Chapter Text
Dick knows perfectly well that it isn’t his job to be mad. He’s supposed to be the cheerful one. The one who smooths things out. The one who takes a look at a city block lit on fire with an active shootout taking place in the midst of it and then throws out a funny quip before handling the problem in twenty minutes flat. He’s better than this.
Except that that’s not the case today, because he messed up. Really badly.
Everything started falling apart when he let his guard down for literally one minute. He doesn’t even have an excuse for it. He wasn’t sleep-deprived, he wasn’t communicating with someone, and he wasn’t even moving. He was just zoning out while sitting on the edge of an apartment building’s roof, staring at the cloudy night sky and thinking about absolutely nothing.
That one minute was all it took for him to not notice four operatives from the Falcone family’s ranks actively removing their base of operations from the basement of the apartment building.
By the time that Babs’s systems alerted her, it was too late to catch them.
Dick was there. He had the chance to notice. He could have stopped Falcone’s men before they got away. If he’d removed them from the picture, maybe Falcone wouldn’t have immediately followed it up by cockily attacking the nearest GCPD station. Maybe that rookie officer wouldn’t be in critical condition in the hospital. Maybe that civilian wouldn’t have died. Maybe those other eight casualties wouldn’t have occurred.
Dick doesn’t go back to the Cave with the others after they finish cleaning up the mess at the station. He keeps patrolling for another hour and a half, until the sun starts to come up. Then he returns, pulling his bike into its usual spot.
He meant to get upstairs without talking to anyone, but B’s still in the Cave. He turns from the Batcomputer like he’s been waiting for Dick. Which he probably has.
“Dick—” B starts.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” Dick says, walking past him and heading for the stairs.
He shouldn’t feel this mad. Everyone messes up; he knows that. How many times has he pointed that out to Tim, or Damian, or Steph? He’s probably said it to everyone he knows, actually. He knows it.
But he screwed up. This is his fault. He’s responsible.
In the bedroom that B still keeps for him in the Manor, Dick strips out of his Nightwing suit and leaves it on the floor. He doesn’t deserve the colors right now. Pulling on sweatpants and a T-shirt, he crawls into his bed and checks the messages on his phone.
There are… a lot.
Tim sent “you ok???”
Damian sent “Father is bothered by your absence from the Cave.”
B sent “we can talk whenever you get back.”
Steph sent a sideways-eyes emoji followed five minutes later by a blue heart emoji.
Babs, only a few minutes ago, sent “Marcos Blough is still in the ICU but he’s going to make it through.”
They’re being kind. If Dick tries to reply to any of those messages, it’s going to come out wrong, and the burning disgust that’s filling him right now wouldn’t allow him to respond, anyway. He sets his phone to do not disturb, drops it on the mattress next to his face, pulls the covers up to his eyebrows, and tries to sleep.
It doesn’t work, obviously.
Dick spends the next three hours lying there and staring at the wall. It’s been a long night, and he should sleep. But he really, really screwed up, and there’s no way of going back and making things better.
He stumbles out of bed at last at quarter to nine and makes his way downstairs. The kitchen is a no-go zone; he can hear voices in there. He needs somewhere where he can be on his own and actually do something other than listen to the refrain of “you messed up.” He might as well be haunted at this point, but that there’s no ghost except his own stupid inner monologue. He’s better than this, except that he isn’t.
He heads for the Batcave, where at least he knows that he can work out. He’s always been able to get out steam by moving through the familiar motions of flips and jumps and swings.
Not today, apparently.
Half an hour later, Dick is soaked with sweat and no closer to getting rid of the mess of voices. He still screwed up. Nothing is better. He’s just training harder for what? He’s been doing this for how long now? Nineteen years, right? How has he failed at something so simple when he’s been doing this for literally more than two thirds of his life?
He drops to sit on the mat, propping his knees up and putting his arms on them. Holy pathetic, what is he doing?
“Dick,” B’s voice says from behind him.
Dick starts before he can stop himself. He’s even worse at this than he thought if he’s not able to hear Bruce’s approach before he’s all of five feet away.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” B says as Dick turns.
Dick shrugs. “It’s fine.”
“Are you all right down here?”
Dick shrugs again.
“Are you thinking about what happened last night?”
“No,” Dick says. It’d feel better if he could inject any anger into his voice, but he can’t, not to B, because B isn’t responsible for any of this. “I’m over it. I’m fine.”
B makes a quiet noise. “You’re sure you’re over it?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t just—”
Dick stands up. “B, please, just leave me alone.”
B shrugs and turns to the rack of sparring equipment, as though he hasn’t heard. “How about we go a few rounds?”
“B—”
“I’m serious,” B says. He turns around and proffers the pair of boxing gloves that used to be Dick’s, back when he lived in the Manor fulltime. They’re still in decent condition. “If you want to be down here training, then you might as well challenge yourself.”
Dick takes the gloves but doesn’t put them on. “I really don’t—”
“Two rounds,” B says.
Whatever. Dick will do it, if it’ll make B leave him alone. Maybe it’ll even have the added side effect of B deciding that he’ll be okay and not bringing the issue up again.
They face off against each other on the mats. B’s hardly dressed for the occasion. His slacks and shirt would suit a garden party or a casual work meeting better than training mats in a cave. But he barely seems perturbed by that as he drops into his typical fighting stance. His movements are so easy and nonchalant that might as well be at that garden party. In comparison, Dick is still wearing his T-shirt and sweatpants from the night before, and he’s pretty sure his hair is imitating a porcupine.
“Hands up,” B reminds Dick.
“I know,” Dick says, and a bit of the anger slips into his voice. It’s at himself, though. B’s not wrong. Dick’s wrong, again, and he can’t seem to stop making idiotic mistakes.
He adjusts his hands, and B says, “Begin.”
They exchange a few jabs back and forth, neither of them making contact. This is a familiar dance. They’ve done it enough times before, and even though it’s been some time since they practiced against each other rather than fighting side-by-side, those movements are ingrained into Dick’s muscles.
B throws a punch unexpectedly that would contact Dick’s face if he didn’t sway minutely to the side just in time. Instinct takes over; he ducks and comes up with a quick uppercut. B dodges nimbly and moves forward again. Almost before he realizes what’s happening, Dick’s on the defensive.
This was supposed to be casual, wasn’t it? What on earth is B doing, backing Dick toward a corner?
Dick switches gears from defensive to offensive. He doesn’t have his escrimas, but that doesn’t stop him from using his hands to be just as deadly accurate; in a matter of seconds, he has B on the defensive, backing up in the other direction. He’s breathing harder now, new sweat annoyingly sticking his shirt to his back. This feels right. He’s doing something correctly for the first time today.
He throws a punch that grazes B’s jaw; a second later, he follows it up with a spinning back kick that lands on B’s ribs and makes him stumble back. Dick immediately regains his balance and starts forward again. He throws a jab that’s barely calculated and probably just based on habit.
And it doesn’t land.
B catches his wrist and holds it there.
Dick stops moving and stands frozen, staring at his hand and B. B couldn’t catch his wrist in a hand, obviously, because the boxing glove has turned his hand into a non-dexterous extremity. But he’s caught Dick’s wrist in the curve of his arm, holding it as firmly as a regular grip.
That should signal the end of the round. But instead of releasing him, B reaches for Dick and pulls him into a hug.
All Dick can think of to say is, “What?” And it’s a good thing that his face is suddenly pressed into B’s solid chest, because there’s definitely a hitch in his voice that he’d rather not think about.
“Dick,” B says into the top of Dick’s head. “You’re pushing yourself to your limits.”
“I messed up,” Dick says.
“How human of you,” B says, sounding amused.
“We always do this,” Dick insists, not daring to look up. “This is my job.”
“At the cost of what?”
“I messed up—”
“As we all do.”
“—and people got hurt—”
“They’re recovering.”
“—and I’m supposed to do better. I was Batman, B, and now I can’t even stop a bunch of random—”
“Dick,” B says again. “How long has it been since you took a break?”
“I don’t know,” Dick says. Well, that sounds dumb. He covers quickly, “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” B’s arms tighten around Dick. “You’re so independent, son. You’ve become a leader. I’m so proud of you. But other people are in your life for a reason, and you need to slow down sometimes. Take days to just breathe rather than running all the time.”
Dick is not going to cry. “I—”
“Dick.”
Okay, fine, so he’s going to cry a little. He stands there and lets B hug him for long enough that he begins to hope none of the others have managed to sneak into the Cave and take a picture to be used for blackmail. Well, screw it. He’ll deal with it if they take a picture. He’s kind of forgotten how B’s hugs are the absolute best.
Dick pulls away at last, and B lets him go.
“Take tonight off,” B says. “It’s supposed to storm, so I doubt there will be much happening anyway. The GCPD can take care of things.”
“Okay,” Dick says. He tucks his hands, still in boxing gloves, under his arms. “B… why’d you want to spar?”
B’s mouth twitches upwards. “You looked like you needed it.” He gives Dick a brief one-armed hug before departing across the Cave. “Join us for lunch when you’re ready. Alfred finally caved to Tim’s more questionable tastes and agreed to cook frozen chicken nuggets.”