Archive of Our Own

SOUTH PACIFIC

January 6, 20:32

The fight shouldn’t be this close, Tim thinks grimly, sending another of Black Manta’s armoured guards into the water with a swing of his staff. Not with Kid Flash and Artemis here, not with both Batman and Aquaman evening the odds. Not with Superman and Superboy, and Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl flying in as back-up.

Tim would say it’s times like these where he misses Dick the most, but really, the strength of that feeling never dulls enough to fully put it aside. And it’s more than the vigilante side of things. Tim misses his big brother. Having someone to call after a rough night on patrol, someone who squishes him into hugs and teases him for geeking out over hero stuff and makes stupid jokes and puns all the time just to get him to laugh.

He can’t accept that he might never have that again. It’s not fair. But... it’s been months and they haven’t found anything.

Dick’s absence is like a gaping wound. Tim’s on this team because Dick believed in him, and now that he’s gone, Tim can’t help the relentless anxiety that he’s never going to measure up. Dick helped train him, shaped him into someone worthy of being Robin, at least as much as Bruce did. And Nightwing’s presence on the field would go a long way right now to pushing the fight back in their favour.

Because while they’ve tracked the Kroloteans to the volcano base on Malina Island, and they prepared for the Light to be present, having Black Manta’s lieutenant and Deathstroke in the fight isn’t making this easy. Not to mention Deathstroke’s new shadow. And a bomb in the lower levels that’s going to blast this whole island to smithereens.

And that’s without the emotional bombs the enemy brought with them.

“None of us wanted to believe this!” Superboy shouts, staring at Kaldur’s uncovered face, fists clenched by his sides as he prepares to spring back into action. “How could you betray us?”

Tim hadn’t quite believed Artemis’ report until now, either. Kaldur simply couldn’t have turned on them. It doesn’t make sense — Tim thinks he’s a pretty decent judge of character, all things considered, and Kaldur just wouldn’t do that. But Tula’s death must have changed something fundamental, because there he is, in Manta’s armour, staring down his old mentor with nothing but rage in his eyes.

“Oh,” Deathstroke calls down from the upper catwalk, and he sounds so pleased. “You don’t know the half of it.”

That level of smugness from Deathstroke cannot mean anything good. Tim tenses, springing away from his current enemy to get to a better vantage point. Deathstroke whistles, two short high notes and a falling tone. A clear signal, and by his side, the figure in his shadow snaps to attention. The new player reaches up to remove their mask.

Batgirl’s voice is strangled. Incredulity warring with relief, and something like horror. “Is that — Nightwing?”

The whole fight freezes. A jolt shocks down Tim’s spine. He sees Batman go absolutely still.

“Nightwing — what’s wrong with him? What have you done to him?”

Tim wills his staticky limbs to move. He inches around the corner to finally get a proper view. The shadow standing next to Deathstroke is dressed in orange and black armour, and his faceplate mask, so similar to Deathstroke’s, is held loosely in his hand. It’s a familiar face that’s bared. A black domino covers his eyes, looking blankly ahead.

It’s Dick, all right, and something is clearly, terribly wrong.

Deathstroke clasps a hand on Dick’s shoulder. It’s – proprietary, and the broadness of the palm dwarfs Dick’s form. The fingers dig in, thumb stroking possessively, pulling Dick in a little closer to Deathstroke’s side. Tim feels sick. What is– why is Dick letting him do that. He doesn’t even react to it.

“Thanks to Kaldur here, there’s not a lot of Nightwing left,” Deathstroke gloats. “Only my apprentice remains.”

Tim’s brain whirs. Mind control? Some kind of magic, possession? More of the control chips, like the ones that the Light got the whole Justice League with five years ago? There’s too many options, and without knowing which it is, he doesn’t know what to do.

“Kaldur’ahm — what does this mean? What have you done?” Aquaman says.

Kaldur flinches, just the briefest amount, but Tim sees it. Then he scowls. “I did what I had to!”

What is going on. The gears in Tim’s brain spin faster, arranging the new pieces without his permission. Kaldur betrayed them. Dick is – with Deathstroke? And Deathstroke says that’s Kaldur’s fault, which – he could be lying. But Dick still doesn’t move, standing rigid and stiff by Deathstroke’s side, even when the hand on his shoulder squeezes down. Even when it caresses up his neck and grabs his jaw, tilting his head as though to give them a better view.

The damp air of the volcanic cave suddenly feels so much more oppressive. Tim hates this. He feels frozen, mouth hanging agape like an idiot, and all he can do is stare.

“Nightwing was your friend! Our friend!” Superboy snarls at Kaldur.

“My friend?” Kaldur yells back, summoning his water blades. “He and all of you let Tula die!”

It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense.

Or maybe Tim just doesn’t want to believe it.

With a blur, Kid Flash is in front of Kaldur, hands raised beseechingly. “Kaldur, you know everyone did the best they could! But it’s not too late,” he pleads. “You can come back. You can bring Nightwing back.”

“Oh, there’s no bringing him back from this,” Deathstroke says. That gloating, superior tone of his hasn’t changed. He’s relishing this — the shock and dismay writ large in everyone’s expressions in the face of what’s been done to their friend. “There’s just enough Nightwing left in him to be a problem for you, though. Apprentice? Attack.”

There’s no way. Dick’s just pretending, he has to be. Or he’ll fight it, turn on Deathstroke and take him down. Or, or—

Dick moves, leaping at Batgirl without a word of a quip, or any noise at all. And suddenly, the frozen fight explodes back into action, and there’s no time to think.

Tim gets glimpses around fending off the robot that’s trying to smash his skull in. Dick doesn’t hesitate. Deathstroke barks orders, or sometimes just whistles, and Dick’s response is instantaneous. It doesn’t matter that it’s Batgirl — that it’s Barbara that he’s fighting, or Conner, who he puts down with a sonic blast that makes Conner collapse to his knees clutching his head.

And Deathstroke is familiar with Dick. They fight back to back, filling each other’s blindspots in an uncanny echo of how Tim used to watch Batman and Robin fight. But here it looks wrong. It’s just as efficient but far, far more brutal. Dick’s nightsticks have been replaced by twin blades, and Barbara cries out in pain when Dick scores a deep cut to her thigh, the blade coming away bloody.

“Batgirl!” Tim cries, finally managing to unbalance his robot enough to send it tumbling off the catwalk.

He swoops in to pull her away just in the nick of time. Dick’s blade slashes empty air instead of her throat.

Dick just almost killed her.

If– if Tim hadn’t got there in time—

“Nightwing, please,” Tim begs. “You’ve got to be in there, please, snap out of it!”

Dick turns to face Tim. His eyes are hidden by the domino, but the rest of his face is utterly expressionless. He doesn’t make any noise as he rushes forward to strike at them.

“Please!” Tim begs.

Barbara’s too heavy for Tim to move fast, and she’s too woozy from bloodloss to get back on her own. They can’t get away, and everyone else is tied down. So it’s– it’s up to Tim. He gets in front of Barbara and raises his staff defensively.

It all feels wrong. It can’t be Dick, attacking them without so much as a flicker of hesitation. Aiming to kill. Completely and utterly obedient, following orders without question. It’s just mind control — Tim knows it’s just mind control, that it’s not really Dick, he’s done so much training for scenarios like this, but...

It’s different, still, in real life. Dick isn’t stopping. Tim’s really going to have to fight him, and — well, he doesn’t like his odds.

“Fall back!” Kaldur yells, and a sharp two-tone whistle follows from Deathstroke right after.

Dick’s charge towards Tim and Barbara twists into a flip all in an instant, and then he’s gone, dashing back in the opposite direction. Returning to Deathstroke’s side as they fall back to Manta’s ship.

Something falls out of Tim’s stomach at the sight of his retreating back. Something like terrible relief and despair, entangled in a way he can’t pull apart.

The next few minutes are a blur. With the alien bomb counting down and no way to disable it, they have to beat a hasty retreat from the remaining Krolotean-manned robots. Tim and Barbara shuffle aboard their ship just in time.

They make it out in the bioship. Black Manta’s ship escapes earlier, making a quick exit as soon as all his crew are aboard. The Kroloteans are not so lucky.

The mood aboard the ship on the return is a sombre one.

Wally’s not sure it’s ever been worse. Maybe after Aquagirl, or the last Robin. Betrayal hits differently to failure, though, so maybe there’s no use comparing it.

“...The timelines match up,” Batman says wearily. He’s leaning forward over the controls, in a posture that Wally thinks might be his version of slumping. “Nightwing disappeared about three weeks after Aqualad left the team and broke contact. Aqualad could’ve easily met with his father in that time, and either used himself as bait to lure Nightwing out, or given them information on him that led to his capture.”

Wally’s gut clenches guiltily. Yeah, that’s not a happy Batman voice.

He’s learned a lot of new Batman voices, now that he’s ended up as the team leader. Which is absolutely completely not a position he ever wanted, and not one he’d have ever accepted under any normal circumstances. But when Kaldur left and Dick disappeared only weeks later, apparently he was the next best option.

He can’t say he’s been enjoying it. On top of all the stress, it’s given him a front row seat to seeing just how badly the domino effect of losses has been hitting the team. It’s been, to put it mildly, a bit of a rough one.

“What happened to him?” Robin asks, and the poor kid sounds so lost.

Dick hurt Batgirl, and he almost hurt Robin, and Wally doesn’t know how close either of those calls were — he wasn’t near enough to see in the fight. But Robin’s pretty shaken up, and that kid’s not easily rattled. So. Really close, probably. That can’t feel good.

The plan was always going to hurt the team. They all knew it, and they agreed they had to anyway. It doesn’t make it easier to sit to the side, and let the rest of the team feel this way when Wally knows he could put an end to it, if he just opened his mouth and ran it like he’s always doing anyway.

It feels like they’re going to see through him at any moment, but if there was ever a time for uncharacteristic silence, it’s now.

“We know the Light has a vested interest in brainwashing and mind control. It’s hard to tell what type this is,” Batman says. He isn’t looking at anyone. “Without knowing that, it’s not possible to make a proper prognosis.”

Dick’s been missing for months. Batman must have thought him dead, by this point. The team didn’t want to believe it — any suggestion of putting up another hologram in the grotto was immediately shot down, Conner or Batgirl or Garfield furiously insisting that they’d find him. Well, they’ve found him.

Is being the brainwashed apprentice to a contract killer better than being dead?

“Is it reversible?” Artemis asks carefully.

She’s a better actor than Wally is, that’s for sure. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything, absolutely certain that if he starts talking he’s not going to stop until every secret he’s holding in comes spilling out. He can barely look at anyone. At least that probably appears pretty close to the kind of shocked grief everyone else is feeling.

“...We simply don’t know. Deathstroke seemed convinced it wasn’t. But it wouldn’t be in his interest to let us believe we could get him back.”

“Mr Manhunter? M’gann? Is it... really possible it’s irreversible?” Batgirl asks, and the worried hesitance in her voice makes Wally feel like an absolute tool.

“...Yes. It is possible,” J’onn admits heavily. “Some types of mental manipulation merely surpress the true personality and memories. But others are more destructive. We know the Light have embraced all types of mind control, so if anyone is likely to have access to such methods, and be willing to use them, it is them. I’m afraid it’s not impossible that Nightwing is lost to us, for good.”

It hits the team like a wave. Wonder Girl staggers and has to sit down, and Conner clenches his fists so hard his bones audibly creak. Robin’s face blanches white. Everywhere Wally glances, at the team and at the Leaguers who are with them, he sees mirrored looks of devastation.

God, he can’t do this. They’re all so– so—

Artemis squeezes his hand. Wally breathes out slowly.

No, he can do this. He’s got the easy job. He’s not gonna be the one to screw everything up, just ‘cos he can’t take feeling guilty over a few sad faces.

“I can’t believe Kaldur would do something like this,” Aquaman says, frowning. He looks at his hands, as though they have answers for him. “It’s not like him. He and Nightwing were always close.”

“He’s a traitor,” La’gaan spits. “And a murderer — he just blew up an island. With all those Kroloteans still on it. I think it’s pretty safe to say he doesn’t give a shit about that.”

The Kroloteans... yeah. Wally grimaces, and can’t help glancing at where Superman is lying by the wall of the ship, still unconscious from the explosion and looking oddly small, for such a big guy. Conner said Superman wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for not being able to save them, and he’s probably right.

Wally knew there’d be consequences to this plan — things that had to be done that they weren’t going to like. Still... it’s different, being faced with it for real. And if Wally’s feeling like this, he can’t imagine how Kaldur’s taking it. Or Dick.

“Did,” he clears his throat, and several sets of eyes turn to look at him. He fidgets anxiously in place. “Did anyone get a good look at Nightwing? Did he, um... did he seem okay? Other than the being brainwashed part, I mean, that part’s obviously... not okay...” he trails off.

Batman’s lips draw thin. He doesn’t answer. Nobody has an answer for him, it seems. So now Wally’s just going to be thinking of worst case scenarios until he stresses himself out so much he vibrates through the floor of the ship. Just, fantastic.

“We’ll get him back,” Artemis swears. She squeezes his hand again, and Wally crushes it desperately back. They’re coming back, Wally knows she means, and he wishes he could be as confident as she is that it’s true.

“And Kaldur’s going to pay for what he’s done,” M’gann mutters.

“Great,” Conner says sourly, half under his breath. “You’ll fry his brain too, and then we’ll have two catatonic teammates.”

“He’s not our teammate anymore,” M’gann hisses back. “And if I can pull what happened to Nightwing out of his mind then I’ll do it.”

Note to self, Wally thinks, with a flash of foreboding, don’t let M’gann near Kaldur if I can help it.

“You’re using the same methods as Deathstroke.”

“Hey, don’t speak to her that way!” La’gaan snaps.

Wally should step in. That’s what a leader would do, right? Handle team interpersonal conflict. That’s what Kaldur would have done, what Dick would have done, but Wally doesn’t have the first clue what to say to defuse it. He’s no good at this part — he’s no good at any of it, actually, and he can’t wait for it to not be up to him anymore, because this leadership business does not agree with him.

“Everyone!” Wonder Woman interrupts. “Now is not the time to fight amongst ourselves. I suggest we take some time to reflect and let cooler heads prevail.”

Wally breathes out. At least someone can keep their head about them. God, he’s so not cut out for this.

Conner and M’gann are glaring at opposite walls. Wally leans against Artemis’ side. The others return to nursing injuries, watching over the unconscious, and staring resolutely outside. The rest of the trip back is spent in uneasy silence.

NORTH PACIFIC

January 7, 07:07

Back aboard Slade’s ship, wearing Slade’s uniform and standing rigidly to attention like Slade’s hand on his shoulder doesn’t make him want to claw his own skin off and scream, Dick watches the Light debrief. The revulsion, strong as it ever is, mixes with the bubbling victory in his stomach and the sticky self-loathing in his veins. It feels like if he lets any part of his mask crack, it’s all going to come bursting out of him.

“We are quite pleased with your efforts. And those of your son. The two of you are officially one with the Light,” Savage proclaims.

Only the terrible months of practice allow Dick to keep his face blank. He wants to look at Kaldur, but he needs to stay impassive. The blooming relief is hard to fight off, though, and the vestiges of adrenaline from seeing all his old teammates again — fighting them — makes it hard to hold his hands steady and keep the trembling invisible.

But they did it. Kaldur’s in. Everything they’ve given up for this, had to do for this, it wasn’t all for nothing.

Hurting Barbara wasn’t for nothing.

“And, Deathstroke. Your apprentice has come a long way. He did well today,” Savage continues. “He is proving to be a most fruitful acquisition. And we have your son to thank for that, Black Manta, of course.”

Black Manta tips his head. Dick does his best to pretend to be a statue. He’s gotten a lot of practice at the mindless loyalty act, since Slade made him into his apprentice.

He very deliberately doesn’t think about doing well today. Barbara’s devastation and Tim’s begging, Conner’s confused betrayal, all of these memories get carefully, forcefully squashed down to the back of his mind. Not now. He can’t lose it now.

“What a shame I never got the chance to look at his mind before you wiped it,” Psimon says. “Batman’s protege must have known so many secrets.”

“It is a shame,” Slade acknowledges. He tilts Dick’s chin up, and Dick lets him, keeping his expression blank and unfocused like a good little unthinking drone. “But you’re unlikely to have gotten anything, anyway. The kid put up a hell of a fight as it was. Almost broke himself irreparably in the process. He’s the type who’d rather fry his own brain than give up what he knows.”

“Hmph,”  Psimon says. “I could have done it.”

Slade shrugs, as though conceding the point. “As you say. Still, what’s done is done.”

“There will be other opportunities,” Savage agrees. “For now, let us continue with our plan. The Light thanks you all.”

The ring of faces flickers off.

“You can drop the act now, kid,” Slade says.

Dick doesn’t slump, but he lets his rigid posture loosen. Every muscle still feels wired tense, though. Just because the Light aren’t watching doesn’t mean he’s safe. He’s never safe, with Slade.

A hand presses to the small of his back. Leading him back to the bedroom.

“You really did do well today,” Slade tells him, stripping out of his armour. “You must be happy, right? Your little manta friend’s right where you want him.”

Dick’s stomach twists. He doesn’t say anything. The small part of him that was happy is becoming rapidly dwarfed by dull and familiar dread, and newer, buzzing numbness.

Slade doesn’t need him to talk, though. He’s always more than willing to monologue.

“You’re quite the performer. You came to heel magnificently,” Slade tells him. “You almost killed that girl and didn’t even flinch. I’d wager your performance even had the Bat convinced.” His voice gets lower. Commanding. “Get out of that armour, apprentice.”

Dick tastes blood, sinking his teeth into the ragged inside of his cheek. He obeys.

Slade knows that this is twisting Dick’s tight morals up in knots. That every part of it kills him a little inside, chipping away at a core that has only so many chips to give. Dick thinks that’s what inspires that sick fascination Slade has with him — the taking and taking little by little, just watching to see what will be the breaking point. The tiny piece that causes him to collapse in on himself, or to shatter into fragments Slade can reassemble in whatever shape he pleases.

“I suppose you’re telling yourself this is all temporary,” Slade muses idly, watching Dick undress with a heavy-lidded gaze. “That you’ll get your information, and it’ll all be over. But you know, deep down, that it won’t. I’m always going to be there, little bird. I am as inevitable as I am inescapable, and you’re never getting free of me.”

Stating defeat as thought it’s a foregone conclusion is a deliberate tactic, Dick knows. It’s intended to demoralise him, a way of weaponising despair, to make him internalise Slade’s power over him and accept the futility of trying to get away from it. A way to win without having to fight.

It doesn’t make him wrong.

“Time to do your part again, little bird,” Slade tells him. His smile is mockingly cruel. “Earn my silence.”

Slade pushes Dick down onto the bed. Dick falls on his back, and Slade grips his hips, tugging him to the edge of the mattress.

He knows what Slade wants.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can continue to bear it.

He’s left crying, this time, and he tries not to let Slade see. Dick hates it when Slade makes him cry — Slade can’t do it usually, anymore, but there was a while early on when he made a game of it. Slade must have gotten tired of it at some point, because now it only gets that bad when he’s feeling particularly vicious or particularly satisfied.

Dick doesn’t want to think about what will happen if Slade gets tired of him. About what he might have to do, to keep Slade from getting tired of him.

He’s splitting apart at the seams. It’s been ten months of gathering and passing on information, trying to build up Kaldur’s position securely. Ten months of looking into Kaldur’s eyes, in those few moments they can steal away to talk, and lying right to his face.

I’m fine. He doesn’t hurt me too badly. I can take it.

Kaldur tells him he’s fine, too. That Black Manta hasn’t asked him to do anything he can’t bear, that the calls he has to make aren’t killing him inside. So they’re both liars, on top of everything else they’ve become.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, Dick wants to say. I feel like I’m coming apart.

I barely remember how we got here.

It starts a month after Tula’s death. After Garth leaves and Kaldur goes undercover and Dick’s alone in his apartment again, because Conner’s with M’gann and Wally’s with Artemis and the weight of the future and two young, dead heroes is slowly crushing him down into paste.

There’s the others, of course. Maybe Troia and the Marvels have left, but there’s Barbara and Tim, and La’gaan and Karen and Gar, but they’re all too young or too new or both of those things, and he can’t burden them.

And it’d be like any other such night of selfish wallowing, except very abruptly, he’s not alone in his apartment. Someone slipped in through the window while his back was turned. Silently, without alerting him, and skillfully, because that window is rigged with alarms. An uncomfortably familiar figure stands silhouetted in the low evening light.

Dick doesn’t have his gear. Not close enough to grab. It’s on the other side of the room, and with Deathstroke, ‘close enough’ is a much, much shorter distance than that.

“A bold move, sending the little manta back to dear old daddy,” Slade says. His arms are loose by his sides, not reaching for his weapons. It’s not like Slade needs the headstart, though. “It was a good effort, I’ll give the kid that. Certainly had the big manta convinced. But I’m not so easily fooled, little bird, and this play has bat written all over it.”

His whole body language is easy, relaxed, while Dick’s frozen up so tight it’s a wonder he hasn’t shattered.

Dick swallows. “Kaldur left the team,” he tries, like Slade hasn’t already made up his mind, like what Dick says in this moment matters even a little. Like the outcome isn’t inevitable.

“Did he?” Slade shrugs. “Like I said, it was a good effort. But I don’t buy the act. Black Manta sees what he wants to see, for now, but he can be persuaded otherwise. And he’s not a man who takes betrayal lightly.”

“You mean you’ll persuade him otherwise.”

“I think the implication is clear enough.”

The implication is certainly clear enough. Slade will get Kaldur killed — likely in a painful and humiliating way, knowing what Dick does about Black Manta — or else brainwashed by one of the Light’s array of mind control techniques into actually siding with them. There’s a chance Black Manta won’t buy it, but that’s not a bluff Dick’s willing to call.

Not when Tula’s memory is so fresh in his mind. Not ever, actually, not with another person’s life. Even sending Kaldur undercover in the first place was a hard call to make.

So Slade has Dick right where he wants him, is the thing, and he knows it. Because he knows Dick.

“...What do you want,” Dick says, quiet and as stonefaced as he can make himself. An oozing dread crawls up his throat.

Slade’s answer is simple, and expected, and Dick’s braced for it because he knew this was coming, but it pierces right through him anyway.

“I want you.”

That night in his apartment, Slade takes Dick as his apprentice. And then he puts him on his knees, and he takes even more.

But that’s not the start.

No, the start came earlier...

“But Slade won’t know whoever we send is a mole!” Wally argues. The light of the holograms cast his face in sharp relief against the shadowy backdrop of the grotto.

“That won’t matter,” Dick says. He tips his head back against the wall of the cave with a sigh. “Because it doesn’t have to be true for the play to work. He knows me too well. If they’re a mole, his threat works. If they’re not a mole, he’ll know I won’t be able to take the chance, or resist trying to help them. So, he gets me either way.”

Deathstroke’s obsession with Dick isn’t news to the team. It’d be a security risk for that to be a secret, no matter how it makes his skin crawl for other people to know. But no one, not even Batman, knows the true depths of it. Dick’s always framed the incidents as Slade being interested in Dick’s skills, and it’s not a lie, but — Slade’s also made it more than clear that that’s not all he’s interested in.

So Dick knows what he’s getting in for. But he also knows there’s no fighting it.

“He won’t be able to prove it,” Kaldur says. “Not if we are cautious.”

“You’re not getting it. He doesn’t even have to prove it,” Dick says. He’s already turned it over in his mind a dozen different ways, but this is the sticking point, the thing that makes the conclusion inescapable. “He just has to convince the Light.”

And if it isn’t Kaldur, Slade will find another opportunity. Or make one. So Dick’s really just getting a headstart, taking some of the control back, before Slade makes a different move. One that threatens the team. Barbara. Tim.

Dick looks at Jason’s hologram, and then at Tula’s. No more. No one else.

“Okay, but if you have to go, then Kaldur doesn’t,” Wally argues. “I already don’t like one of you going undercover, man, but both of you? It’s way too risky.”

“I must,” Kaldur replies. “I can’t continue with the team after Tula, not right now. The two of us shall watch each other’s backs, as much as we can. Besides, you are forgetting what I have that Nightwing does not.”

“And what’s that?”

“A reason to join,” Dick says grimly.

Dick doesn’t like the idea of Kaldur going undercover any more than Wally does. The thought of someone else taking on that risk makes prickly fear gather in his chest. But the fact remains — Kaldur’s relation to Black Manta is an opportunity they can’t afford to set aside.

Kaldur nods. “That gives me a better in. Nightwing can work another angle, but the Light will not believe he has chosen loyalty to them. Deathstroke may explain it however he likes — blackmail, mind control, conditioning and torture — but they will not believe Nightwing chose to be there. And so they will not trust him as much as they may come to trust me.”

“You don’t think he might just actually torture you? Or mind control you?”

“No.” Dick wishes he could sound less certain. “Deathstroke finds me... interesting. He won’t want to break me.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Wally demands.

Past experience, Dick doesn’t say out loud.  “Logical deduction,” he goes with, instead.

“Batman will come after you. Aquaman will come after you.”

Dick winces. After Jason, he knows just how badly this is going to hurt Bruce. But he has to put the mission first. Bruce will... maybe not agree. But if he was in Dick’s position, he’d make the same play, and that’s close enough.

“I will leave without a trace,” Kaldur says.

“And then Slade will make sure the same is true for me. I’d give him a month, tops, before he comes for me.”

Wally looks mutinous. He’s pacing. Eventually, he throws up his hands. “I don’t like this,” he says, but he sounds defeated.

“None of us do, Wally,” Dick murmurs. This is going to be awful, and it’s going to stay that way for longer than he wants to think about. But it’s a price they have to pay.

“But it has to be done,” Kaldur agrees, echoing Dick’s thoughts.

Wally slumps. He looks weary, all of a sudden, like the conversation is aging him. “Yeah. I get it. But I — okay. I have to tell Artemis, though. I can’t lie to her. And if I’m the one staying behind, then — I know I’ve got the easy job, but I can’t be alone with a secret like this.”

“...Yeah. Okay, Wally,” Dick says. His chest is tight. If he could do this all himself, and spare the others, he’d do it in a heartbeat. “But no one else can know, okay? The more people who know, the higher the chance it gets out. We’re not the only ones with a teammate who can read minds.”

“Yeah,” Wally sighs. “Aw, hell. If you two are gone, does this make me in charge?”

Kaldur places a hand on Wally’s shoulder. “The team will be in good hands with you, Wally.”

Wally kicks at the ground. “Wish I had your confidence. Guess me and Artemis are gonna have to delay our retirement, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, grimacing. It’s not fair. None of this is fair.

But they’re heroes. And heroes have to make hard calls.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t know what I’m complaining about. You’re the ones who are going to be in danger,” Wally says. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, casting a forlorn look at the ceiling “Just... you two look out for each other in there, okay?”

“And you and Artemis, here,” Dick replies.

The three of them clasp hands, and the pact is sealed.

They set a plan that night, and Dick knew what Slade would demand of him, when he arrived. So he supposes that night wasn’t the start, not really.

No, the start was earlier...

It’s hard to remember. It all blurs together. As Robin, and then as Nightwing. Any fight with Deathstroke left him queasy and wrong-footed, lecherous words ringing in his ears. Holds that lasted too long. Pawing, groping hands over his uniform. The promise that one day, there would be more.

So he supposes it started that first time Slade had Robin pinned to a rooftop, his small frame trapped underneath a much, much larger one. That first time Slade’s hands wandered and lingered in intimate places with Dick too weak and too panicked to make it stop.

(It started, really, long before that moment. The first time Slade saw Robin knock out three men twice his size with a quip and an impish smile, observed through the lens of a sniper rifle rooftops away. The moment Slade decided he wanted him, and would have him, no matter what.)

If that’s the start, where is the end?

PACIFIC OCEAN

March 30, 19:17

“You!” M’gann yells. “Nightwing was your friend!”

She tears into Kaldur’s mind. Why. Why did you do it, why, why, why—

She gets her answer in flashes. A handshake in the grotto. Wally and Artemis, meeting him under cover of darkness. Kaldur calling the retreat on Malina Island, just as Nightwing was about to attack Robin.

He didn’t betray them. He didn’t get Nightwing captured. He’s undercover.

M’gann pulls back with a gasp. Kaldur screams, then slumps to his knees, eyes going vacant and glassy. M’gann feels her own knees give out, bloated horror engulfing her every being.

No... what have I done?

PACIFIC OCEAN

March 31, 00:32

Manta’s furious. For all his many, many faults, he does actually care about his son.

Dick just feels numb. None of this was meant to happen. Kaldur wasn’t supposed to— Dick getting hurt is an acceptable sacrifice, but Kaldur was supposed to be safe. And that M’gann was the one to do it — he feels ill. This is his fault. They should’ve told the team. Nevermind that Psimon could’ve pulled the secret from any of their minds anytime he liked—

At that thought, his stomach drops out from under him. Manta’s going to bring in Psimon. He’ll get Psimon to try and restore Kaldur’s mind, and then– and then they’ll know everything. And on top of that, Manta’s going to take revenge on M’gann.

Unless– unless—

Dick throws up in the toilet, and then he goes to find Slade.

Slade’s waiting for him. Of course he is. He must have realised what Manta was going to do, and what that would mean, as soon as they heard the news. Always that one step ahead.

“I– I need—” Dick starts. He’s shaking. The taste of bile lingers in his mouth, no matter that he washed it out what must have been at least a dozen times.

Slade raises his eyebrow. “Well? Spit it out, apprentice.”

“Manta’s going to get Psimon. He’ll — they’ll know.”

Slade shrugs. “I fail to see how that’s my problem.”

Psimon would find out that Slade lied about the brainwashing, too. That he knew Dick and Kaldur were undercover and did nothing about it — nothing that wasn’t purely selfish, at least. But even if that would put Slade at odds with the Light — maybe Slade doesn’t care. He’s not an idealist. He’s here for opportunistic reasons, and if it suits him better, he’s not going to stick around.

“Please,” Dick tries. He clenches his fists, digging his nails into his palm. He hates begging. “You could– you could convince him not to.”

“Convince him not to save his son? And then what will you do, with your precious friend stuck as a mindless vegetable?”

His pulse beats loud in his ears. Slade’s right. Dick can’t leave Kaldur like this, but he also can’t have Psimon digging around in his mind. So that leaves...

“If you persuade me, apprentice,” Slade says idly, “I could convince Manta to take another course of action. Your Martian friend is rather talented at what she does. Perhaps, she could have left traps in his mind, that would do more damage if they are triggered inadverdently. Perhaps, if only she can undo this safely, we might need to bring her in instead.”

Dick’s mouth is dry. His heart thumps so violently in his chest it’s like his ribcage is about to break. “What... what do you want me to do?”

Slade raises his eyebrow. “I just told you. I want you to persuade me.”

Slade’s eye glitters. Dick knows what he wants. He knew, coming in, but somehow he’d still hoped...

Hope is a foolish emotion, but one he hasn’t learned how to let go of.

He forces back the nausea creeping up his throat. For the first time, Dick goes to his knees without Slade’s hands pushing him down.

ATLANTIC OCEAN

April 9, 07:46

The inhibitor collar digs into her neck uncomfortably. Constantly in the corner of her eye, the little red lights that show that it’s active are twinkling, as though taunting her. Without being able to sense any of the minds around her, it’s like the world has flattened.

In a way, though, M’gann is almost grateful for it. She couldn’t sense the damage she’s done even if she wanted to.

She’s seated by Kaldur’s bedside. She doesn’t even remember who led her here, or anything much about being captured and taken onto Black Manta’s ship. Just that it happened. Everything was a blur. Everything since hurting Kaldur, and learning the terrible truth, has been a blur, and now she’s barely aware of her surroundings.

There’s Kaldur, of course. They’re in his bedchamber, and he’s sitting there unmoving, propped up but lifeless in bed. M’gann’s thoughts stray to being grabbed by Nightwing — moving, but with no more life than Kaldur has. She could’ve reached out to his mind, then, back when she didn’t have this collar cutting her off from the world. But she didn’t. The thought that she might hurt him, the way she hurt Kaldur, was too much to bear.

Worse, though, was the thought that there might not be enough of Nightwing left there to hurt.

He’s here too. Standing guard on the opposite side of Kaldur’s bed, looking straight ahead. Not a twitch of movement, which is so bizarre to see on him that even without looking at his mind she knows there must be something missing, something fundamentally altered. As Robin, he was completely impossible to keep still or pin down. And as Nightwing, sure, he matured. He wasn’t quite as flighty, nor quite as restless. But what he isn’t, shouldn’t be, is still.

It’s like he doesn’t even notice the argument going on in the room with them. He doesn’t react or respond at all to the raised voices.

M’gann... doesn’t really want to know what a mind like that looks like.

“If you think I’m going to let your empty-headed pet stand guard over my son with a telepath in the room, you don’t know me very well at all,” Manta is saying, heated. “You stay. Keep the boy out of range before you activate that collar.”

“I have better things to be doing,” Deathstroke tells him levelly. “There’s no need to worry, Manta. The brainwashing is robust. It isn’t like what she’s done to your son’s mind — she ripped it to shreds, yes, but shreds can be reassembled. Nightwing’s mind, on the other hand, has been scraped clean. There’s nothing there she can restore. All that remains is loyalty.”

M’gann feels sick. She glances between Dick’s unresponsive face and Kaldur’s dead eyes, and wonders if she and Deathstroke might be a little the same, after all.

She really doesn’t like that thought.

“...Fine,” Manta agrees, after a long moment where M’gann isn’t sure if they’re about to come to blows. “The boy stays.”

He stalks closer to M’gann, and she shrinks back without meaning to. He leans in, down to her eye level, so that she’s face to face with the unblinking eyes of his helmet.

“Let me make your situation clear to you, Martian,” he begins. “You are here to psychically repair the damage you have done to my son’s mind. This inhibitor collar negates all your Martian abilities. In a moment, we will selectively reinstate your telepathic power only.”

She can guess where this is going. She reminds herself to breathe.

You brought this on yourself, she reminds herself. She deserves to face what she’s done.

Manta gestures to the mercenary waiting by the door. “Deathstroke will be watching you at all times, out of the range of your telepathy. If he perceives even a hint of trouble, he will activate the explosive charge in your collar.” He tugs on the collar, forcing her head forward, uncomfortably close. “So don’t lose your head.”

He lets go. M’gann rears back, nearly hitting her head on the wall.

Manta and Deathstroke leave before her pulse settles down from its agitated racing. A few minutes go by — just her, alone in a room with her two unmoving, unthinking former teammates looking like shells of themselves. Then there’s a soft beep, and one of the lights on the collar clicks off, and it’s like she can breathe again as the background hum of other minds returns to her.

So it’s time now. Time to do what she was brought here for.

Still, she can’t help but hesitate, a moment. Then another, and another.

M’gann is — there’s a well of pressure building up inside her, a dam threatening to burst, because she can’t do this. She can’t face what she’s done. She knows she has to but she can’t. Not because Black Manta will kill her when she’s done — though he will, and she thinks it might actually be what she deserves — but. She doesn’t even know if she can fix this.

She hurt her teammate, her friend, and if she can’t fix it then he’ll just – be stuck like this. Until he dies.

M’gann.

That’s... a loud thought. And it’s not from Kaldur.

You can’t act surprised. There are cameras.

They’ve spent the better part of five years sharing a mental link that goes up as easy as breathing. She knows those thoughts, and who they belong to.

The last piece of the puzzle clicks into place. Kaldur isn’t a traitor — this she knows. He didn’t betray Nightwing, he went undercover. He didn’t get Nightwing brainwashed. And so the question of who did gets the simplest possible answer, the one she should have already considered.

No one did. He’s undercover, too.

The wave of relief that hits her is so powerful she feels it could knock her over.

You’re okay? she demands. It’s so hard not to look at him. Suddenly it’s all she wants to do, even though his helmet covers his face, even though looking will give them away. There’s a camera pointed right at them, Deathstroke on the other side of it. Your mind is intact? Deathstroke didn’t — he can’t control you?

...Not like that, no, Nightwing thinks. Slade has his ways, but no. My mind is sound and my own.

You’re all right! She’s never been so relieved. Though it makes the sight of Kaldur — sitting there just as lifeless as before — churn her stomach even worse with self-loathing. She should have known he wouldn’t betray them, that he wouldn’t hurt Nightwing like that.

Yeah, I’m all right, Nightwing thinks. How about you? We didn’t hurt you when we brought you in, did we?

No, M’gann replies. Something itches at her, though. What does ‘not like that’ mean, exactly?

Slade knows about Kaldur. It’s why we need you — Manta would have got Psimon to go through his brain otherwise, and then Kaldur would just end up healed up in time for Manta to kill him.

M’gann winces. I– I don’t know if I can help him. I hurt him so bad. If I go into his mind it might see me as a threat again. I could end up just hurting him worse.

Then take me with you. Let me help.

It might work. Maybe. M’gann still doesn’t know if Kaldur’s mind can even be healed at all. She’s never– she’s never done anything like this before, and that’s telling on it’s own, isn’t it? She’s no healer.

But she’s the only hope Kaldur’s got. For his sake, they have to try.

Okay. Let’s do it.

Somehow, fixing Kaldur’s mind is even more difficult than she bargained for.

Nightwing coming in with her was sound logic. M’gann’s presence in Kaldur’s mind immediately sets off his remaining mental defences, and it’s all they can do to hold them off and get to actually helping him. And they manage it, but — she wasn’t expecting the bleed-through.

Kaldur’s mindscape looks like a wreck of Atlantis, broken pieces of buildings and architecture floating in the water. M’gann and Nightwing press onward to the centre, looking for Kaldur, but as they get in sight of him, the mental construct of Aquagirl slams into them with a ferocious cry.

Nightwing crashes into a large piece of floating stone, and—

Slade’s thumbs hook under the waistband of Dick’s pants. He presses Dick onto the bed, pulling them down, and Dick’s breathing is coming much too fast. He has to relax, he knows he has to relax, but how can he do it when he knows what’s coming,  when he knows just how much it’s going to hurt—

M’gann freezes. Nightwing? What was– what was that?

Nothing. Nightwing thinks, grimacing. Don’t worry about me. Get to Kaldur!

...Right. M’gann tries to banish the ice in her veins. She propels herself forward and places her hands on Kaldur’s shoulders. “Kaldur? I’m sorry. I’m here with Nightwing to help you. Please, let me help you.”

Please let this work. Please, let there be something she can do about this. About – any of this, whatever this is...

Kaldur looks lost. “H...elp? No... ruins. All ruins.”

Tula snarls and aims a blast at M’gann. Nightwing tackles Tula out of the way, and—

Slade’s in his apartment and Dick knows what he wants. A hand on his shoulder pushes him to his knees. This is the way it was always going to be. The tinny tearing of a zipper opening is deafening in the quiet, louder even than the thump of his pulse in his ears—

“Ghh — ah!” Nightwing groans.

“Night...wing?” Kaldur says slowly. The rumbling stone around them quiets. Kaldur’s eyes focus on her face. “M’gann... you’re here?”

“I’m here,” M’gann whispers. There’s a leaden, shapeless weight in her stomach. Kaldur’s getting better, but Nightwing — that flash, what she just saw from his mind — she knows what that means, but it’s hard to make sense of it, the sheer mass of the horror almost too much for her to grasp.

Kaldur’s mind is calming, pulling together, but—

Hands grope over his uniform, Slade’s weight pressing him into the wall, and he can’t fight him off. Not strong enough to push him off, not clever enough to wriggle free. Batman is right over on the next rooftop but he can’t see, doesn’t know, and may as well be on the other side of the city—

M’gann feels like she’s going to throw up. Kaldur’s mouth drops open in horror, which means – he’s seeing the flashes too, and their presence must be helping, his mindscape visibly reforming around them, but something about this is fragmenting Nightwing’s mind in his place.

Nightwing groans again and clutches at his head. Not good, not good, they need to get Kaldur back on the mend and get out of here—

On his knees again but by choice this time, and the blade of shame has long since dulled. He’s sore and the churn of nausea in his stomach is ceaseless and he doesn’t want to be doing this. But he has to, he has to persuade Slade to help or Kaldur will be found out, and this is the only thing he has to bargain with—

—and the overwhelming horror and awfulness of it all nearly catapults them out of the mindscape, and it’s all M’gann can do to keep her focus and hold them all here.

Kaldur groans and blinks, and the world has stopped shaking around them. He’s back with them, and he looks about as stupefied as she feels. The construct of Tula is nowhere to be seen, and Nightwing swims down to join them, an unreadable expression on his face.

“...I’m sorry.”

“What? Why are you sorry?” M’gann asks.

“For making you see that.” Nightwing averts his gaze. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”

“You shouldn’t have had to endure that,” Kaldur protests.

“I dealt with it all wrong,” Dick says, like he’s admitting a great fault. “At the start. So there wasn’t anything to be done, but– I didn’t want you to see.”

M’gann doesn’t know what he means. “Dealt with it wrong?” she asks, before she can stop herself. “You were just a child!”

“Yeah, but—” he starts, then stops. He tugs at his hair, like a nervous tic. “Remember what we were like back then? Always trying to prove we weren’t just sidekicks, that we could be trusted with big missions.”

“...I do,” Kaldur responds warily.

“I wanted to prove I could handle it on my own. Part of the risks that come with being a vigilante, you know? I know it wasn’t my fault, but the fact that it kept going, until we got to the point we’re at now... that part was my fault. I could’ve said something to someone. Put a stop to it. I was just too proud and too stupid, and now I’m stuck with the consequences.”

He sounds as lifeless as M’gann had formerly assumed he was, and it makes her want to get out of here so she can tear the ship down around them.

“That is not true,” Kaldur argues. “And I will not abandon you to return to that monster. You are not stuck. We are getting you out.”

“Kaldur’s right,” M’gann agrees. “You can’t think we’re going to let you go back to that, Nightwing.”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Nightwing argues back, and M’gann has the twisting, horrible realisation that what he means is he’s not worth the risk.

“You don’t get to decide that for us,” Kaldur replies, firm.

“The bleed-through happened because your mind is fragile, Nightwing,” M’gann tells him. “What Deathstroke is doing... it would be too much for anyone to handle, you know? You won’t be able to hold out much longer. If you won’t do it for yourself... Kaldur’s cover could be blown if you break. Do it for him? Please?”

Nightwing looks conflicted. Kaldur clasps his hand in his own, and M’gann reaches for his other hand, interlacing their fingers. “Please,” she repeats.

“Please, my friend,” Kaldur echoes. “Let us help you, as you helped me. My place in the Light is secured now. You’ve done more than enough.”

“...Okay,” Nightwing agrees, after a long moment where M’gann isn’t sure if they’re going to be able to get through to him. A burst of relief floods her chest. “Okay. I– I wanna go home.”

“You will,” M’gann swears. “We’ll find a way. We’ll think of something to get you away from here without losing Kaldur’s cover.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Kaldur’s face sets in determined lines. “I have an idea.”

In the end, the plan is simple, and it hinges on two things. That Slade has grown arrogant enough to assume his control over Dick is absolute, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and that in the end, he’d rather Dick were free and alive than dead.

...I’m not sure, M’gann thinks over their mental link. Won’t Deathstroke just blow up my collar?

Not if I’m close, Dick replies. And he won’t want to alert Manta to the lie. He’ll come aboard himself, and threaten it, but he won’t do it.

Dick’s gotten to know Slade nauseatingly well these past months. He wouldn’t risk M’gann’s life if he wasn’t certain. But he is certain.

And he’s right.

They put on a good show, for the camera footage Black Manta will surely review later. M’gann concentrates. Dick makes his blank expression flicker, then contort, and he pitches over into M’gann’s arms, clutching his head and groaning.

“Fight it, Nightwing!” M’gann says aloud.

That’s where Slade should blow up the collar. But Dick’s too close. Slade’ll come aboard, and wait for them to seperate, but they won’t give him the chance.

Leaving Kaldur behind gives him a worried tightness in his gut, even though he knows that’s the whole point. Dick and M’gann sneak out of his room, and if Slade was following orders the base would be on high alert right now, but it isn’t. At this time of night, there’s only the minimal guards stationed around the vessel. Even with M’gann’s invisibility locked down, it’s child’s play to sneak past most of them, and for M’gann to psychically suggest to the ones they can’t sneak past to look the other way. They make it to the control room unimpeded.

“Deathstroke’s arrived in the docking bay,” M’gann says worriedly, checking the cameras.

Dick sets his jaw. “I’ll distract him. You focus on getting your collar off and looping the cameras.”

M’gann bites her lip. “Nightwing—”

“I’ll be okay. It’s the plan, remember?” Dick says.

She doesn’t look convinced, but there’s no time if Dick’s going to head Slade off before he makes it any further into the ship. Dick slips out and back down towards the docking bay, avoiding the few guards that are around and trying not to feel like he’s going to his doom.

Slade’s expecting him.

“Hello, little bird,” he drawls. “Making a break from your cage?”

Dick keeps his distance. He closes the bay doors behind him. M’gann can phase through them, when she gets her collar off.

“Are you going to stop me?” he asks.

Slade’s eyebrow raises. “Bold all of a sudden, aren’t you? I suppose I have your Martian friend to blame. Where is she, apprentice?”

“Far away from here,” Dick lies, clenching his fists at his side. He can’t stop trembling.

“I can tell when you lie, you know.”

Dick knows. He bites the inside of his cheek, and doesn’t say anything.

“Tell me now, apprentice,” Slade says, a dangerous edge to his voice, “or I’ll blow her pretty head off her shoulders, and your little manta can kiss his cover goodbye.”

My collar’s off. Let him do it. I’m looping cameras now, M’gann tells him, and Dick breathes an internal sigh of relief that he doesn’t let show on his face or in his posture.

He tries to make his voice steely, but he can’t keep the quaver out of it entirely. “N-no.”

There’s a stretched silence.

“No?” Slade echoes.

It’s the first time in months Dick has defied him. Dick’s heart is beating loud in his chest, pulse going triple-time, and he knows that Slade can hear it. Slade steps closer, crowding Dick up against the closed bay doors, and it’s so familiar a position that he can’t help his stomach clenching up in dread, and he wills himself desperately not to dissociate.

“I hope you said goodbye.” Slade activates the remote.

There’s the distant sound of a muffled explosion. Dick knows she’s safe, but still— M’gann? he thinks frantically.

I’m okay! I’m on my way to you now.

The tears that spill over his eyes are those of relief. Slade cups Dick’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. Dick flinches back, but his head just hits the solid metal of the door. There’s nowhere for him to go, and Slade is much, much too close, and he can’t stop shaking.

He told M’gann and Kaldur he could do this, but now, he’s not sure he can.

“I didn’t have to do that,” Slade tells him lowly. “I can be lenient on your Atlantean friend. But you need to show me how sorry you are.”

Dick swallows, feeling his throat bob with the motion. M’gann is on her way. She’s on her way and it’s nearly over and Dick doesn’t have to do anything — Slade wants him begging for forgiveness and Dick has to lock his joints to keep from collapsing into a kneel to do just that, the weight of Slade’s stare and the terrible fear for Kaldur’s safety, a fear that Slade’s kept well cultivated these past months, all but forcing him to the ground — but just a little longer and he won’t have to.

Just a little longer—

I’m here!

“The thing is,” Dick croaks, as Slade’s thumb strokes his cheek and his pulse jumps in his throat, “I’m not sorry at all.”

Now, M’gann!

A curl of vicious satisfaction suffuses him at the look of complete surprise on Slade’s face as M’gann seizes his mind. Dick knocks the hand away from his face and takes two quick steps aside, out of Slade’s reach. Slade is frozen in place, the distraction leaving him utterly defenceless against M’gann’s psychic hold.

Slade never believed Dick would be able to betray him with Kaldur’s life on the line. But with a little mental rearranging, it isn’t.

M’gann concentrates. Dick can’t take his eyes off Slade’s face, watching it flicker through unguarded emotions as M’gann rifles through his mind. Rearranging his memory so that he believes the lie they’ve been constructing — that Kaldur sold Dick out, that Dick was brainwashed but not so thoroughly as Slade made him seem, that M’gann managed to free him and together they escaped. Slade will be more convinced than Black Manta is of Kaldur’s loyalty, and he won’t even know how Dick betrayed him. But Dick will know.

Slade slumps to the ground. M’gann steps back. “It’s done,” she whispers. “He won’t know who you are, or the truth of why you were here. It’s over.”

Dick stares down at the sprawled, defeated form of the man who raped and tormented him for months. Who obsessed over him, and stalked and assaulted him for far longer. His fingers and toes tingle with adrenaline. Slade’s vacant eye stares right through him.

It’s going to come crashing down on him, but for now, it feels like a victory.

“Let’s go,” he says finally. He doesn’t look back.

MOUNT JUSTICE

June 20, 23:23

Dick lies low until the Light’s summit with the Reach. With Kaldur’s position secure, the team’s plan goes off without a hitch. They take great satisfaction in taking out Deathstroke beforehand, and it settles something in Dick’s stomach to know Slade is locked away. It likely won’t hold him forever, but Dick will take what he can get.

And after the summit, and foiling the Reach’s final plan to destroy the Earth by the skin of their teeth, there’s a reunion to be had.

Artemis squashes him in a hug. “I’m glad you’re out of there.”

“I’m glad to be out of there,” Dick replies, hugging her back.

Tim and Barbara are ecstatic. The team showers him in hugs. Wally plasters himself to Dick’s side and won’t let him go, and Kaldur gets much the same treatment.

Conner grumbles about being kept in the dark, but he wraps an arm around Dick’s shoulders and knocks their heads together, and it’s not even hard enough to bruise, so Dick thinks they’ll be okay. Clark nearly crushes Dick in an embrace, and Diana claps a hand to his shoulder and tells him solemnly that she’s glad to have him back.

In their own ways, the team and the League welcome his return with a mix of relief and celebration.

Batman holds back. There’s a painful lump in Dick’s throat.

“J’onn will need to scan both of your minds to confirm the Light didn’t try anything,” Bruce says. “You too, Miss Martian.”

Dick knows this is him worrying. That after Will, and Conner’s codewords, and with all the mind control tricks the Light has, it makes sense. That after ten months of Dick being missing, Bruce can’t let himself believe he’s back, not until it’s confirmed, until there’s no chance of a rug being swept out from under them yet again.

But, still. “...If J’onn’s going to be looking at my mind. You should know I’m probably going to be seeing Black Canary for a long, long time after all this,” he says as jovially as he can manage, with a flash of an impish smile he isn’t feeling at all.

The joke falls utterly flat. A wave of winces ripples through the group, and Bruce makes an aborted flinch, a little motion that gives so much away. Dick’s already kicking himself for it, because of course it’s too soon to be joking about it, but if he doesn’t then he’s going to fall to bits in front of everyone.

And then, like he can read it on Dick’s face, Bruce barks out a crisp, non-negotiable, “Right. Everybody out.”

Even as the others leave — with no small amount of grumbling — he surges forward. With a sweep of his cape, Dick’s no longer in view of the stragglers, and then the two of them are moving, off somewhere away from everyone else. Somewhere Dick can break down without anyone he’s responsible for having to see him do it.

He clings to Bruce, and sobs, and Bruce wraps him in the cape and rubs his back and just lets him fall apart, and it’s the safest he’s felt in a long, long time.

“Thanks,” Dick says wetly, once it feels like he’s shed his bodyweight in tears.

Bruce hums a little in the back of his throat. “Of course.”

Because Bruce, more than anyone, understands him. Understands why he can’t let himself fall apart in front of the team.

(“And why do you say that?” Dinah asks.

Dick frowns. “Because they look up to me,” he says, tapping his fingers on the armrest of the chair, and just barely keeps himself from adding ‘obviously’. “I can’t let them down.”

“Being vulnerable where they can see it would be letting them down?”

“...You don’t get it,” Dick says, frustrated, and they move on.)

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Dick says to Bruce. He tightens his grip on the cloak. “The risk was too much — we had to limit who knew, as much as possible.”

“...I understand why,” Bruce says, after a moment. “I don’t object to the plan to go undercover. I do object to you putting yourself in unnecessary danger, Dick.”

“But I wasn’t. Slade barely hurt me,” Dick says. “It wasn’t really... a real risk, because– because Slade wanted to keep me. And– and it was always gonna happen. I know M’gann told you some of it ‘cos I asked her too, so you know — Slade has a history with me. So I wasn’t in danger of being killed, or anything.”

Bruce draws the cowl back, exposing his face. He looks pained. “...I wasn’t talking about that kind of danger, Dick.”

(“What do you mean when you say it was inevitable?” Dinah asks him, in that neutral, therapist tone that means she’s laying some kind of trap.

“I already told you,” Dick says. “With Slade’s obsession with me, it was always going to happen. It was just a question of when.”

“What if one of your teammates was in the same position? If it was Garfield, or Cassie, or Robin?”

Dick knows what she’s getting at, but... “It’s different, when it’s me,” he says. “I know how that sounds, but – I don’t know how to explain why. It just is.”

“Hm,” Dinah says, which means she doesn’t believe him. “Do you think you could try?”)

Dick closes his eyes and leans against Bruce’s chest. “Well, it’s over now, anyway,” he says, and Bruce pulls him in tighter.

Bruce has work to do. They both do. The aftermath of the Reach’s invasion needs a lot of clean-up, and they should be out there helping with it. But Bruce doesn’t point this out, doesn’t push Dick away to go deal with all of the League business that must be piling up. He just stays with Dick, letting him burrow against his side like he’s a kid again, until the exhaustion of it all catches up to him and he starts to nod off.

Dick talks to Black Canary, a lot. It’s awful, but it helps.

He has the team around him, and Bruce invites him back to the manor to stay while he recovers — insists on it, even — and that helps, too.

...But, Dick thinks, waking from a nightmare of touches and nausea, heat and pressure and pain, that’s not where it ends, either.

It’s over, but it never ends.

Dick sits up in bed, chest heaving for breath. A sliver of light shines into the room as the door creaks open.

“Dick?” a hesitant voice asks. Tim. “I can’t sleep. Can I– Could I sleep with you?”

It’s an obvious excuse to spare Dick’s dignity. Dick can’t help being grateful for it. But his sheets are soaked with the sweat of his nightmare. “Um. Yeah, lemme just — the sheets—”

“Oh,” Tim says. “Come to my room, then?”

Dick’s shoulders slowly uncurl. “O-okay,” he says. “Sure thing, Timmy. Give me just a minute?”

Tim steps out to let Dick quickly change into a fresh pair of loose cotton shorts and a T-shirt. He throws the old sweat-soaked ones into the laundry basket. Tim takes his hand to lead him to his room, which they’re much too old for — Tim’s in no way a kid anymore — but the firm grip anchors Dick to reality, and he holds on tight.

And it is easier to sleep, when he’s not alone.

As he’s drifting off, the soft snores Tim makes lulling him asleep, he feels someone rearranging the covers to tuck them in. His hair is smoothed back from from his forehead, and a soft kiss is pressed to his temple.

“Bruce?” he murmurs, voice heavy with sleep.

“Shh,” Bruce hushes. “Go to sleep, chum. You’re safe here.”

Dick hums, and lets the warmth of slumber take him.

It’s never going to end, but one day, he’ll learn to live without it choking him.