Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13087296.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_-_All_Media_Types, Justice_League_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Dick_Grayson/Bruce_Wayne
  Character:
      Dick_Grayson, Bruce_Wayne, Tim_Drake, Selina_Kyle, Diana_(Wonder_Woman),
      Barbara_Gordon
  Additional Tags:
      Angst_and_Feels, Eventual_Happy_Ending, Animal_Transformation,
      Confessions, Complicated_Relationships, Family_Drama, Slow_Burn, this_has
      been_a_long_time_coming, Matchmaking, (sort_of), Tim_is_a_cutie, very
      minor_timkon, Past_Relationship(s), Magic, Implied/Referenced_Character
      Death, Jason's_still_dead_at_this_point, Angst_and_Humor, But_mostly
      angst
  Collections:
      Batfamily_Christmas_Exchange
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-12-21 Words: 18775
****** A Bat and Two Cats ******
by Laroyena
Summary
     Two days of eating nothing but stale cereal and near-spoiled milk had
     given Dick Grayson an entirely newfound appreciation for opposable
     thumbs.
     Dick Grayson goes missing. The Batfamily copes. A story of a Bat and
     two (?!) cats.
Notes
     Oof, what an emotional rollercoaster this was to write! Lots and lots
     of angst and feelings and contemplation ahead. Brudick is a
     complicated ship, and these two can take ages to sort things out. But
     they will, indeed, sort them out. I hope you like it, cienna! Love
     and kisses, Secret Santa.
See the end of the work for more notes
The absolute worst part was, it took people forever to notice he was missing.
There was a time Dick Grayson couldn’t have gone a day without someone asking
after him—from the Teen Titans to the Justice League to the Batfamily.
Someonealways knew where he was.
He hadn’t realized how far he’d fallen off their radar until two days passed
and stillno one dropped by. Not even the Bludhaven newspapers seemed to care
that their fresh-faced hero hadn’t been on his usual patrol these last few
days. Then again, with the staggering, near-impenetrable wall of filth on
Bludhaven’s streets, it wasn’t as if Nightwing’s efforts had made much of a
difference anyway.
He was new. He was unfamiliar. And apparently he was as flighty as everyone had
suspected, given the lack of blue-clad booty swinging in the sky.
His criminals probably thought some lucky bastard had managed to get the drop
on him. Gotten rid of that goody-two-shoes once and for all.
No one would have thought his absence could have been the result of a window
lock.
Two days of eating nothing but stale cereal and near-spoiled milk had given
Dick Grayson an entirely newfound appreciation for opposable thumbs.
--
“I have no quarrel with you, little bird,” Circe told him after he’d finished
cutting through her swathe of magical pig guards and kicked down the warehouse
door. She was fiddling with a horseshoe, of all things, in her makeshift
warehouse shrine, and Nightwing didn’t have time for this.
Circe didn’t seem perturbed at all. “And you should have none with me. This is
not Gotham.”
“No,” Nightwing flicked on the taser switch on each end of his escrima sticks.
They sizzled to life. “This is Bludhaven, which is my territory now. I know
what you’re planning, Circe, and I’m only going to ask you once. Leave.”
“Your territory?” Circe tilted her head. She turned, and the glint in her eyes
suddenly had Dick wishing he’d called Donna after all. Or Diana, if facing
Donna after his and Kory’s break-up was too difficult. Someone.
But not even Bruce would have called Diana for a case of missing pigs. He
wouldn’t need to.
“Oh, you poor bird,” Circe had drawn closer, reaching out a hand. “A songbird
cast into the wilderness to fend for itself, when all its been raised to do is
to flourish in a cage. Has not your owner any sense of kindness?”
“Stop that.” Dick snapped. “I belong to no one.”
“We both know that isn’t true,” Circle clucked her tongue. “Unlike him, I am
not without mercy. Look at me, Dick Grayson.” And the sound of his true name
falling off her tongue had Dick flinching back. He glanced at her before
realizing exactly what that meant, and their gazes locked together. “Look at
me, and I will show you that you are loved.”
--
The good thing was, it was winter.
The bad thing was, it was winter.
The milk spoiled slower, for one thing, and food items overall kept better in
the cooler, drier air than if it was hot and humid. But the cold also meant
Dick would probably freeze to death even if he did somehow manage to open the
goddamn window.
Given the facts, it seemed best to just stay put in his wind-sheltered,
blanket-filled apartment. Someone would come by eventually, and then he’ll find
a way to ask for their help.
Which translated into asking them to hand him over to Bruce, let’s be honest.
The simple thought of Bruce judging him incompetent had his pride squirming in
his chest, but at least he could fix this. Bruce could fix anything.
By the dawn of the third day, however, Dick had begun to despair.
For all Circe’s talk of being loved, there’s nothing like being abandoned for
three days straight to make one really feel unloved. Loved people had friends
and family who’d notice them missing for days at a time. Lovedpeople didn’t
question their self-worth when magicked into a form that couldn’t dial for help
on a phone.
Perhaps it was all one great joke. He’d looked into those haunting, inhuman
eyes and felt something twistinside of his chest—
And then he’d staggered against the kitchen table. His table. She’d sent him…
home. Magical pigs were not worth being flung about space-time and then dropped
into his apartment like an unruly child.
He’d fumbled for a half-forgotten cup of water on the table and thought as he
drank. Facing Circe alone had been stupid. He saw that now. He needed to
strategize if he planned to face her again, and if that meant calling for
backup… well. None of the Bats liked dealing with magic, as everyone and their
mom probably knew. Tim had pointed out that weak spot when he’d first joined
their team, frowning over the carefully written notes in the mainframe and
highlighting potential security protocols that could be expanded upon. It
would’ve been cute, if it wasn’t so much like Jason when he—
Dick’s throat seized in a familiar way. No. He didn’t think about that, not
when he couldn’t afford to. Not when that way led to screaming matches with
Bruce, earth-shattering fights that nearly tore that goddamn memorial case
apart—
He dropped the cup he’d been sipping at.
It fell to the ground and splintered into delicate porcelain fragments, and it
was last thing he’d see before everything went dark.
--
Bruce would have figured out how to open the window by now.
He’d have at least three plans of escape relying on nothing but his own wits,
rather than on an uncontrollable variable like other people’s help. But Dick
just didn’t think like that. He could, of course, but that would be too much
like Batman. He didn’t want to be Batman.
And that—well. That was Dick’s Bludhaven experience in a nutshell.
Dick wanted to cry. Instead, he sat back on his haunches and meowed mournfully.
He was a cat.
A cute cat, yes, but still a cat.Dick was so very, very sick of being one by
now. Selina would have loved it, he was sure, but she wasn’t called Catwoman
for nothing. She would have been all grace, independence and temperance. She
would’ve taken to this form like a duck to water, because she was a queen of
improvisation.
Dick, on the other hand, was probably the worst cat ever.
Okay, maybe not the worst. He seemed to be a relatively healthy cat, all things
considered, and after awkwardly holding in his pee for a while he’d figured out
how to knock down a potted plant Barbara had mailed to him as a housewarming
present. He scrounged up food from the cupboards and buried himself under the
blankets of his room, but it still didn’t change the fact that he was a
cattrapped in his own apartment.
He couldn’t keep this up forever.
Dick meowed again.
First of all, he was running out of cereal. From the unpleasantness of his…
adventures in the pot soil, it probably wasn’t good for his cat digestion
anyway. Second of all, he still hadn’t come up with a good plan for after
escaping.
Because it was still winter, it was still snowing, and he was still a cat.
Nearly noontime on the third day, however, his cat ears caught something. He
swiveled his head. The familiar sound of a vehicle approached the front of the
apartment complex. Not that he could’ve consciously placed that sound given
that he only just acquired cat ears, but somehow he knew.
Batmobile.
Bruce! It was Bruce!
Except when Dick ran over to the front door meowing excitedly, jumping up onto
a stool so he could peer out the tiny window facing the hallway—
When the door opened, the person on the other side was far, far too small to be
Bruce.
“Hello?” Tim Drake frowned down at the pile of mail nearly keeping him from
shoving the door open. He nudged aside the pile from the welcome mat and
stepped inside. “Dick, you here?”
Dick’s first incredulous thought—that Tim had actually stolen the Batmobile and
he hadn’t even been Robin a year—was quickly overridden by disappointment.
Which was then itself overridden by anger, because he hated how some part of
him still expected Bruce to come save him.
He was a grown-ass man who could save himself. The last three days
notwithstanding.
“Mow,” Dick announced, and was mildly amused when Tim jumped two feet into the
air in surprise.
“Hello?” Tim recovered quickly, like Dick hadn’t seen his shock with his own
two eyes. “I didn’t know Dick had a cat.”
“Meow?”
“He’s not here, is he?” Tim told him, though he turned back to the mess of the
living room with a Bruce-like detective gleam in his eye. “He… hasn’t been here
in a few days. The place is a mess. And he wouldn’t leave you to starve if he
was going away for a while, which meant he was supposed to come back. So…”
Tim trotted over to the kitchen, and Dick quickly followed after him. Tim
frowned at the papers on the desk, the shattered pieces of cup still lying on
the floor beneath the table. Dick had carefully lapped up the spilt water a few
days ago, before he figured out how to turn the tap on with a paw and drink
from the faucet.
“Where have you gone, Dick?” Tim asked, and sometimes Dick loved how smart the
newest Robin was. He stood up and pressed his forepaws onto Tim’s boots.
Tim stared blankly down at him for a good moment.
Dick’s ear twitched. Perhaps Tim was smart enough to realize this cat wasn’t
all he seemed…?
And then Tim crushed his dreams by glancing over at Dick’s impromptu litter
box.
Dick watched, mortified, as Tim took a step towards it. Sniffed. And then made
a face at what Dick presumed was the unpleasant smell of his cat digestion plus
cereal, and oh god, he wasn’t ever going to live this down.
“We need to go buy you real cat food, don’t we,” Tim said, seemingly mistaking
Dick’s low keen of embarrassment as a cry for food.
Dick buried his face under a paw.
--
For what it was worth, Dick knew it was his own fault the other heroes didn’t
understand. He’d kept it that way on purpose.
Robin might be allowed to make mistakes with the Batman, but as the leader of
the Teen Titans he had to be strong. Flawed but ultimately capable enough to
overcome his failings when it counted, never mind that he was all of sixteen
with all the drama of a sixteen-year-old.
The younger titans never saw Dick when he was tired and angry and stubborn,
until he finally snapped and flipped a table. They didn’t see Bruce standing
behind him like an immovable stone, supportive and oppressive and oh so
comforting. Dick hated his indifference, but he needed it to balance his
unbridled temper. Batman and Robin, two jigsaw pieces that complemented each
other.
It was perfect, and then it was not.
Bruce had moved on, but Dick. Dick had felt lost. And now, after years trying
to prove himself in vain, he simply felt tired.
Maybe that was why he’d approached Circe on his own. He’d broken every rule
ever drilled into his head, because the Bat always researched and prepared and
planned out every possible outcome—
Because he was tired.
The Teen Titans had gone on without him, because Kory was brilliant and Dick
wasn’t going to take away her family in the break-up. The Justice League kept
their distance after his and Bruce’s falling out, unwilling to jeopardize their
already fraught relationship with the Bat by canoodling with his estranged
ward. And Bruce.
Bruce didn’t care.
That had taken far longer to accept, because Dick remembered him caring once.
The Batman had cared about that perfect, beautiful little boy who’d put on the
Robin costume the very first time. He couldn’t have imagined it. He couldn’t
have. Even when Dick had been full-grown, a hero in his own right, all he
wanted was Bruce’s reassurance that he still mattered.
And then Bruce had all but kicked him out on the streets.
He didn’t care.
Dick had lived through shattered bones and psychological torture and trauma no
child should ever have to know. Yet something about thishurdle hurt deep. Left
him shattered. Dick spent so long relying on Bruce’s strength, the loss of it
had him more than tired.
It broke his heart.
It had him wondering if he’d ever get over it, and what exactly it would mean
if he never did.
--
Batman called Tim over the communicator in the Batmobile, sounding predictably
annoyed that the teenager had squirreled the car away from right under his
nose. The fact that he was too young to drive was the least of his Bat-crimes
today.
“We’re having Words,” Bruce’s low voice growled, and Tim just tightened his
grip on the steering wheel. Dick, who was curled up in the passenger seat
wondering why he could drive at breakneck speeds as a human but could barely
stomach driving as a cat, hissed. Unfortunately, Bruce heard. “…what was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Was that a cat.”
“Yes, it was,” Tim said.
Silence.
After a moment Bruce undoubtedly used to check the Batmobile’s GPS history, he
said, “What were you doing in Bludhaven.”
“Seeing the sights, admiring the view. What do you thinkI was doing?”
“I’ve told you before not to bother Dick.”
“And I’ve told you that you can’t keep me from seeing him. Just because youwant
to pretend he doesn’t exist doesn’t mean Ihave to.”
“He wants his space.”
“Liar,” Tim said, and that was about as much bravery as he had for the day
because he reached over and flipped the communicator off.
Dick watched him with an uneasy stomach. It was one thing for Bruce to hiss and
growl at him for whatever perceived wrongs he had this time, but hearing him
scold Tim? It pissed him off. Even more so because he was scolding Tim for
checking up on Dick, and making it sound like Dick’sfault Bruce had wiped his
hands clean of him.
The communicator magically flicked itself back on. Tim scowled at it.
“…why do you have a cat.” Bruce continued the conversation as if they’d never
stopped.
“Because Dick wasn’t home when I got there, and unlike someone, I’d like to
know where he is. He had a cat in the apartment. If I left it there and it
starved and Selina found out, she’d choke you with her whip. I was going to
stop by hers before going home…”
“No. Bring it here.”
“Bring what? The cat?”
“Robin.”
“Just making sure,” Tim said and then flipped the communicator off with a lot
more force than last time. The tense line of his shoulders was all Dick needed
to see to understand how frustrated the boy was right now.
“Meow,” Dick said. He pressed a paw to Robin’s spandex-clad thigh.
“Yeah, he’s an asshole,” Tim agreed.
Apparently, shared fury over Bruce’s stupidity transcended even species.
--
Bruce looked tired.
That surprised Dick.
He hadn’t—he hadn’t seen Bruce face-to-face for so long, and even longer
without seeing him unmasked. There were new grooves under his eyes, around his
lips—lines not borne from age, but from stress. Bruce looked as if he had the
world’s weight on his shoulders, and he was all the more miserable for it.
Bruce had always been kind of moody and miserable and serious, but this
defeated look nearly had Dick switching from fury to concern.
Nearly.
“You disobeyed my orders to stay in the Batcave,” Bruce snapped, cowl pushed to
his shoulders and attention focused on whatever was under his microscope. Tim
just carried Dick over to the computer table and let him sit beside the
keyboard. “I could’ve needed you to run recon on Poison Ivy.”
“I already hacked into the surveillance feeds. We’ve got eyes on Ivy at all
times. You’re welcome.”
“Tim,” Bruce turned around.
“Just say what you really want to say, Bruce,” Tim snapped back. “What’s really
bothering you? That I have a life outside of the Cave? That I might want to go
visit the only other Robin I know right now, to see how hedealt with your
moods?”
Bruce’s eyes were like steel in the light. After an uncomfortably long moment,
he turned back to his microscope.
“Dick wasn’t home,” he said.
“He wasn’t,” Tim said.
“Suspicious circumstances,” Bruce said, more as a confirmation than a question.
He pointed at Dick with a pair of forceps, not even bothering to look at him.
“You feared the cat would starve. Dick wouldn’t starve a cat.”
“There was a shattered cup on the floor,” Tim said, voice quiet. “No footprints
or even a sign of a struggle—but Dick. Dick wouldn’t just disappear like that.
I know it.”
Bruce was silent for so long Tim began to shuffle his feet. Dick, who probably
should’ve felt guilty for listening in on this kind of conversation, was
grateful that someonecared. Even if it was his little brother.
Bruce may ignore Tim as he chose, depending on the case at hand and how much
Robin needed the Batman’s guiding touch, but he never ignored Dick. It was
sobering to sit here, invisible to both of them, and see the difference in
their relationship with his own eyes.
Different but still flawed, and if that wasn’t their relationships with Bruce
in a nutshell.
“I’ll look into his activity,” Bruce finally said. Tim’s shoulders lost a bit
of their tension. “Dick is perfectly capable of handling himself.”
Tim seemed to understand this as Batman-speak for I’m sure he’s fine and ducked
away before Bruce could actually, you know. Try to console him with real words.
He paused with a hand on the banister.
“Uh, B,” he said. “What are you going to do with the cat?”
“Run tests on it,” Bruce said.
If Dick was any other cat—or person, he supposed—he would’ve found the
declaration creepy given that Bruce was still peering through a microscope. But
Dick was used to Bruce’s tests, and so was Tim, and so the younger boy just
shrugged and ambled upstairs.
Dick side-eyed Bruce from his vantage point at the computer desk.
Bruce had given Tim comfort, and he’d taken his concerns seriously.
Obviously Bruce wasn’t going to break down in hysterical tears at the thought
of Dick vanishing—see all of Dick’s maudlin musings from the last three
days—but the lack of reaction depressed him all the same. He knew Bruce didn’t
care.
(Except Bruce did care about him, just as he knew Bruce loved him, but both of
these were simply eclipsed by the fact that Bruce didn’tfeel any of those
things. The logic of it all was questionable, but the feelings were true. A
better descriptor would have been that Bruce didn’t care about him enough.
Didn’t love him enough. Not as much as Dick so desperately wanted.)
(There was a reason he and Bruce never talked about certain things.)
He knewit, it shouldn’t hurt to see it, and it didn’t matter anyways. Bruce was
going to figure out how to reverse this, they’ll probably exchange some biting
words, and Dick was going to be back in Bludhaven before the day was over.
They can forget the whole thing ever happened, and everyone can move on with
their lives.
--
Except Bruce couldn’t figure it out.
For one, all the tests he ran indicated that Dick was, by all accounts, Just a
Cat. Even the magic talisman John Constantine had sworn up and down would be
able to detect enchantments failed to register.
Which just meant Constantine was a lying son of a bitch, but what was new.
For two, it was taking an agonizingly long time for him to confirm that Dick
was, indeed, missing.
Dick tried to tell them himself at first—but when he tried writing his name in
the mud, some invisible force kept his results illegible. All other attempts to
retrieve clothing or type on the keyboard left him feeling cloudy and
disoriented, until he forgot what he was doing and found himself playing with a
spider in the corner.
Losing huge chunks of time to becoming entirely cat terrified him enough to
stop trying. Thankfully, the memory loss stopped, too. Dick was still Dick. For
now.
It just meant this whole case was in Batman and Robin’s hands, and Dick wasn't
used to being sidelined like this. He'd always jumped into action and helped.
There were some pluses to the whole ordeal, however. He hadn’t realized how
much he’d missed being able to walk around the manor without the tension
between him and the Bat. He hadn’t realized how much it had affected his
enjoyment of just being here, because years may have passed but this place was
still his home. In a strange, backwards way, this whole adventure was like a
vacation.
And after Alfred returned, things were looking up for Dick the Stray Cat. His
and Bruce’s stomach were equally thankful when the butler came back from
running errands and caught Dick sticking his head into the trash can like some
undignified street rat. Dick may have even cried a little.
“He was in Dick’s apartment,” Alfred had pulled the words out of Bruce's mouth
like one would pull out teeth. He hadn’t actually scolded him for not feeding
the cat, but his disapproving glare spoke volumes. Bruce continued in a tone
like a chastised school boy: “We don’t know why. His fate will be left up to
Dick when he returns.” Not if he returns. Not yet.
“Very well, sir. But I do insist you at least help brush the beast,” Alfred
waved a slicker brush at him, and Bruce’s nose wrinkled like he smelled
something foul.
This wasn’t a new thing. Dick knew Bruce was avoiding him. He heard of cats
hiding away from their owners, but owners hiding away from their cats? Not that
Bruce was his owner. He was just a human who owned the roof over their heads,
and for some reason just a glimpse of Dick’s white-tipped tail had the Batman
turning heel and walking right out of a room.
As he had no idea this strangely rambunctious cat was actually Dick, Dick could
only conclude his avoidance came from either a desire to avoid All Things Dick;
or a previously unknown fear of cats.
The latter was incredibly unlikely. The former wasn’t too annoying at first,
but after days lying about no closer to regaining opposable thumbs than before,
Dick’s patience grew razor-thin. When he saw Bruce carelessly toss away a
letter he’d sent to the manor months ago, fury filled his bones.
Dick clawed up Bruce’s formalwear into tiny shreds. He littered the ruins
across his bedroom and reveled in the carnage while waiting patiently on
Bruce’s bed for the man to discover it. And Bruce, rather than ignoring him
like before, actually responded.
“Out!”Bruce had roared, picking up the comforter Dick had buried himself into
and tossing it out the door. Dick squawked as he was flung into the air in a
flurry of limbs.
“Bruce!” Tim came running up the hall, horrified. He crouched beside Dick and
began to inspect him, like he feared Bruce had actually killed the comparably
fragile cat—until Dick popped back up onto all four feet and straight-up
hissedat Bruce.
It was surprisingly cathartic to be able to hiss and spit and claw all he
wanted at this infuriating man, and have everyone ubiquitously side with him
because Dick was a cat.
Alfred had even withheld dinner from Bruce like he was a kid again, and Dick
had never felt so satisfied at placing that sullen look on Bruce’s face.
But catty satisfaction only got him so far, and soon Dick was wondering if he
was doomed to live out the rest of his days as a four-legged critter. Not
exactly the best of fates, having his life span cut by nearly three-fourths.
“Still no word?” Tim broached the subject over dinner one night. Dick sat atop
an ornate wooden shelf, flicking his tail while watching a scene he’d
participated in hundreds of times before.
Bruce just glared at Tim without comment, and Tim nodded curtly in response.
Dick didn’t need to glance over at the calendar. It had been five days since
Tim had brought him to the manor.
Five days wherein Bruce’s careful investigation turned up absolutely nothing.
Dick Grayson was still nowhere to be found.
Five days and Dick wondered if he was imagining the worried cracks breaking the
Bat family’s typically indifferent façade. Maybe he was seeing what he wanted
to see. People worrying about him. People caring about him.
Bruce was holding his fork just a little too tightly.
Or perhaps it was the light.
In this mood, Dick honestly didn’t know.
--
Bruce frowned at something on the computer screen and typed out a quick
response. A few more moments, and his frown deepened.
Dick was hungry. He was bored. And despite his fire-hot anger towards Bruce, it
was hard not to feel concerned over the dread creeping into his mentor’s
expression. When he was younger—when theywere younger—all he had to do was loop
his little arms around his neck and press his face into the curve of his
collarbone. He’d hold him like that until Bruce’s shoulders relaxed. Until the
young adult would finally crack a smile at one of Dick’s cheesier jokes, and
Dick could seehim again.
He felt like it’d been an eternity since he’d seen the Bruce he used to know.
Certainly not since… Jason.
“Mow,” he said, winding his way around Bruce’s feet. Bruce refused to
acknowledge him, not even when he started climbing up his body with sharp
little kitty claws.
As if on cue, an alert popped up on the edge of Bruce’s screen just as Dick
made his way from Bruce’s shoulder. A simple click brought up Oracle’s face,
and Dick froze.
“Bats,” Barbara said, and then paused for a moment. “…is that a cat on your
shoulder.”
“Do you have news,” Bruce avoided the question entirely.
“Dick’s been off the grid for at least a month, but a tip from his old job at
the police department helped me find the system he was using to piggy-back off
the station’s database,” Barbara never wasted time on small talk when work was
at hand, even if the glint in her green eyes meant she’d be grilling Bruce in a
hot second. “He was interested in a string of farm incidents near Bludhaven…
it’s not much to go on, but it’s the last thing he was searching the week
before Tim found his apartment empty.”
“Farm incident,” Bruce’s voice was flat.
“Is that a cat on your shoulder?” Barbara repeated, voice sharpening like a
razor’s edge.
“Tim found him in the apartment,” Bruce said. “Probably a stray Dick picked
up.”
“Farms, cats,” Barbara’s brows furrowed. “Is that enough of a connection? Or a
coincidence?” A pause. “Dad thinks Dick’s circus roots are acting up. That he’s
gone soul-searching, and he’s been missing for longer periods of time before.”
“And you?”
“He’s never gone off the map without telling someone,” Barbara said. Bruce
stared at her through the screen. An unspoken spark rippled between them—one
that Dick might as well have been able to hear out loud. If it was before, he’d
tell you. Now, he’d tell me instead.
“Justice League and Watchtower communications haven’t heard from him,” Bruce
listed out, tone technical. “The Teen Titans don’t know where he is. No
villains are coming forward bragging about a hostage, which rules out nearly
all the Gothamite and Bludhaven villains we know.”
“They’re terrible drama queens, yes,” Barbara tapped her jaw with a finger.
“Are you worried, B?”
“I want answers,” Bruce snapped, and Dick flicked an ear at his tone. That was
honest concern underlying his usual brusqueness.
Barbara caught it too, but had the grace not to mention it immediately. “I’ll
keep looking. We’ll find him, Bruce. Stay focused.”
And she signed off, because if there was anyone who could hang up on the Batman
it was Barbara fucking Gordon.
Bruce sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Dick flicked his ear again.
Bruce looked tired. It was…
It was upsetting. He didn’t like seeing Bruce tired and beaten and angry, not
even if he deserved it and more. Batman liked to keep things organized into
mission-oriented boxes; to filter out the human element unless it pertained to
a case; to sort things into necessary and unnecessary.
Finding Dick was technically unnecessary to any given case of his at the
moment. He just wanted to. He, Batman, wanted to find out where Dick was
because he wanted to—and that meant he shouldn’t be spending any energy looking
for Dick at all.
It was the kind of backwards, self-sacrificing logic that made Dick want swipe
his claws across Bruce’s perfect chiseled face.
“Meow,” he said instead, and curled his tail around the back of Bruce’s neck.
He nuzzled his face with a furry cheek and purred, and after a pregnant pause
he felt Bruce’s hand come up and carefully run his fingers through his fur.
--
Here was the best thing about being a cat. Bruce let him curl up on his chest
and nap, sometimes, when he followed him up from the cave. Feeling the soothing
rumble of Bruce’s breath against him was something Dick hadn’t realized he’d
missed.
It almost made up for the tightness around Bruce’s eyes, his short temper, the
long moments spent staring at Jason’s case like he’d find any answers there.
It almost made up for the short glimpses of other vigilantes flitting by the
cave, most expressing some level of concern. Kory even stopped by to envelop
Tim in her lovely arms, and for once Robin wasn’t too awkward to accept it.
“Something horrible has happened,” Bruce told Dick out of the blue, nearly two
weeks since Dick had faced Circe and lost. Dick was perched on Bruce’s pillow,
watching and worrying and so, sosick of being forced to play bystander.
“Something has happened, and I wasn’t there to help.”
It was true, but it was also unfair. Or perhaps Bruce was talking about more
than Dick.
After all, from Alfred’s account it had taken a wild goose chase to find Jason
after hisdisappearance, and when they did. When they did, it had been too late.
It didn’t take a genius to compare that incident with this one.
Bruce didn’t say anymore. Just bowed his head and breathed evenly, in a
familiar meditative rhythm he’d learned from his time oversees with the
Shadows. Then, he flicked off the light.
Dick watched him quietly in the dark, wishing desperately for fingers to card
through his hair.
Instead, he could only climb onto his too-still chest and purr until Bruce fell
asleep.
--
“I found him,” Bab’s voice rang out through the cave system like a death knell.
Dick, who had been playing with one of Tim’s capes while the other vigilantes
poured over the computers, froze.
“Barbara,” Bruce said tightly.
“It’s bad, Bruce,” Babs’ voice was eerily steady. “Bludhaven City Hospital.
They found—a comatose patient who was fished from the river. I’ve already put
in a transfer request to Gotham Central. If we move now, we can intercept them
on the way.”
Dick’s little cat heart thudded in his chest. No. What? But he was right here,
not near dead in some hospital, that didn’t make any—
Tim had gone deathly pale. His gaze flickered from Barbara’s pinched expression
on the monitor to Bruce’s sudden impression of a marble statue. God, his face.
The last time Dick had seen Bruce look like that, Dick had been bellowing at
him for not telling him about Jason. About putting his costume in that
damnedcase, for the insensitive plaque, for letting Dick prance about in space
for monthsafterwards like sending word was beyond the thirty-first tech of the
Watchtower.
“You’re not part of the mission anymore,” Bruce had told him in an even voice,
the bastard. “You didn’t need to know.”
Dick had decked him so hard, his knuckles were bruised for days afterwards.
It would have been more gratifying if Bruce’s eyes weren’t so dull; if Dick’s
own vision weren’t obscured by hot tears making the whole world swim.
He never wanted to see that look on Bruce’s face again. Not even when the cause
of it was himself—or the lack thereof, this time.
“B,” Robin said, and Dick had rarely heard Tim sound so young. Scared.
Bruce abruptly stood and stalked over to where the Batmobiles were parked
below. Tim gave Barbara a shaky nod and scrambled after him, hands clutching
his bo-staff, and nearly tripped over a certain cat in his way.
“Cat!” Tim scolded, nimbly stepping over Dick’s best attempts to wind through
his legs. Dick chased after him, everything focused on crawling into the
Batmobile because god,god, he wasn’t going to just sit around while Bruce
imploded. Especially when he was right here.
The engine roared to life. He climbed in after Tim, triumphant, but was
suddenly caught by the back of his neck by a certain armored glove.
“Out,” Batman’s voice was flat and dangerous. Dick meowed as he found himself
suddenly rolling on the cool cave floor, alone in the wake of the Batmobile’s
departure. He scrambled up to his feet and meowed again.
Then, because he was nothing if not resourceful, he clambered back up the
stairs and pulled himself up to the computer console.
Fortunately, Babs had forwarded the files over to the Cave and the pop-up box
was blinking temptingly at the corner of the screen.
Unfortunately, Dick was a cat, and therefore had immense difficulty using the
touchpad to open it.
“Mow,” he yelped when his keyboard smashing accidentally opened a picture of
Conner Kent with his shirt off. What the hell? More smashing opened more
pictures, until the monitor was inexplicably covered in photos of a certain
Robin’s teammate, and what the hell.
“Cat,” Alfred’s voice suddenly interrupted him, and Dick fell off the console
in surprise. The old butler only raised a brow at the egregious display of
Kryptonian on the screen and simply leaned over to turn the monitor off. Dick
yowled. No! He needed to see those files!
He continued to yowl even when Alfred yanked him up around his middle,
unflappable despite Dick’s best impression of a hellbeast. And when it became
clear he wasn’t about to settle down, Alfred locked him in the cat carrier.
The indignity was nearly worse than having to watch Alfred sit at the console
and talk lowly over the communicators to the Bat. He would’ve sat there fuming
at his inability to eavesdrop if he’d been human. As he wasn’t human, however,
he had the unfortunate ability to hear every word they said.
“It’s him,” Bruce’s voice came over the line as a growl.
“Are you sure.”
“It’s him, or it’s a convincing copy of him. We have to bring him to the cave
to confirm. Ready the test tubes.”
“Clone, robot, magical construct,” Alfred made a note on the tablet beside him.
After a heavy pause, he said, “…and if it ishim?”
“We’ll find a cure,” Bruce’s voice allowed no room for questioning. It was
hard. Angry.
Desperate?
Dick stopped his low, near-constant meowing and cocked his head.
“Master Bruce…”
“I won’t lose him, Alfred. Not Dick.” Another pause. Then, in a small voice
Dick hadn’t even thought Bruce possessed, he said, “I can’t lose Dick.”
Alfred’s response was almost gentle. “I’m sure we will retrieve him, sir. No
matter the method.”
Dick watched the butler turn off communications. He watched him bow his back
and press a hand to his forehead, suddenly looking old and tired and worried
without anyone watching him.
Dick felt emotion roil in his stomach. Not Dick.In such stark contrast with how
their arguments had always gone. The You left meand You’re not Robinand you
FIRED ME, I didn’t leave, you pushed me away and so I went.The way Bruce acted,
it was like he’d already lost Dick a long time ago.
I can’t lose Dick.
But he hadn’t, had he?
Dick still came over sometimes, either for Tim or for Justice League business.
He still allowed a sizable hole to remain in his life, one that was
suspiciously bat-shaped if anyone looked too closely.
And from his stay at the manor since his catification, he was coming to realize
that Bruce had a hole in his life too.
He thought it was Jason. It wasJason, in a way, but more than that it was Dick.
For better or for worse the two had become hopelessly entangled, because Bruce
had tried to fill one hole and found himself with yet another.
And now Bruce thought they were both gone.
The memory of Bruce whispering secrets to a certain cat filled his mind.
Sadness and regret and anger, yes, because if only Bruce had told the goddamn
truth for once in his life—
God, they were the absolute kings of wasting time, weren’t they? And Dick
couldn’t do anything but brood over the what ifsand the could have beens. He
was stuck in a cat carrier. He was a goddamn cat.
The irony was excruciating.
--
There were a lot of things he and Bruce didn’t talk about.
Bruce didn’t talk a lot in general, preferring to grunt and stare and punch his
way through everything. If he did talk, he kept his emotions close to his
chest. Nothing but the tactical necessities. Dick, on the other hand, had a
tendency to run his mouth about everything butwhat needed to be said. And while
he had no trouble expressing his joy or anger or sadness through his actions,
the words themselves caught in his throat.
And Bruce, the self-involved dramatic bastard, needed to hear words. He was too
oblivious otherwise. Dick knew that. He knewit, just as Bruce knew Dick liked
emoting through touch, and despite both of them knowing each other so well they
still couldn’t communicate half of the time.
It hadn’t been a problem when they were younger. When they were more open with
each other, made allowances, connectedbetter.
Most people would say Dick had simply grown out of it. It was the most
reasonable answer, and it was even partly true.
Partly.
There were a lotof things he and Bruce didn’t talk about.
“Let me give you some advice, Robin,” Selina Kyle had once told him flippantly,
like she hadn’t tied him up in a corner while she pilfered diamonds from some
rich asshole’s safety deposit box. Not that the rich asshole didn’t deserveto
have his blood money stolen from him, but he was their best connection to a
crime ring. Bats was off tailing the suspected ringleaders, and he’d tasked
Dick with the easy job of finding paperwork at their target’s home. In and out,
quick and easy.
No one was meant to know he was here.
Finding a tied-up Robin and an empty box would put a serious dent in their
plans.
“I’ve known the Bat roughly the same time as you, you know,” Selina continued.
She finished slipping the diamonds into her pocket and shut the deposit box
with a click. “He’s dark. Moody. A bad boy with a sense of justice; a good guy
willing to do bad things to get what he wants.”
“Batman saves lives,” Dick said stubbornly. “He doesn’t kill.”
“Death isn’t the worst that can happen to a person.”
“Death is the endof a person. They can get worse. They can get better. But they
can’t change if they’re dead.”
“Oh Robin,” Catwoman loped over to him and patted his cheek. Dick bared his
teeth. He was a teenager, not a child, and the sooner everyone realized that
the better. “The truth is, some people will neverchange. Like the Batman, for
example.” She leaned back onto her heels and pursed her lips. “He’s alluring, I
know. I’ve fallen for it myself. But at the end of the day, nothing is more
important to him than his mission.”
She locked gazes with him. Dick felt chills run down his spine. Selina had the
unsettling ability to just lookright into him, to see the truths he buried deep
into his gut like a light through paper, and he didn’t want her to see. It was
mortifying.
“Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Nothingis more important to him.” A heavy pause.
“Do you understand?”
Dick refused to squeeze his eyes shut despite every instinct screaming at him
to hide. He wouldn’t show his vulnerability in the presence of an enemy, even a
questionable enemy like a certain Cat.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, and flushed at exactly how damning that
sounded.
Selina was gracious enough not to call him out on it. Just patted his cheek one
more time and stood up. “You’re young, Robin. Charming in your own way. Take my
advice and let him go. Like I’ve let him go. For your own sake more than
anything else.”
“Batman needs me,” Dick said. The words rang true. Selina gave him a look, like
she perfectly understood him and agreed. She turned and slid out of the window
without a glance back, her silence speaking far more than any quip she could’ve
said in return.
She was right, and so was he. The difference was whose wellbeing they were
willing to sacrifice. Their own? Bruce’s? Neither?
Or both, Dick found out just a few years later.
He hadn’t heeded Selina’s advice, and the price he paid for dallying was a loss
for both sides. All of Bruce’s selfish inconsideration mixed with Dick’s
apparent abandonment, all tangling together around the fundamental truth Selina
had dragged to the surface that day.
The vulnerability he’d allowed Bruce to see exceeded the trust he would’ve
given a friend, a brother, a parent. It was something he ached to share, and
something Bruce had soaked in without constraint for so long—until he seemed to
realize exactly what it meant and shut it down.
Dick wasn’t sure he could ever forgive him for it.
--
Dick looked like death warmed over. He felt it, too, except for possibly the
first time ever what he sawwasn’t what he was. If the experience had been
surreal before, it was nothing compared to watching oneself being bodily hauled
out of the back of a Batmobile and strapped onto a gurney. It was nothing
compared to being able to smell the river on one’s own skin; of recognizing the
very faint traces of cologne he remembered applying to his own neck what felt
like forever ago.
Bruce conducted the tests in stony silence.
Tim had tried to help exactly once. Bruce had gone rigid the moment Robin
stepped too close—and so the boy took the hint and retreated to the console
where he could overlook the files.
Dick remembered all the Superboy photos he’d found in excruciating detail, and
almost chose to stay where he was by the med cot. Except Tim was muttering over
Patient John Doe’s medical report and trying to trace Dick’s—Dick’s body’s—path
from apartment to river, and this was important.
He tore himself away from the beeping of heart monitors and the soft wheezing
of wet breath.
“Impossibly alive,” Tim was saying. He didn’t stop scrolling through the
documents, not even when Dick climbed his way up his cape and plopped his butt
on his head. Tim was like Bruce this way—laser-focused on his work to the point
of distraction. “The wrinkling of his fingerpads meant he’d been in the water
for a while. Possibly days? Only slight signs of a struggle, but nothing that
would result in a coma. No food or water intake and yet no signs of dehydration
or starvation. Impossible. Impossible. No. Not impossible.”
Furious clicking. Tim cycled through various hero files: Blue Beetle, Zatanna,
Diana. Dick’s heart stopped when he saw Wonder Woman’s familiar visage. If Tim
could trace Diana back to Circe…
“Magic. Yes. But is it a kind of stasis magic, or a kind of cloning magic? Does
lacking the signs of time passing mean it’s a magic construct? But the skin
wrinkling means sometime is passing.” He clicked back towards Zatanna.
Dick chirped and slapped a paw onto Tim’s cheek. Diana. Diana! Unfortunately,
the boy was too absorbed in his thought process and continued talking to
himself.
“Possibly necessary to consult a magical expert. Zatanna’s the best choice due
to Bruce’s fondness of her. However, possible emotional compromise. It’s Dick.”
A shaky pause. Tim sniffed once and then seemed to curl into himself
internally, until his face went blank as a porcelain mask. “It’s Nightwing. All
hands on deck. Contact Zatanna now, ask for permission later.”
Dick meowed when Tim pulled up Zatanna’s Justice League communication code. He
jumped down and stomped onto Tim’s fingers, causing him to click off of the
call button. Robin paused. Blinked down at him like he just realized there was
a cat in the cave, and it would be funny if Dick wasn’t so frustrated.
“MOW,” he snapped. He concentrated hard on his kitty paws and slowly,
carefully, clicked the right arrow. Clicked it again and again until he landed
on Diana’s profile page. He pointed at it. “Meow, meow.”
Tim stared. He stared at him for so long without blinking Dick was half
inclined to scratch him, and was rudely startled when the boy sat up with an
inspired gleam in his eye.
“Of course!”
Dick perked up. Timmy was the smartest Robin. If anyone could figure out this
mess, it was him.
“Diana can communicate with animals! She can just ask youwhat happened!”
…close enough.
“Mow,” Dick encouraged, and Tim turned back to the console.
On one hand, he was glad this whole misunderstanding was about to be over. On
the other, he’d be letting go of the first beginnings of hope he’d had in
years.
There would be no more struggling to deal with Bruce and their mess of a
relationship. No more second guessing. Bruce had made his feelings quite clear
all those years ago, and Dick knew better than to hope he’d change his mind.
Some people will never change, Selina had told him.
No matter how much pain Bruce seemed to be in right now, it would vanish the
moment Dick returned. He knew that. He knew that and he needed to prepare for
it, but the petulant, childish part of him didn’t wantto.
It was the part of him he’d crammed deep into a box away for years, brought
back out by an intimacy Bruce would never allow if he realized this cat was a
human. It was a part of him he wished would just go away.
Things would be so much easier if it did.
--
Bruce was, predictably, less than happy about Robin going behind his back.
“You would have consulted her anyway!” Tim shouted. “Diana can talk to animals,
Bruce! And the only witness to what happened to Dick is an animal, and unless
you’ve invented some cat-speak translator sometime when I wasn’t looking,
calling Diana was our best option.”
“You cannot contact members of the Justice League without permission,” Bruce
said. “Patience is a virtue.”
“Patience isn’t going to save Dick!” Tim snapped, and immediately looked
horrified at himself. Bruce went so cold, he could’ve swapped places with Mr.
Freeze. Instead of answering, he glanced down at Dick like he was seeing him
for the first time—as a cat, not as Dick Grayson, because not even Bruce’s
detective skills could deduce that far.
Dick had the intense urge to sink his claws into Bruce’s hand, but resisted.
This was not the time to test Bruce’spatience, not when he was so close to
finding the truth.
“We’re not done talking about this,” Bruce told his Robin with finality, and
Tim relaxed just a fraction. Dismissing the topic meant his logic was sound,
even if his methodology had been questionable.
Bruce moved onto his own findings without pause: “As far as I can tell, this is
Dick’s real body. There’s some kind of stasis spell on it, perhaps the reason
behind his coma. We need to find out who’s responsible and how to reverse it.”
“Why didn’t you just use that amulet thing Constantine gave you?”
Bruce gave Tim a flat look. “Because Constantinegave it to me, and I needed to
be sure.”
Seeing as the damned thing didn’t work, Bruce was right. Dick still managed to
be offended on his own behalf. Sure, he was a cat, but what happened to the
Batman investigating every option available?
“I’ve already begun compiling a list of suspects with our current parameters.
Once Diana arrives, we can narrow the list further…”
“Batman, there’s trouble,” Babs’s voice suddenly came out over the monitor.
Dick, who’d been curled up by the keyboard, sat up as dread crept over him.
Bruce froze. “Wonder Woman’s communicator went offline just as she flew over
Bludhaven.”
Of-fucking-course.
“Someone took out Wonder Woman?” Tim’s mouth dropped open. “What the hell’s
going—”
He jumped three feet in the air when Bruce suddenly turned and swept all the
beakers on the desk onto the floor. The pinging of glass shattering echoed
across the cave like sharp-edged whispers. Liquid spilt onto the rock in a
horrible array of colors. Dick could feel every follicle of his furry body
standing on end.
Oh fuck.
“Bruce,” Barbara’s voice was hard. Not because she didn’t care, but because she
was better at seeing the mission for what it was sometimes.
Bruce unclenched his fist. There was blood welling from a cut on his knuckle,
and he stared at it so long it rolled down his palm and dripped onto the floor
beneath him.
He let out a breath. “…Barbara, see if you can triangulate her likely point of
impact if she fell from the air. We’ll be working on heading to Bludhaven on
our end.”
“Nightwing and Wonder Woman,” Barbara said. Her voice was hardened with resolve
“This isn’t some small fry, but we neither are we. Be ready. I mean it, B. Keep
yourself together until you bring our boy back.”
Bruce nodded slowly. Babs seemed satisfied enough to sign off, and there was a
long awkward silence broke only by the dripping of broken beakers off the
table.
Dick padded his way over to where Tim stood staring worriedly up at Bruce. It
was perhaps Tim’s first time seeing Bruce lose it in person. He looked as if
his world was ending, and Dick wanted to hug him close. He couldn’t, and so he
rubbed his head against his shoulder instead.
He would have nuzzled Bruce, too, if he wasn’t afraid he’d be backhanded
against the wall if he tried. There were moments Batman was too volatile to be
offered comfort. Of all the weird habits he’d picked up as Robin over the
years, it had been the hardest one he’d learned to accept.
Finally, Bruce said, “Computer, narrow our current list of suspects to those
with enough power to subdue Wonder Woman.”
“Too broad,” Tim piped up. He edged closer, but had enough wits about him to
keep his hands to himself. “Narrow it down to people who have fought with her
before. I only just called her, there’s no way they could’ve expected her so
quickly. Which means the trap must have already been set.” Dick could
practically hearTim’s brain working. “They must have known we’d call Diana
because of her animal communication skills, which meant they knew we have the
cat. And again, they took down Wonder Woman.Magic, Diana, lots of power, and
animals.”
Bruce’s lips thinned into a line. “Circe.”
Tim frowned down at Dick, whose delight at their correct deduction was tempered
by what he knew Tim was going to say next: “But Circe specializes in turning
people into animals. We haveDick’s body. He wasn’t turned into an animal at
all.”
Oh, this didn’t sound good. Especially not in Bruce’s current state.
“Another way Circe could have known about our plans is if she heard them,”
Bruce said. Before Dick could leap off the table, he found himself hauled up by
big, unforgiving hands and face-to-face with a familiar scowl. “You’re not a
witness, cat. You’re a spy.”
“Mow!” Dick snapped back, indignant.
“A spy that can lead us back to Circe,” Tim pointed out before Bruce could do
something reckless, like smash Dick into a tiny kitten puddle on the floor.
With the state of the laboratory equipment around them, it was more likely than
anyone would admit. “If she’s using the cat to watch us—”
Bruce whirled on Tim abruptly, and the boy shut up.
—we can use our magic-detection technology to trace her signature back to
her,Dick finished in his head. If he was a spy, neither Batman nor Robin wanted
her to know their plans. But he wasn’ta spy, and he wasn’ta cat, and why the
hell was this so difficult? Because Circe strayed away from her usual modus
operandi. Because she felt badfor him.
“Meow,” he insisted, right before he was shut into the cat carrier and hauled
up into the Manor.
A nice, brightly-lit manor with an Alfred that fed him pieces of chicken, yes,
but a manor that wouldn’t tell him anything about his impending demise.
Knowledge was power, and a Bat hated being kept in the dark more than anything
else.
--
(“But I thought—”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. You gathered only the evidence you wanted to see, Dick. Emotions cloud the
truth. And the truth is that you’re wrong.”
“I’m not! I see you, Bruce. Dammit all, look me in the eye and tell me I’m
wrong. There’s no one else who knows you better. I seeyou.”
“You’re wrong, Dick. And I’ve lost my patience.”
“Bruce—”
“Enough. We won’t talk about this, Dick. Not ever again.”)
--
They plopped the crate in-between the driver’s and passenger’s seat of the
Batmobile and wrapped a strange armband thing around his belly.
Tim, looking small but stern in the red and green, directed Batman with a
device attached to the armband. Using code, of course, because Dick was
apparently the most brilliant spy cat ever. Except Dick had taught those hand
movements to Tim himself, so he knew they were heading towards the south side
of Bludhaven. And despite his limited line of sight through the crate, he knew
they were driving towards the one place where this all started.
Circe collecting pigs in a warehouse, and Nightwing barging right in to stop
her. Like he, a non-powered human, could stop a witch whose magic rivaled a
god.
God, he’d been so fucking reckless. He’d always had the back-up of his team
before to counter his own weaknesses; always had Bruce or Roy or someonethere
to watch his back. But no, he wanted to prove he could work alone. Wanted it
enough not to gather enough evidence to realize who he was dealing with, all
because he’d had a shitty day and the last thing he needed was some pig-
stealing thief terrorizing the poor farmers in hiscity.
The Batmobile came to a stop.
Dick made angry cat noises when Batman and Robin jumped out of the car without
bringing him along. Were they just going to leave him here? Him, a potential
spy and liability to the Batmobile’s safeguards?
“You sure he’s not a liability to the Batmobile’s safeguards?” Tim did give
pause. Of course, great Robins thought alike. “Circe could use him to sabotage
the car.”
“He’s a cat,” Bruce said, “and she’ll be focused on us. There’s no way she
knows how to override the security locks even from the inside. Now let’s go.”
No. No! Dick yowled as the doors slammed shut. He paced the carrier. Clawed at
the sides. Chewed on the wires connecting the armband to the device—
He stopped. The wires were awkwardly stuffed in between the crate door and the
lock, being too big to thread through the wire bars. If he jiggled that weak
spot enough…
Ten minutes and two rude electrocutions later—he was fine, if not a bit
singed—he was free.
Shouts. Bangs. Fighting. He bolted as fast as his legs could carry him towards
the sound of squealing pigs, but stopped when he heard another sound.
A woman talking. Diana.
After a conflicted moment, he turned tail and hurried over to a nondescript
shed behind the warehouse. He wouldn’t be much help fighting as a cat anyways,
but that didn’t make abandoning his family any less horrible. No. Bruce needed
Diana to take Circe down. He was saving them, not leaving them.
The doors to the shed were bolted shut, but Dick found a loose wallboard he
just managed to squeeze himself into. Sort of.
He was actually kind of stuck, but Dick Grayson wasn’t one to give up because
of a wallboard.
“Little one!” he heard Diana exclaim. He glanced around and saw the princess
chained to the wall closest to him. She leaned over her knees. “Oh, you poor
thing.”
“Diana!” he said, trying once more to wriggle his hindquarters past the stupid
board getting in his way. “Help me!”
“Dick?”Diana’s eyes widened comically. She reached over and simply yanked Dick
right through the hole, to the detriment of a few handfuls of his fur and his
dignity. “What in Hera’s name has Circe done to you?”
“Turned me into a cat. Convinced Batman I’m in a coma. Embarrassed me for
life,” Dick meowed when Diana placed him in her lap. She was soft and strong
and—focus. “What about you?”
“Captured,” Diana sighed. Upon closer inspection, the rope around her ankles
was clearly spelled. Otherwise, Diana could have punched a hole through the
wall herself, no cat rescuers needed. “Forgive me, Di—Nightwing. Capturing me
was apparently Circe’s plan all along. She must have planned this spell for
months. Luring me to her would’ve been her greatest obstacle, and so using you
to draw me out… I am sorry you have all gotten involved in my issues.”
“I involved myself,” Dick said, going for consoling and ending up a little
bitter. He squirmed around and began inspecting the ties keeping Diana in
place. Given that her target was an Amazonian demigod, Circe had likely warded
the ropes against Diana in particular. Raven’s words came to mind: the stronger
something was magically enforced against one person, the weaker it became when
it came to another.
Dick chewed on a rope absently.
Yes, he could work with this.
“She was in yourcity,” Diana pointed out. “Of course she knew you would
respond. And it is easier to subdue you alone than the multiple bats in Gotham,
especially without any magical defenses keeping her away.”
“I’m an easier target.”
“Not a weaker target, Dick,” and oh, Diana always knew how to get to the heart
of a matter. It made him want to squirm. “We are always stronger together, not
alone. It is why a predator always goes after the straggler in a herd.”
Dick clawed through the ropes around one foot and began working on another,
grateful for an excuse to keep silent. Trust Diana to hit the nail on the head
just as quickly as Circe had. Even quicker, because Diana had actually been
there when he’d started to draw back into himself. To leave behind his friends
and family, to brave the new frontier without any sort of safety net beneath
him.
He was an acrobat. It’s what he’d always done, except it was that kind of
thinking that had—
Reckless.
It had made him a target as surely as he’d painted his own back. Non-metas like
the Bats and Arrows were often tagged the weakest link in a physical fight, and
even Roy had relied on Black Canary when he and Oliver had fallen out.
No, there was no point beating himself over it now. Focus on the damn ropes,
Dick.
You can do at least this.
When she was free, Wonder Woman rose to her feet and stood tall before him like
the golden goddess she was. And then she leaned over and scooped him up against
her mighty breast, and Dick was torn between mortification and melting into her
embrace. The other members of the Trinity were always sogood at hugs.
Batman was okay at it, not that anyone had enough experience to say otherwise.
“Now,” Diana said, raising a boot and simply kicking down the magically-
enforced doors like they were nothing. “It seems we’ve a Bat and Bird to save,
don’t we, little one?”
--
The magical pigs had, apparently, added fire-breathing to their list of
impossible skills since the last time Dick had seen them. Until Diana’s
strategic lasso-ing toppled Circe’s magical horseshoe, and the pigs flying
about the air dropped onto the ground like a sack of bricks.
Dick wished he was making this up, but he wasn’t. There was a reason Batman
hated magic so much.
“Wretched Amazonian!” Circe screamed, clawing at the fire licking its way up
her skirts. The incomplete spell, enraged, had rebounded on its caster with a
vengeance, and was doing far more damage than either Batman or Robin could even
achieve. “You would have deserved living out your days scattered into pieces
across a legion!”
“Enough, Circe!” Wonder Woman snapped. Dick, who was still inexplicably curled
up in the crook of her arm, marveled at how petulant the witch looked under the
Amazonian’s wrath. And lasso. “How do you reverse the spell on Nightwing?
Speak!”
“Our lost songbird already knows the answer. No one can force it ahead of its
time. Magic is—” Circe let out a screech as a silk sleeve was incinerated into
ash. “Do you know how difficult it is to acquire this kind of silk?”
“Circe.”
“Oh, enough with the threats. Magic is a particular being, Diana of Themiscyra,
as you well know. It will enforce the terms of the spell even past my casting.”
“The gods know you have little respect for magic’s wishes. You were going to
scatter my soul into a bunch of pigs, of all things. If there is more you
aren’t telling us, the lasso will compel you to reveal it. Speak!”
“Wait, the ‘legion’ you’re talking about were the pigs?” Tim interjected. As
half his costume had been seared off, it was difficult taking his grave tone
seriously. Even more so with him was standing beside Batman trying his best not
to shiver his ass off. “How does that make any sense?”
“It doesn’t,” Circe said. “I just thought it would be amusing.”
And then, clearly tired of writhing around half-naked in front of her supposed
victims andforced to tell the truth… she snapped her fingers. And vanished.
Batman started forward. “No!”
“Typical,” Diana clucked her tongue. She fished back the lasso and clipped it
to her belt, seemingly unaware of the panicked fury of a certain Bat-clad
superhero beside her.
“We mustquestion her further. There has to be a way to find her again.”
“Circe is a goddess-level witch. She cannot be found unless she wishes it.
Defeating her has always been a matter of convincing her to retreat.”
Batman whirled on her in dark, towering rage: “Tell me how to find her, Diana.
Now.”
“I’d watch your tone, Batman,” Diana’s eyes flashed in warning. “I understand
Nightwing’s transformation has upset you, but that is no excuse for rudeness.”
“Transformation?” Tim butted in before the infighting could result in
bloodshed. “Dick’s in a coma in the Batcave. What do you mean
‘transformation?’”
“Dick’s body may be in a coma, but his—“ Diana stopped abruptly. She furrowed
her brow. Dick glanced up at her, ears pricked forward in urgency. Tell them!
Tell them now! “He is—” She opened her mouth again, clearly trying to speak…
but no sound came out.
“Wonder Woman,” Batman said.
Diana tried speaking once more, this time towards Dick—but this attempt
resulted in no words making their way out of her mouth at all.
No. No, no, no.
Dick remembered the first few times he’d tried to tell Bruce the truth, and how
something had never failed to get in the way. He thought it had been a part of
Circe’s spell, but if Diana couldn’t speak of it either…
Tim glanced between her stormy expression and Batman’s frown. “Did Circe cast a
spell on her? I didn’t see anything. Did you see it, Batman?”
“‘No one can force it ahead of its time…’” Batman muttered to himself. “Does
this apply to writing, too? Diana, we must head back to the cave to test this.
We need to cure Nightwing before any damage done becomes irreversible.”
“Nightwing is safe,” Diana managed to say. She clutched the hero in question
even closer to her breast, like that could help soothe the despair in Dick’s
stomach. If no one could reveal the truth, what the hell was he supposed to do
now? Circe had said he already knew the answer; that only Dick himself could
break the spell. But he didn’t know the answer, and even if he did he couldn't
do anything about it.
If he still had fingers, he’d bury them into his hair and scream.
Diana sighed. “Circe was right. Magic itself is keeping me from speaking the
necessary truth. Damn her all the Tartarus, that witch.”
“The Cave,” Batman insisted.
“It won’t do much good, Batman. In my experience, there is nothing in this
realm that can work against magic’s will. Only the true solution may undo what
has been done.”
--
Diana couldn’t write anything regarding Dick. She couldn’t point at Dick, she
couldn’t speak to Dick, she couldn’t press a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ button when asked
questions about Dick.
She was, however, able to stop Batman from kicking Dick out onto the streets
out of fear that he was still Circe’s spy.
“The cat stays,” she said, and Batman furrowed his brow in consideration.
After that, he began preparing “circumventing negative space”
questions—questions that skirted around Dick without mentioning him, and
perhaps they could piece together clues from what Diana wasn’tsaying—
But then she got a distress call from Superman, of all people, who needed some
extra manpower. Bruce couldn’t justify making her stay.
“Nightwing is not in any immediate danger, Bruce,” Diana was able to reassure
him. She even placed a soothing hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and if anyone could
nip a Do-Not-Touch backhand in the bud it was Wonder Woman. “I know having him
in a magical coma is… unsettling, but I can assure you he will not worsen while
I am away. And I will come back here as soon as the threat has passed. I am
here for all of you, you have my word.”
Bruce opened his mouth. Closed it. There was something tired and sad in his
eyes, and if he was a less controlled person he might have even gulped.
Instead, he stared into Diana’s honest eyes and said, “Thank you, Diana. Now
go.”
Tim, who’d been watching the whole exchange silently, turned on his heel and
began furiously typing away at the computers.
The moment Diana was gone, Bruce called out, “Tim, stop. Go upstairs and
sleep.”
“We can still figure this out,” Tim said, continuing his typing. “There are a
finite number of spells that could cause a coma like this, and if I can hack
into enough databases—”
“Tim. Sleep. Now.”
“No, Bruce!” Tim slammed his hands against the keyboard. His shoulders were
shaking. “Nightwing’s gone, Circe’s disappeared and our only lead on what
happened to him just left! I need to keep working on this!”
“Nightwing is not in any danger. Diana has repeated that over and over. She’ll
be back before you even manage to hack into the correct databases, Tim, and we
can pick up where we left off then. The best thing you can do now is to go
upstairs, eat, and sleep.”
Tim worked his jaw for a moment. Then: “Like you’regoing to be doing?”
Bruce pursed his lips.
“If I’m not allowed to work on this, neither are you.”
“Robin.”
“No. No! You can’t feed me some bullshit line about taking care of one’s body
when you yourself are working to the bone. I don’t care if you’re the boss. I’m
your Robin. And Dick—” Tim squeezed his eyes shut. “Dick always said it was
Robin’s job to keep Batman from falling off a roof from exhaustion. I don’t do
it enough, I know, but I’m doing it now.”
Bruce looked—he looked honestly shocked for a moment, because Tim was right.
Dick had always known Tim felt awkward standing up to Bruce sometimes.
Something about not having been chosen for the role, unlike Dick and Jason;
about having to force his way into the Robin title and constantly living in the
fear that Bruce would take it away. His earlier outburst today had already
ruffled some feathers, but this?
This was outright insubordination.
Bruce had yelled at Dick enough times for it that Dick half expected Bruce to
do so now.
Instead, his expression settled on tired. Resolved.
“You’re right,” he said.
Tim blinked.
“You’re right. We both need to rest.” Bruce gestured up the stairs. “Go
upstairs and ask Alfred to heat you up some food.”
“Me?” Tim found his voice again. “What about you?”
Bruce didn’t speak for a long moment. Dick watched him from the corner of his
eye.
“I want to sit along with Dick for a while,” Bruce said, and Dick’s heart
seized in his chest. “I’ll be up shortly.”
Tim frowned. Searched his mentor's face before deciding that he was being
honest. He nodded and tried picking Dick up—but Dick, having learned to avoid
grabby hands that weren’t Diana’s, ducked out of the way and scurried under the
desk. The boy sighed but gave up without much fight.
Timmy might have needed some comfort, but Dick. Dick needed to be with Bruce.
Whether the man knew it or not, Dick was here with him. He’d never really left.
Not now, not years ago, and for the first time Dick wondered if Bruce ever
wrestled with the same logic-conundrum he did.
That Bruce understood Dick still loved him, but at the same time believed Dick
left him because he didn’t. Two opposing ideas coexisting in the same space.
Two puzzle pieces arranged just out of alignment. It would take a bit of
readjusting to slide them in place again, but for the first time in a long
time, Dick thought they might be able to do it.
They’d done it for years before the… mistake, after all. They could do it
again.
--
Bruce took off his cowl and cape and pulled up a chair next to Dick’s body
still lying in the med cot. He’d already checked the readings of each monitor,
confirming Diana’s assertion that Nightwing’s body remained unchanging due to
the stasis spell. It may be in a coma, yes, but it wouldn’t deteriorate while
Dick scrambled to find a way back into its fleshy confines.
Not that he was doing much investigating now. Instead, he’d slunk out from
under the desk and climbed onto the chair alongside Bruce. He pressed his
little cat body against Bruce’s bulky arm, feeling the tension in the muscle
there all along his furry side.
“We’ll free you from this, Dick,” Bruce said. He was talking to Dick’s slack
face on the cot, not the cat beside him, but it felt like he was speaking to
him all the same. “Even if facing off against Circe was the most ill-prepared
thing you have done in a while. She is ranked amongst the most dangerous
villains in the database. Barbara could have assisted you. The Watchtower
communications have always been open for you. You were reckless, inconsiderate
and emotionally-blinded. You were stupid.” He paused his low, angry tirade to
take a breath. “And you should know better than to presume our rift would have
left you alone. I understand its effect on our personal relationship, but your
anger towards me does notjustify risking your life.”
Dick meowed quietly when Bruce leaned forward and pressed his forehead to his
hand. He whispered fiercely, “Goddammit, Dick. Damn you. You’re better than
this. You’re better than me.”
Another pause, longer than before.
“I can’t lose you," the words slipped out soft and quiet, and oh. Hearing the
words directed to him and not simply talking about him. Hearing it was a whole
other experience. Because if Dick was human, he would’ve been screaming at
Bruce several minutes ago, because there was no way he’d take that kind of
scolding lying down. Not at his age.
But then he’d never hear this quieter, honest side of his mentor.
This was the softer side he’d known when he was younger and still excited about
slipping on the costume. When he’d been less shy about drawing Bruce out of his
reserved shell: climbing all over him, slipping into his bed when he had
nightmares, messing up his ties and clothes during functions because God,
Bruce, these old coots are SO BORING.
“Meow,” Dick repeated, and slowly wriggled his way between Bruce’s arm and leg
to settle in his lap. He didn’t move much, but Bruce did draw a tiny bit
closer. Not even the Batman was immune to the calming effect of animals, and
Dick was just glad he could offer what comfort he could.
Circe had mentioned showing him how much he was loved. The cure had to have
something to do with that. And this was clearly it, right? Bruce basically
pouring his heart out in his usual, understated Bruce-y way.
Yet he was still a cat.
Still a cat, still mute, and still unable to contribute anything of worth to
this task. Because if this didn’t count—and he wanted to repeat, this kind of
thing was a once in a lifetimeconfession from the Batman—he wasn’t sure if
anything ever would.
--
Dick had never told anyone this, but he’d overheard Bruce and Selina fighting
over him once.
Dick had been knocked down by some thug and Bruce had saved his ass, and the
Cat had come by the help finish the job just before the thug’s brother tried to
put a slug into Bruce’s skull.
“You need to tell him,” Catwoman said. Dick, still groggy from being knocked
about the head, couldn’t see anything from his position sprawled across the
rooftop. Bruce had laid his cape over him, at least, but it was still
undignified. “It’s getting painful to watch. I know how much you hate opening
your mouth and speaking, B, but you’ve been leading him on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut your bullshit. Robin’s what, sixteen? Seventeen? It’s not some cute little
kid crush anymore, Bat. I know you hate remembering you were ever a teenager,
but you should know crushes at that age are a lot more serious.”
Dick could feel his blush spreading all the way down his chest. His
mortification was only outmatched by fear, because—Jesus Christ, he was aware
Selina had known, but to confront Bruce about it? To accuse Bruceof knowing?
There was literally nothing else in the world Dick feared most, and here she
was ruining everything.
Bruce was silent for a long, horrible moment.
“Oh my god,” Selina finally said.
More silence. Dick squeezed his eyes shut, heart beating. What did that mean?
What did Selina see on Bruce’s face? He couldn’t twist around and get a better
look, because it was of utmost importance neither of them realize he was
conscious. He couldn’t live with the embarrassment otherwise.
Selina’s second interjection made things clearer: “Oh my god. Bruce!”
“No names in the field,” Batman snapped at her.
“He’s sixteen!”
“Seventeen.”
“You practically raised him!”
“Yes,” Batman said. “We’re not going to talk about this again.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, it’s always a shit show with you two,” Selina said, and
there was, indeed, no more talking after that.
Dick felt like he’d run a marathon, his heart was beating so fast. Selina’s
response to Bruce had been as damning as his own non-response so many months
before. He had always wondered—he always suspected—but to hear it, it changed
everything.
Growing up had meant outgrowing the Robin role; he could already feel himself
chafing within its confines. But if Bruce felt the same, there was a chance
they could make this work.
That, in a way, there would be Batman and Robin forever.
--
God, he’d been such a dumb kid back then.
--
Dick hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until he heard the upstairs door creak
open. He swiveled his ears in its direction. Bruce had, of all things, fallen
asleep resting his head on his hand. It made him look ridiculous rather than
brooding, and also much easier to escape from when Dick wanted to squeeze out
of his lap.
“Why hello,” a familiar leather-clad figure stalked towards him. Speak of the
devil. Dick blinked when he found himself lifted up into the air. “I didn’t
know Brucie had started keeping a darling like you around here.”
“He was Circe’s lure,” Bruce was up and awake, and if Dick hadn’t seen it with
his own two eyes he wouldn’t have believed he’d been sleeping just a second
ago. “Leaving an animal naturally resulted in us calling Wonder Woman, which
was her plan to begin with.”
“Hello Bat,” Catwoman shrugged. She, like Diana, placed him snugly in the crook
of her arm. Unlike Diana, however, Dick felt conflicted at the soft press of
her breast against his side. This was Selina. She flirted with everyone, sure,
but with Dick? Well. She was at least warm.
“What are you doing here,” Bruce cut right to the chase.
“Heard a little birdie was in trouble,” Selina shrugged a second time. She
rounded the cot and stood opposite Bruce, all the while looking down at Dick’s
face with an unreadable expression. “Came by to see you haven’t lost your
mind.”
“Nightwing is an adult. Mishaps are a part of every hero’s journey.”
“Yeah, no. That’s not what I’ve been hearing over the grapevine. Word has it
you’ve gone all crazy bat on all the heroes looking for our boy. Now that
you’ve found him… well,” Selina peered at the monitors. “You’re probably even
crazier.”
“Who’s your source,” Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Leaking intel is a breach of
Watchtower security.”
“A lady never tells.”
“Selina.”
“Bruce.”
“I can’t deal with this right now,” Bruce looked away, jaw clenched. From the
intensity of his gaze, it was like the cave wall was the most fascinating thing
he’d ever had the honor to marvel at.
Selina sighed and pulled up a chair by the cot. She curled herself onto it
gracefully and waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Catwoman was one of the few people who could get Bruce to crack first. Dick was
another, even if he almost never used it. Too busy hollering back at him to
take a breath and wait.
“Circe mentioned that this spell… whatever is keeping Dick in stasis. It’s
something magic itself seems to want,” Bruce’s voice was carefully measured.
“Magic is normally benevolent. It often shows itself when a lesson needs to be
learned.”
Selina tapped her nails on her cheek and raised a brow.
“But she also mentioned that Dickknew what the cure… the lesson was. But if
Dick is in a coma…”
“…how could him knowing help anyone,” Selina finally spoke. She tilted her
head. “Unless he’s not in a coma.”
Bruce frowned. “I’ve run the tests a dozen times. This is really him, Selina.”
“Yeah. His body. But you know from dealing with magical crazies that the soul
and the body can be separated. What if Dick’s body is here, but his soul is
elsewhere? He might even be a ghost floating about watching us right now.”
Oh, if only Selina knew how right she was.
Bruce’s frown deepened. “And what would the point of that be?”
“You’re the detective, Bruce. You can figure it out,” Selina gently let Dick
down onto the floor and stood up, stretching. “Though if Ihad magical lesson-
giving powers, I’d have given both of you a slap about the head a long time
ago. I used to think beforewas bad, but it was nothing like it is now.”
Bruce jerked his head up and gave her a sharp warning glare.
Selina pointed at Dick’s body. “Dick is literallybed-ridden, and you’re still
concerned about this whole It Never Happened thing? What the hell is wrong with
you?”
“Selina—”
“Bruce,” Selina stalked across the cave and started to rifle through some of
the trophies. Dick was positive this was her intention from the start, but he
was too engrossed in her undressing Bruce to care. “I love you, but I can
happily live without you. And yes, being independent of one another might be a
good thing in a relationship, but both of us know we’d leave each other in a
heartbeat for the right reasons.”
Bruce closed his eyes and didn’t respond.
“But I’ve seen what you’re like together, and what you’re like apart, and
Bruce. You never let him go.” Selina found her desired trinket with a flourish
and tucked it into her breast pocket. Bruce’s eyes were still closed, but Dick
had cat vision and a good memory. He’d have to look into that once he was…
humanified again. “One rule I’ve always lived by is that people never change.
Not really. So you’re kidding yourself if you think you’d be able to cut him
off for real. Stop trying.”
“It’s not that simple,” Bruce finally opened his eyes and whispered. “He thinks
I threw him away. I let him. Because he’s better than me, Selina. I don’t want
this darkness to drag him down.”
“So tell him,” Selina said. “Like you’ve just told me. Think of this whole
thing as your wake-up call, Bruce. If the worst happens and Dick really is
gone, do you really want things to end without clearing the air?”
--
After Selina left, Bruce spent another monstrously long session just staring at
Dick’s body. His hands were clasped so tightly together his knuckles bled
white. He pressed his mouth against his thumbs and sat as if he had the entire
world on his shoulders.
Dick, heart-sick and tired just watching him, crawled onto the cot and plopped
himself onto his own chest. It was a strange sensation, feeling his own
heartbeat beneath his belly. Bruce locked eyes with him. There was a warning
there: hurt Dick Grayson and you, cat, will be punished.
It was ironic but touching all the same. Dick closed his eyes intent on
catching a few more ‘z’s before Tim inevitably woke up and tore the cave apart
on his magical hacking manhunt.
And then Bruce spoke.
“Dick. I don’t know if Selina is right and you’re here listening. I don’t know
what I need to do to wake you up, if I can do anything. But every avenue needs
to be pursued, and if there is a lesson to be learned I feel like it’s
something between me and you. I’ve spoken to you quite a bit so far, but we
have both been very good at not saying what needs to be said.”
A heavy pause.
“Do you,” Bruce’s voice actually stuttered to a stop. He cleared his throat and
began again. “Do you remember your eighteenth birthday party, after all your
friends had gone home.”
Dick’s blood ran cold. Fuck no. He didn’t want to hear this again. Not now, not
ever, and Bruce had always respected that by never talking about it. He opened
his eyes and glanced over at Bruce, thankful for once that Bruce was so focused
on Dick’s face he didn’t pay any attention to the cat in the room.
“You came to my study, laughing. Bright. And beautiful, Dick, you always have
been.” Bruce sighed and turned his head. “We talked, and it was good. I
congratulated you, and you were so happy. And then.”
And then.
“And then you asked for a late birthday present. Like the Rolex watch I packed
for you wasn’t worth anything. It wasn’t, but you’re usually good about
accepting it anyway. I agreed. You smiled and leaned across the desk.” Bruce
worked his jaw. “And then you kissed me.”
It hurt like a dull ache spreading from deep within his chest. Because he
hadbeen happy. He hadbeen excited, because he was eighteen and an adult and it
should have been fine, now, to show his hand. He’d been so confident in that
one conversation he’d heard. At least confident enough to think something like
this wouldn’t change much.
Naïve enough not to realize it would change everything.
“I pushed you away. Horrified. Told you I hadn’t realized my actions had led to
this kind of misunderstanding, and that we clearly needed time apart. We
fought. You refused to back down. You clung to Robin like a lifeline, and so.”
Bruce sighed. He sounded regretful, which was only a light balm to the searing
pain that was what happened next: “And so I took it away from you.”
There was a reason they never talked about it. It sat unspoken and festering
for years between them, untouched because Dick knew, he knewif Bruce ever
called him on it—
He’d barely managed to bandage that wound the last time by dedicating himself
to the Titans. And look how that ended.
But then Bruce did something Dick had never thought he’d see. He reached over
and lifted Dick’s limp hand. Bowed his head and pressed his mouth to his
knuckles, and that wasn’t the impossible part. It was what he said that floored
him.
It was, for the first time in a long time, the bald-faced truth.
“You were right, Dick. I lied. You’re smart enough to have realized that, but
too kind to dig deeper for the truth. I lied. I knew about your feelings. I
knew my own actions were… leading you on. And I knew with the way you loved, it
would take something extreme to force you to move on.”
A breath. Dick couldn’t move, and neither could Bruce.
“So I lied. Broke things off the worst way imaginable and saw that happiness
fade from your eyes. Thought it would be worth it to set you free. It was the
best thing for you at the time. I used to think that. But you didn’t go free. I
hadn’t.” Bruce stopped. Started again. “I hadn’t realized how alone you’ve been
recently. How adrift my actions must have left you. I’m so sorry.”
A longer, weightier pause. Dick wanted to beg him to stop, it was too much,
stop talking already please. But he couldn’t. He could only watch and listen,
and it was as excruciating as it was necessary.
And Bruce. Bruce, for once in his life, didn't stop talking. “There is an even
deeper layer of lies in here, Dick. Because I knew about your feelings, and I
didn’t stop them. Do you know why.”
Dick’s heart stopped—and then began racing faster and faster, so fast he could
barely keep still in his tiny kitten body. No. No, no, no. Of all
possibilities, he’d never expected Bruce to touch upon this. Because even in
the category of ‘Things They Never Talk About’ there were things that were
talked about even less. And this was one of them.
This was something that could destroy him entirely, and he could no more stop
it than a cat facing a train on the train tracks.
“I liked it,” Bruce said. “I likedit, Dick, and there is something so very
wrong with me. I saw that darkness and I slammed the lid shut.”
The self-loathing in that sentence drew Dick back down to reality. Cut through
the terror gathering around him from every angle, until it felt like his very
cells were tingling. It grounded him just a bit, because god,Bruce, no.
Dick had been such a kid back then, to not see how fragile Bruce sometimes was.
He was like a glass wall this way. Impenetrable when leaned upon, but one hit
at the right angle and the whole thing just shattered.
“All these years, you thought it was youthat failed when I took Robin away from
you. It’s not. It’s my fault, Dick,” Bruce’s quiet whisper had grown ragged. He
wasn’t crying, but his voice certainly sounded wet. If Dick was back in his
body he could’ve felt any tears on the hand Bruce still hadn’t let go of. As it
was, his inability to react was maddening. He wanted to reach back. To draw
Bruce into his arms and comfort him like he had when he’d been a kid. He
couldn’t, but he longed to all the same.
(He wondered if Bruce had cried like this over Jason. Perhaps. And Dick hadn’t
been there to comfort him.
Perhaps Bruce thought he deserved it. Dick would have thrown a bookshelf at
him, sure, but he’d inevitably toss aside his reservations and crush Bruce into
a hug anyway. Bruce could have leaned on him, but he chose to keep Dick in the
dark instead.
Not out of spite from their fighting, but out of guilt over his own
involvement.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.)
“I loved you too much, Dick,” Bruce told his sleeping body like it was the
gravest secret he’d ever uttered. Between the two of them, it was. “And even
now, I still do. So if you’re here, Dick, know that the fault was mine. I was
an adult and your mentor, and I failed you.”
And then he gently laid Dick’s hand back down and reached over to cup Dick’s
cheek, and Dick.
Dick knew he was telling the truth. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. Or
perhaps it was just right, given everything, spoken at the right time.
Because Dick saw the flaws and mistakes in Bruce’s words, and he accepted them.
He’d been a dumb kid and Bruce had been a dumb adult, and their mistakes may
have shifted them out of alignment but it didn’t have to be forever.
They didn’t have to look backwards to move forward; not after accepting the
past for what it was.
Dick opened his mouth. Despite knowing his meows were unintelligible nonsense
to the average human, he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out in a rush,
“No, Bruce. You saved me. I’ve always loved you too much. Never stopped, even
if it would have made things easier, and now I know. I know.”
But he wasn’t trying to say it.
He wassaying it.
Bruce stared right at him with astonished blue eyes, calloused palm still
resting on his cheek, and good lord, that was hischeek. He shot upright at
once, sending the monitors around him screeching in alarm. He brought his
fingers to his face. Fingers. He had fingers!
The image of cat-him sitting on his stomach wavered like a mirage—and then
seemed to dissipate into a smoke that sank deep into his bones. Once fully
absorbed, Dick took a breath. Soul and body. Oh, it felt good to be whole.
“Bruce,” he addressed directly, relishing in the taste of Englishon his tongue.
“Bruce, oh my god.”
“Dick,” Bruce said faintly. But wait. Something about him was drawing together,
shutting down. His eyes even looked less wet, he was clamming up so fast, and
alarm shot through Dick’s heart.
No, he wasn’t going to let these last few litter-boxed weeks go to nothing.
He seized Bruce by the cowl and kissed him.
Teeth clacked. Bruce’s stubble hurt scratching his chin. And neither of their
breaths were fresh, because despite his body being in stasis Dick’s mouth
hadn’t opened for three weeks.Bruce’s last breath-refresh was more like twenty-
four hours ago, but anything past three was worthy of a nose wrinkle.
“Ugh,” Dick pulled back and fumbled beneath the cot with a hand. He came back
up with two bottles of water and tossed one at his shocked mentor. “I love you,
Bruce, but we both need to brush our teeth.”
“What,” Bruce managed. “You—I—”
“Stop thinking,” Dick said. “You thinking too much is what got us into this
mess. I’m serious.”
“Dick,” and it was like Bruce realized what he was looking at right now. Dick,
up and alive. And suddenly, thick arms were wrapping around his waist, tight
and possessive in a way Dick hadn’t felt since he’d been a Robin small enough
to ride piggyback. It was all the emotion Bruce needed to convey without the
awkward use of words. Actions over words. That’s always how Bruce had been,
even if he used it sparingly for affection. Dick knew that and accepted it, and
so he clung to him tightly in turn.
It was more intimate than the kiss, because Dick could feel Bruce’s heart
beating against his chest. He could hear his breathing far more clearly, feel
the nuances of his grip against his shoulders.
“I’m here,” Dick said, tucking his head into the crook of Bruce’s neck. “I’m
still here, B. Always have been.”
It was true in many senses of the word. Dick was sure Bruce understood it. It
was how their relationship had always been. Layers upon layers, contradicting
truths all coexisting together in one space. Like perfectly aligned jigsaw
pieces.
For the first time in a long time, finally clicking into place.
 
 
 
 
extra
 
“So,” Dick casually opened up conversation with Tim over Sunday brunch. “You
and Superboy, huh?”
Tim spat out his coffee. “Excuse me?”
Dick raised a brow. “I saw your photos.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Funny what people say when they don’t notice a cat listening in,” Dick said,
and then frowned at the mission briefing Raven had forwarded him. He wasn’t an
active member of the Teen Titans anymore, but he’d reconnected with his old
team enough that they felt comfortable sending him updates. Beast Boy had
suggested he keep himself physically away, however, in fear of Kory’s temper if
she saw him in the midst of battle.
(“It’s not ‘cause of you and the Bat,” Garfield had said, somewhat
uncomfortable. Dick had never been as subtle as he’d thought, apparently,
because few of his old friends seemed surprised about his teenage crush. Dick
wasn’t sure if he should be amused or mortified. “She’s known about thatsince
you were together. She’s still mad over your break-up, but you know Kory. When
she’s mad, she’s mad. But when she’s over it, she’s over it. I’m sure it’ll
pass, man, but in the meantime keep your head down, kay?”
Literally, as it happened. Dick suffered a few singed hairs the last time a
menagerie of heroes gathered together, and Kory’s blasts had strayed too close
for comfort.)
Tim was still gaping like a fish. “I never said anything about Kon when you
were a cat!”
“No, but here’s a tip, Timmy,” Dick leaned forward. “If you don’t want people
to know, try putting the photo album of sexy Kryptonian offthe desktop next
time? So kitty paws don’t accidentally open them?”
“Oh my god,” Tim’s voice was faint. “Someone shoot me now.”
“Who’s shooting who,” Bruce came down from the staircase, still dressed in
robes and the left side of his hair plastered up in a ridiculous case of bed
head. He slipped into the seat beside Dick—giving Dick the perfect opportunity
to lick his palm and press his hand to the offensive tuft. Bruce frowned at
him. “Dick, that’s unsanitary.”
“You used to do it to me,” Dick said.
“You used to do what?” Tim tried to move the conversation away him and his
scandalous Kryptonian affair—and regretted it two seconds later when Dick
licked his palm again and advanced on the boy. “No! NO! DICK NO.”
“Boys,” Alfred called out from the kitchen, and Dick settled back down with a
laugh.
Bruce wasn’t easily distracted, however. One fortunate—unfortunate—result of
the whole affair was Bruce's increased dedication to keeping an eye on his
Robins. Dick was used to the surveillance, but Tim. Tim still needed to learn
how to hide.
“What were you talking about with Tim,” Bruce broached the subject again later
while they were sprawled on the master bed. It was less awkward than it
sounded. Probably because Bruce’s bed was massive, Dick was on his belly typing
up his comments on JLA mission briefings, and Bruce was pretending to read a
book while actually staring at Dick’s ass.
Also, their clothes were still on.
(Also-also—they used to hang like this back when Bruce had still been
cool.Physical contact had never been something Dick had shied away from as a
kid. That came later.)
“I can’t tell you,” Dick said absently. “I’d lose my big bro cred.”
“Dick.”
“These newbies are so untrained,” Dick squinted at the screen. “You think I
should head up to space and whip them into shape a bit? I mean, it’s not like
I’ve a real job to occupy me nowadays.”
“You don’t need a real job. You have a trust fund.”
“If that’s your way of saying I should work for Wayne Enterprises, you’ve
clearly breathed in too much smoke during patrol,” Dick said. “Have you thought
of testing the pollution levels near the harbor?”
Bruce ignored the sass in favor of his book. Or that’s what he wanted Dick to
think. Dick rolled his eyes to himself and stretched, and oh, he knew why
Selina liked doing this so much now. The expressions it elicited from Bruce
were priceless.
“Dick,” Bruce admonished, betraying his true act of staring at his ass.
“Habit I picked up from being a cat,” Dick blatantly lied. He shut his laptop
and carefully shoved it further away, before turning around and crawling over
to where Bruce was still staring at his book. He hooked his chin over his
shoulder. “Perhaps a habit I learned from a certain cat, too?”
“Bad habits,” Bruce said dryly. Still, he didn’t frown or move away when Dick
slipped a hand under his robe and traced the curve of his pec. So much had
changed and also stayed the same since the last time Dick was allowed this kind
of access. Bruce was older, harder, and more battle-worn than before—but even
more handsome for his scars. Dick had similar marks over his body, though he
tended to keep himself in better shape than the Bat.
For all his temper and recklessness, Dick was too vain to throw himself as
carelessly into a machete as Bruce often did. Unnecessary injuries his ass.
Speaking of his ass, Bruce was slipping a hand around his waist. That was
actually an improvement.
Because, like his body, as many things changed as they’d stayed the same.
Bruce wasn’t going to allow Dick to regress back to their old Batman and Robin
days of touch so easily. Dick never expected him to. There was too many years
and bad blood and unspoken tragedies in the way. Jason still hung over them
like a silent cloud, though Bruce seemed less self-punishing now than he’d been
before. No.
Dick may not be shy about kissing, but he knew better than to push too hard,
too fast. He’d learned how to wait.
After spending three weeks sidelined as a cat, he’d gotten far better at
waiting for the right time.
And it was paying off. Bruce, who’d often do his best impression of a cardboard
cut-out if Dick snuggled too close, relaxed incrementally as the days went on.
It helped that Dick had stayed over the Manor nearly full-time since returning
to humanity—because it was clear now he’d been languishing in Bludhaven. No
job, no apartment, not after weeks of falling off the map. Dick found himself
less torn up about it than he’d once expected.
Bludhaven would still be waiting for him when he was ready.
Now he just wanted to rest.
“You can move your hand lower,” Dick shrugged, nonchalant, and resisted the
urge to fall over cackling at the deer-in-headlights look Bruce gave him.
“Alright, alright. Don’t move, then.”
“Dick,” and only Bruce could still sound so unsure when Dick was so very
clearly offering himself up on a platter.
“I like it,” Dick hummed, and placed his head back onto Bruce’s shoulder. Some
people may have bubbled over in frustration by now, but Dick was satisfied with
just being able to hold Bruce close again. To breathe him in and gather comfort
from his strong embrace, without any of the awkward stigmas that had hung over
them in their misunderstanding-cloud–of-doom.
His entire beingfelt lighter when he was in the same room as Bruce now.
Stronger. He and Bruce had always made a brilliant team, even during the very
worst of their fighting. Fitting back together was going to take more time than
effort. Their body memories were far more forgiving than the heart.
“Tim isn’t hanging out too much with that… Superboy, is he?” Bruce suddenly
said, voice so laden with suspicion Dick didburst out laughing. He continued to
laugh until Bruce grabbed him in a hold and tickled him, and Christ, no one
ever believed him when he said Batman was a dirty little shit when it came to
wrestling.
No one believed Batman wrestled, for starters, because he only ever did it when
he and Dick were alone. Like now.
Despite his protests, Dick smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.
--
“Nightwing,” Diana greeted him with open arms the first time he returned to the
Watchtower since, you know. Regaining his fingers. “I am thrilled to see you
once more upright. Though you were, indeed, a very cute cat.”
“Thank you, Diana,” Dick said. “Has Circe been giving you any more trouble?”
“No. She’s been sulking at her island, undoubtedly. After her last disaster,
I’ve made it clear to her that my colleagues are off limits. Her battle is with
me.” Diana’s expression darkened. “I doubt she will stay away for long, but
rest assured she will not be able to achieve the same level of magical
transformation without outside assistance.”
“Hm,” Dick said. At Diana’s prompting, they exited the zeta tubes and continued
conversing as they trekked to the monitor room. There were so many things he’d
missed since he’d gone AWOL. So many dynamics to relearn, and Dick could
already feel himself brightening as his mind whirred with every new scrap of
information. It was so good to put himself to use again.
Until the various heroes goose-necking every time they passed became too
distracting for him to ignore, and Dick stopped talking long enough to ask,
“…why are all the newbies staring at me?”
Diana winced. Clearly, she’d hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Perhaps it is because
of how Batman… reacted to news of your disappearance.”
“I thought he sent a note off to Clark?”
“He did,” Diana said. “And when Clark admitted he hadn’t seen you since our
last mission, Bruce began a most unflattering criticism of the Watchtower
security system. Zeta’d here in person just to challenge our current
regulations regarding this technology, and of course Clark challenged him back
by insisting even heroes need their privacy. Children.The whole squabble ended
up being broadcast all over the tower.”
“Oh my god.”
“Bruce brought Kryptonite, of all things. He used it just long enough to break
Clark’s nose, but it violated rule number seven. We had to lock him up in the
holding cells for an hour to wallow in his dishonor.”
“Oh my god.”
“The new heroes fear Batman enough as it is. Witnessing him… ‘lose his cool’ so
violently over this Nightwing, well. Their curiosity was peaked enough to look
you up.”
Dick raised a brow. “They looked me up?”
“Yes. On the google, first, and then the Watchtower database.” Diana looked as
if she was trying to remember something. They stopped in front of the monitor
room doors. “I think you’ve gathered a fan club.”
“B broke Clark’s nose and I have a fan club? This is the best day ever,” Dick
laughed as the doors slid open. A crowd of newbies stood by the entrance like
sharks ready to feast.
“Famous last words,” Diana said, the traitor—and quickly stepped back to leave
him to his fate.
Ah, the burden of popularity.
--
Things weren’t always so great, of course. Dick and Bruce still fought, so
fiercely sometimes Dick would storm off to Barbara’s to cool off for a night.
Bruce would spend hours in the training room taking his frustrations out on a
punching bag, because Tim always did the smart thing and hid himself away so he
couldn’t be forced to ‘spar.’ They’d growl at each other and refuse to talk,
and only Tim’s fearful are-they-going-to-go-cold-war-again looks convinced Dick
to reach out first.
(Even if it wasn’t his fault, he knew nothing would happen if he didn’t make
the first move. The whole incident with Circe had taken three weeksfor Bruce to
finally spit the words out, and only because Selina had kicked him in the rear.
They were too good at silences, both of them.)
It helped that this time, Dick knewBruce loved him. Knew it deep in his bones,
far more securely than he’d had before in Bludhaven, and it made a world of
difference. To both of them, really, because Bruce seemed to finally accept
that Dick would always come back. That despite the Bat’s many, manymistakes,
Dick had no intention of leaving. Not really. He might go once in a while to
find himself or cool down or establish his independence, whatever that
meant—but he would always come home. He would always love Bruce.
Unconditionally, as dangerous as that was.
If Batman one day descended into hell, Dick suspected he'd follow him right
down in a heartbeat.
“Sometimes, I think we already have,” Bruce whispered, large hands warm against
Dick’s back. He slid them down until they settled over the curve of his ass,
watching the way the muscles shifted as he continued to press his cock inside.
Dick disliked being facedown for this exact reason—when he wanted to reach over
and kiss away the dark look in Bruce’s eyes, the slight guilty furrow of his
brow, because god forbid the Batman could ever be a little bit happy. He wanted
to lick into his mouth the same way he used to dream of when he was fifteen and
discovering the difference between a kid crush and a realcrush. When he was too
scared to ask Bruce about it and made the unfortunate decision to talk to Roy
instead.
But he couldn’t, because Bruce was fucking him while sitting up on his knees,
hands firmly keeping his ass up and in place, and ugh. Dick didn’t want to
allot brain space to figuring out this conundrum. He’d rather spend that energy
enjoying the frissons of pleasure running up his spine, the firm but gentle way
Bruce handled his body, the culmination of so much time spent peeling back the
layers that kept them from this moment.
But Bruce needed the reassurance, and Dick couldn’t kiss it better. He sighed
and, after another beat, hauled himself up on his forearms. Maybe if he
wriggled around, that would help…?
To his surprise, Bruce noticed what he was doing and leaned forward. Covered
his back with his bulk and hooked his chin over his shoulder, and oh. Oh. Dick
turned and gratefully pressed their mouths together. He was going to develop a
crick in his neck but he didn’t care; it was worth being able to reassure Bruce
he wanted this, that he enjoyed it, and if he stopped now he was going to kill
him.
“B,” he reached back and cupped the back of Bruce’s head. God, this man. Even
years since their first fateful meeting, he still managed to surprise him like
this. Dick just wanted to melt. “Fuck, Bruce, come on, come on—”
Later, once Dick had rolled Bruce over and hooked a leg around his waist—Bruce
being the little spoon, of course, he always had been even when Dick was little
and having nightmares—he pressed his forehead against Bruce’s nape.
“Meow,” he said, and chuckled when Bruce shuddered in his arms.
“Please don’t remind me of Selina right now.”
“Who said anything about Selina,” Dick rolled his eyes and slapped his bicep,
mostly in jest. “Iwas the one that actually got turned into a cat, remember?”
“Why a cat. It never made much sense to me.”
“Because Circe is a witch, and witches like cats?” Dick shrugged and rubbed his
face into Bruce’s short cropped hair. “Or because Selina’s the one who always
saw the both of us most clearly. Either one.”
No response.
“Bruce?”
“Go to sleep, Dick,” Bruce’s voice sounded long-suffering. It was all so
domestic Dick chuckled again, earning himself a light slap to the flank. He
curled his arms around Bruce’s waist and squeezed his eyes shut.
Jigsaw pieces fitting together. Literally, at the moment, but everything else
was coming together too.
They were going to be okay.
--
(“Merry Christmas, Dick,” Barbara leaned up and squeezed Dick around the waist.
Dick buried his nose into her soft red hair and squeezed her back. No matter
what happened between them before and in the future, it wouldn’t change the
fact that Oracle was one of his closest friends.
It also wouldn’t change the fact that Barbara was probably going to stalk his
online presence until the day he died. It was the price he paid for his
disappearing act, and it was a price he was willing to pay if it kept Babs at
ease.
“Careful not to hug for too long,” Selina slunk over and whispered into Dick’s
ear. “Or a certain Bat may get jealous.”
“It’s Babs,” Dick insisted, but let go of Barbara with a sigh. “And don’t think
I missed seeing you kissing Bruce under the mistletoe just now.”
“Yes, but youknow I’m just having fun. Our lovely Bat still hasn’t convinced
himself you won’t leave just yet.” Selina’s gaze softened. “Sometimes that
stupid man needs stupid reassurances. Even if he won’t admit it.”
Dick tilted his head in acknowledgement.
Satisfied that her warning was heard, Selina leaned down and tapped one of
Barbara’s wheelchair handles. “Let’s go fetch some eggnog, Red. Leave stupid
boys to do stupid boy things.”
“I will as soon as you give back that diamond bracelet,” Barbara’s voice was
mild but left no room for question. “You know the rules, Cat.”
“Killjoy,” Selina sighed, but didn’t seem too put out at being caught. She
turned and blew a kiss at Dick. “Merry Christmas, Robbie. May the New Year be
kind to us all.”
Dick smiled and raised a glass. Then, he’d ambled through the crowd over to
where Bruce was indeed standing about looking dour. Slipped an arm around his
waist and leaned his head against his shoulder.
He waited until Bruce relaxed before he tilted his head and pressed a kiss to
his cheek.
“Merry Christmas,” he smiled. Bruce didn’t smile back, but there was a fond
glint in his eye that Dick had no trouble reading. His smile grew wider.
And the party bustling around them faded away.)
End Notes
     HAPPY HOLIDAYS YALL.
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