do you mean, ‘what happened to him when he was a kid’…?” Bruce interrupts, audibly perturbed.

There’s no noise from his side of the phone except his own voice. Clark assumes he’s at home, can perfectly visualize him sitting in that mansion by himself while Alfred piddles around in another room. Clark can see the interior of the house printed on the backs of his eyelids, picture the framed portraits of Dick and Jason in the sitting room above the fireplace.

He doesn’t hear the crackle of a fire on the phone.

Bruce fills in—Clark can picture the furrow to his handsome brow as he tries to piece it together, whatever it is that Clark is insinuating that he wishes he wasn’t— “About his parents’ death?” His breathing ticks up. “He didn’t reveal his identity, did he?”

The concern in his tone is back. There’s nothing Bruce cares about more than his secrets.

“No, he—” Clark shakes his head, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel with one hand— “Nothing like that. His identity is safe. For now.”

Another breath of relief from Bruce before he wonders, back to being puzzled, “Well, then what did they want to write a story about?”

Clark rolls his lips uneasily. He hates even having to speak it out loud, especially to Dick’s father, even though he already knows. But he can’t imagine how much as a parent it will hurt to hear that your child’s most vulnerable secrets are being sold just for the scandal of it. No one deserves it, least of all Dick.

He lets out a heavy breath and says, “Cat Grant wanted to write a story about, uhm, how superheroes can be victimized too… really play into the ‘human element’ of superhero-dom, I guess. So, uh, she wanted to write a story about—” Clark holds himself steady, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel before he forces out, “Dick’s sexual assault.”

The words settle in the space between the phone and their ears like an anvil in water.

Bruce is eerily silent on the other side.

Clark wishes he were there so he could at least see Bruce’s face, give him some sort of reassurance in the form of a touch or an expression or… something. Just something to show that he’s not alone, to prove that Clark would move hell and high water to protect Dick, just like Bruce would.

Several long beats hang in the air before Bruce wonders, his voice low and calculated, “You said you’re on the way to Dick’s apartment now?”

“Yes,” Clark says, nodding diligently. “I wanted to tell him about it in person and let him know I had it handled, at least here at the Planet, but—I mean, Bruce, there’s a good chance this will still get out no matter what I do. Even though we stopped the Daily Planet from running it, other papers still might if they find out.”

There’s not even a chance that they won’t. They’ll find out. Journalists always find out. If there’s a video of her saying it… they’ll find out. Nightwing is such a beloved hero. Everyone loves him. Even people that hate vigilantes like Nightwing. He’s handsome and charming and tender and he’s not like Bruce, he doesn’t hurt people. He’s the best of them. And he’s human. More human than any of them, in every way that it counts. People will want to sink their teeth into a story like this and see just how human he can be.

“Right.” Bruce is quiet again, as if considering. Calculating. “And you said there’s body-camera footage? Of him… saying that he was…?”

He trails off like he can’t even stomach the words. Even after all these years of knowing, it weighs as heavily as it did the first time he knew someone hurt his son. Clark feels so out of his depth and guilty now. Guilty that he knows something like this, something so personal and intimate, that Dick probably never wanted him to. That Bruce probably never wanted him to. How terrifying it must be, to see your child under threat and not be able to protect them. To know their most private, personal secrets are being told, and you can’t stop it.

“No, it’s just a video of the girl telling the police that’s what he said to her,” Clark fills in. “I don’t think there’s any evidence of Dick himself saying it, but—”

“But he’d never lie about something like that. Especially not to another child.” Bruce’s voice sounds unbelievably hurt. Exposed and pained, unlike Batman has ever been known to sound.

Clark feels like it isn’t something he’s supposed to be privy to.

For a moment, he lingers on the phrase another child, as though Dick isn’t a twenty-year-old man living alone. As though he’s still the kid that lives in Bruce’s mansion, who wears red and green. But he chooses not to point it out.

Instead, he takes note of the word lie. He knows that, of course, Dick wouldn’t ever lie about something like that—no one good would—but journalists wouldn’t even care if it was one. There won’t be any fact-checking, any second opinions or research, not for a story so tantalizing. So scandalous. So forbidden. It will be chewed up and spat out into the world just as dirty as they want it to be.

Clark promises him, “I’m doing what I can to stay ahead of it. I hate that this happened at all, but… I need to ask, did Dick ever report what happened to him to the police? If he did, there’s a chance someone may cross-reference old case files to try and find out his identity if—”

“Dick never told anyone,” Bruce cuts him off abruptly. His tone is stiff as a board. Sharp as a Batarang. “Clark, I have a meeting to get to in ten so I need to go now, but thank you for letting me know. I appreciate it and… I’ll be in touch.”

Clark knows that Bruce knows that Clark knows that’s a lie. He’s Superman. He knows what Bruce’s house sounds like. He knows the silence and the fluttering of the curtains in the background. He knows there’s no meeting.

But he also knows that sometimes hiding is easier than being seen.

So he lets Bruce hang up without another word and keeps on driving to see his son.

Clark is jittering in his skin by the time he shows up at Dick’s apartment with sweaty palms and a hole in his stomach.

He realizes, as he’s knocking on the door, that he should have texted or called ahead. He should have given Dick some formal forewarning that he was about to show up on his doorstep and, worse than that, he's showing up on his doorstep with bad news.

How is he supposed to give this sort of bad news? He doesn’t know if there’s any news worse. There’s no way that Dick ever wanted him to know. Clark hates knowing. He hates that he took something from Dick that Dick never offered him. He hates knowing because that makes it true.

And he knows he’s wearing that all over his face when Dick opens the door after a few knocks because the lazy smile he was wearing slips right off his face.

“Clark,” he says in a soft exclamation, expression draining at the sight of a dressed-down Superman in front of him, holding onto the door frame, “what’re you—? Uh, hey!”

He seems baffled to see Clark at his doorstep (frankly, he seems baffled to see anyone, dressed down in a t-shirt and pajama pants that hang low on his hips with bare feet on the floor), fumbling to pull open the front door and offer Clark a place inside his home.

Almost immediately, he seems to consider his own state of undress and hurries to pull up his sagging pants, folding up the waistband to keep them balanced on his hip bones, plastering on an embarrassed smile.

His black hair is a bird’s nest and his blue eyes have bruises beneath them.

Sometimes, Clark forgets how young Dick looks behind the mask.

“Sorry, I uh—“ Dick laughs nervously, hurrying to rustle through his hair with a hand— “of course the one time I take a sick day, Superman shows up.”

“You’re sick?” Clark asks, forehead pinching.

“Not really!” Dick protests as if he’s anxious to be perceived like he is. “I mean, I can help if you need anything, seriously, it’s just, like, a head cold. Nothing to be worried about!”

He puts on that shiny, lopsided smile again, revealing dimples. Just seeing him smile like that—young and unhindered and embarrassed—makes Clark want to smile too, but he can’t. Not now.

He steps through Dick’s threshold and becomes so aware of how he looks, wearing his white button-down with a tie and grey slacks and black framed glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose that’s slippery with sweat.

No part of him looks like Superman.

It’s rare that he tries to meet up with Dick dressed like a person.

Dick notices the divergence too.

“Is everything okay?” Dick asks, chuckling uneasily and shutting the door behind him to close them in his house. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to see you, Blue, but—” Almost all at once, his smile falls, face sobering exponentially, and he asks, heavy, “Is Bruce alright?”

Clark can’t help the way the corner of his lip twitches up in the slightest grin. Even when Bruce and Dick aren’t speaking to one another, even when they’re at each other’s throats, they’re still the first thought in each other’s heads when trouble appears.

He shakes his head and keeps the small, hurt smile on as he promises, “Bruce is fine.”

Dick huffs a laugh that’s tinged with relief at the news and nods to himself once, collecting it into his mind. He glances back up and sees the way Clark’s eyes are lingering on him, clearly noting the uncertainty that’s balancing on the tip of his tongue.

Dick’s brows go up, and he almost comically pokes a finger into the middle of his chest. “Wait, am… I okay?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

Clark doesn’t know, not really, if Dick is okay or not. He looks okay. Other than being a bit sick, maybe. He looks tired, bags beneath blue eyes, but he’s always fit and well-fed and showing off a smile.

Except for now, when he’s blinking at Clark curiously, concerned.

His hair is sticking up at awkward angles, and the collar of his shirt slopes off one shoulder. His blue eyes look the same as they always have. He’s the same kid who tugged on Clark’s cape and asked to go flying once when he was eleven.

Clark heaves out an exhale that hurts his throat before he says, “Dick, I—”

“Oh, wow,” Dick announces with big eyes before Clark can get any further in the sentence, “I’m not okay, am I? What happened to me?”

He’s trying to keep it light, Clark can tell, but there’s still obvious worry in his voice that he’s failing to hide. When Clark answers, his voice sounds far worse.

“Uhm… Listen, Dick, I hate to jump this on you—”

Dick’s posture gets stiff.

“But you saved a girl the other day from—” Clark finds himself both shocked and repulsed with himself that he can’t even say the word. It gets caught right in the middle of his throat, and his Adam’s apple bobs with the force of trying to spit it out. Finally, he settles on reiterating, “You saved a young girl.”

Dick blinks at him. He’s standing straight like a pole. He cringes a bit, cocking a brow. “Well. That sounds okay of me. Saving people, that’s a good thing, right?” He offers another crooked smile, but his dimples don’t pop out. “Good for the whole Superhero brand?”

Clark can’t give him the benefit of a laugh or even a wider grin. He says, steadying himself, “Yeah, Dick, of course, but, uh, after you saved her, you told her something… and she told the police about it.”

Dick keeps staring at him blankly, this vacant expression taking over his handsome blue eyes, and Clark wants to punch himself for connecting the dots so terribly. Dick deserves better than this. Than this grown man falling over himself trying to put words to something that Dick had to live through.

“About you.”

Dick rolls his lips. He takes in a breath through his nose before he reiterates, eyes squinting, “I told her something about me?”

Clark nods. He really doesn’t want to have to say it. He doesn’t want to have to vocalize it outright. But, at the same time, he wants to know. He wants to know how it happened; how someone like Dick, a child with the entire Justice League at his beck and call, could ever be hurt like that. Why hadn’t Clark been there to protect him?

Why hadn’t Bruce?

He finally forces out, “It was an attempted rape victim. And you told her that—”

In real time, Clark watches Dick’s expression begin to dip. His features slack and soften, his mouth parting in a soundless gasp. His brow arches up as he looks at Clark and, in one foul swoop, a hundred emotions cross his face. Clark watches as it twists from bewilderment to realization to horror.

Dick mumbles, “Oh God,” his shoulders going loose and his posture slipping. “Are you serious?”

“Dick,” Clark tries.

“You know.” Dick lets out a hard, anxious sound that’s not a laugh nor anything else, just a breath of disbelief. He repeats, taking one prompt step back, never taking his eyes off Clark, “You know.”

Clark wishes he could understand what’s going on in Dick’s mind because just watching his face process the information is devastating. Dick’s lip twitches up in disgust, and Clark doesn’t know if it’s with Dick himself or Clark or the situation period.

Clark almost wants to say, I wish I didn’t.

Because he doesn’t want to know. He hates that he knows, in fact. But he can’t keep himself from knowing. And now that he does, there are about a hundred other things that he needs to. How did this happen? Why didn’t he know? He should have known. How could he not know? How could he not have protected his best friend’s son from something like this?

Part of him is almost hurt that Bruce didn’t tell him before he realizes that it’s none of his business. It’s no one but Dick’s. Only Dick should be the one to tell anyone something like this. It’s his story. It’s not anyone else’s. Certainly not for entertainment fodder in the fucking Gotham Gazette. And it makes Clark sick that Dick didn’t get to tell him himself.

All Clark can think to say is, “I’m sorry.”

He wants to say, I know I shouldn’t know.

Dick shakes his head and, slowly, turns to drop himself heavily on his own sofa, immediately rushing his hands back through dark hair and cradling his head in his hands, staring at the floor between his bare feet.

Clark follows after him, lingering close but not as close as he wishes he could.

Dick keeps staring down, seemingly lost in his own thought, arms folded over his legs so his elbows are balanced on his knees, fingers locked in his hair. He shakes his head in a minuscule movement, seeming far away.

He whispers, nothing but tired, “Shit.” He then catches himself and startles, looking up at Clark with wide eyes, “Sorry. I don’t mean to cuss.”

“You can curse,” Clark replies, knowing that Dick is only trying to temper his mouth for Clark’s Kansas-boy temperament. Clark’s Ma would appreciate the consideration. Clark comes to hover beside the couch, hands in his pockets. He says, gently, “She shouldn’t have told anyone.”

Dick scoffs, glancing up at Clark. His eyes are firm, and he has a deep frown settled on his features. “She’s a kid. She can tell whoever she wants.”

Clark’s eyes widen mildly. He hadn’t expected that response.

“I just…” Dick sighs, running his hand back from his hair to rub the back of his neck and pinch the skin. “I just wanted her to feel better and if my story helped then—I mean, I can’t be mad.”

Clark’s heart pangs. That something like this, something so intimate and carefully shared, was something used against Dick when all he was trying to do was help. And that he doesn’t even hold it against her. It certainly speaks volumes to his character.

Dick sighs, closing his eyes. “So, she told the police. Did one of them tell their good pal Superman?”

Clark swallows nervously and shakes his head. “Uh. No. A reporter at the Daily Planet got a hold of the body-cam footage and… Clark Kent found out.”

“Body-cam footage?” Dick looks up, alarmed. The color is draining out of his face. He mumbles, “Oh God, are they—?”

“Lois kept the story from being printed. It won’t come out of the Daily Planet, I promise,” Clark assures, already knowing exactly what Dick is going to ask, and watches relief leave Dick’s posture as he slumps forward again, back curved. “But—”

“But if one reporter got it, so can a hundred.” Dick folds his fingers together, his foot tapping an indiscernible rhythm on the floor. His brow knits together as he clearly starts thinking, running through his options. He whispers, mostly to himself, “Shit.”

Slowly, Clark walks to sit beside Dick on the couch, careful not to touch him. He lets out a breath and waits for Dick to say anything else if he needs to.

It takes a few seconds of silence before Dick wonders, “How much do you know?”

Clark inhales through his nose. “I know you were sixteen. And they were older.”

And that I want to throw them into space.

“She was twenty-seven,” Dick mumbles, running a hand down his face and almost muffling the words in his palm.

Clark’s mouth curls in disgust. “And you never… You never reported it?”

Dick shrugs apathetically, glancing at Clark from beneath his lashes. “Not worth it. Nothing would’ve come of it.”

That’s true, Clark supposes, which he hates. It either would have been brushed under the rug and nothing would have happened, or—because of Dick Grayson’s Gotham stardom—it would have been overpublicized. It’s almost a good thing, now, looking back, that Dick didn’t share any details. Now, at least there’s nothing to tie Dick Grayson to Nightwing through their shared past. But that means there’s also no retribution for whoever this woman was. Clark is carefully keeping himself from asking, no matter how much he wants to.

Dick rubs a hand down his face again, rubbing his palm up and down his cheek, and glances up at the ceiling, tracing patterns that Clark can’t see with his eyes. It comes out in a breath. “Everyone’s gonna know.”

Clark’s face creases in pain.

Dick’s eyes trace the same line back and forth, back and forth. He looks terrified for a second as he whispers out, “Fuck. Bruce is gonna know.”

Clark freezes. He flutters his lashes. He turns to the side to see Dick still shaking his head in disbelief and repulsion. He opens his mouth and gapes for a few long seconds before he forces out, “Did Bruce…. not know?”

Did Clark really—

Oh God.

Dick startles and turns to Clark with wide eyes. He pulls back, lip curling in shock. “No, God, no. Of course not.”

Clark feels like the world is moving in slow motion around him as he stares at Dick with an open, shocked mouth. The realization that he just told Bruce what happened to Dick before Dick did… and how he acted like it was common knowledge… he’s starting to feel like he doesn’t belong in his own skin. Like his body is made of crawling bugs and disgust. But wait if even Bruce didn’t know—

He mumbles, “Dick, does… did anyone know about this?”

Dick glances over at Clark and his cheeks flare pink in embarrassment. He stumbles over his own tongue for a second, anxiously massaging the back of his neck, tweaking his own dark hair that fans out over his skin, “Uhm. Well, Wally and Kori know. Because we… y’know… had sex so it felt, uh, relevant to them.”

He is blushing something awful.

“And, about, uh—” Dick scoffs, eyes darting away— “Handful of random kids in Gotham and a few in Bludhaven.”

Clark’s eyes widen. “You’ve told kids this before?”

In costume? As Nightwing? Is this a common situation for him?

Dick shrugs, almost bashful about it. He looks down at his hands and starts fiddling with his fingers. “It helps kids to… y’know, know they’re not alone. Or not at fault.”

Wow. It settles in Clark like a weight, and he has to sit back with the force of it, blinking ahead to clear his vision and his mind. Dick has told multiple children, and it’s never come out before, now? All those kids have kept his secret but one? Clark hates himself for being angry at a little girl, especially one who was almost a victim and who Dick doesn’t even hold a grudge with, and yet, he can’t help but feel hurt that she was the only one who broke Dick’s trust.

His mouth turns to a grimace. He repeats, even though it means about nothing, “I’m sorry.”

Dick sighs, head hanging again. “I knew it would happen eventually, I guess. My fault for sharing.”

“You were helping,” Clark assures, gentle. “You saved those kids, Dick. Don’t discount that.”

Dick glances at him and glows with a momentary pride. It’s always made Clark a little sick, knowing what an impact he has on Dick, knowing how much his words mean to the younger man. How much genuine power he has to change the tide in Dick’s eyes. It’s a lot of pressure. Especially when it comes to someone as good as Dick.

“But why didn’t you…” Clark trails off, fixing sad eyes on Dick. “Why didn’t you tell Bruce?”

Dick groans, shaking his head and looking down again. “Do you really need to ask?”

“He’s your dad, Dick,” Clark says quietly.

Dick glances up, scowling. “But I’m not his son. We both know that.”

Clark twitches back like it physically hurts to hear it.

“Bruce expected a soldier, he didn’t expect a son.” Dick sighs, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. He screws his eyes shut. “And this was… God, I was so stupid.”

Clark frowns. He says softly, “You were a kid.”

“I was old enough to fight killers,” Dick argues, scoffing. “To put away criminals. I should have been more than old enough to see through lies, I just—” He bites his bottom lip and holds it there for a second, keeping it from wobbling. He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear thoughts and admits, “She was the first person to say she loved me since my parents died, and I just—I don’t know. I was stupid.”

Clark opens his mouth to argue again, but Dick doesn’t let him.

“And Bruce, he would’ve—” Dick’s forehead is crinkled— “he would’ve recognized the weakness. I should’ve known it was a trap and I didn’t need to be told how stupid I was.”

“You weren’t stupid,” Clark chastizes, urgently, genuinely. “You were a kid, Dick, and she was an adult who manipulated you. It’s not the same.”

Dick peeks at him from the corner of hesitant blue eyes. He’s still toying his lip between his teeth. It almost looks like he wants to believe Clark but can’t seem to find it in him. And Clark hates that he has to do this, but he knows it wouldn’t be fair to pretend it isn’t true.

“And… Bruce knows.”

Dick’s whole face pales, and his expression drops. He acts like he can’t have heard that right. “What?”

Clark dips his gaze in embarrassment and admits, guiltily, “I told him. On my drive here. About the story. I figured he knew, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to share that without your consent.”

Dick keeps staring at him with a pale face. Sweat has already begun to prickle at his hairline, but Clark suspects that, if he asked, Dick would blame it on his cold. Dick’s blue eyes are wide and undeniably haunted as he blinks ahead at Clark but, somehow, is looking past him.

Clark insists, shifting in his skin, “I’m sorry. I really… I just assumed he knew. He’s—”

It feels like such a lame excuse to say he’s your father. But he is. And now Clark is thinking about his conversation with Bruce on the phone. How hurt Bruce had sounded. How wounded, like something had been torn right out of him.

Clark breathes out in pain and says, careful, “Dick, I think he might surprise you… if you told him yourself. I promise, he doesn’t think you’re stupid.”

“Can you, uh—” Dick laughs awkwardly, slightly manic, clearly sweating now— “Blue, you know I-I love having you over, but this is a lot and I think I—I need some time to process all this if—”

“Of course.” Clark is already rushing to his feet off the couch. He says, “If you need anything, I swear, I—”

“You’ll be there, I—” Dick nods, swallowing thickly, rubbing through his own hair over and over— “I know… Thanks, Blue. It does mean a lot. I just… I’d like you to go now.”

Clark nods once and suppresses the pang of shame that strikes him. “Of course… I really am sorry, Dick. I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure no one writes about it. And… if they do, well, you know a reporter who can set the record straight for you.”

He wishes he could offer a reassuring smile, but it falls flat. and Dick’s returning laugh aches. He nods once and doesn’t say anything else, so Clark leaves him on the couch alone.

He feels like a black hole as he opens and shuts the door behind him.

He walks down the stairs as heavy as a rock and it isn’t until he’s outside Dick’s apartment building that he hears the same tell-tale heartbeat and breathing pattern he knows like the back of his hand.

He startles, looking this way and that before he finds the black car parked on the side of the street, just behind his own blue truck.

He frowns, wandering over to the parked car and letting out a stifled breath as he wraps his knuckles on the tinted window.

“Bruce,” he says tiredly, “open up.”

He hears the door unlock and promptly opens the door to climb inside the passenger seat.

Bruce is sitting there in the driver’s seat, in the sleek parked car, with his white knuckles clenched on the steering wheel. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he has a tortured expression on his face. His usually slicked hair is messy and unkempt. When Clark compares them in his head, he can almost believe for a moment that Dick is Bruce’s biological son. They both have the same frantic look in their eyes and the same bruises beneath them.

Clark looks at him, tracing his gaze over him. He tries to break the tension by saying gently, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drive a civilian car before.”

Bruce doesn’t even pretend to have heard it.

Clark regards him carefully before he asks, “You destroyed the body-cam footage, didn’t you?”

Blüdhaven is only a thirty-minute drive from Gotham. It would probably be easy for Batman to break into the police station and dispose of the evidence. Somehow, Superman hadn’t considered that yet.

Clark wonders if there will be a story about that soon too.

Bruce replies, “They may still have a transcript but… I did what I could.” His eyes look glassy. He glances at Clark and murmurs, “He was only sixteen, Clark. Where was I?”

Clark swallows down the hurt and says back, “You were doing the best you could.”

Bruce catches Clark’s eye, and Clark wonders if he’s ever seen so much emotion in Bruce’s face before. Bruce asks, urgent, “How is he?”

Clark stares at him head-on for a moment, letting their eyes lock. “He’s… dealing… as best he can.”

Bruce lets out a sharp breath.

“But,” Clark mumbles, “I think seeing his dad might help.”

Bruce’s throat constricts as if hearing the word is too much. He says, choked off, “I wouldn’t know what to say, I— Clark, he didn’t tell me. He never wanted me to know.”

“All you need to tell him is that you’re there. And that it isn’t his fault.”

Bruce rears back, stricken, his hand breaking off the steering wheel. “Of course it isn’t his fault, I— Does he think that I think it…?”

“He’s scared,” Clark reiterates, softly. “And he needs his dad.”

Bruce’s brow pinches in. He whispers, “I’m… he had a father. A real one. A good one. And it’s not me. Clark, I didn’t—I couldn’t protect him. Someone hurt him, and I didn’t even know it. For years, I didn’t even know. How could I be his father?”

Clark hears the implication beneath the words. How could I be their father when I couldn’t protect either of them?

Clark shakes his head. He says softly, “Bruce, it’s not your fault either.”

Bruce’s face twists in pain. He shakes his head and says, “I should have known.”

“You know now,” Clark returns, simply.

And Bruce can’t seem to find an argument for that.

“I doubt he’d want to see me,” he says, finally, like he just keeps trying to find excuses.

“Don’t assume what he wants,” Clark returns. “And I’ll just tell you this: I’ve never been in a situation where I was hurt or scared or both and not wanted my dad to tell me it would all be okay.”

Bruce makes a face like the words cut deep, and then, a moment later, he’s reaching for the handle to open the car door.