catalyst of change

dick’s officially screwed if jason raises his concerns to tim or bruce. bruce probably already knows, but thinks dick has it handled. tim will figure it out the second he knows where to look—the kid's a bloodhound.

as much as he could use their help, he knows gotham needs them more than he does.

he could say that blüdhaven’s a garbage fire of a city, that it’ll never stop being corrupt, and that he's wasting his time trying to fix it. except that wouldn’t be fair. there are people here trying to make it better. trying hard. he can’t give up on them. he won’t. they deserve better than someone willing to walk away as soon as things get rough.

It's not his finest moment. Lying in Jason's safe house, half-sprawled out on the couch, boots still on, shirt peeled up and sticky with blood, and a stab wound in his side that refuses to quit it.

He knows he’s not close to bleeding out. He’s been closer, too close, back when he wore the cape and later, under his own name. He knows what that feels like. No shallow breaths, no spinning room, no skin stretched too tight. Not yet, anyway. He’s got time.

The stab was a parting gift from Slade. Deathstroke could’ve gutted him if he wanted to. A clean kill was never the point. This? This was a warning. A message. Fat chance he was going to take it.

Jamie Flatters

Liam Woodrum

Drake Rodger

Asher Angel

Tanner Buchanan

Jack Champion (Curly Haired Dick Grayson Truther)

Zackary Arthur (once again, Curly Haired Dick Grayson Truther)

Dick accepts the ice pack without complaint. The pain wasn't that bad, but it was easier to blame it on an injury than to try to explain the initial shock from failing a simple trick. "Thanks."

He turns his nose up at the first name. He can't let @bruz3r get away with it without so much as a reaction, then he'd never stop.

Mirroring his father figure's posture, Dick leans forward, forearms braced on his knees, head bowed. The reason he’s distracted feels stupid. Predictable, even. He knows damn well that the only place more corrupt than Gotham is Blüdhaven.

It doesn't mean he's going out of his way to avoid the man. He won't beat around the bush if he sees Bruce or needs to talk to him.

He definitely needs to talk to him about this.

His former guardian has been acting weird around the kids, especially Ethan. He wants to know why, and he's not going to accept Bruce's attempts at avoiding the subject this time.

Dick walks past the grandfather watch, down the stairs (or bat-stairs if he was still eight), and into the cave. Bruce is going through his bat getup, and pretending to pay him no attention. He's spent too many years around him not to see the microexpressions as he walks closer.

He remembers being in the cave, smaller, playing with his own cape, as he told The Batman that he was becoming predictable.

Bruce is granted ten seconds to be the first to give in and say something before Dick beats him to the punch. "You may like to pretend, but I don’t. Something is wrong and you’re hiding it from me."

Anyone else might not have noticed the way his jaw tenses. Anyone other than the former Robin. He'd been trained in the circus to be observant. Both by Clay, Haly's Circus's old strongman, through their people watching whenever things dialed down, and his dad. Being inattentive got you killed when you performed. What was life if not a constant performance?

Dick scoffs under his breath. Just loud enough for them both to hear. Bruce is doing that thing again where he pretends he's all alone in the world. As if he's the only person on the fucking planet who's borne the weight of being a vigilante. Like Dick hasn't been doing it since he was nine.

"Right. Protocols. Of course there are."

His boots scrape against the stone floor as he steps closer, the echo of his movement sharper now, like a blade being drawn. His silhouette catches the edge of the workstation's light, shadows painting hard lines across his face. There's no mask, but there's armor in his posture, in the way his jaw sets.

He knows about Ethan, knows that he's Eldritch, and that it grants him a devastating amount of powers. He also knows about Bruce's need for control and preparation. Those two are a match made in hell.

"I get why you have your contingency plans, Bruce, I do," he has made his own over the years. He's not naive. He's built his own failsafes, learned those habits from his former mentor himself. "Every time one of us gets mind-controlled or possessed or... whatever the hell this city decides to throw at us, I understand the need for insurance, but there's a difference between preparing for worst-case scenarios and assuming people's going to turn dark." His voice drops, losing its edge, but not its weight.

"You crossed that line a long time ago, and we all let it slide because- because it's you, but this is different. Ethan's a kid, Bruce. A good one who wouldn't hurt anyone without a reason."

Dick can't find it in him to care what Bruce thinks, but he knows Bruce, he knows that he's like a dog with a bone, and if he doesn't sway him, he won't stop.