Work Text:
"and people are my religion because i believe in them,
people are my enemies and people are my friends,
i have faith in my fellow man,
and i only hope that he has faith in me"
_____________
THE THING ABOUT fathers is that they have a remarkable way of ruining your life.
No matter where he goes, he can't seem to escape his father. He's got this God-awful habit of crawling back into his life at the worst of moments. Perhaps fate has played a cruel joke on him with the way their lives appear to be so intricately entwined. He can't seem to sever the cord, to end it once and for all.
It's his father that leads him to Dick Grayson.
Once again, Joseph Wilson is left to clean up his family's mistakes. His mother recruits him to help stop his father. They're going to need Dick's help in order to do so. After all, it's his friends that are on the line here. Dick's going to need all the help he can get.
But Dick doesn’t trust him yet, so he jumps into his body, and-
“Joseph, hit him,” his mother’s saying, a cigarette perched between two fingers. God, he hates when she smokes, hates the smell of tobacco that seems to permanently cling onto all of her clothes. He hates the violence that runs in their family, hates the dinner-table arguments that escalate to screaming-matches. He hates the feeling of slipping into a skin not his own, hates, hates, hates-
“Hit him!” She says again, and then he forces Dick Grayson’s fist into his own face.
He feels the pain of the hit before he phases out, feels the contact of fist against cheek. He stumbles out of the body, knowing that his own physical form may be fine, but Dick’s sure to get a nice bruise eventually. He stares at his own fist for a few seconds. Always so much violence in this family.
“That was only a demonstration,” his mother says casually as Dick rises to his feet. “We could’ve taken you over at any time and made you do what we wanted.”
We. The word feels sour in his mouth. She says it like they’re some sort of duo, like he’s just another soldier that she used to order around on the battlefield. He’s his mother’s son, he’s his father’s son, and he’s beginning to think there’s not much of a difference.
He takes off with Dick anyways, thrust into a life he never wanted in the first place. He wonders if the life Dick leads is anything like his own.
_____________
The Titans are nice, but they do not trust him. Not yet. Not so quickly after what happened with Terra. They stare at him with weary smiles, their eyes expressing a sort of tiredness that no one should have that young. They tip-toe around him, wary that he too might turn on them one day.
That day comes sooner than he would like. In his defense, the media has painted quite an ugly picture – one even he struggles to explain. Before he knows it, there’s an assassin in his mother’s house, and the youngest Titan is out to get him. Somehow, he finds his way to Qurac. He slips effortlessly into the body of his mother, rescues her, and all she can think to say is-
“Why, Joseph?! Why?!” She shrieks, face bruised and bloodied, eyes open wide in mania. His mother’s friend has to hold her back. She looks like some sort of rabid animal.
He just saved her life. The least she could do is be grateful. Instead, she looks betrayed.
“Joe could have shot him… killed him ,” his mother mutters in disbelief, wide, blood-shot eyes staring at her son, “and he let him go.”
‘I saved you,’ he wants to say. He’s curled around the paintings before him, avoiding his mother’s gaze. He hadn’t wanted a gun in his hand in the first place. She was the one who’d ordered him to pull the trigger. He didn’t. The lit grenade in the room seemed more like a priority. So what if the man escaped? She was safe.
“Your son is no killer,” Amber, his mother’s friend, tries to soothe. “You’ve always known that he doesn’t have that instinct. Not like you or his father.”
Not like Grant. He is not his mother, he is not his father, he is not a killer. He came here to save her – not to leave with blood on his hands. He accomplished his mission. Had limited the number of casualties. Why does she still seem so angry ?
She doesn’t thank him. Just stands up, wipes the dirt off her dress, and stares. “You could have killed him for me,” she says, and that is that.
It’s almost like she wants him to become his father.
_____________
It’s when he finally feels accepted into the Titans that things go to hell again.
Literally.
He’s tried so hard to be a good teammate, to be a good friend. And it’s not their fault, truly. Everyone here has their own baggage to deal with. He’d thought he’d help a friend out and lighten the load.
He gets along well with Raven. If there’s anyone who understands him, it’s her. They’re cut from the same cloth, with shitty fathers, broken families, and all. Out of anyone in the Titans, he’s her shoulder to lean on.
Such a kindness only backfires on him in the end.
The souls of Azarath invade his mind, filling his head with a thick buzzing like an angry swarm of bees. They scream and wail and laugh. In some sort of sick, twisted irony, they take over his body – he is the one being controlled.
There's no way of telling exactly how much time has passed. All he knows is that there's blood on his hands, and his mind is no longer his own.
Someone's using his voice – one that hasn't been heard in many years. And that isn't right, is it? Because he can't speak, but surely these are his lips moving, his voice echoing around the room. He speaks all sorts of nasty, vile things. Words of wickedness and hate. But this isn't him.
There's someone screaming at him to fight, fight, fight. So he does. He comes to in some sort of strange moment of clarity, body feeling weak and not quite his own. He screams with vocal cords that should not be healed.
The world weaves in and out of focus, time blurring together, a soundtrack of constant screams looping in his ears. He just wants it all to stop.
Through blurry vision, he sees his father. His mind can't quite make the connection of why he's there, why his friends are floating in the air, why everyone won't stop screaming. But he knows what needs to be done. There's only one way to stop this, to silence his mind.
"Do it, Father," he finds himself saying, words unfamiliar on his tongue. Oh, how pitiful. To have a voice again and these be his last words.
"I'll always love you." It's sick and twisted, this little song and dance. But he knows the words are true, knows that the true him could never have that kind of hate in his heart – not even for his father.
He feels the sword drive deep into his chest. Sees the horrified look on Dick's face. Tastes the blood in his mouth. Feels his father's arms cradled around him as if he were a child once more. Hears the screaming, screaming, screaming -
And then there's silence.
_____________
He floats.
The passage of time becomes virtually non-existent. He fades in and out of a vague sense of awareness for who knows how long. His mind is both quiet and the loudest it's ever been, and he's not sure what to make of it.
He picks up pieces of information here and there. It's like they float by on the wind. Bits of familiar names, places – just enough for the mind to make some sort of connection.
Eventually, he hears a name, and it all just clicks.
He's been hitching a ride in his father's body for far too long, fastened in the passenger seat and content to let him be the driver. But now, he's taking over, and he forces his father's body to bend to his whim.
(It's an awful, awful feeling to be driven by hate. Swimming through memories of a mind not all his own, the screams and laughter of the souls of Azarath still echoing in his ears. The body moves, but is it really his choice? Where does the madness end and Joseph begin?)
The body runs on autopilot, leading him to a familiar place. There's a little voice screaming in the back of his head to just stop. He knows no good will comes out of this. His skin crawls and itches, burns with the need to do something more . He wants to dig his heels in, force himself to snap out of whatever nonsense he's found himself trapped in. But it's so much easier to just float away.
So he does.
His vision comes in flashes, scenery changing like he's flipping through channels on a television. There's a head mounted on the wall like some sort of trophy, and a vague part of him realizes that he's the one who did that. Before the bile can rise to his throat, the channel's changing again. He's standing in front of children – literal children .
Static. A gun is fired. It's hot in his hand. He watches the bullet pierce a child's knee. Oh, what has he done? What has he done?
His vision's choppy, flickering in and out, moments speeding by in a blur. There's a familiar sensation of shifting bodies, hopping from one to another, seamlessly blending with another mind. He leaps and jumps and twirls and it's euphoric. There's a sort of mania that bubbles up in his throat, desperate to escape. Streaks of red splattered in his vision.
He jumps once more, elation ready to burst from the tip of his tongue. He makes contact, and then-
It's silent once more.
_____________
He's resurrected.
It feels like some sort of cruel joke at first. Why won't the universe just let him die? He's been possessed, stabbed, turned into a computer program – he has yet to take his final breath.
Raven resurrects him. Maybe it's an apology for all she unknowingly put him through. He doesn't know. But she gets him a new body, finds him a new apartment, and sets him up with a new life.
"You should stay low for a while," she murmurs, hand resting lightly on the small of his back. "The other Titans-"
‘They would not understand,’ he finishes for himself in his thoughts. He knows this. They would never accept him back – not after all he put them through. Even when he was younger, it seemed they were always looking for an excuse, waiting for the day he snapped. Just like his father.
Did you get what you wanted, dad?
No, they would never accept him back. Not with his mind still plagued by horrors unimaginable. Not with the gallons of crimson blood staining his hands. The only one who could possibly understand is Dick, and he-
His mind filters through memories not quite his own, a collection he's gathered from body-hopping. He sees flashes, hears snippets of a familiar conversation. His mind fills in the gaps. Dick Grayson's dead. Has been for a while.
The only one who could possibly get what he's going through – gone.
_____________
Rose calls him one night.
It's far too late for any sort of call. He should be asleep, but he finds himself staring at the ceiling, at the tacky glow-in-the-dark stars sticking to the plaster. He hasn't been able to sleep – not for a while. When he closes his eyes, he still hears screams, sees splashes of blood against the walls.
His phone buzzes, snaps him out of his reverie. Blue light illuminates the room, and he struggles to unhook the phone from the charger. He raises the screen close to his face, answers the incoming FaceTime from his half-sister.
She doesn't waste any time in cutting to the point.
"Dad's dead," she says rather bluntly, and if she's feeling anything about the matter, her face doesn't betray it. It's a stone-cold, emotionless expression. Father would be proud.
"He's gone. For real this time," she confirms. "He's not coming back."
He's not quite sure how to feel about this. He should be happy, right? A horrible man is finally gone, unable to hurt anyone anymore…but that's still his father . His father is dead. The words feel sour in his mouth.
"They found a will," she continues. "He left you something. I'll text you the address."
And before he can get a word in, she hangs up. He's left with nothing but an address to an old safe house and a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
_____________
He doesn’t want to be here.
The safe house is one of his dad’s old hunting cabins, hidden away in the middle of the woods. In his mind’s eye, he can vaguely recall coming here as a child. It is not a place associated with good memories.
The floor creaks underneath his boots as he wanders hesitantly into the cabin. Everything’s covered in a fine layer of dust, and it dances through the warm rays of sunshine filtering in through the window. The walls are covered in mounted heads – his father had always liked to hunt.
Wintergreen’s head comes to mind, mounted against the wall like some sort of game. You killed him, you killed him, you killed him-
He blinks the memories away, exhaling sharply.
His father had wanted him to come here, and for what? He had little more than an address. If it were up to him, he’d never set foot in this place again. But he feels like he owes it to his dear-old-dad to at least do this. There is something here. There has to be.
If you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you why he enters the cellar – just that he does. He’d never been allowed down here as a kid. Too many weapons to be injured by, he guessed. It was his mother who had always demanded the door stay firmly shut. But now, he finds himself wandering down the staircase anyway, dragging a steady hand against the wall to guide him. His footsteps echo against the concrete. In the distance, there’s a steady sound of a drip. Must be a leak.
He finds himself at the bottom step. His hand fumbles for the cord to the light in the darkness. He finds it and tugs. The lights flicker on, the room bathed in a yellow glow. He blinks a few times, lets his eyes adjust in the light, and then-
The stench of blood in the air, metallic and thick. Red coating the walls, dripping, breathing, alive. Light catches on the surface of orange and black armor, glistens with his own reflection. A face stares back at him, familiar, bloody, emotionless. It’s not his father. No, his father’s a dead man. It’s a face he never thought he’d see again.
It’s Dick.
In that moment, it’s all too much. He can hear his breath hitch in his throat, feel the way his body freezes. The lightbulb hums, cord swaying in the still air. Orange and black metal, piercing blue eyes-
He vomits, and for a moment there’s the faint thought that his father’s fucked him over yet again.
_____________
Dick doesn’t respond when he cups his cheek. Joey turns the man’s head this way and that, examining a face he thought he lost long ago. Dick’s eyes are vacant, mind far away, face expressionless and hardened. Like a soldier. He stares straight ahead, stands perfectly still, and Joey just folds.
He throws his arms around Dick, collapses his head against the breastplate on his chest. His hands struggle to find any sort of purchase on the man, sweaty fingers slipping against the metal armor. He squeezes the man tightly because one wrong move and he might be gone again. He closes his eyes, hot tears streaming down his cheeks, and tries to breathe.
‘What did he do to you?’ He wants to say. He wants to scream and cry, pound his fists against Dick’s chest. Wants to wail to the heavens, knock at death’s door, shout take me back take me back take me back.
Death would be a much kinder fate than this. A much better ending for either of them. They should’ve both been dead years ago, but here they are, standing in a mold-infested cellar, confronted with the sins of his father.
Dick’s so calm, so unnaturally still in his arms. Just stands there like some sort of doll. Joey pulls away carefully, examines the man he once knew. Dick’s eyes move to track his figure, a sharp glint of something in the eye. Joey immediately looks away before his mind gets the best of him and makes contact. He thumbs Dick’s cheek sadly, hand shaking, breath hitching.
‘I’m sorry my father did this to you,’ he wants to say. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m sorry-’
But sorry won’t take it back. Sorry won’t make it right. His father’s dead, Dick’s still here, and Joey isn’t exactly sure where his loyalties lie.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, backs away from the body with shaky hands. He chooses to do the things he can do. He’s always been too kind for his own good.
He carefully guides Dick up the stairs, gently ushers him into the bathroom. He strips the man of the Deathstroke armor, lets the orange and black metal clatter to the floor. His gaze lingers on the bloodied and bruised flesh, and he tries not to think much about why Dick’s body looks this way. He runs a warm bath and helps him into the bathtub. The room is silent other than the sounds of water splashing against the side of the tub. Dick’s so much older now, but he looks so much younger like this, and Joey’s mind can’t seem to fill in the gaps of lost time.
‘You did this,’ a voice whispers in the back of his head.
Dick sits, naked and vulnerable, bloody and bruised, a shell of a man.
‘You did this to him.’
Joey bites down on a knuckle, shakes his head, and holds in a whine. He didn’t do this, he could never (but you killed all those people, killed them, killed them, killed them, betrayed your friends, mounted Wintergreen’s head on the wall, shot a kid, you did this) . This is his father’s doing. He’s just left to clean up the mess. Even in death, he can’t escape his father.
Gently, he kneels beside the tub. He rolls up his sleeves, dips his hand in the water, and tries to clean Dick up. Neither of them say anything. Joey just scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until the water’s stained red.
_____________
The two of them stay at the cabin for a while. Joey’s not quite sure what to do. Dick’s still very much so not Dick. He doesn’t move unless prompted, but he’s been able to eat. His wounds are healing up, but Joey still winces everytime he sees the battered skin. He doesn’t think Dick’s lucid enough to understand his signing, but he tries. Dick’s eyes spend more time tracking his movements than glazing over. Maybe he’s getting better. Maybe it’s wishful thinking.
There are people far more qualified to take care of Dick than he is. Anyone would be a better option. But Joey can’t find it in himself to leave the cabin. He could try and return Dick back to the Titans, back to his father. But where would that get him? The Titans would probably think he was the one that did it. Showing up years later on their doorstep with a supposedly dead and catatonic Dick Grayson is not the best course of action – especially when the Titans already don’t trust him and are looking for a reason to end him once and for all.
Dick needs to get better – he deserves better, but Joey just doesn’t know what to do. Who would believe him? Besides, he’s hardly able to take care of himself, let alone someone else. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Fate has been so cruel to him as of late.
‘Help me out here,’ he asks, and he’s not quite sure to whom. ‘Help me out. Just once. For him.’
He’s not sure fate will listen.
_____________
He awakes in a fit of terror, heart leaping out of his chest. His eyes are blown wide in a panic, and he springs to sit upwards, blond curls damp with sweat and plastered to his face. Someone’s on top of him, and he tries to fight them off. He dances the fine line between sleep and lucidity, jumbled memories still playing on replay in his head. He sees the red, hears the screams, why won’t it stop-
After a minute, his eyes adjust to the darkness. He spots the person on top of him, and relaxes, face softening. Dick stares at him, worried, eyes more lucid than they’ve been in a long time. Dick relaxes his grip on Joey’s wrists.
His lips part, forcing sound through them. The noise is low and hoarse, and it echoes around the tiny bedroom. “ …‘Hurt yourself,” Dick murmurs, eyes shifting across his body, and it’s the first words from him that Joey’s heard in a long time.
‘I’m alright,’ he wants to sign, but Dick’s eyes are already glazing over again. Joey can see the frustration on his face as he fights for control.
Instead, Joey gently cups the back of Dick’s head. He lays them back down on the bed, resting Dick’s head against his chest. One hand plays with Dick’s dark curls while the other squeezes his hand reassuringly. There’s a small exhale of relief that passes through Dick’s lips, and he relaxes, eyes closing. Joey plants a gentle kiss into his hairline.
‘I’m here,’ the action says, much louder than words could ever be. ‘I’m alright. I’m not going anywhere.’
_____________
Dick’s begun to talk more. Longer sentences, complete thoughts. There’s always a bit of frustration in his face when he tries to force the words out. His nose scrunches up, and Joey can practically feel the anger build up behind Dick’s eyelids.
It doesn’t matter. They don’t need words anyways. Things are much easier to understand with actions. Dick’s practically been gluing himself to Joey’s side. He can’t complain much. It’s almost relieving to feel a shoulder press against his, legs tangled together under the covers, pinkies intertwined, squeezing tight. To anyone else, it might be suffocating. Joey never wants to let go.
He thinks they’ve made it to a point where it’s not that Dick can’t speak, it’s just that he doesn’t want to. Things are easier this way. They’re so physically intimate in a way that Joey hasn’t been in years, and he finds himself yearning for the other the second he leaves the room. He’s spent so many years inside other’s minds but this – this is different. He doesn’t need to make contact with Dick to understand him.
An ankle wrapped around his underneath the dinner table is enough.
When he jumps into Dick’s mind, it’s on accident. He’s not quite sure what startled him, but his eyes had gone wide, head snapping back to face Dick. He wasn’t right of mind – fight or flight had just taken over. In a combination of pure instinct and adrenaline, he’d leapt inside Dick’s body.
It’s not the first time he’s taken over his body, but he hopes it will be the last. The minute he makes contact, the second he reaches out and joins with Dick’s form, everything goes to hell. It’s so, so loud, and his head won’t stop screaming. He finds his knees – Dick’s knees – buckling underneath him. He’s pretty sure they’re shouting, guttural wails bouncing off the walls of the cabin. His mind melds seamlessly with Dick’s. He can’t tell where Dick stops and Joey begins.
He’s thrust into memory upon memory, moments of time cut and pasted on top of each other. It’s jagged, unorganized, uncontrolled. The flow of time is in disarray. The memories merge into one another, layered so deeply he can’t find the end of the thread. It’s flashes of orange black orange black orange black red-
Which memories are his father’s? Which memories are Dick’s? Which are his? Is it his arm that drives the sword into the man’s chest? Is it his father that chokes on his own blood? Is it Dick that pulls the trigger, splattering the blood-
He scrambles to find purchase, claws his way out of Dick’s mind. In a panic, he leaps out of the eyes, back into his own body. There’s a loud thud as Dick collapses against the floor. Joey stumbles, slamming his hip into the kitchen table. The two of them stand there for a minute, eyes wide, breathing erratic.
Joey makes eye contact, flinches, and casts his gaze downwards. One look at Dick’s horrified face is enough. Some rational part of him whispers that Dick needs help – he can’t just leave him there.
But he does. Once a coward, always a coward. Joey turns back on his heels and runs.
_____________
“You killed people.”
Dick whispers it into the silent room. It’s not an accusation. It’s a fact – one that neither of them can object to. It’s the undeniable truth.
They sit together on the small twin bed in the tiny bedroom Joey had once called his own so many years ago. They’re curled up on opposite sides, hugging their knees to their chests. The lights are off, and it’s late. Neither of them get particularly good sleep nowadays. The glow-in-the-dark stars here have faded with age, but they still cling tightly to the ceiling. Joey feels smaller than he has in years.
He manages a small nod, tries not to think of the bloody visions that cloud his mind. He rests his chin against his knees, breathes in deep from his chest.
But had it really been him? His memories have been so clouded nowadays. It’s difficult to judge his mind. It would be easy to blame everything on the souls of Azarath – hell, even on his father. How many decisions were made in the past few years that had truly been his? Not tainted with madness or clouded by grief?
Dick seems to be thinking the same thing. He sighs, rests his head against the wall, lets it hit with a dull thud. He casts a weary smile towards Joey.
“You’re a good person, Joe,” he rasps, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “Don’t you give me that look – you’re a good person, and you always have been.”
“I’ve killed people-” he rushes to sign, teeth bared back in a frustrated grimace.
Dick gently grabs his arm, looks at him with those bright blue eyes that are so much better than a haunting green. He carefully lowers Joey’s arm, lets his hand wander to squeeze his calloused palm.
The dark-haired male sniffs, wipes his nose against his shoulder. He runs a thumb over the back of Joey’s palm, drawing soothing circles. “You’re a good kid, Joe. No matter what they say.”
His eyes go towards the ceiling, angled up towards the decade-old glow-in-the-dark stars. There’s a far off look in his eye. Joey squeezes his hand, brings him back to the present.
“I don’t think there’s much left here for me,” Dick murmurs, eyes flickering towards their intertwined hands. “Not as Nightwing, at least…I crossed the line. I don’t think I’m coming back from that.”
Dick’s eyes flash towards the abandoned swords in the corner of the room, still stained crimson. Joey’s blood runs cold. He lunges at the man, throwing himself onto him. He grasps tightly onto the soft fabric of his borrowed pajamas, presses his face into the cotton of the shirt. Dick’s shushing him, trying to gently pry him off, but Joey won’t have it. He shakes his head into Dick’s chest, no doubt smearing snot and tears all across the shirt.
He pulls back to sign, eyes ablaze in fury. His movements are sharp, cutting through the air like daggers. Dick needs to understand. “You can’t. You can’t just do this. Don’t do this to me. You can’t-”
Joey can’t let his father take another thing from him.
“Please,” he signs brokenly, eyes welling with tears. “You’re a good person, Dick. Please .”
Dick’s simultaneously the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to him, and he’ll be damned if he’s just going to let him go. If there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that Dick Grayson is a good person. Always has been, always will be – Joey’s not going to let his father change that.
He beats his fists against Dick’s chest, hoping he gets the message. The man lets him wear himself out until he’s leaning brokenly against Dick’s form, balled hands resting uselessly against his chest. Dick rests a careful hand against the small of his back.
“I don’t think I’ve been a person for a long time, Joe,” he says hoarsely, and it confirms all of his fears at once.
They stay nestled together in the twin bed, legs wrapped around each other, arms squeezing one another and not letting go. Joey squeezes his eyes shut, presses his face into the crook of his neck, and thinks, ‘God, let me just have this for once.’
He’s not sure when he falls asleep, but when he awakes, Dick is gone. Whispers of Deathstroke’s return fill the air, and it’s almost like he never even left in the first place.
_____________
“i said i have faith in my fellow man,
and i only hope that he has faith in me"