Venus

That was the first lesson.

The second was that someone always had to catch what was left.

Dick had built a life out of becoming that someone. He caught teammates before they hit concrete. Caught civilians before buildings collapsed. Caught the Titans when they spiralled, caught Bruce when he vanished too far inside the Bat, caught Jason’s anger when nobody else could hold it without bleeding, caught Tim’s exhaustion before it became a body bag, caught Damian’s sharp edges and pretended they did not cut.

He smiled. He joked. He opened his arms and made himself the net. It was easier that way.

People trusted nets. People did not ask if nets were tired.

You did, though.

That was one of the first things that unsettled him about you.

You always asked.

“Shoulder?” you said, appearing beside him before he had even fully made it through the medbay doors.

Dick looked down at the red line slicing through his suit, just under the joint. “Hello to you too.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Is it the shoulder?”

“It is deeply rude that you know that from ten feet away.”

“It’s my entire thing.”

“Your entire thing is being bossy and magical.”

“My entire thing is healing idiots who think flirting counts as a treatment plan.”

He gasped and pressed his uninjured hand to his chest. “You think I’m flirting?”

“I think you’re bleeding on my floor.”

“That’s not a no.”

You gave him a look.

Dick smiled.

It was easy with you.

That was the problem. Most things with you felt easy, even when they weren’t. Even in the aftermath of horror, with sirens in the distance and smoke still clinging to everyone’s suits, you had a way of lowering the temperature in a room. You came in with steady hands, soft eyes, and a voice like warm water over bruised skin.

You were the Titans’ miracle.

Not that you liked being called that. Gar had tried once, dramatically, from a medbay cot after you healed three cracked ribs and a bruised spleen.

“My angel,” he had declared, one hand thrown over his forehead. “My saviour. My divine little first-aid kit.”

You had thrown a roll of gauze at his head.

Vic had laughed for a full minute.

Kory had kissed your cheek in gratitude.

Raven had watched you with that quiet, knowing look of hers.

Dick had watched too. He watched more than he should have.

He watched the way your face tightened for half a second after you healed someone. The way you always turned slightly away before taking a breath. The way you flexed your fingers like you were shaking off static. The way you insisted on cleaning up alone afterwards.

At first, he thought healing took energy. That made sense. Every power had a cost. Every body had limits.

You told them yours was fatigue.

Dick believed you.

Not because he was careless.

Because he wanted to. Because after years of watching good people stay hurt, there was something dangerously addictive about watching wounds vanish under your hands.

When Raven came back from a mission with psychic backlash clawing through her mind, and you pressed your fingers to her temples until her breathing evened out, Dick did not ask why you spent the next hour sitting alone in the dark.

When Gar twisted his knee badly enough that the sound made everyone in the room wince, and you healed him before the panic really hit, Dick did not ask why you limped afterwards.

When Kory took a blast meant for a child, and her skin split gold-bright across her ribs, Dick did not ask why your own hand shook as you helped her sit up.

He noticed. But noticing was not knowing.

That was what he told himself later. Over and over. Like repetition could turn guilt into absolution.

He noticed. He just didn’t know.

Not yet.

The night everything changed began with rain.

Blüdhaven rain was different from Gotham rain. Gotham rain fell like a verdict. Cold, black, heavy with memory. Blüdhaven rain came down silver beneath neon signs, slicking the streets until every alley looked like it had been painted in oil. It turned rooftops treacherous, fire escapes slippery, windows into mirrors.

Dick loved it anyway.

It was his city. Bruised, stubborn, trying. A little ugly in the right light. A little beautiful in the wrong one.

The Titans had come because the call was too big for one vigilante and too strange for local police. A new metahuman trafficking ring had gotten its hands on alien tech and old magic, which was never a combination that suggested anyone involved had made good life choices.

By midnight, the docks were burning. By twelve-thirty, three warehouses had partially collapsed. By one, the sky above Blüdhaven was full of drones shaped like metal wasps, each one armed with sonic emitters strong enough to rupture glass and destabilise inner ears.

“Tell me again why crime can’t be normal,” Gar shouted over comms.

Dick flipped over a drone, brought both escrima sticks down, and sent it sparking into the rain-slick rooftop. “You want normal crime?”

“I want crime that doesn’t make my teeth vibrate.”

“You have teeth right now?” Vic asked.

“I have emotional teeth.”

“That tracks,” you said over comms.

Dick smiled despite himself. Your voice always did that to him. Cut through the noise. Found him.

“You’re supposed to be behind the barricade,” he said, ducking under a burst of sonic fire.

“I am behind the barricade.”

“You’re too calm.”

“I’m very calm behind the barricade.”

Raven’s voice came in, flat as ever. “They are not behind the barricade.”

Dick exhaled sharply. “Of course they’re not.”

“I’m near the barricade,” you corrected.

Kory flew overhead, a streak of orange through the storm. “Friend healer, there are many injured civilians near the west warehouse.”

“I see them.”

Dick’s attention snapped toward the west side of the docks.

Through the rain, he saw you moving below.

Not at the barricade. Not near the barricade. Running straight toward the worst of the damage, because apparently, self-preservation was not included in the miracle package.

“Absolutely not,” Dick said.

“You sound like Bruce.”

“That was cruel and unnecessary.”

“You’ll live.”

“Not if you keep sprinting into active combat zones.”

“Then stop watching me and stop the drones.”

A drone screamed toward you.

Dick moved before thought could catch up. He launched himself from the rooftop, grapple line firing, body arcing low through rain and smoke. The drone’s emitter pulsed once. Pain stabbed through his ears. His vision blurred.

He released the line. Dropped. Twisted.

His boot connected with the drone hard enough to crack the metal shell. It spun away and exploded against the side of a warehouse in a shower of blue sparks.

Dick landed in front of you, one knee down, rain streaming off his hair.

You stared at him.

He looked up with his best smile. “Hi.”

Your eyes narrowed. “That was incredibly dramatic.”

“I’m a performer.”

“That was incredibly stupid.”

“I’m also Batman-adjacent.”

“Unfortunately accurate.”

Behind you, a civilian groaned.

Your expression shifted instantly.

There was the healer.

The softness vanished into focus. You moved past Dick and dropped beside a woman pinned beneath a collapsed beam. Her leg was crushed at an angle that made Dick’s stomach turn. Her breathing came in panicked sobs.

“Hey,” you said gently, all teasing gone. “Look at me. Not the leg. Me.”

The woman grabbed your wrist with shaking fingers. “I can’t—I can’t feel—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

Dick watched you place both hands over the injury.

He watched your shoulders rise as you inhaled.

Then the woman gasped.

The beam shifted. Dick lifted it enough for Vic to pull her free.

Her leg was whole. Bruised, but whole.

She started crying.

You smiled at her.

Then, very subtly, your left knee buckled.

Dick caught it.

Not much. Just one hand at your elbow, enough to steady you.

You went stiff beneath his touch.

“You okay?” he asked.

You smiled too quickly. “Fine.”

There it was. That word.

Dick hated it when Bruce used it. Hated it when Jason spat it through bloodied teeth. Hated it when Tim said it without looking up from a laptop.

He hated it most from you.

Because you made it sound kind.

Another drone shrieked overhead before he could say anything.

The docks trembled.

Raven’s voice cut through comms. “Nightwing, the central warehouse is rigged. There are people inside.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

Dick looked up. The central warehouse stood at the edge of the pier, half its roof torn open, old brick walls glowing with intermittent blasts of alien-blue light. Through the broken windows, he saw movement.

Civilians. Hostages.

The structure groaned. Then the upper floor exploded outward.

Kory shouted. Dick ran.

You called his name.

He ignored you.

He heard you following anyway.

Of course he did.

Inside, the warehouse was chaos.

Smoke. Screaming. Sprinklers raining dirty water from cracked pipes. Drones buzzing between support beams like insects. Civilians huddled behind shipping containers while armed traffickers tried to retreat through a back exit.

Nightwing moved through them like a blade wrapped in blue light.

Strike. Dodge. Flip. Disarm. Smile, because fear spread faster when people saw the hero afraid.

“Exit to the south!” he shouted. “Go! Go now!”

Kory blew a hole through a side wall for evacuation. Vic ripped open jammed doors. Raven shielded a group of children from falling debris. Gar, currently a gorilla, blocked a collapsing beam with both massive hands and yelled, “I would like everyone to appreciate my core strength!”

You were everywhere you should not be. Healing a burned firefighter. Pressing a hand to a child’s forehead. Closing the wound across a police officer’s side. Calm, quick, relentless.

Too relentless.

Dick saw your face pale. He saw the way you pressed one hand briefly to your ribs after healing the officer.

Something in him tightened.

Then the floor screamed.

Not cracked.

Screamed.

The alien tech at the centre of the warehouse pulsed, drawing power from the old magical sigils carved beneath the concrete. The combination sent a shockwave through the building.

Every support beam lit blue.

Raven’s shield shattered. Kory slammed into a wall. Gar lost his grip.

The ceiling began to come down.

Dick saw it happen in pieces.

A family trapped near the upper catwalk. A little boy separated from his mother. The metal walkway beneath them twisting loose.

No time for the grapple. No time for a plan.

Just the fall.

Dick launched himself upward, using a stack of containers as steps. His boots hit metal. His body moved on instinct, rainwater and smoke and adrenaline turning the world sharp.

He grabbed the boy first and tossed him toward Kory, trusting her to catch him.

She did. Of course she did.

The mother screamed as the catwalk tilted.

Dick caught her wrist.

For half a second, they hung there over open air.

“Don’t look down,” he told her.

She looked down.

They always looked down.

A support cable snapped. The catwalk dropped. Dick twisted, threw the woman upward with everything he had, and felt Vic’s metal hand close around her coat.

Then the world gave way beneath him.

Falling was supposed to be familiar.

This was not.

The sonic emitters went off all at once.

His inner ear shattered into static. The building spun wrong. His grapple fired but missed the broken beam by inches. His fingers closed on nothing. His shoulder clipped metal hard enough to tear a shout from his throat.

Then he hit a lower catwalk.

Pain cracked across his back.

He bounced. Fell again.

He tried to turn. Tried to tuck.

Couldn’t.

There were too many angles. Too much debris. Too much noise.

The ground rushed up.

For the first time in years, Dick Grayson did not know how to fall.

He hit concrete.

And everything stopped.

At first, there was no pain.

That was how Dick knew it was bad. Pain was information. Pain told you what was damaged and how much time you had before the body started making executive decisions without you.

No pain meant the body had gone quiet. No pain meant the damage had passed language.

He stared up at the broken ceiling. Rain fell through the hole in the roof, silver and soft against his face.

Someone was screaming his name. Maybe several someones.

Dick tried to move.

Nothing happened.

Not his legs. Not his right hand. His chest moved, barely. Breath scraping in shallow and wrong.

Ah. That was bad.

A shadow fell over him.

You.

Your face appeared above his, wet with rain, streaked with soot, eyes wide with a terror that did not belong on you.

“Dick,” you said.

He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if it worked.

“Hey,” he breathed.

It came out broken.

Your hands hovered over him, trembling.

That scared him more than the fall. You never trembled.

“Don’t move,” you said.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Your face twisted.

Bad joke. Wrong moment. Classic Grayson.

He tried to lift his hand to touch your face.

Nothing.

Your eyes flicked down.

You saw.

He saw you see.

“Talk to me,” you said.

“Can’t feel…”

He stopped.

Your lips parted.

He did not want to finish the sentence.

He had spent his life moving. Flying. Running rooftops. Dancing along edges so narrow most people could not stand on them without shaking. His body was not just a tool. It was memory. Family. Language. A living echo of the Flying Graysons.

He could not feel half of it.

“Dick,” you whispered.

The building groaned around you. Distantly, Kory shouted for you both. Vic cursed. Raven’s power surged dark and bright somewhere behind the smoke.

You cupped Dick’s face. Your hands were warm despite the rain.

“I’m here,” you said.

He believed you. That was the danger.

“Don’t,” he managed.

Your expression shifted.

He was not Bruce. He had not figured it out fully. Not yet. But something old and instinctive in him understood the shape of sacrifice when it leaned too close.

You had looked pale after healing people. You had limped after fixing Gar’s knee. You had hidden your hand after Damian broke his wrist on a mission with the Supersons. You had smiled through it all.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

You shook your head. “You’re dying.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t.”

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“Please.”

That word hurt more than the fall. Please was not a word Nightwing used often in the field. Please belonged to civilians, to scared children, to moments too human for masks.

Your face broke. Only for a second.

Then you leaned down and pressed your forehead to his.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

His heart lurched.

“No,” he said, or tried to.

Your hands slid beneath his shoulders.

And then the pain came.

Not his.

Yours.

He knew because it came with your scream. It tore through the warehouse, raw and animal and absolute.

Dick’s body snapped back into itself. Sensation flooded his legs. His fingers. His lungs. Pain, yes, but normal pain. Bruises. Strains. Things he knew how to name.

His spine straightened. His ribs expanded. His right hand clenched.

He gasped and rolled onto his side, coughing through smoke.

For one impossible second, relief hit him.

Then he saw you.

You were on the concrete beside him, twisted at the same angle he had been. Your back arched unnaturally. Blood spread beneath you. One of your legs lay still, too still. Your hand curled against the ground, fingers shaking like they were trying to remember how to move.

Your mouth opened. No sound came out.

Dick’s world narrowed.

“No,” he said.

It did not sound like him.

He crawled to you, hands skidding in water and blood.

“No, no, no.”

Your eyes found his.

You looked relieved. Relieved. Like seeing him move was worth what had happened to you.

Something terrible opened inside him.

“Why would you do that?” he choked.

Your lips moved.

He leaned closer.

“Caught you,” you whispered.

Dick broke.

Not loudly. Not at first. The sound that left him was small. Fractured. A child’s sound buried under a man’s voice.

He gathered you into his arms with shaking hands, trying not to jostle your spine, trying not to touch anywhere wrong, trying not to look at the blood, the angle of your body, the proof.

The proof.

He had fallen. You had become the fall.

“Kory!” he screamed.

The name tore through his throat.

Orange light flashed.

Kory landed beside him hard enough to crack concrete. Her eyes went wide when she saw you.

“Oh, beloved healer,” she breathed.

Dick looked up at her, wild. “We need medevac.”

Vic’s voice came through comms, tight with horror. “Already calling it.”

Raven appeared from the smoke, her hood torn, shadows curling violently around her.

She looked at you. Then at Dick.

Her expression went white.

Not pale.

White. Like she had felt something nobody else could.

“She took it,” Raven whispered.

Dick stared at her. “What?”

Raven’s voice shook. “The injury. She took it from you.”

The warehouse seemed to tilt.

No. No, he knew that. He had seen it. He had felt his body become whole as yours broke.

But hearing it made it real in a way his mind had been refusing to allow.

Gar, shifted back into human form, stumbled toward them. “What do you mean took it?”

Raven swallowed. “Their power doesn’t erase wounds.”

Dick looked down at you.

Your eyes were half-closed now.

No.

No.

No.

“It transfers them,” Raven said.

No one spoke. Even the burning warehouse seemed to go quiet.

Dick pressed his fingers to your throat.

Pulse there.

Fast. Weak. Too weak.

“Stay with me,” he said, voice shaking. “Hey. Look at me. Come on, look at me.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He smiled because he did not know how to do anything else with terror.

“There you are,” he whispered. “Stay with me, okay? I’ve got you.”

Your lips twitched faintly.

“Net,” you breathed.

“What?”

“You’re… always the net.”

Dick’s vision blurred.

“Yeah,” he said, voice breaking. “Yeah, baby. I’m the net. So you don’t get to fall through. You hear me?”

Your eyes closed.

Dick’s smile vanished. “No. No, no. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

Kory knelt beside him and placed one glowing hand carefully against your shoulder, not healing, not touching the wound, just there.

“Dick,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “They’re not dying.”

“No,” Kory agreed, though her voice trembled. “They are not.”

Dick looked down at you in his arms.

He had caught you.

Too late.

But he had caught you.

And he would not let go.

Titan Tower’s medbay had seen bad nights.

This was worse.

The room was full of people trying not to fall apart loudly.

Kory stood by the window, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her glow dimmed to a low, anxious pulse beneath her skin. Gar sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. Vic kept running diagnostics, jaw clenched, his human eye red. Raven stood in the corner with her hood up, shadows tucked close around her like grief with teeth.

Dick sat beside your bed and held your hand.

He had been told to leave twice.

He had not.

The first time, a nurse tried gentle concern.

The second time, Donna tried command voice.

Neither worked.

Finally, Raven had looked at everyone and said, “Let him stay.”

So he stayed.

You lay still beneath white sheets and too many wires, your body strapped carefully to prevent movement. Spinal stabilizers ran along your back. An oxygen line curved beneath your nose. Your face looked wrong without expression. Too empty. Too quiet.

Dick kept staring at your mouth. Waiting for it to quirk. Waiting for you to make a joke about his bedside manner. Waiting for you to open your eyes and call him dramatic.

His suit was still on. Torn, wet, stained with your blood and his own, though technically the blood was all yours now in the ways that mattered. Someone had thrown a blanket over his shoulders.

Probably Kory. Maybe Donna.

He did not remember.

He remembered your scream. He remembered your body twisting. He remembered Raven saying, It transfers them.

His hand tightened around yours. Your fingers did not move.

“Dick.”

Donna’s voice came from the doorway.

He did not look up.

“How long?” he asked.

She was quiet for a second. “The doctors don’t know.”

He nodded once.

Meaningless.

His gaze stayed on your face.

Donna came closer. “They said the injury may not behave like a normal spinal trauma. Their body processes transferred wounds differently.”

“May,” Dick repeated.

“Yes.”

“May not.”

“Yes.”

He laughed once. It was ugly.

Donna’s hand settled on his shoulder.

That almost undid him.

Dick bowed his head over your hand.

“I should have known,” he said.

Donna did not answer.

He hated her for that. Loved her for it too.

“I noticed things,” he continued, voice low. “After they healed people. I noticed.”

“Dick.”

“I noticed and I let it go.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

Donna squeezed his shoulder. “That is Bruce talking.”

His head snapped up.

She looked at him steadily.

“You are allowed to be hurt without making guilt useful,” she said.

Dick stared at her.

Then he looked back at you.

“Useful is all I’ve got right now.”

Donna’s expression softened.

Behind them, Gar made a broken sound.

“I let them heal me last week,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

He stared at the floor. “My knee. It was nothing. Like, yeah, it hurt, but it wasn’t—” His voice cracked. “It wasn’t worth that.”

Raven closed her eyes. Kory turned away sharply.

Vic’s metal hand curled into a fist. “They healed my neural interface after Psimon fried half my systems.”

“They helped me after Trigon,” Raven said quietly.

Silence fell.

Not empty.

Crowded.

Every person in the room was remembering.

Every hand you had held. Every wound you had closed. Every time you had smiled afterward and said you were tired.

Only tired.

Dick felt sick.

Not because you had lied.

Because all of them had been relieved enough to believe you.

The door opened again.

Clark Kent stepped in, rain-dark hair mussed, glasses absent, Superman suit visible beneath a jacket he had clearly thrown on in a hurry.

He looked around the room once. Then at you.

His face changed.

“Oh,” he said softly.

That was all.

Just oh.

Dick wanted to stand. Wanted to say something. Wanted to be Nightwing, team leader, eldest brother, person who knew how to make everyone breathe again.

He couldn’t.

Clark came to the other side of your bed.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he said.

Dick nodded.

Clark’s eyes lowered to your still hand in Dick’s grip.

“They healed me yesterday,” Clark said.

Dick’s breath caught.

“Kryptonite burn,” Clark continued quietly. “They looked pale afterwards. Bruce noticed. He told them to rest.”

A horrible laugh escaped Dick. “Of course he did.”

Clark looked at him with infinite gentleness. “Bruce didn’t know either.”

Dick shut his eyes.

He could imagine Bruce finding out. The silence. The rage. The way he would turn terror into protocols and guilt into surveillance. The way he would blame himself first, hardest, longest.

Dick had learned from the best. Unfortunately.

“Can you hear anything?” Dick asked.

Clark’s face tightened.

Heartbeats. That was what Dick meant.

Clark nodded. “Their heart is steady for now.”

For now.

The phrase lodged under Dick’s ribs.

He looked down at you.

“Good,” he said, like the word had weight, like saying it could make it true. “That’s good.”

Clark stayed for a while.

So did everyone else.

One by one, though, they drifted out. Not far. Never far. Titans did not abandon their own. They lingered in hallways, in waiting rooms, in corners with vending machine coffee and red-rimmed eyes.

Eventually, only Dick remained.

He was good at vigils. He hated that too.

Hours passed in monitor beeps and the low hum of machines.

Your hand was warm in his.

That became his whole world.

Warm meant alive. Warm meant here. Warm meant not yet.

Near dawn, your fingers twitched.

Dick nearly came out of his chair.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward. “Hey, I’m here.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

He forgot how to breathe.

Then your eyes opened. Unfocused at first. Cloudy with pain and medication.

Then they found him.

You smiled. Barely.

It devastated him.

“Hi, pretty bird,” you rasped.

Dick made a sound between a laugh and a sob.

“You’re not allowed to be charming right now,” he said.

Your brow furrowed faintly. “M’dying?”

“No.”

“Then I’m allowed.”

His mouth trembled.

You blinked slowly, gaze shifting around the room. “Tower?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone okay?”

There it was. First question.

Not, Am I okay? Not, What happened?

Everyone.

Dick had never loved and hated anything more.

He leaned closer.

“No,” he said.

Your eyes came back to him.

“They’re not okay. I’m not okay. You scared the hell out of us.”

Your expression shifted with slow understanding.

Then memory returned.

He watched it happen.

The warehouse. The fall. The choice.

Your eyes filled. “Dick—”

“No.” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. “No, don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t make it easier. Please don’t make it easier.”

You went quiet.

He pressed your hand to his forehead.

His shoulders shook once. Only once.

“I watched you become the fall,” he whispered.

Your breath hitched.

“You were—” He stopped, unable to finish. “You were on the ground. Like me. Because of me.”

“Not because of you.”

“You took my injury.”

“Yes.”

The honesty punched the air out of him.

No deflection. No lie. No, I’m fine.

Just yes.

Dick lifted his head. His eyes burned.

“How long?”

Your gaze slid away.

His stomach dropped. “How long have you been doing that?”

You were quiet.

Too quiet.

Dick understood before you answered.

“All of it?” he asked.

Your mouth trembled.

“Most of it,” you whispered.

Dick stood so fast the chair slammed backward.

You flinched.

He froze immediately.

Regret flashed through him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He pushed both hands through his hair and turned away, pacing once before spinning back to you. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”

Your face had gone pale.

He forced himself to lower his voice. “You took Gar’s knee.”

You closed your eyes.

“Raven’s psychic backlash.”

A tear slipped down your temple into your hair.

“Kory’s burn.”

“Dick…”

“Vic’s neural damage. Clark’s kryptonite poisoning. Jason’s bullet wounds. Tim’s concussions. Damian’s broken bones. Mine.”

Your silence confirmed every word.

Dick felt like the room had tilted beneath him.

“How are you alive?” he whispered.

Your eyes opened.

There was something old in them then. Older than your face. Older than your smile.

“I heal faster than most people.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“That sounds like something Bruce would say.”

A weak breath of laughter escaped you.

Dick did not smile.

The laugh died.

“I didn’t want you to know,” you said.

“No kidding.”

“Dick.”

His name in your voice hurt.

He came back to the chair slowly and sat down because standing made him want to run through walls.

You turned your head toward him.

The movement was tiny. It still cost you. He saw the pain ripple over your face.

“Don’t,” he said quickly.

You stilled.

He hated this. He hated all of it. The bed. The machines. Your body trapped under injury. His body whole because yours wasn’t.

“I need to know why,” he said.

“You know why.”

“No.” His voice came out sharper than intended. “No, I really don’t.”

Your eyes searched his face.

He let you see it. All of it. The fear. The anger. The betrayal. The love he had been carrying like a secret too fragile to name.

You looked away first.

“I didn’t want anyone to choose pain,” you said.

Dick stared at you.

“Everyone I work with is the same,” you continued. “The League. The Titans. The Outlaws. All of you. If I told you what healing costs me, you’d refuse unless you were unconscious or dying. Maybe even then.”

“Yes,” Dick said. “Because we’re not monsters.”

“You’re martyrs.”

He went still.

You looked back at him. Softly, exhaustedly furious.

“You are,” you said. “Every single one of you. You’d let yourselves bleed out if it meant I didn’t have to feel it. You’d call that noble. I call it stupid.”

Dick let out a stunned laugh. “You cannot be serious right now.”

“I am extremely serious.”

“You are lying in a medbay because you took a broken spine from me.”

“And I’d do it again.”

The room went silent.

Dick’s face crumpled before he could stop it.

You saw. Of course you saw.

Regret passed over your features.

“Dick—”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, don’t say that.”

“I can’t lie to you anymore.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to almost die for me and then tell me you’d do it again.”

“I love you.”

Dick stopped. Everything stopped.

The monitors kept beeping. Somewhere outside, someone walked down the hall. Rain tapped lightly against the Tower windows.

But inside Dick, every moving part went still.

You looked terrified now.

Not of death.

Of him. Of what he would do with the truth.

Your eyes glistened.

“I love you,” you said again, voice breaking. “And I know that’s not an excuse. I know it doesn’t make lying okay. I know it doesn’t make taking the choice away okay. But it’s the reason.”

Dick could not move. He had imagined hearing those words from you more times than he would ever admit. Usually in softer places. A kitchen at two in the morning. His apartment. A rooftop under a kinder sky. Your hand in his, your smile warm enough to make the world feel less like a thing that constantly needed saving.

Not here. Not with your spine braced. Not with your blood still dried under his fingernails.

“You can’t say that,” he whispered.

Your face went blank.

Dick realised what it sounded like and reached for you immediately.

“No. No, that’s not—” He sat on the edge of the chair, one hand hovering near yours. “That’s not what I mean.”

You looked at his hand.

He waited.

This time, he waited.

After a moment, you moved your fingers weakly toward him.

Permission.

Dick took your hand like it was made of light.

“You can’t say you love me like that,” he said, voice shaking. “Like it means your life is automatically worth less than mine.”

Your eyes filled again. “I don’t think that.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he said, gentler now. “Because I know that trick. I invented that trick. I perfected that trick. I have a whole family of emotionally repressed vigilantes who could give a TED Talk on that trick.”

A watery laugh escaped you.

Dick’s thumb moved over your knuckles.

“I know what it looks like when someone calls self-destruction devotion,” he said.

Your smile faded.

He swallowed hard. “I know because I do it all the time.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you whispered, “Yeah.”

He laughed once, and this time it was almost real. “Rude.”

“Accurate.”

“Still rude.”

Your fingers twitched against his palm.

He lowered his head until his forehead rested against your hand.

“I love you too,” he whispered.

Your breath caught.

He held onto you tighter.

“I love you,” he said again, because now that the words were out, he could not bear to let them stand alone. “I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it. And I am so angry at you that I can barely breathe.”

You made a small sound.

He lifted his head.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I only wanted you alive.”

His face twisted.

“I know,” he said.

That was the worst part. He knew.

There was no cruelty in what you had done. No malice. No carelessness.

Only love. Misdirected. Secretive. Devastating love. The kind that looked too much like his own.

Dick leaned forward and pressed his lips to your knuckles.

Your eyes closed.

He stayed there.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“We have to tell everyone.”

Your eyes opened. Fear flickered.

“They already know some of it,” he continued. “Raven felt it. She told us what happened.”

You looked toward the door.

Dick followed your gaze.

Through the small window, shadows moved in the hallway.

The Titans.

Waiting. Hurting. Loving you.

Your mouth trembled. “They’re going to hate me.”

Dick shook his head immediately. “No.”

“They should.”

“No.”

“I lied to them.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And they’re going to be upset. They’re going to be scared. Gar is probably going to cry on you, so prepare emotionally for dampness.”

Despite everything, your lips twitched.

“Vic is going to pretend he’s fine and then build you seventeen medical devices,” Dick continued. “Raven is going to stare into your soul until you confess every symptom you’ve ever hidden. Kory might actually lift a car.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She might. For emphasis.”

Your smile faded, but some of the terror went with it.

“And you?” you asked.

Dick breathed in.

“I’m going to stay mad for a while,” he admitted.

You nodded.

“But I’m also going to stay.”

Your face cracked open.

He leaned closer.

“I’m not leaving because this is hard,” he said. “I’m not leaving because you scared me. I’m not leaving because you made a bad choice trying to save me.”

Your eyes searched his.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said.

“Dick…”

“No secret healing. Not with us. Not anymore.”

Your jaw tightened. “Emergency circumstances—”

“We’ll define them.”

“You sound like Batman.”

“I know. I’m devastated too.”

A weak laugh.

His heart nearly buckled under the sound.

“I mean it,” he said. “You have to tell people what they’re agreeing to.”

You looked down. “I know.”

“And you have to let us take care of you afterwards.”

“That’s harder.”

“I know.”

“I’m bad at it.”

“Baby, you are catastrophically bad at it.”

You huffed.

He smiled faintly, then sobered. “But we’re going to practice.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” His thumb brushed your hand. “We.”

Your eyes glistened.

“Okay,” you whispered.

It was not enough.

But it was a beginning.

Dick could work with beginnings.

He was a circus kid. A vigilante. A Robin. A Nightwing. A man who had lost the ground and learned to trust the air anyway.

Beginnings were just another kind of leap.

The Titans entered one at a time. Gar cried first, obviously. He tried very hard not to, which made it worse. He stood beside your bed with his arms crossed, lower lip trembling, eyes too bright.

“I’m mad at you,” he said.

Your face softened. “I know.”

“I’m, like, really mad.”

“I know.”

“And sad. And mad. And also really glad you’re not dead, which is making the mad part complicated.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It is.” His voice cracked. “You took my knee.”

Your eyes lowered.

Gar wiped his face with his sleeve. “It was just my knee.”

“Gar…”

“No, it was. It hurt, yeah, but I would’ve been fine. It wasn’t worth you hurting.”

You looked at Dick. He said nothing.

This was yours to answer.

You swallowed.

“At the time,” you said carefully, “it felt worth it to me.”

Gar looked stricken.

“I know that doesn’t make it okay,” you added quickly. “I know I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

Gar sniffled. Then he leaned down very carefully and hugged the top of your head.

Dick almost told him to be careful.

He did not.

You closed your eyes.

Gar whispered, “You’re not allowed to die. I already decided.”

“Okay,” you whispered back.

“Cool.”

Then he backed away, crying harder.

Vic came next.

He did not cry. He brought a tablet.

“I’ve got three ideas,” he said, voice too controlled, “for a biofeedback system that can warn before a transfer exceeds safe neurological load.”

You stared at him.

“Hello to you too,” you said.

Vic’s mouth twitched.

Dick smiled despite himself.

“Also,” Vic added, “I’m mad.”

“Noted.”

“And I’m building the thing anyway.”

“Also noted.”

Vic’s expression cracked slightly. “You should’ve told us.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve let you help,” he said quietly. “Sometimes. Maybe. But I would’ve wanted to know when helping me hurt you.”

Your eyes filled again.

“I know,” you whispered.

Vic nodded once.

Then he set the tablet on your bedside table like an offering.

Raven came after him.

She stood beside your bed, silent and pale, shadows moving slowly around her wrists.

You looked nervous.

Raven looked at you for a long time.

Then she said, “You took more than injuries.”

Your face went still.

Dick’s attention sharpened.

Raven’s eyes did not leave yours. “Emotional pain too. Psychic pain. Fear. Grief.”

You swallowed.

“Sometimes,” you said.

Dick felt like the floor had dropped again.

Of course. Of course there was more.

Raven’s expression tightened. “Mine?”

You closed your eyes. The silence answered.

Raven inhaled sharply.

Dick started to reach for her, but she lifted one hand.

You opened your eyes. “Only when it was too much. Only when I thought—”

“That I couldn’t survive it?” Raven asked.

You flinched.

Raven looked away.

For a moment, she was very young.

Then she stepped closer and placed two fingers lightly against your hand.

“I understand why,” Raven said. Your tears spilled over. “But do not do it again without asking me.”

“I won’t,” you whispered.

Raven nodded.

Then, after a pause, she added, “You are loved for more than your usefulness.”

You broke then. Quietly. Completely.

Dick stood, but Raven was already there, leaning carefully over you, touching your forehead with hers.

Not a hug. Not exactly.

Something quieter. Something sacred.

Kory came last.

She tried to be gentle.

Kory’s gentleness had always been a force of nature trying to fit through a doorway.

Her eyes shone bright green as she took your hand.

“My beloved friend,” she said, voice trembling, “you have carried pain alone when you had an army.”

You gave a wet laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds very stupid.”

“It was,” Kory said.

Everyone blinked.

Kory’s chin lifted. “It was brave. It was loving. It was also stupid.”

Gar made a tiny sound. “She said the thing.”

Kory ignored him.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“You will not do this alone again,” she said.

You nodded, crying too hard to speak.

Dick watched them surround you.

Not crowding. Not demanding.

Just there. A net, woven from people who loved you enough to be angry.

For the first time since the warehouse, something inside him loosened.

Not healed. Not yet.

But held.

Recovery was slow. Not as slow as normal spinal trauma, because your body was strange and stubborn and apparently determined to give medical science a migraine.

But not fast either.

Feeling returned in fragments. Left foot. Right toes. Thighs. Hips. Pain followed each return like lightning learning your name.

You hated it.

Dick loved every sign because it meant you were still there, still fighting, still coming back.

He also hated it because every gasp from you felt like punishment.

He spent most days at your bedside.

At first, he tried to make himself useful. He brought food. Adjusted pillows. Read medical updates. Ran interference when too many worried heroes wanted to visit. Smuggled in snacks Alfred absolutely did not approve of but definitely knew about because Alfred knew everything and permitted crimes selectively.

Then you caught him reorganising the medbay supply cabinet at three in the morning.

“Dick.”

He froze with a roll of bandages in each hand.

You stared at him from the bed, unimpressed. “What are you doing?”

“Inventory.”

“This is not your medbay.”

“Organisation helps.”

“You alphabetised antiseptic.”

“Antiseptic deserves respect.”

“You need sleep.”

“So do you.”

“I was asleep until you started stress-cleaning gauze.”

He looked down at the bandages. Then back at you.

“You were in pain.”

Your expression softened.

He hated how easily you saw through him.

“I’m often in pain right now,” you said gently.

His hands tightened.

“Don’t do that,” you said.

“Do what?”

“Make my pain your failure.”

He laughed once, humourless. “Kind of hard not to, considering.”

“Dick.”

He looked away.

You sighed. “Come here.”

He put the bandages down and came to your bedside.

You patted the edge of the mattress.

He gave you a look. “Absolutely not.”

“Sit.”

“I could hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not risking your spine because you want cuddles.”

“I do want cuddles.”

His expression flickered.

You smiled faintly. “That one got you.”

“Cruel.”

“Effective.”

He compromised by dragging the chair close enough that his knees touched the bed. You reached for him, and he gave you his hand.

It had become familiar now. His hand in yours. Your pulse under his fingers. Your life, stubborn and warm.

“You’re doing the thing,” you said.

“What thing?”

“The smile.”

Dick blinked. “I’m not smiling.”

“The inside smile. The fake one. The one that says, ‘I’m fine, don’t look too closely, I’m very handsome and emotionally functional.’”

He stared at you. “You think I’m handsome?”

“You heard the rest.”

“I prioritised.”

Your mouth twitched.

Dick’s smile came easier this time. Realer.

Then it faded.

“I don’t know how to stop seeing it,” he admitted.

Your thumb moved weakly against his hand.

“The fall?” you asked.

He nodded.

Your face gentled.

“When I close my eyes,” he said, voice low, “I see you on the floor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” He leaned forward. “I’m not telling you so you apologise. I’m telling you because we said no more hiding.”

You absorbed that.

Then nodded slowly.

“Okay,” you whispered. “No more hiding.”

His throat tightened.

You looked down at your joined hands.

“I still feel it sometimes,” you said.

Dick went still.

“The fall,” you clarified. “Not the full injury anymore. But echoes. Like my body remembers impact that wasn’t mine.”

Dick could not speak.

You continued, because apparently both of you had chosen emotional destruction as a bonding activity.

“I don’t regret saving you.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m starting to understand that not regretting it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

His eyes opened.

You looked at him, open and tired and honest. “I’m sorry for that part.”

Dick breathed in carefully.

Then out.

“I don’t regret being alive,” he said.

Your lips parted.

“I need you to know that. I don’t regret it. I don’t wish you hadn’t saved me if the alternative was dying in that warehouse.”

Your eyes filled.

“But I hate that you paid for it alone,” he continued. “I hate that I didn’t get to say yes. I hate that you thought love meant making yourself the place pain goes to disappear.”

You nodded, tears spilling silently.

“I’m learning,” you whispered.

He kissed your hand. “Me too.”

You studied him. “What are you learning?”

Dick huffed softly. “That apparently I have control issues.”

Your brows rose. 

“I know. Shocking. Alert the media.”

“Front-page news.”

“And,” he continued, “that being the net all the time is not actually the same as being loved.”

Your expression changed.

He swallowed. “I think I liked being needed because it felt safer than being wanted.”

You went very still.

Dick looked down at your hand.

“If people need you, you have a job. A role. Something to do. Something to offer. You can earn your place over and over.” His mouth twisted. “But being wanted? Just because you’re you? That’s terrifying.”

Your voice was soft. “Yeah.”

He looked up. Your eyes were wet.

“I know,” you said.

And there it was.

The mirror. Two people who had made themselves useful enough to avoid asking if they were loved.

Dick smiled sadly. “We’re a pair, huh?”

“A disastrous one.”

“Hot.”

You laughed. This time, it did not sound broken.

Dick felt the laugh settle into his chest like sunrise.

He leaned closer, giving you time to refuse.

You did not.

His lips touched yours softly. Carefully.

There was nothing dramatic about it. No collapsing warehouse. No blue fire. No scream. Just his hand in yours, your mouth warm beneath his, and the quiet, astonishing fact that you were both still alive.

When he pulled back, your eyes were closed.

“Was that okay?” he asked.

Your eyes opened slowly. “You’re asking after?”

“I panicked.”

“Adorable.”

“I can do better.”

“I know.”

He smiled.

You tugged weakly at his hand. “Again.”

This time, he laughed before kissing you.

The first time you stood again, everyone cried.

Gar denied it. He was lying.

Vic recorded the whole thing and claimed it was for medical documentation. Also lying.

Kory hovered with both hands out like she intended to catch you, the bed, Dick, and possibly the entire Tower if necessary. Raven stood nearby, pretending calm while her shadows formed nervous little curls at her feet.

Dick stood in front of you.

Not behind. Not beside.

In front, hands open.

A net. But not the only one.

“You’ve got this,” he said.

You glared at him. “If I fall, I’m haunting you.”

“Reasonable.”

“As a poltergeist.”

“Mean, but fair.”

“I’ll move all your cereal into different boxes.”

Gar gasped. “That’s evil.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Dick’s grin trembled.

You saw. Your expression softened.

“Hey,” you said quietly. He focused on you. “I’m here.”

He nodded.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You are.”

You took one step. Your knees shook.

Dick did not grab you. It took everything in him. Every instinct screamed. Every memory of your body broken on concrete rose up sharp and hungry.

But he did not grab you. He let you choose the step. Let you own the balance. Let you move.

You took another.

Then another.

Then your strength failed.

Dick caught you.

So did Kory.

So did Vic.

Raven’s shadows braced your legs.

Gar cheered and cried openly this time.

You ended up laughing against Dick’s chest while everyone crowded in, careful and loud and ridiculous.

The pain had gone somewhere. The fear had too.

Not away. Never fully away.

But spread out. Held by more hands.

That was the secret none of you had known at first.

Pain did not become lighter because one person carried all of it.

It became survivable when everyone carried a piece.

Later, after the others left and you were back in bed, exhausted but smiling, Dick sat beside you and traced idle circles over your palm.

“You caught me,” you said.

He looked up.

“In the warehouse,” you continued. “After.”

His face sobered. “I was too late.”

“No.” You squeezed his hand. “You caught me.”

Dick swallowed hard.

“You caught me too,” he said.

Your smile faded into something tender. “I broke all your rules when I did.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m trying not to romanticise that.”

“Good.”

“But I did catch you.”

His mouth curved despite himself.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You did.”

You looked at him in the soft medbay light. “Now what?”

Dick leaned back in his chair, still holding your hand. “Now we learn how to do the next part without almost dying.”

“Sounds improbable.”

“We can try.”

“Are there snacks?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I’m in.”

He laughed.

There it was again. That bright thing. That impossible thing.

Joy, growing stubbornly in the aftermath.

Dick Grayson still knew how to fall. He always would. But now, when he looked at you, when he felt your fingers threaded through his, when he remembered the warehouse and the scream and the terrible miracle of being saved, he understood something he had spent his whole life avoiding.

Catching someone did not mean never falling. Being loved did not mean never hitting the ground.

Sometimes love was the hand reaching down afterwards. Sometimes it was the person who stayed through recovery. Sometimes it was telling the truth when the lie would be easier. Sometimes it was a whole team gathered around a bed, furious and crying and refusing to let one person become the only place pain could live.

And sometimes, impossibly, it was you.

Alive. Healing. Learning. Smiling at him like the world was still worth saving.

Dick lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles.

“I love you,” he said.

Your eyes softened. “I love you too, pretty bird.”

His heart stumbled. “Still not over that nickname.”

“You love it.”

“I do.”

You smiled wider.

Outside the Tower windows, Blüdhaven glittered beneath the rain.

Messy. Bruised. Trying.

Still standing.

So were you. So was he.