Chapter Text
Reality ripples.
It's not a big deal. They're used to that happening after world-ending catastrophes. It's pretty standard, actually. Jason's pretty sure he might've came back to life because of one of those post-catastrophe-reality-ripples, based on what he's pieced together of the timeline.
This time, it's some alternate dimension demon trying to claw its way into their dimension for some nefarious reason or other. It's about a week of slowly-increasing dread as people realize something's wrong, a day of unbridled panic as the crisis approaches, and an hour of desperately trying to shove the demon back into the swirling vortex portal it came from.
So, like any other crisis.
Jason grimaces at the thought as he brushes the dust from his shoulders. God, he's been in the business for almost twenty years and has faced almost as many crises. Briefly, he considers the fact that there's probably something seriously messed up about that, before deciding nope, I'm not dealing with that today. Problem for future-me.
Rubbing his forehead tiredly, Jason retrieves one of his guns from where it'd fallen. The other he leaves behind, its barrel bent and useless — he'd had to use it as an impromptu bludgeoning weapon when he'd run out of ammo. Then he crosses the battlefield to join the cluster of people he, for some unknowable reason, calls his family. He does a quick headcount and breathes a sigh of relief when all six are accounted for.
Duke, Damian, and Tim are crowded around Bruce and clearly pestering him about something or other, if their body language is anything to go by. Steph is propped up against a nearby rock, and Cass is busy bandaging her arm, but both keep looking over at the others and occasionally interjecting their own comments. Fortunately, none of them look to be injured aside from Steph, just the standard bumps and bruises, and Steph's injury must not be that bad, if the others aren't hovering over her. Seems their family got lucky this time.
"So, B?" Tim is prompting when Jason gets within earshot, his tone far too innocent for the smirk on his face.
Duke gives Jason a friendly shoulder-bump when Jason comes to a stop beside him, but he doesn't stop staring Bruce down with the others. Unbidden, Jason's lips twitch up, the way it always does whenever his siblings unite to annoy Bruce.
"C'mon, just tell us. Promise we won't hold it against you," Steph cajoles. Then she pauses, reconsidering. "Well, not too much, anyway. Only a smidge, really. A teeny-tiny amount."
"It's me, right?" Cass asks, and Jason grins at the devious glint in her eye. Oh, he loves ganging up on Bruce. Best pastime in the world.
Damian sniffs, drawing himself fully upright. "Don't be ridiculous, Cassandra. It's obviously me."
"In your dreams, kid." Duke pats Damian on the arm in a facsimile of pity.
"I'm not a kid! I'm twenty-three!"
"Still the youngest," sing-songs Tim, ignoring his brother's disgruntled scowl.
"I bet it's me," Steph declares.
Bruce sighs. It's a very deep, very weary sigh, perfectly encapsulating his exasperated, Bat-patented expression of I'm way too tired to deal with life and why are my children like this. Jason's impressed. "For the last time, I don't have a favorite child."
Jason can't help but snort loudly at that. "Please, that's a bald-faced lie. We all know it's Goldie, don't even try to pretend — "
He stops.
Everyone else does too.
It takes a long, heavy moment to register what pinged as wait wrong go back, but the instant it does, Jason's whole body goes numb. His blood runs cold, a thousand frozen rivers abruptly solidifying under his skin.
The tired but cheerful levity in the air vanishes as if it were never there.
Goldie. Dick.
Jason can see it crawling over everyone's faces too, the slow realization that's churning in his own gut. He'd find it funny, the stark horror that hits them like a tidal wave, if he wasn't busy experiencing the exact same thing.
"…Oh my god."
Tim's words come out strangled.
No one's moving. Jason's not sure any of them are even breathing. They can't — they didn't — how could they have —
"Oh my god!" Tim's voice is quickly rising with hysteria. Jason can't blame him. He's feeling pretty hysterical himself.
"We… we forgot…" Damian croaks.
Damian looks as if his knees are about to buckle, and normally Jason would come help hold him up — it's his job as the oldest brother, after all (but you're not, are you? You never were. You never were) — but his feet are frozen to the ground.
God, how long has it even been? How long have they forgotten? How long was his big brother alone, cast out from the family he poured his heart and soul into? Jason can't remember. Why can't he remember?
It can't… it can't have been that long, right? They can't have forgotten for that long. Not for years. It's Dick. It's their big brother. He's been there since the beginning, for practically all of them. He helped train them. They never would've forgotten him. Jason never would've forgotten him, let alone Tim or Bruce or God forbid Damian.
(But you did, Jason's heart screams — or is that his guilt? He can't tell the difference anymore. You did, you did, you did — )
Is Dick even still — no. Jason shies away from the thought. No, he's got to be alive. Right? He has to. Don't think about how it's been years, don't think about how much his emotional stability relied on friends and family, don't think about how he might have crumbled without us, don't…
Tim is clutching Duke's arm for support, although Duke himself is clearly unsteady with horror. Steph is staring straight ahead at nothing, her mouth working uselessly. Damian's face has gone bloodless, gauntlets curled into shaking fists.
"Bruce?" Cass asks quietly, desperately.
Everyone's eyes snap to him. Jason looks to him too, as if his father could possibly provide an answer, just work his detective magic and explain this all away, but for once the old man seems completely lost for words. His face is utterly blank in the way that Jason knows it means he's absolutely devastated inside.
"I… I don't…"
Bruce doesn't finish.
Jason closes his eyes to try to keep the tears from falling. Hot droplets streak down his cheeks regardless.
They did it. They defeated the demon, overcame the catastrophe, saved the world again.
But once again, the rug has been yanked out from under them. The wool has been removed from their eyes. Technically speaking, nothing has changed, and yet Jason knows that from now on, nothing will ever be the same.
Because ten years after Dick Grayson was erased from living memory, reality ripples. A spell breaks. And they remember.
He's a gymnastics instructor now, teaching young children and teenagers. Works part-time at a local coffee shop. Lives in a small but decent apartment situated in urban Pennsylvania.
It's… comforting, Damian has to admit. A person can change immensely in ten years — Damian certainly has — but seeing all the ways, big and small, that his big brother is the same… Richard had had a temper, yes, but he was still somehow so kind, so forgiving, even when Damian was just an arrogant, impulsive preteen. It will be a long time before Damian forgives himself for this egregious oversight (you were his Robin. He was your Batman. How could you leave him alone like this?), and he doesn't expect Richard to welcome them back anytime soon. Still, perhaps his brother may be able forgive them all. Someday.
Duke and Stephanie are standing next to Damian, staring at the door leading to Richard's apartment. The records they've dug up during the drive here indicate that he has lived here for a little over four years.
The family had split up on arrival. Jason and Bruce had gone to the cafe. Timothy and Cassandra to the gymnastics center. And Damian, Duke, and Stephanie to his apartment. They hadn't had time to properly observe his schedule — none of them wished to delay any longer than absolutely necessary — but at almost four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, Richard is bound to be at one of the three places.
Damian's not certain how long they spend staring at the door, trying to muster the courage to knock. Longer than is socially acceptable, he's sure.
Duke is the one to break the silence. "Well," he says, and his voice is so forcefully steady that in any other situation, Damian would not have even known he was anxious. "Shall we?"
Stephanie takes a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do this."
She steps forward. The rap of her knuckles seem to roar out louder than thunder.
They wait, but when a minute passes without any acknowledgment from within the apartment, it's clear that Richard is not home. Duke shifts his weight, and Stephanie glances back at them hesitantly.
Damian frowns, glances both ways down the hall, then slips forward and begins to pick the lock.
"Uh, you sure we should — ?" Duke says.
"Are you not curious?" Damian retorts.
The door swings open with a quiet click. Damian steps inside, turns on the light, and has to immediately choke down a wave of emotion.
Because Damian can see traces of Richard everywhere. In the sink half-cluttered with dishes. In the electric Nightwing-blue blanket folded on the couch. In the casual way an eyesore of a t-shirt has been tossed over a chair. There's a painted wood carving of a Robin on the kitchen counter, right next to a Superman-themed clock.
But as Damian fully enters, his eyes are drawn to the opposite wall. It's plastered with dozens of photographs, and as Damian steps toward them, he's hit with another abrupt surge of grief.
Right in the center of all the pictures, prominent and eye-catching, is their family.
He framed our portraits, Damian realizes, and then he arranged so that they're the first things he sees when walking through the door. Even after everything…
Barely even realizing he's doing so, Damian drifts closer, entranced by the proof of how long Richard's love has endured. Each member of the family has at least two photos, one of them at their present age, and one as they were ten years ago, the last time Richard would've seen them.
Damian stretches a shaking hand toward the picture of his younger self, pausing millimeters above the glossy paper. The boy's expression is tight and stiff, but he's looking straight at the camera. It feels as if he's about to reach out from the photo and ensnare Damian in his cold, unforgiving grasp.
"He never forgot us, did he?" Stephanie whispers, voice thick with tears. "Even after we forgot him, he never forgot us."
"No," Damian murmurs, unable to look away from his thirteen-year-old self. His own eyes stare back, accusing even after all these years. "He didn't."
Duke's voice is soft with wonder as he looks over the rest of the wall. "He really went everywhere, huh?"
Damian finally manages to tear his eyes away and finds that Duke is correct. There are easily another twenty or thirty photos spanning outward from the family, covering practically every spare inch. These ones feature everything from world-famous monuments to a well-kept bed of flowers. Damian flips through a nearby photo album and discovers countless more, each one labeled with a location, date, and short description.
Richard's legible but messy scrawl is still exactly as he remembers it.
Damian looks back up at the photo wall, and his attention catches on one that's clearly Richard himself, looking roughly the age he must be now. His blue eyes are sharp and bright, and his skin has a clean, healthy glow to it. He's surrounded by a dozen young teenagers, ranging from thirteen to sixteen, all of whom are beaming widely at the camera. A boy at the front is holding a shiny gold medal, and Richard's looped one arm around his shoulders.
The decade-old ghost of his brother's arm does the same across Damian's own shoulders, and it feels a sharp contrast to the story that the picture is telling. Richard had lost everything. Richard is grinning. Richard had been alone. Richard is happy.
Even if Richard never forgives them, Damian is glad they've seen these snapshots into his new life because above all else, Richard's happiness will always be one of the most important things in the world.
Stephanie, standing in between Duke and Damian, is a warm comfort as she reaches out to squeeze their hands. Damian squeezes back just as fiercely, and for a long time, the three of them stand there, hand-in-hand, and drink in their eldest brother's image, a decade older and yet seemingly still the same in every way that matters.
Seeing Dick's smile hurts worse than a sword to the gut, and considering Tim's experienced that before, he knows exactly what he's talking about. Dick's kneeling next to a young girl in the center, gently nudging her feet into the correct form to best distribute her weight. All around him, his other students are practicing their forward flips, and as Tim watches through the glass making up the street-side wall, the girl takes a deep breath and attempts one of her own. It's clumsy but controlled, and Dick claps when she manages to land mostly upright.
Tim remembers Dick doing the same thing for him, years ago, when he was first training to become Robin. Remembers spending hours with him until Tim had gotten the movements just right. Remembers how his brother would always lean over and wrap him up in a firm, encompassing hug at the end.
The girl looks up at Dick and says something, and while Tim can't hear Dick's laugh from across the street, he can still imagine it, that rumbling noise that never failed to light up his day.
Cass is a silent statue beside Tim. She's not letting any hint of her emotions reach her expression, but Tim knows his sister. He knows she's feeling that tumultuous mess of grief and guilt just as strongly as he is.
He doesn't bother trying to comfort her, showing her the same courtesy she's showing him. There's nothing either of them can say to each other that will make this situation feel any better.
Ten minutes go by before class ends, and then another fifteen as parents come by to pick up their kids. In silent agreement, Tim and Cass wait until the gymnastics center is completely clear of all the students and their parents before making their move. Dick is busy putting all the equipment away, so he probably doesn't have another class today.
Even if this goes horribly wrong, Tim reminds himself, hands twisting anxiously in the hem of his t-shirt, at least we'll have a little privacy.
Tim hesitates at the door, one hand hovering half-way to the handle. God, he's ridiculous. He's a twenty-nine-year-old veteran vigilante who's been in the game for sixteen years. He's dealt with Gotham's streets for all his life. Only a couple days ago, he faced down a ten-story demon without flinching, and yet now he's petrified with terror at the mere act of opening a door.
Cass reaches past him before he can work up the courage to continue. The welcome bell's tintinnabulation pierces Tim's ears as they step inside. The door swings shut behind them, and even though Tim knows he could leave at any point, it still feels uncomfortably like he's being locked in for this upcoming conversation.
Dick's back is to them, but he twists around at the jingling sound, a welcoming smile already settling in place.
"Hello," he calls. "Can I — ?"
Dick breaks off abruptly, and Tim knows the exact moment he clocks them. For a moment, there's only blank shock in his eyes. Then his expression shifts, flashing through a myriad of emotions far too fast for Tim to decipher, before he finally manages to sculpt it into something more controlled.
But beneath that, Tim can see him trying to crush down an agonizing, frightened hope.
Tim's heart breaks at that, because this should never have happened. Dick should never have had to be be afraid of getting his hopes up, of his family not remembering him.
"Can I help you?" Dick asks after a moment, his careful smile fixed in place.
Tim swallows down the fear stoppering his voice and takes the plunge.
"Dick," he whispers, and the achingly familiar name tumbles off his tongue like it'd had hundreds of times before. Like it'd never stopped doing so.
Dick goes very, very still.
"…Yeah, that's me," he says after a long silence. His gaze flickers cautiously between the two of them.
Tim's nerves swell, and Cass steps forward.
"Big brother," she says quietly, and Dick, somehow, stiffens even more. "We remember now. Everything."
Dick swallows, and the hope in his trembling hands and wet eyes is painful to see. "Everything?"
"Everything," Cass confirms. "All of us. The whole family."
"You remember." He says it more like a statement than a question, but Tim can hear the begging note to it, the desperation for it to be confirmed.
"Yeah," Tim chokes out. "Yeah, Dick. We remember."
Dick's expression crumples, and for a moment Tim panics, afraid that maybe his brother doesn't want to see them after all, that they made a mistake coming here and they should've just let him live out his new, vigilante-free life in peace and —
Oh.
Dick's hugging him.
Tim shudders, then melts into his brother's arms. He feels Cass do the same beside him. Dick's cheek presses against his, and Tim leans into the contact, ignoring the tears wetting his face.
He's not sure how long they stand there, wrapped up in each other's embraces.
"…I'm sorry," Cass whispers eventually. "We forgot you, and we didn't believe you after. We should've. We should've helped and supported you, but we let you go instead."
"We're sorry," Tim gasps. "I'm sorry. I'm supposed to be a world-class detective, but I couldn't even see what should've been right in front of me. Dick, I'm so, so sorry."
Dick pulls back to look them in the eye but leaves his hands on their shoulders, one on Tim's right and the other on Cass's left. His brother's touch is warm, and Tim can't hold back a sob at the comforting familiarity of it. He reaches up to grasp Dick's arm with both hands, lets himself be anchored by the way it stays firmly, reassuringly solid.
This is real. This is real.
Tim's breath catches, hitches, and releases.
This is real.
"No, don't be," Dick soothes, even as his eyes spill over with tears. "It… it hurt, I'll admit that, it hurt worse than any injury I've ever had before, and it took me a long time to even start to heal… but I never once blamed you. Any of you. It was a terrible situation with no answer, but it was never any of our faults. Not mine, not yours."
"But — "
"It's not your fault," Dick interrupts firmly. "How could you have known? The spell erased your memories, and all the evidence was wiped from existence. You had no reason to accept my word at face-value, not when it was all you had. You were just as much a victim to the spell as I was. Understand?"
"I still should've — "
Once again, Dick doesn't let him finish. "Understand?"
Tim sags in defeat because, yeah, intellectually he knows Dick is right. It's no one's fault but the magician's. It doesn't make the guilt easier to bear, but the kindness in Dick's voice is enough to ease something tight in his chest.
Tim takes a deep, shuddering breath and whispers, "Okay."
"I understand," Cass repeats dutifully, if not wholeheartedly.
It's obvious Dick knows they don't really believe him, but he doesn't push, just nods once with a smile. "Good."
"I love you, big brother," Cass murmurs.
"I love you," Tim echoes.
And Dick laughs, a little wetly but joyously too, and pulls them both back in to crush them against his chest. "Love you too, Cass, Timmy."
Tim knows they still have a lot to talk about. About what happened ten years ago, what Dick's been up to since, why they're only just now remembering. About how the family will proceed from here, with their obligations to Gotham and Dick's life in Pennsylvania. And the superhero community will want an explanation too — the Bats were hardly the only ones to love Dick Grayson.
But all that can wait. For the first time in ten years, Tim has his big brother back. So for now, Tim just closes his eyes, returns Dick's hug with a ferocious tightness, and lets himself believe that everything is going to be okay.