#dickgraysonweek2025

“Absolutely not,” Dick says, standing in the kitchen with the carrots he was cutting completely forgotten. He looks down at the crinkled piece of paper in his hand, where Bruce has listed several dozen bullet points, organized by some system that no doubt only Bruce knows, all written in his messy, doctor-like scrawl. Looks back up at Bruce. Down at the paper. Back up at Bruce again. “What’s wrong with you?” He has half the mind to turn on the gas stove and throw the paper into the flames.

“Hn.” Bruce gestures at the piece of paper in Dick’s hand.

Dick shakes his head wordlessly. He supposes that’s a stupid question, given that Bruce has just handed him an itemized list. “I’m not drugging your drinks,” he tells Bruce. “I’m not...”—he squints at the list—“kidnapping you and taking you to a boarding school either. And I’m not using the E.M.P. mask to pretend to be Joker again just so you can torture yourself. Jesus.”

And based on the list, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Joker is obvious, and Dick would bet the list of plants near the bottom of the page has something to do with Ivy, but Dick has no clue why half of the items are included.

“It’s for the Mission,” Bruce says calmly, like he hasn’t handed Dick a giant list and told him to repeatedly trigger his surrogate father in order to ‘desensitize’ him.

“The Mission,” Dick echoes.

“All of these are potential vulnerabilities in the field,” Bruce explains. “I would like your help in resolving them.”

“You realize you’ve just handed me a list of weaknesses, right?” Being so open about this is insane. Completely un-Batman-like behavior. Dick would honestly think that Bruce had been replaced by an imposter, except for the fact that some of the items—a baseball bat, a highly specific salad dressing, an alarm at a particular pitch and interval—are traceable back to traumas that only Dick and Bruce would know.

“I trust you,” Bruce says simply.

And Dick—Dick knows that. But still, having it said so blatantly is disarming. “This isn’t healthy.”

Bruce chuckles. “Neither is vigilantism.”

Dick sighs. “This is beyond that. I’m not going to just sit by while you purposefully trigger yourself, Bruce. And I’m certainly not helping you do it.”

Bruce takes a long pause to find his words. Dick waits, his gaze flickering to the abandoned carrots. He’ll have to use the precut ones. Alfred would be appalled, but Alfred is…well… “You’ve told me that you want me to be open about my problems, and that we would work together as a family to address any continuing issues.” Bruce says it like a mission report, clinical and precise.

“About things like your crazy backup personality!” Dick wipes a hand over his face. “Not that I don’t appreciate your...trust…with this, and not that I’m not willing to help you if you want to find a better solution, but I wasn’t—” He folds the list up in his hands. “This stuff is private, Bruce. You don’t have to tell me about it. You can, if you want, but you don’t need to redeem yourself by tearing your whole life wide open. Unless one of these triggers is a secret codeword that’ll make you brainwash Jason again, you don’t have to show them to me.”

“Some of these,” Bruce says slowly, “are impacting the Mission, or have the potential to do so in the future. My goal is to minimize their impact.”

“By triggering yourself.”

“Yes. I don’t understand—”

Dick really wishes Alfred was still around. Although given Alfred’s stiff upper lip, he might very well have been in favor of this plan. “We’ll find another way,” Dick says. “But I’m not,” he looks back down at the list, “sneaking drugs into your champagne. That’s insane.”

“I’m giving you permission to,” Bruce says, like he doesn’t understand the problem, like he doesn’t understand how that’s a massive betrayal of trust. But the thing is, he does. He must understand, if it’s somehow made its way onto his list of triggers. And yet, he’s asking Dick to do it anyway. He’s not just asking Dick to hit him where he’ll hurt most—he’s asking Dick to betray him. And Dick will fight Bruce when he needs someone to remind him of who he is, but betray him? That’s too far.

“And I’m not accepting it,” Dick says. “I’m not gonna let you hurt yourself. C’mon Bruce, you know me better than that.”

Bruce takes a moment to mull Dick’s words over in his head. Eventually, he nods. “Alright.” And then, he smiles slightly. “How did you end up so well-adjusted, Dick?”

Dick laughs nervously. “I have no idea.”

Well, that’s because he didn’t actually ‘end up so well-adjusted.’

In truth, Dick Grayson is a hypocrite.

***

“You,” Jason says, “are out of your goddamn mind.” He emphasizes it with a slam of the pantry door.

“Yeah,” Dick says patiently, watching as Jason takes out the pancake mix. An interesting choice, considering that it’s five pm and Jason is normally a pancakes-from-scratch purist. “That’s the point. That’s why I’m asking you for this.”

“Who was it?” Jason asks.

Dick rolls his eyes. “Can we not do this right now?”

“No,” Jason says. “You asked me to help. Let me do something actually fucking helpful. Who was it?”

Dick meets Jason’s eyes. He can see the fire there, burning with what he personally considers entitlement. Jason feels entitled to handle this his way, to exact vengeance on behalf of someone who doesn’t want it. But still, this is Dick’s brother. If Jason didn’t have that fire, that need for sense justice, he wouldn’t be Jason. “She’s dead,” Dick says. It’s only half a lie. Two-thirds, max.

“Okay, look,” Jason says. “You wanna go sniff perfume on your own, fine. I can’t control you. I’ll even practice pins with you, even though I think it’s a bad idea. But on the training mats, Dick, not in the fucking shower. And if you honestly expect me to force pills down your throat, you don’t know me at all.”

“If the shower would be too weird, we could rig a sprinkler system,” Dick offers.

Jason throws his hands in the air. “That’s not the point, Dickhead! You’re supposed to be the well-adjusted one. You even saw a shrink when I was a kid!”

“I lied to the therapist,” Dick admits.

“Well, at least you had a therapist to lie to!” Jason says. He takes a deep breath and then fishes a ladle out of one of his drawers and begins pouring batter into a pan.

“If you want a therapist, I can—”

“I don’t want a fucking therapist,” Jason clarifies. “What I’m saying is, you know how messed-up this is.”

“It’s logical,” Dick says. “Under a highly specific set of circumstances, I’m a liability in the field. So I should—”

“So you should," Jason grimaces, "talk to someone. Or do a Bat emotional repression classic and just avoid those circumstances.”

“Fine,” Dick says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. If Jason won’t help him, he’ll get Helena involved. Bruce would be livid at Dick revealing a weakness like this to a loosely affiliated vigilante, but Dick knows Helena well enough to trust that she wouldn’t use this against him. And honestly, Helena would be much more likely to trigger him anyway, given that she’s a woman and not his little brother.

Jason steps in front of the door. “You’re going to go recruit Cass, aren’t you?”

“No,” Dick says, completely honestly.

“Kate then. Or Helena.”

“No,” Dick says, much less honestly.

“Dick, you realize you won’t just have a couple panic attacks and then ‘get over it,’ right? This could make things worse, or put you out of commission for a week, or—or whatever. It’s not worth it.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Dick asks. “You think I’d ask this of you if that hadn’t already happened?” Last time circumstances had coincided just wrong, he’d had nightmares for four days. And then two weeks later, he inexplicably hadn’t been able to put on the Nightwing suit without wanting to peel off his skin. And then another week after that—

The point is, Dick knows. He knows it isn’t as simple as repeated exposure desensitizing him to a trigger. He’s not stupid. But he can’t stand this, the constant reminders, the knowledge that a single unlucky coincidence could send him into a panic attack, the voice whispering in his ear that he’s weak.

“I know what I’m doing,” Dick says.

“If you go through with this,” Jason says, “I’ll bring Bruce in.”

Dick’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

Dick meets Jason’s eyes. “This is private, Jason,” he says carefully.

Eventually, Jason looks away and angrily starts putting the pancakes on plates. “Fine. I won’t. But only because he’d just fuck everything up. But Dick…please don’t do this.”

Jason doesn’t say please. If he says please, that means that it matters to him, that it’ll hurt if someone says no.

But here he is, saying please.

Dick sighs. “Fine. I’ll try to figure something else out. But I’ll take you up on the offer to practice pins.”

“Alright,” Jason says, shoving a plate in Dick’s face. “I can live with that.”

***

“I should’ve asked Jason,” Bruce says mournfully.

“Uh…” Dick tries to give off his very best I don’t know from experience impression. “I don’t think he’d be on board with this plan.”

Bruce tilts his head. “He asked something similar of me. Before…before Zur.”

“He told you to purposefully trigger him?”

Bruce looks Dick dead in the eyes. “He asked me supervise while a hired criminal beat him ‘lightly’ with a crowbar. And then bury him alive.”

Unfortunately, that does sound like Jason. It's why Dick had chosen to ask him in the first place. He hadn't expected that Jason would refuse. Honestly, Dick wouldn't have expected any Bat to refuse.

Dick frowns. “At least tell me neither of you have mentioned this to Damian.” Because while Damian has come a long way in the past four years, Dick just knows that Damian would consider this an excellent training strategy. And if Bruce, Dick, and Jason are doing this…what if it filtered down to the younger Bats?

Bruce is silent for a moment too long.

“Bruce, I swear to god—”

Bruce raises his hands in surrender. “I didn’t say anything to him. But…Damian complained to me that Tim and Duke were dressing up as the Joker and systematically jump scaring each other.”

Dick blinks. “Oh. That’s. Unusually reasonable of him.”

Bruce grimaces. “He was upset that they weren’t including him in their training because they deemed him too young.” Too young.

Well, Dick thinks, burying his face in his hands, at least I’m not alone in my hypocrisy.

“Why?” Tim’s voice is hoarse when he speaks, like he’s only moments away from crying.

Dick doesn’t turn around, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the Batcomputer screen. It’s…some sort of report. He doesn’t know what it says. He couldn’t concentrate, knowing the conversation that he’d inevitably have to have tonight. Dick did everything he could to make this go smoothly, even getting Alfred to keep Damian out of the cave, but he knows that no amount of planning can make up for what he’s doing. “Tim…”

“My suit,” Tim says. “You moved it. Why?”

Dick doesn’t want to see the expression on his little brother’s face. His heart is heavy enough in his chest. “Damian needs Robin,” Dick says quietly. He knows he needs to turn around. If Dick wants to have any chance of salvaging the situation, he has to have this conversation face to face.

But he hates this. He hates having to make this decision. Playing with vigilante names like chess pieces, like they’re not identities.

Tim is Robin. Dick can’t take that away from him.

But he must.

“You said we’d be okay,” Tim accuses, walking closer. “My entire life has burnt down! Again!” Tim is right behind him now. Dick flinches—not at the anger in Tim’s voice, but the grief. Dick is doing this to his little brother. “I don’t call this okay, Dick.”

Dick swallows, and slowly turns his chair to face Tim. He stands. Tim is only a few inches shorter than him now. He used to be so small. “Damian is my responsibility, now,” Dick says, taking in the way Tim is already curling in on himself. They both know that Dick isn’t going to change his mind. But knowing the futility of an argument rarely prevents it—especially when someone as stubborn as Tim is involved. “Tim, you know better than anyone that left on his own, he’s going to kill someone. Again. You have to understand—”

“No,” Tim says. “I don’t. This is all I have now.”

“It’s not,” Dick promises. He knows—he knows what Tim has lost in the last few years. But… “You have Stephanie. Alfred. Me.”

“Do I?” Tim asks, gesturing at the empty case where his suit used to sit. “Because from where I’m standing, it sure doesn’t look like it.”

“You’re still my brother, Tim,” Dick says. “Robin or not.”

Dick can see the sheen of tears building in Tim’s eyes. “Why, Dick?” Tim makes a tiny, choked noise. “What did I do wrong? I’m sorry I went after Jason, Dick, but—”

“No,” Dick interrupts. “You didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t—this isn’t a punishment, Tim.”

“Then why? Why are you choosing him over me?”

“I’m not,” Dick insists. He thinks he’s beginning to understand what the world was like from beneath Bruce’s cowl, in a way he never did the first time he donned it. Dick has always had Bruce’s trust, but it was never enough for him. He wanted to be there, fighting at his side. He wanted to be Robin. And now Tim has what Damian doesn’t—Dick’s trust. But just like Dick at nineteen, all Tim wants is to be Robin. “Tim, he’s Bruce’s son. I can’t…”

“Can’t what? Just because he’s got Bruce’s genes doesn’t mean he’s better than me!”

Dick isn’t saying that at all though. “I’m Damian’s guardian now,” Dick says. “Bruce wanted me to take care of him. I can’t…” I can’t fail him. Not again. Not now. “And if I don’t give him Robin, he’ll leave.” And if Damian leaves, he’ll kill. Or die. Or both. “He needs this, Tim.”

“I need this!” Tim shouts. Immediately, he steps back, the anger draining out of his body. “Please, Dick. I was supposed—I thought we were going to do this together. I thought it would be like last time, and we’d handle it together.” Last time. It had been different, last time. When Dick put on the cowl and Tim flew through the air at his side. Back then, the world was a brighter place. And Bruce, despite his back injury, was still alive. “We could handle anything together.” Tim’s voice shakes as he looks up at Dick with pleading eyes. “Was I not good enough to be your partner? To be your Robin?”

Oh. Dick’s heart rips in two. He blinks the tears out of his own eyes and gently places his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “Tim,” Dick says. “You will always be my Robin. And there is nothing I want more than to fight at your side.”

“Then why,” Tim asks, “are you taking this from me?”

“You’re my equal, Tim. Not my protégé. Not anymore. I know you can handle this.”

Tim looks Dick dead in the eyes. “I can’t.”

And maybe—

Maybe Dick has misjudged.

There is still acne on the side of Tim’s face. He spends his days at high school. And he has just lost his second father in two years.

Dick thought Tim was ready to forge his own path. To take over Blüdhaven, even—Tim had lived there for a bit and patrolled it with Cass, and by now it’s been rebuilt enough to need its own defender. He thought Tim would ultimately thrive with the new independence. After all, the kid has been globetrotting on his own since he was thirteen.

But Tim is, undeniably, still a kid. And he’s doing what Dick never could at his age: admitting that he needs his home, needs help.

Dick’s eyes fall on the suits’ cases, where everything is lined up in a row. Multiple models of the Batman suit. Nightwing. Tim’s Robin case—now empty. Cass’s Batgirl costume, in case she ever wants it back. And Damian’s new case, with his tiny Robin suit. Dick thought it was time for Tim to become his own hero—to truly step out of Batman’s shadow and build a life and name for himself.

But maybe this is a different kind of graduation day.

“What if you could be Nightwing?”

Tim startles at that, looking up at Dick with wide eyes. After a few moments, though, he looks away. “I can’t take that from you.” It’s not a no. It’s not a no.

“You’re not taking it,” Dick says. “I’m offering.” He squeezes Tim’s shoulder gently and leads him over to Nightwing’s case. “You have a place here, Tim. Robin or not, that will never change.”

Tim shakes his head, but he reaches up almost trance-like, his fingers ghosting the glass. “Nightwing’s yours,” Tim says. “Bruce took Robin from you. But Nightwing—you got to keep that. It’s only ever been yours.”

And—yes, it’s meaningful, that Nightwing has never been something that Bruce could take away. But when Dick took on the mantle, he had been a lost teenager too. And just like Tim, he’d needed a place to slip into, an identity with a legacy that he could wrap around himself like a warm blanket-cape. “Actually,” Dick says, “Superman gave me the title.”

Tim’s head whips around to look over at Dick. “What?”

“Nightwing is from a Kryptonian legend. He works in the shadows, as a protector. And every cycle, he’s reborn. Being passed down is part of the legend, Tim.” It hurts, giving away Nightwing. Giving away the safety net that caught him when he fell. But Tim needs this. Tim needs a reminder that he has a place here, has a home. And Dick would do anything for his little brother.

Besides. Dick would be honored for Tim to wear his mantle.

“Please, Tim,” Dick says. “I don’t want to lose you too. I need you.” He lets his voice break. He knows it’s manipulative, but he’s not acting either. He does need Tim. He needs Tim to be safe. He needs his little brother to know he is loved. And— “I don’t want to do this alone,” Dick admits.

Then you shouldn’t have taken Robin, Tim could snap. But he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his hand fall to his side. They’re both silent for a moment.

And then arms are wrapping around Dick’s torso and Tim is burying his face in Dick’s chest. Smiling softly, Dick reaches out and pulls his brother closer in a tight embrace.

“Thank you,” Tim says.