#*would

at the edge of Everything and Nothing, It hovered. edges undefined, shapeless, simply a mass that is ever churning, indistinguishable from what surrounds it, one and the same with the Everything and the Nothing and yet entirely separate. It coveted the freedom, the feeling of Existence brushing through wings and feathers, when It felt like forming them in the first place. It was always moving, always changing, always shifting, because It was made of Action and Reaction, the Catalyst and the Inhibitor, Creating and Being Created.

except the thing about being so Large, is that soon enough Everything starts to feel so small. It is a being of Freedom and Change, and that means that It cannot stay idle in one space.

another thing about being so Large—It is not often aware of Life, small as Life is compared to Itself. but It knows of Life, and It decides that the next adventure can be compacting Itself and Moving amongst them.

so, in the place that is timeless, the darkness and the light and the unknown bundles itself together, tightly, as infinite feathered wings sprout from Its body, covered in eyes that are feathers that are eyes, except for the largest pair, which are all fingers and skin and sometimes hands and sometimes not. It grins using a beak using a snout using nothing, but it is always all teeth.

It has always had a fondness for acting.

—

richard john grayson is born squalling, and the fabric of the world shakes with it, just a little. the earth trembled like it is afraid, until it doesnt.

after, his mother and father do not mention impossible things. they do not mention the way the stars had become eyes, for just a blink. they do not mention the shadows growing limbs, cupping around them. they do not mention the headache it caused to look at their son, until it didn’t.

there is nothing wrong with their son—he is a beautiful and healthy baby boy. that is all that matters, in the end.

—

dick took a fierce pride and pleasure in flying. he made it a point to himself to not use his wings, to not simply negate gravity entirely. he flies by human means, and finds it beautiful.

sometimes he could almost forget, with the vast majority of him still in Everywhere and Nowhere. he could not bring in all of himself without cracking this universe at its seams entirely, not without tearing this human body apart in the process. it is why he cannot See as much as he used to—most of his Eyes are still with the rest of him, so his vision is limited.

of course some power still leaks out of him, even if he does not try using it. but he makes an effort not to use them during flight that he never makes anywhere else.

(when his parents fell, for just a moment he forgot that he is a greater beast than them all. he forgot about gravity and feathers and space and for a moment he was all human, crying over the broken bodies of his parents.

his seams tremble, until they are held together by loving human hands in a hug. bruce wayne does not say anything, nor does he realize he is holding back infinity.)

(dick endeavors to make sure he never realizes. he remembers how the circus eyed him, before, and he does not like when family is afraid. he is supposed to be terrifying, but not for them. never for them.)

—

when robin takes flight he is painfully human. he is grinning and laughing and moving and flying. he perches on batman’s arm like a bird, practically weightless.

it is all human.

except for the times it isnt.

shadows twist and darken, hiding the bat and bird, reaching out toward their targets like fingers. robin’s laugh echoes for miles, but is only heard by some people. he grins and it is sharp teeth too many for a little boy’s mouth, stretching too wide that it shouldnt be able to fit on his face, but it does.

sometimes, his shadow is many winged and has eyes that watch.

but robin is human. even if the criminal underground of gotham will never believe it.

(when every robin after the first comes along, they are always human. they are not like the first. the shadows watch out for them anyway.)

—

after jason dies, the universe trembles. it is almost like that day so many years ago, when a boy was born. the universe trembles and dick aches. he wants to pull his little brother from the wooden cage below the dirt. but he cannot, because he is very powerful, but he is too disconnected from Life to just bring him back to life. at least, not without irreparably damaging jason body and soul.

what he can do is avenge him, that little bird he had taken underwing. that little bird named robin, because although dick did not name him such, he did become robin. eventually.

but not soon enough, it seems.

the joker is torn apart. he is ripped through at the seams, his body torn asunder, his spirit trapped in Everywhere and Nowhere with the rest of him. the Edge drives humans mad, simply because they can not comprehend it. but it is the Entity that makes them tear themselves apart.

the joker does not die. his body might die, but his spirit lives. it suffers without start or end, in a place where Time refuses to tread.

jason is avenged in the best way dick knows how.

—

with each little robin after that, there is something slithering and cold about their shadow. dick learned his lesson about keeping his distance, simply because he did not want to run the risk of scaring them, of changing them.

their lives are more important than that.

and then. and then. jason comes back.

but, oh, he comes back wrong. he comes back twisted by a pit that has no right tangling its claws into HIS little wing.

when he meets the red hood, he endeavors to rip those claws out. and if they are necessary? well, he could replace them if it was really, really needed.

(after coming back from the dead, jason feels off when near dick grayson. it feels like his spine is tingling with fear, like there are too many eyes on him. sometimes, when he does not announce his presence—though dick always seems to know he’s there anyway—he can hear feathers, ruffling, shuffling against each other. but there are no birds.)

one night, as jason sleeps, the green green pits are ripped out of him. he wakes up screaming, until it stops. in the place of burning hot green comes slithering cool shadows, soothing the aching pain. it feels familiar in a way the pits never did. it does not burn as it runs along his blood.

he falls back asleep, and when he wakes again in the morning, the entire experience feels like a dream. the only proof he could possibly have is the slithering shadows, but they do not rise to his awareness like the pits always did, pushing and pulling at his emotions to make him angry, make him rage.

he feels… normal.

(the only times the shadows ever show themselves is when his siblings are in danger. they are a protective force, darkening like they want to hide his siblings. they do not burn, but at those times, they run remarkably cold.)

—

it all comes to a head in one mission. it’s a cult, because of course it is. somehow, someway, they’d gotten it into their heads to summon something Other, in a bid to destroy the world, and remake it anew in their own image.

fools, to think they could control something like that.

but the summons begins working, and dick can feel himself, the rest of him, slowly beginning to be pulled into this universe with him. because of course, the ritual had to latch onto him.

when his attempts to stop the ritual turn frantic, the rest of his family side eye him in concern.

“nightwing?” robin is the one to ask.

the ritual is picking up speed. the room trembles.

(there’s a reason dick didn’t bring himself in his Entirety here, to this universe. there’s a reason the universe trembles when he uses too much power. there’s a reason his body starts bleeding when he does too much at once. this universe cannot hold him entirely. moreso, this body cannot hold him without being torn to shreds.)

nightwing’s nose begins to bleed. his shadow starts writhing on the wall.

still, the standing cultists continue the ritual. still, the tear that is pulling him through gets wider.

“STOP IT!” he shouts, screams, and it is like static, like the universe is speaking, like time is freezing in place, like the groan of seams straining, straining, snapping.

the room is crumbling around them, the universe is crumbling around them, and there is something wrong with nightwing.

the last of the cultists are crushed by rubble, and they barely have the mind to think about rescuing them. there is someone much more worthy of rescue currently crouching in a little corner of the room, the air around him wavering like it does not know how to exist.

the rip stays open. he continues to get dragged through. it will take too long to close it, he already knows, but he starts sewing it shut anyway.

his body strains. the universe strains. everything strains.

at one end of the room is dick grayson, body falling apart, skin fading away like ghosts, shapes almost like wings hovering around his body, surrounded by the glint of eyes that are there and then gone, his bones creaking like the eaves of an old house as they try to hold the burden of inhumanity, a glow beginning to leak from him, or perhaps it is a shadow, or maybe it is both.

at the other end of the room is his family, trying to dodge falling pieces of the sky, so worried about what could be wrong with dick, wondering if something came out of the ritual and if it latched itself onto him, wondering what is happening to him, wondering how they can save him, wondering what is being done to him, if he is hurting, if they can fix it.

it is a room between them. it is also the fabric of the world between them.

then, unexpectedly, a large portion of the building crumbles down upon the bats huddled at one end, a hungry maw opening in the ceiling with jagged edges like teeth, the rubble like a tongue descending to bring them to it, and far far above them they can see a glimpse of the sky only to notice the colors streaking through it that should not be there. nothing dares fall down upon the space where dick’s body crumbles and breaks so he has a perfect view of the opening jaw, using both his eyes and his Eyes, all of them wide.

and suddenly, there is no space between them at all.

because, there, above them, hands that are sometimes wings, huge and wide and open, hold up the sky.

and, there, around them, dozens of hundreds of thousands of millions of wings wrap the space around them like a shield of feathers.

before them, there, dick kneels, their own personal atlas. his mouth is filling up with teeth, his limbs twisting and stretching like no human being’s, his skin fading into vague clouds that might be shadows and might be stardust.

but he is undeniably dick grayson. and he undeniably loves them.

—

the heroes arrived on the scene at the same time as the villains did. power, after all, calls out to power, and what is more powerful than the ender of Everything.

at the center of it is a black hole of a broken building, all toothy edges and strange angles, open windows without entry.

at the center of it is a Being, made of drifting wings and watching eyes and heavy presence that eats gravity, shadows and lights, a cold hand resting at the base of your neck and a tightening noose.

at the center of it, hidden beneath ribs opened like a flower, is a family, who feel the growl of stayawaytheyremineifyoucomecloseriwillkillyouandtearyouandripyouandyoursoulwillbelongtomebutiwillnotcovetitlikeidotheirsandyouwilldisoverdeathisnotkinderthanmanandiscertainlynotkinderthanmosters and try to sooth it, try to promise you dont need to protect us, could we protect you this time?

the Something wails like a child, like the damned, and cries as It feels the body It had used turn to dust. Its final anchor to this reality, and this reality’s final shield against It.

It is no longer dick grayson. but It can protect what dick grayson left behind.

It bears Its teeth, and when one mouth is not enough, It forms more, more mouths and more teeth and more biting and not letting go. It is a black hole of a Being, always consuming and never giving back, an absence of everything and yet a presence so heavy as to crush.

the mouths snap at anything that gets close enough, gravity eaten away at until even the superhumans cannot fly, time slowly chewed upon until there are gouges in it.

ribs are open are a cage are a flower are jagged are teeth are a gaping maw waiting, just waiting, until it can bite down. not biting down because It cannot consume the little fires between teeth that are ribs, but It can bite down anything that walks into the cage that is not a cage.

“dickiebird, you gotta calm down,” something says, and it is the only noise not consumed in Its black hole body.

“you’re panicking, making whatever is going on worse,” a different something, still not eaten whole.

a foolhardy villain mistakes receding tides as weakness, and not the premonition of the wave. humans always lack hubris, but this one suddenly lacks even more than as it is swirled in a mouth that is a circle, wings that are hands that are claws reaching in to pick at it even more. it dies screaming, torn into uncountable pieces. on Its body, countless Eyes lock upon the spirit left behind, latching and not letting go.

“chum…” another voice, soft as a graveyard, safe as a shadow, low like coming home.

a face that has a beak and a snout and nothing at all turns down to look into ribs and teeth, and It is not dick grayson. It is not.

but It is. he is.

and that is his father, even if It was never born and always was.

this is not the grave. dick grayson does not have to die.

some other things

it is no wonder that heroes seems to orbit around him like he is their own personal sun. he is all gravity, and floats like he has none. there’s something celestial about the way he smiles, something heliacal about the way he laughs. (“the multiversal constant,” superman calls him. it’s no wonder.)

in a time long gone, there was a group of heroes in their fortress outside of the earth. and then a little bird snuck aboard the ship. they all grew to love the bird just the same, and they never forgot the starlight reflected off his small face. (he is not powerful just because he could eat the world. he is powerful because he could eat the world and no one would be able to stomach stopping him.)

despite a legacy as the gray son of gotham, the court of owls never did dare to approach dick grayson. not for lack of trying, of course, but the talons of the court would never approach him. the dead, after all, have more to fear from him than the living, and they have a much better sense of knowing it. not that the court knew that part.

before jason, dick did not keep many constant Eyes on this universe. it would destabilize it, which would defeat the whole point of trying out the human way, and potentially destroy all his progress. besides, bruce was practically part shadow himself, not even accounting the small boon he’d given. (he did not see the way he held bruce up, just a little, like one would hold up their father. he did not see the way he used to think the same thing about his parents. but that is for later.) even jason did not need a constant Eye, because bruce was already there keeping his own eyes on the young bird. after jason died, after dick realized he could not fix this without making it worse, after promising never again, he decided to hell with the universe’s stability. he would keep an Eye on every member of his family—constantly growing as it is—and stitch the universe together piece by piece if he had to.

(unfortunately for him, other people ended up noticing the gradual slipping stitches. sure, some of them were just justice league dark. but others were the type to use this weakness to their own gain. and others of them were the type to try and find what was powerful enough to cause this in the first place.)

his body is made of shadow, but his wings are all lights. not just white light, but colorful, colorful lights. if he did not have wings you could almost look over him with your eyes. perhaps it is why he took to the batman so well—after all, he has experience bringing light to shadow and shadow to light.

had an epiphany anyway his feathers are like fucked up peacock feathers because they have an eye on each feather except sometimes they detach themselves and sometimes you cant see any at all and its all just one big mindfuck

“oh you cant kill the joker because he’s like a curse. he will always come back and he will be worse for it!” dick, who trapped his spirit with the rest of his Being to suffer eternally: cant revive if the soul is stuck where there isnt even any time 🤘

SORRY I GOT A VISION FROM THE GODS. ANYWAY BATMAN GETS A CALL FROM TGE GCPD AND HE PULLS UP TO A RANDOM WAREHOUSE AND THE INSIDE IS JUST SPLATTERED WALL TO CEILING IN BLOODY GORE. THERES AN OFFICER VOMITING IN A CORNER BEHIND HIM. THE ENTIRE THING IS ONE BIG “CENSORED” BLACK OUT BOX. BATMAN ASKS GORDON “and you’re sure this is joker?” AND JIM JUST POINTS AT THE CENTER OF THE WAREHOUSE WHERE “JOKES ON YOU BITCH” IS WRITTEN IN JOKER’S BONES. BRUCE COMES BACK TO THE CAVE AND FUCKING VIDEO CALLS DICK LIKE “do you know who could have done this?” QND DICK LOOKS INTO THE CAMER ALIKE THIS:

ive been thinking of how to write this into a fic format and i think. writing it out as a casefic with intermittent flashbacks to things that give greater context about current events? leading up to the climactic reveal

as for the case itself. theyre tracking the cult, though they dont actually know its a cult just yet. maybe its like. a missing persons case that begins to spiral wildly out of control or smth??

(guy whose only information on how cults operate is cult of the lamb and also that one episode of psych where gus tried to date the cult lady voice) uhhh so. so what kind of criminal activities would cults be doing to further their aims

head in my hands i cant believe i forgot they would 100% do theft. also maybe try and find a way to wedge in some drug angle??

they are stealing gemstones and/or rare metals!!! for the ritual of course. and as for the victs, maybe each of them represents an aspect of the world/universe and combine to create a cosmic address, kind of like telling your buddy your address over the phone, a sort of we’re right here! thing. yknow?

the classical four elements, life, death, shadow, light, space, time, motion, motionless

herpetologist (with specialty in turtles) as the earth for the whole world turtle thing. ornithologist as air. arsonist as fire. sailor as water. undertaker obvi covering death. nurse/doctor as life. clockmaker for time. planetarium employee for space. theater lighting designer for light. they want to use batman specifically for dark, but any bat they can get into place for it would do

element and gemstone in their circle, starting from north and going clockwise: air/danburite, light/tanzanite, life/green kyanite, water/larimar, motion/selenite, space/sunstone, fire/ruby, shadow/garnet, death/mahogany obsidian, earth/black tourmaline, motionless/tiger’s eye, time/golden topaz