Chapter Text
Dick woke up with the worst headache he'd ever had in his life. The tension felt like his skull was being squeezed in a vice. Was his nose bleeding? He felt like it should be. Every breath sent a sharp spike of pain into his head and he was certain that if he moved his brain would actually begin to leak out of his nose and ears.
A hand touched his softly. Their fingers were long and slender, feminine if he had to guess. He didn't open his eyes to look.
"Hey." He knew that voice. His sluggish mind struggled to come up with a name. "Let me help you."
The pain blessedly began to ease. He took a deep breath and let it out shakily. As the pain continued to recede, he risked opening his eyes. The room was dark around him, the overhead light off and the only dim light coming from a lamp in the corner which had been turned to its lowest setting.
"Thank you," he rasped. "Zatanna."
"Any time, Wonder Boy," she replied, her tone was teasing yet still held a note of concern. She studied him with dark eyes and he struggled to place where he was or what was going on. “Do you remember what happened?”
Glacially, his memory returned to him in bits and pieces and then all at once. He’d been targeted by a witch. Then there’d been so much confusion and pain, his mind dragged through all of his worst moments like the world’s worst highlight reel. And his family had gotten a front row seat to it all.
He dropped his head back down onto his pillow with a grunt. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Good.” She squeezed his hand. “That’s good, Dick.”
A sharp crash from outside the door drew his attention. He could hear the sounds of shouting, though he couldn’t distinguish exactly who was speaking. He was fairly certain he could hear Jason screaming in anger, but he wasn’t sure. The sound of gunshots caused him to sit up abruptly only for Zatanna to place her hands on his shoulders and push him back down.
“Your brothers are not pleased with how Bruce has treated you. Jason is…venting his frustration right now.”
Dick frowned. That wasn’t good. There was already such a wide gulf between Bruce and Jason; he didn’t want to be the cause of greater divide. He tried to get up again.
“Dick,” Zatanna said seriously. “Your mind has been through a lot and therefore your body is equally exhausted. You need to rest.”
“I need to stop whatever’s happening out there,” he countered. “One of them is going to kill the other and I can’t let them –”
“Dick. Jason will be fine. Tim and Damian are with him.”
“Tim and Damian too?” he whispered. He never meant for the two of them to ever have cause to be as angry at Bruce as Jason, or even as angry as Dick sometimes was. He wanted them to keep their hero worship of him. He knew that it was likely already too late for Damian, since he’d become horribly disillusioned about his father in recent years, but he still had hope. Bruce was still his father and he could do better for him, could love him as a parent should.
There were more crashes outside and even more shouting.
“You are a liar and a hypocrite!” Suddenly, he could hear Damian’s voice on the other side of the door. “You are worse than the League, Father,” he said, spitting the word ‘father’ like poison, “because at least they never pretended to love anyone. I trusted you, I thought you were a good person. I do not like being wrong.”
Dick’s heart broke. Oh, Dami.
“What the Demon said,” Jason agreed, his voice low and dangerous and far closer than it had been a few moments ago. Three gunshots followed in close succession, making Dick flinch with each one. Zatanna rubbed his arm soothingly.
“You supported this?” he asked her. Horror laced his tone. “You’re letting them kill Bruce?”
“Yes.” Her tone was soft yet implacable. “Had I known how deeply the rot ran before now, I would have supported Jason much sooner. I thought he was simply hurt and bitter over his own death and I hadn’t blamed Bruce for not being fast enough to save him. Those kinds of things happen in this line of work and though we may hold on to our own guilt, I would never resent a fellow hero for being just a minute too slow. For his purposeful mistreatment of you, though? Wonder Boy, you never deserved those things. You deserved better and I’m sorry that no one has told you that before.”
Tears were flowing freely down Dick’s cheeks now. He shook his head mutely, unable to summon the words that would describe how he was feeling right now. Bruce didn’t deserve to die. He wasn’t a bad person. He saved people on a nightly basis and he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. He wasn’t perfect, but no one was. Tears dripped into his mouth as it opened and closed silently.
Zatanna grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly. “Listen to me, Dick. I know you don’t agree right now and I know that this just feels like a loss, not justice. But give it time. Talk to your brothers, listen to what they have to say. Let them love you.”
Dick’s shoulders hunched as he finally gave into the sobs that had clawed their way up from his chest and into his throat. He sobbed for Bruce, whose blood he could see spilling under the door in the pale lamplight. He cried for his parents. He cried for Jason, who’d died too soon and suffered so much. He cried for Tim and Damian and Stephanie and Cass. He cried for Alfred, who didn’t yet know that he’d just lost his son.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he cried for himself as well. He cried for that little boy who’d watched his mom and dad fall to their deaths. He cried for the teenager who’d lost everything and was just trying desperately to survive on his own, no matter the pain and humiliation of it. He cried for the part of him that would always love Bruce as a father even when he’d never truly felt like one. He grieved Bruce’s death, he grieved the relationship they could have had, and he grieved for every time that trust he’d painstakingly rebuilt was torn down once again. He curled into himself and sobbed while Zatanna held his hand. Eventually, he heard the door open and soft footsteps come inside. A heavy weight landed on the bed on the opposite side of Zatanna and an equally heavy hand rested gently against his back.
“Goldie?”
It was rare to hear that nickname with such caution and affection. He couldn’t remember another time that he had, to be honest. He struggled to take a full breath and to maybe come up with an answer to Jason’s questioning tone, but his lungs seized in his chest and nothing came out.
He leaned to the side, into his brother’s broad frame, and tucked his head against Jason’s shoulder. Jason wrapped his arms around him and Dick let himself be held, truly held, for what felt like the first time in a long time.
There would be questions later. He didn’t doubt that his brothers would want to know more, especially about his time as Agent 37. They would want to know all of the why’s and how’s and when’s. They would wonder why he’d never told them any of the things they’d just discovered and they might feel hurt at his lack of trust.
Dick would have his own questions. Was Jason the one to kill Bruce? Had he done it just for Dick’s sake, or had this been the last straw that broke the last bit of lingering affection he had for the man who’d taken him in for those handful of years? How were Damian and Tim handling all of this? They would have to find the witch responsible for all of this and take care of Bruce’s body. They were going to have to have a long talk about where they would all go from here, a question that Dick couldn’t begin to fathom at the moment.
The questions swirled in the back of his mind incessantly, but muted, like a tv playing in the background. For now, he just cried as Jason continued to hold him. They would figure it all out later.
Tentatively, he felt Tim and Damian join them on the bed while Zatanna slipped out quietly, shutting the door behind her. Dick clutched his brothers to him as tightly as possible and tried not to lose himself completely to the tidal wave of emotions crashing through him.
“It’s alright,” Jason whispered. “We’ve got you. We’ve got you.”