vigilante central

“I’m sorry I forgot to save you a dance earlier,” she says, speaking of the promise she made to him before the night had begun. The two had been upstairs in his old room, and Dick swore the only way he could get through another one of Bruce’s gala’s was if he could get one dance from her. If he could have her close again after all this time.

“May I have this one then?” he asks, offering a hand for her to take.

“You may,” she accepts, allowing him to take her hand in his and guide her to the center of the room.

Dick pulls her into him, their bodies naturally becoming one as his hands settle around her waist and hers around his neck. Y/n follows him as he takes the lead, the two of them gliding across the floor to the slow rhythm of the music. Dick can’t tell if it’s the beat of the music that’s thumping through his chest, or if it’s his own erratic heartbeat.

“How’s Bludhaven?” she asks, leaning her head against his chest as they sway back and forth.

“It’s been...different,” he answers, resting his chin on her head. The smell of her hair fills the air around him, and he takes a moment to savor it. The smell is lavender, but more importantly it’s her. And, God how he’s missed her.

“How’s Gotham?”

Y/n gives him a half hearted shrug. “The same. Different without you, though. You should come home, Dick. Bruce misses you. I miss you. We all miss you,” she says, doing her best to not sound so desperate. Like she hasn’t been missing her best friend terribly for so long and would do anything to have him come back. Like she isn’t begging to have her other half back. The one person who knows her like the stars know the night sky.

A hollow laugh slips from Dick before he can catch himself. “Did Bruce tell you that he misses me?”

“You know how he is,” she tells him, which is code for Bruce is a stubborn bastard. Everyone knows why Dick had to leave. It wasn’t easy for some, and hell, it wasn’t exactly a cakewalk for him either. At the end of the day everyone understood, and deep down they all supported him. Some were better at showing it, but Dick knew better than to expect any show of emotion from Bruce.

“Mhm,” he muses. “Look, I’m not ready to come back. I don’t know that I ever fully will, but I do know that I’m not Robin anymore. I can’t be him.”

Dick glances out the window like he’s hoping to find something out in the long expanse of Wayne Manor. Maybe answers. Maybe a reason to stay. He’s got one right here in his arms. She almost made him stay the first time. She was the hardest person for him to say goodbye to, but he needed to go. He needed the change, so he had to walk away. Only for him to wind up right back here; for him to realize that he can leave Robin behind—he can stop being Robin—but he can’t leave Dick Grayson behind. He can’t leave the way he feels about her behind.

Y/n pulls away from him slightly, just enough to show her curiosity for what he’s told her. “So who are you?”

“Something different. Something better. I’ve been calling myself Nightwing.”

“Nightwing?” She arches an intrigued brow, a smirk on her lips. “Like a bird that comes in the night and saves people?”

“Exactly,” he says, giving her a twirl before catching her by the hips.

“I like it,” she says, falling back into his embrace as his arms wind tighter around her waist.

Dick doesn’t look fully convinced. “Yeah? No comments about the continuing bird theme? Or the name?”

She shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “I really do like it. It suits you. Just know that, no matter who you are, Dick Grayson will always be my hero,” she says, and her eyes are like stars twinkling above the Earth. So beautiful. So bright. Dick is smiling at her, and his whole world is gazing back at him.

“You ever consider running around in tights and fighting crime?” he asks jokingly.

Y/n snorts. “God, no. Could you imagine? Chris would’ve had a heart attack if I did.”

“How are things going with you guys?”

The brightness about her falters, and Y/n doesn’t answer for a long minute. “We, uh…,” she trails off, eyes cast down on the floor like she’ll find the words to say there. Sorrow fills her voice as she replies, “We broke up, actually.”

“Oh,” is all Dick responds with because he doesn’t trust himself to say anything else. If he opens his mouth any more, something along the lines of “He was never good enough for you anyway” or “He was never the one you were meant to be with” will fall out. He might say “You belong with me instead” or “I loved you from the start”.

“He asked me to marry him, but I don’t...I don’t think I ever truly loved him,” she says as Dick dips her gracefully. When he  brings her back up slowly, their bodies are pressed together and faces mere inches away from one another as she continues, “He was...safe, I suppose. I could see what the next fifty years of my life looked like with him. Nice. Quiet. But ultimately, safe.”

“You deserve someone that makes you happy. Someone that makes you feel like your heart belongs with them. Like it’s home,” Dick says. Y/n nods at this.

“Yeah, mine, it...it belongs elsewhere,” she says, a distant look on her face like the thought has only now come to her. Like her heart has finally let her in on a little secret that it knew long before she did.

Y/n steals a glance at Dick, who’s staring shamelessly at her. “You’re staring, Grayson,” she states, taking his hand in hers as she stops dancing. “Come sit with me? We can watch the sun come up.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick apologizes, though, he isn’t really. He follows behind taking a seat next to her on the couch. “It’s just…you really do look beautiful.”

“That’s the third time tonight that you’ve told me that,” she says. Not that she’d ever tire of hearing it from him.

He grins sheepishly, nothing but adoration swirling around in those blue eyes of his as he looks upon her. “It’s because it’s the truth. You’re beautiful.”

“You can’t say things like that,” she whispers nervously.

Outside the moon begins its descent towards the horizon, making way for the sun to rise. It’s like a dance. One that they’ve shared since the beginning of time.

“Why not?”

“Because then I might fall in love with you,” she says, purposefully focused on the trees swaying in the breeze. She watches the way sunlight begins to creep over them, peeking through the limbs and swallowing the darkness like a tender embrace.

“Well I’m in love with you,” Dick says.

This tears her attention towards him. She isn’t sure she’s heard him correctly at first. “What?”

Dick leans forward, resting his forehead against her own. He hesitates for a moment, his hot breath fanning across her cheeks; her eyelashes brushing against his. When he finally grabs her face in his hands, pulling her in for a kiss, his lips are waves crashing against the shoreline as they collide with her own. It catches Y/n off guard, but she finds her fingers tangled in his hair as she kisses him back with the same urgency. The two fall back on the couch, everything inside them bursting like the pinks and oranges painting the morning sky. Dick’s hand moves down her chest, finding its way to her waist and pressing her body completely against his.

Y/n pulls away first, but they’re both out of breath when she does.

“Wow,” she breathes out in a dizzy laugh.

“That’s one word for it,” Dick says, unable to control the blood rushing to his face. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asks, tucking a stray hair behind his ear.

Dick dips his head into the crook of her neck, softly whispering his answer into the skin above her collar bone. “That probably seemed like it came out of nowhere, but you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that. There’s been so much in my life that has changed. Losing my parents, being taken in by Bruce, but the way I feel about you is something that never has. I love you.”

She gently pushes his head out of her neck so they’re face to face when she confesses, “I love you too, Dick.”

Her thumb traces the outline of his lips that were on hers only seconds ago as he beams down at her, an obvious weight being lifted off his shoulder from knowing that she loves him too. It’s almost too good to be true. Like this has all been a dream, and any moment he’s going to wake up alone on the couch.