Chapter Twelve

Dick hated opening his eyes in the morning. There was always that moment of soul-crushing despair as he remembered what his life had become, and if he could somehow avoid sleeping entirely, he honestly would. Unfortunately, he has to sleep, at least sometimes, or people notice he's not around.

Today, there's an added hint of anxiety and pain and mania to the hatred and despair as his eyes open and the world floods in. Today, his eyes don't see the morning sunlight through the windows, and his ears don't hear the noise of traffic and people. Today, everything is tinged a hazy gray, and there's white noise in his ears that he can barely hear past the thunderous downpour of rain that batters the glass and the brick, and his skin is damp and his ears ring and there's the soft smell of gunsmoke and cinnamon and “Shhh, mi amor”-

Dick gasped for breath and threw himself out of bed and to his feet with such **** he almost fell.

Definitely wasn’t going to be a good day, then. And for all the fact that he knew he technically had to sleep? He also knew that he wouldn’t be getting any rest until the storm passed. Not with that hammering and pitter-pattering and-

Dick shoved the thought away as he pulled on some clothes and stumbled through to the main room of his apartment. After… well, after everything, honestly, he had found he just couldn’t deal with small spaces any more. Or, more accurate to say might be that he couldn’t bear not being able to see, not having lines of sight around him. Even in normal rooms, he sometimes struggled, got twitchy.

So, when he realised he wouldn’t be staying at the Manor and getting the familial support he’d so desperately hoped for, he went and wrecked some walls in his flat. Perhaps not the best coping mechanism, but it helped at the time, and the result continued to help.

‘Though’ He reflected as he lightly kicked a piece of rubble, ‘I probably should have cleared it up after eight- wait, no, nine months.’

He shrugged lightly to himself and went back to the kitchen area to make himself some breakfast- wait, nope, that clock does not say breakfast, it says late afternoon. Wow. Okay. That was something, alright. Fuck.

Well, that would explain the lack of sunlight, even if the storm didn’t. It also meant Nightwing definitely wasn’t going out, not tonight, not without the world ending. Maybe not even then.

He burrowed into his cupboards for food and cocooned himself on the coach with everything he needed to not-sleep tonight, sending out a text message to Harley as he did so and trying not to marvel at the fact he had Harley Quinn’s number saved in his phone and was able to ask her to cover the hero shift for him.

It was crazy, but hey, Dick’s life was more than just crazy on his own, so who cared? It was a drop in the bucket, really.

…And damn if she didn’t look good in red.

—

He was on day three of the storm with no sleep, and things were getting…bad. He had run out of random crap to eat, or anything to eat, actually. The storm had also gotten worse, not better. None of the delivery services would go out into it, and a weather warning had been issued to stay indoors unless it was urgent.

Once upon a time, he would have put out a call, saying he needed a care package dropping off. Nowadays, he was more likely to get punched in the face and told what a disappointment of a brother he was than to get any food, as if he didn't already know that. Well, unless it was Alfred. He still got fortnightly care packages from Alfie, bless his soul.

He still believed in Dick, in his purity and goodness. He had no idea the depth of the darkness that clung to Dick, the strength of the poison that crept into everything he touched. A bad brother, a bad son, a bad partner, a bad hero- the list went on, and Dick had long since lost the energy to finish it.

Now, these days, he just accepted what he was, the limited use he had, how people wanted him. It was easier this way. This way, he never expected them to love him, or want him in any way that mattered. When all they want is his body? That, that he can deal with so much easier. It's old news, at this point.

No, there wouldn't be a care package coming for him, not a chance he would bother asking anyway. Which meant…he had to go outside, to the little store a couple of blocks over.

Just a short, quick, speedy trip. A dash through the cold, damp, numb rain to get to the store, and another one back. He could totally do that, right?

Wrong, it turns out.

He made it most of the way there before he found himself shuddering violently against the brick wall of the alleyway beside the store, with no memory of reaching it. Instead, he just had the ringing of a gunshot in his ears, the thundering of the rain on his skin, and when did he put on the suit?

Why's he wearing a mask, he was- he was going to the store, right? Not-

He wasn't on the rooftop- isn't on the rooftop. She's not-

“Shhhh, mi amor…”

It's not real, is it? He could have sworn that-

A sight, a sound, a feeling, it all cut through the growing mix of memory and pain. Bouncing blonde hair, thick Brooklyn accent, comfort and safety. Dick leapt for it and clung to it like the lifeline it was, a **** plea for aid from a storm.

—

Harley hadn't heard from Bird-brain all day, and was planning to take tonight off anyways. She only stopped because she forgot to stock hot cocoa and she hated bad weather without comfy things like that.

She definitely hadn't expected the guy to show up in civvies and the mask and fuckin' jump her like a psych ward patient. There was a real moment where she almost decked the fucker for grabbin her.

Then she caught on, Harleen coming to the front. The tightness of the grip on her arm, the wideness of the mask lenses, the very faint shuddering in his figure- Christ almighty, Nightwing was having a panic attack, or something of that nature. She knew what to do here, she just didn’t know if she could do it anymore, considering how fucked up her own head was.

“Woah, Nighty, hey, hey. I’m here, yeah? I’m here. You don’t gotta worry, it’s gonna be ‘kay. Breathe with me.” She wrapped her hand around where his gripped her arm too tightly and began slowly tapping as she counted, “Breath in, two, three, four. Breathe out, two, three four.”

He was clearly struggling with it, but after a minute, he appeared to come back down to earth, relaxing ever so slightly. He was shivering though, unsurprising considering how thin that hoodie was. She needed to get him in different clothes, and a safe environment, if she wanted to stop…whatever this situation was from developing.

“Ya back with me, Bird-brain?” She asked gently, fingers lightly squeezing his hand now.

He seemed disoriented for a minute, but focused on her, “Harley? How…what happened?”

“Hey, it's okay, it's okay. You had a little moment, happens to the best of us. But ah need ya to listen, ‘kay?” Her tone remained gentle and kind in a way that made Harley confused and Harleen so proud.

His mask-lenses were still a little wider than they should have been, and his grip intermittently tightened without any clear reason, but he managed to reply, “Y-yeah, I'm listening.”

“Righty, so, we need to get you back inside, ‘kay? Warm and dry. We're a fair ways from my place, but-”

“No, wait…” He paused, uncertainty playing across his face. Then, something broke, a shield or a wall, and his face was suddenly so ****, his voice unbearably small and open, “You- We- My place is, it's just nearby. We can go there.”

—

Harley didn't quite know what to expect from the great Nightwing's…lair? Den? What's it meant to be called? Batsy has the Batcave, everyone knows that, but what about the Batkids?

It clicked the moment she stepped across the threshold, and he seemed to relax ever so slightly. Not a lair, or cave, but a nest. The first Robin’s nest.

Which is why it was more than a little confusing that the place looked so…bereft. She might not know the man beneath the mask personally, but she was still a psychologist. You learnt to profile people by habit, even unintentionally, and Nightwing? He was the Robin that became a goddamn supernatural guardian bird of prey. He was the gentle darkness that came on wings of night. He protected those he cared for first, and did his duty to the world second, with his own self-care being somewhere far down the list.

But this place? He hadn’t known she was going to be coming here, or it would be tidier. So he hadn’t hidden anything beforehand that wasn’t already hidden. Yet, there were no pictures of his family, friends, anything. There weren’t even landscapes or art pieces. The walls were totally bare, where the walls still stood.

Which brought her to the second thing about this place- For some reason, some of the walls had been, uh…well, fuckin’ wrecked, to be honest. Someone, assumedly Nightie, had taken a sledgehammer to them, and not finished the job. They were mostly gone, but with the rough edges left behind, and a fair bit of rubble on the ground around. Definitely not a sign of good caretaking of his environment. Not to mention the piles of untidied trash, discarded laundry, and the dishes abandoned on the counter near the sink.

This was not a healthy space.

She was about to help him settle enough to change clothes into something warm and eat something, the usual stuff, when the energy seemed to drop out of him, and he shuffled to the couch, landing heavily into it.

“Hey, bird-brain, c’mon, don’t pass out on me, yeah?” Her attempts to rouse him were apparently futile. She was met only with a half-conscious murmur as the man curled into a ball on the couch. Slurred words that sent uncomfortable chills running down the arch of her spine.

“..no, cat, don’t…’m poison…”

This was not a healthy man, despite all the smiles and jokes. And this was not a healthy space.

But…it was his, and he trusted her enough to share it with her. A big fucking sign, comin’ from one of the Bats. They played cards real close to their chest, and as much as that thrilled her to be considered so trustworthy to Nightie, it begged another question.

Why was Harley-fucking-Quinn the person he’d invited in, considering her record? Was it because she’d earned it? Because he really trusted this new Hero Harley? Or was it because she was the only person left when he needed a friend?