Chapter Thirty Three

Dick woke up to the sound of quiet traffic, warm rays of sunlight cutting across his room, and the delightful aroma of coffee brewing in his kitchen.

He sat up and smiled as he realised Harley must have let herself in. It felt right, knowing she was comfortable enough to just come into his space like that. Sure, he liked his privacy, but his girlfriend was an exception to the rule, and he knew she wouldn’t ever intentionally snoop around.

His smile did stutter for a moment at the memory of last night’s toxin-fuelled return home, making him quickly check himself. From the looks of things, he managed to make it to bed after all, thankfully, so Harley didn’t find him passed out on the floor. She wouldn’t have been able to move him on her own, so he must’ve gotten here himself, but he was still in his Nightwing suit.

His smile returned, though slightly weaker, now he could reassure himself that he’d be able to hide last night. He’d apologise to Zatanna and rearrange, and Harls would be easy to convince to leave it alone.

He quickly stripped out of the suit, pulling on a pair of sweatpants. He considered a shirt, but decided the warmth of the apartment was comfortable on his skin, and he was feeling just good enough to tease Harls when she hopefully stared.

Dick ran through a couple of quick wake-up stretches, bounced on his toes, and then opened the bedroom door and sauntered through, calling out, “Mornin’ Harls! How was-”

His mind screeched to a halt in unison with his body. What he was seeing didn’t compute. He blinked.

Barbara’s wide eyes ran down and up his bare chest. Her lips quirked slightly. “Hey Dick. Sleep well?”

“Dick!”

He looked to the left and blinked again. Donna was in his kitchen with Harley. She was… making coffee. She was smiling at him.

A movement had him turning again. That was Zatanna sat on his couch, cozily curled up with her shoes off and one of his books from his shelves in her hands. She gave him a little wave. He blinked.

Then, calmly as can be, Dick reached up and slapped himself as hard as he could. Considering he was a vigilante, it was pretty hard.

The blow rocked his head to the side, his vision whited for a split second, and pain rippled from his cheek in stinging waves. Five voices raised concerned protest in unison. Wait, five?

Strong hands were firmly gripping his arms. Amber skin and blazing hair framed familiar green eyes that scanned his as if searching for something. Kory fretted, “What is the wrong, Richard? Tell us.”

Dick’s eyes widened slowly, complete disbelief filling his tone, “...this is real.”

He wrenched himself from her grip backwards, ignoring the tinge of hurt that flashed across her features. Navy blue eyes shot from person to person. “What- Why are you all here? What’s going on? Harls?! Did you let them in? What did-”

“Dickie, hey, hey, look at me, okay?” Harley abandoned the stovetop, swiftly moving to his side to hold his shoulders. At her instruction, he **** his eyes to her face, tracing the golden hairline, the smooth skin, the petite nose, eventually ending at her glittering ocean blue eyes.

She smiled at him when their eyes met. “There we go, alright. It’s okay, yeah? C’mon, sit down with me. Ya need grounding, an’ I wanna cuddle.”

She took his wrist and pulled him gently along with her. He let her do it, still somewhat stunned and confused by the sudden influx of his exes and best friends.

In that same hazy state of being, he found himself pulled down and positioned into his usual spot on the couch, with Harley curled into his side tightly. When she moved there, he had opened his arm and pulled her into place on auto-pilot, only really halfway present in the moment.

He knew it was dissociation, though this wasn’t too bad compared to his past experiences. This really did just feel like a haze, and the longer he sat with Harls, the more real and present he felt. Grounded, that was the word she used. Guess she was right.

Something in his breathing or body movement must have given away how he had returned to reality, because Harley squeezed his hand where their fingers were linked. “Bettah’?”

Dick blinked, carefully looking down at her without seeing the rest of the room, and swallowed a little. On instinct, an easygoing smile shifted his features, reassuring and casual. “I’m fine, Harls… But if I’m about to look up and see a bunch of people I don’t expect to be here, I’m going to want some explanation, if that’s okay?”

She turned her head to meet his eyes, and lifted just enough to press a kiss to his cheek. Another comforting squeeze, and then “Sure thing Dickie. Take a look?”

The smile held as he lifted his eyes to skim over the people present. They’d all gathered around his living room area, and he was almost proud for how well he kept that easy smile in place.

There was Babs, concern flooding her eyes in a way that was familiar from long ago. Donna on his armchair, offering a steadfast and stoic smile as he expected. Zee, brightly smiling as if she was just happy to see him, for some reason. And Kory, with the most unnaturally **** closed-lips smile he had ever seen her wear, giving away her emotions as she almost always had.

He turned his head back down, and cocked an eyebrow at Harley, “So, that explanation?”

Her arms clung tighter to him, pressing tight enough into his muscle that it actually kept him from completely detonating when she said, “Zee was still here when I got back after midnight, had been waiting when you didn’t show. Just after, the other three showed. It was probably ‘bout one or two in tha’ mornin’, Dickie.”

Ever so slightly, his brow furrowed in confusion as she explained. That didn’t explain why they were all here, not really.

Then, it sank in.

He stilled imperceptibly, a dead note entering his deceptively calm voice. “I must have already been in bed then.”

Dick didn’t need to look up to know the other women were grimacing or shaking their heads. Harley didn’t do things through implication much, and he was glad for it this time, when she simply told him, “No, Dick. Ya weren’t. And, I’m sorry, ‘cause if I’d been able ta’, I’d’ve kept ‘em from knowin’. But they saw, an’ they heard too.”

…

…

…

Okay. Damage control, then.

He shot charming smiles full of dazzling self-deprecation around the room, steadfastly ignoring the concern and worry on their faces. He didn’t rise to the angry tightening of Barbara’s features. He didn’t break at the sight of Kory’s heartbroken tears. He didn’t even vomit at the disgusting degree of pity he saw in Donna’s eyes.

Instead, he smiled, and casually said, “Ahh. Sorry about that. I let Crane get me with a new strain, and it scrambled my senses. Pretty potent, but nothing too realistic now I’m out of it. Hopefully nothing too alarming from the outside?”

Barbara’s eyes didn’t match her casual conversational tone, not at all. “Only a little. Though, I would like to ask a couple of questions. So I can write up a report on this new strain, of course. Gotta keep your brothers and everyone safe right?”

Internally, he clawed to hold his nonchalance, reminded that Barbara had known him since they were children. Externally, he kept smiling, and nodded easily, “Absolute-a-doodly! Whatever you need to feel better Babs.”

That narrowed her eyes even more, but her tone continued to match his, “...Alright. Well, to start, you showed an **** aversion to being touched.”

“Really? How strange, you guys know how I like to cuddle!” The lie slipped smoothly from his lips, and he squeezed the arm around Harley to emphasise it.

A muscle under Barbara’s eye twitched slightly, the only tell she gave in response to him. “Right. What about when we moved you to the bed? It really seemed like you started to cry, Dick, then you were grunting and shifting like you were fighting someone. Was that a toxin response, or some memory that the toxin drew out and used?”

Memory? No no no. No way. He couldn’t- Surely even then, he didn’t let slip? But… there was a reason he avoided fear toxin. The rules meant nothing when the mind couldn’t enforce them. Still, there was a chance, maybe they only suspected. He could work with it if there was suspicion, but if he had-

He realised he’d been quiet too long when Barbara spoke again. “After that, you were talking, Dick.” Her voice was soft, a tone he’d only ever heard her use with him when she was apologising for hurting him in some way. Apologising for how she was going to hurt him now. He slid his eyes closed and his smile froze as she continued, “You were refusing to go somewhere. Telling someone you couldn’t pretend you’d died and not been revived because it’d hurt your family. Telling someone you were alive, even if they wouldn’t listen.”

A tension he’d carried so long that he had forgotten what it was to be without it loosened in his chest. The complicated knot of lies that held together Dick Grayson’s tattered and dirty soul, a thread just seemed to go slack and unravel from the rest. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes, didn’t respond to the numbed feeling of Harley squeezing his hand.

“...You were screaming at Bruce, when you said you were alive, Dick.”

A tear broke free from his closed eye, and rolled down his cheek.

They know.

She knew the truth, and no matter what he did, that truth would never go away now. He knew, even then, he should mitigate the damage. He should smile and talk, and twist the truth away. Bury it under fake happiness and faker reassurances.

But all he could smell was Harley’s bubblegum perfume, and all he could feel was her warmth against him, and all he could hear was her voice in a memory that pierced every single instinct to hold his secrets tight.

“Ah’m so fuckin’ glad ya didn’t die, Nightie”

“...I didn’t want to go, Babs. I didn’t want-” Dick swallowed roughly to **** down the sob that cut him off. He hated how small and broken and damaged and **** he sounded. He opened his eyes and realised he was crying when he looked at Barbara and found her blurred.

A blink, and he could see how her freckled cheeks glittered with tears too, spilling from those gorgeous emerald eyes he’d always loved. Her features were broken open with emotion for once, grief spilling out. “You actually died, didn’t you?”

He nodded jerkily, and pained noises came from the other three visitors. Babs screwed her eyes shut and swiped her hand at her cheeks, “Oh god, Dick, you died. I- I never thought-”

Dick let out a jagged, hoarse laugh, inexplicably finding humour. There was no dark edge to it, just an underlying sadness. “How could you? Don’t blame yourself Babs. Even if someone had let me explain…”

He shook his head, rediscovering some element of his composure, distancing himself from the situation. He looked at the others, another mask falling over his face, a neutral reassurance. “Look… It’s not a big deal, okay? It was awhile ago, I got over it.”

Donna jolts violently, drawing his eyes to her and finding a hint of actual anger for the first time. She sounds incensed and incredulous as she asks, “You got over dying? How, exactly? When you were trapped in that awful placed being **** to do Hades knows what? Or perhaps when you returned to us and we turned you from our doorsteps like a stray dog?!”

“Donna, hey… It wasn’t ideal, but it was a long time ago, okay? I’m fi-”

She surges forwards in her seat, utterly losing her usual stoicism to practically yell at him, “Richard, if you dare try and tell me you’re fine again, I swear upon all the gods that I will fucking lose it!”

He stared at her, wide-eyed for a moment, and then slowly closed his mouth. After a few moments of silence, wherein the Amazon regathered herself, she sat back how she was, speaking in a measured tone. “Before there can be any further protestations, Dick, let me make the facts of the situation very clear to you whilst you sit right there and stay quiet.”

Still wide-eyed, he nodded at her, and Harley let out a soft huff of air, amused disbelief, from her nose that tickled his arm.

Donna straightened her spine, and looked around the room and then at him. “We are here not because we feel indebted or responsible for you, but because we care. Barbara, Kory, and I have been working together to understand what is wrong, because we care about you, and our last visit was concerning. That is why we were present last night. We found you in the throes of whatever this toxin was.”

She takes a pause to breath, her steely eyes daring any of them to interrupt her. “In caring for you, it seems you revealed several things you did not intend to. Your **** and Bruce’s role in your undercover work are the most relevant here, as they, mixed with what Barbara has been keeping track of recently, are more than sufficient to justify this. Barbara, Koriand’r, Zatanna, and myself shall be staying with you, Dick. We have decided that this will not stand.”

At the sight of his rising protest, her expression cracked just enough to let out some of the grief-fuelled rage beneath. “I will not hear any argument, Dick. Not on this. You died, you’ve been suffering, and I turned you away when you needed me. The one time it mattered, that I might have been a hero, and I faltered for my own pride. I-I could have lost you and never known it, Dick. I will not let that happen, no matter the boundaries I must cross to ensure it.”

Dick sits back, and very slowly seems to deflate, until he’s small and tightly clinging to his girlfriend. He doesn’t nod, smile, yell, or even argue. He simply says, “Okay. If that’s what you guys need to feel better, I can- I can do that.”

All of the women seem to stop at that, exchanging looks or blinking to themselves in surprise. Clearly they hadn’t expected him to concede the point so easily. As proven by Barbara’s following comment, “Just like that? No complaints?”

He lets out a rough, almost bitter, bark of a laugh, and asks “Would it matter if I did? You’ll all do what you want anyway, so why fight it?”

“Because what we’re asking is significant, Dick! Surely-”

“You don’t get it, Barbara!” He shot back, a hint of upset tingeing his tone for only a moment, before it dropped back to that uncomfortable dead acceptance, “You… It only hurts more in the end if I try to argue when people make decisions for me. It’s easier to just… deal with it. At least you only want-”

He bit down hard on his cheek, drawing blood immediately with a flood of copper on his tongue. He didn’t want them to-

Barbara was looking at him with that look. The pity, and discomfort, and miserable understanding, and-

“What else did I say last night?” Dick’s words visibly cut into the other women, yet none more so than Barbara. She visibly flinches, paling at the question. Very slowly, Dick sits up, his eyes wide as his lips part in realisation, “...you know? You-”

His eyes dart to Kory, taking in her reaction, and then to the other two women, making note of how their discomfort was in a general sense, yet not a specific understanding. Barbara, however, was pale. Pale, understanding, and barely holding it together-

Almost unconsciously, his spine straightens. His arm only remains around Harley due to her grasp, as he sits upright and draws his feet and knees together. Deceptively calm, he tells Barbara, “Babs, tell me how much you know about Catalina please.”

She flinches again at the name. When she replied, she stuttered at first, before forcing herself to give a report the way she would as Oracle. “...You- you were having a flashback. Shivering violently despite the warmth, saying you were cold. You mentioned poison, specifically that you were poison…-ed, poisoned. You told-”

Her composure cracked, her silent crying creeping into her voice, “You told Cat not to touch you, and- Fuck, Dick, did she really-”

Dick stood abruptly, his arm tearing from Harley’s grasp. He was disturbingly still and calm. Dissociated, he recognised, but it was necessary for this, right now. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not talking about it. I…”

The dissociation was necessary, but so was Dick processing at least part of this situation, so he **** himself forward just a little bit. “If you’re all staying, we’ll need a grocery run, and- you can sort all that crap out. I-I have some requests, even if you ignore them. Don’t ask me about any of that stuff. Cat, Bruce, any of it. I won’t answer. Don’t get in the way of Nightwing, either. You’ve all got your own work to do, so leave mine alone. Most importantly, don’t bother Harls, or I’ll kick you all out.”

With that said, he turned and simply picked up Harley, feeling a hint of joy at the alarmed squeak she let out. Then, he carries her to the bedroom he emerged from before, and calls over his shoulder as the door closes behind them, “Go do that shopping, or whatever.”

Then the door shut.

Dimly, he heard Donna say, “Well… it certainly could have gone worse.” and receive a scornful laugh from Zatanna.