october lore has hit me hard - almost got hit by a car driven by a drunk shoplifter, didn't get the job I wanted and some more fun stuff so here we are I'm sorry in advance

CW/TW: THE TARANTULA PLOTLINE WILL BE USED THROUGH OUT AND RAPE WILL BE IMPLIED BUT NOT DESCRIBED IN DETAIL OR DEPICTED 

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/want-to-talk/

https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/help-after-rape-and-sexual-assault/

Death was always accompanied by regret. 

Things you never said, places you never went, people you never understood, all would replay on your mind to let you know how much you lost. It was always more than a person. It was all the alternate timelines and unknowns that came with people. 

You could never know what was on their mind or the secrets they never told that you should know. You could think you knew a person inside and out but you could never know for sure what was going on behind their eyes. You could tell yourself that you did, for a sense of comfort or to avoid the uncomfortable nature of never knowing anyone as well as you knew yourself, but death was always there to remind you that you didn't. 

Friends of the dead would tell you stories you never heard with a fond smile and look at you expectantly as they waited for your own two cents unaware that you had no clue what to say. You'd try to laugh along but you wonder why you haven't heard it before. Had it slipped their mind, was it not as important to them or were you simply a person they would never think to tell?

Sometimes, it wasn't death but faux death that brought on regret and led you to uncover something you never knew about. In those cases, the sting was worse.

Bruce collected as many things as he could from Dick's home under the guise of a grieving father collecting his son's belongings. He tried to gather anything that would have sentimental value and when he found a metal box with a lock he decided that was worth taking too. He cracked it open when he got home. Once he was sure nobody was around, he began going through it.

The box had a few separators with tags. Bills, schematics, personal information. He'd keep them for safekeeping when Dick returned. If they could look one another in the eye after everything. He flipped through the schematics, finding ideas dating as far back as when Dick was sixteen when he came across an envelope. 

READ AFTER DEATH

Bruce raised an eyebrow but he wasn't overly concerned. It wasn't uncommon for heroes to leave behind a letter if they finally met their match. Most were for the family and friends who were unaware of the double life the hero was leading so they could get some navigation on processing, not only losing someone close but also finding out about a whole other person you only saw on TV.

He didn't know if it would cross the line to open the envelope to see who it was supposed to address. On one hand, the entire world was sure Dick was dead. On the other, he wasn't and letters of this nature were written in a way where the writer felt safe in the knowledge they'd never see the consequences of it. He turned it over, the flap taunting him by not being glued down but instead tucked inside. Dick developed a paranoia about licking envelopes after a murder case he solved when he was little and thought tape was ugly so he took to tucking in the flap to secure the insides. 

A smile tugged at Bruce's lips as such a simple reminder of his ward. He'd somewhat come to terms with losing the man although nobody could ever be content with this situation. Night after night he lingered on that fight and wondered if he should just tell one person to act as a plan B in case anything happened to him. Each night he would conclude that this secret would remain shared between Batman and his first protege. Whether Bruce and his first son could survive that, he wasn't sure.

Before he had time to make up his mind, his thumb was already tucked under the seal flap and pulling it out. Inside were two pages of lined paper folded neatly to fit inside. Opening it up revealed chicken scratch handwriting and lines smudged by water. His smile dropped. He hadn't expected to find anything soothing inside but he wasn't prepared for the sight in front of him.

Dick had two handwriting styles. 

One was his normal style, which he frequently used. It was a hybrid of cursive that was legible but overall messy. Alfred's influence had gotten to him early on, and it stuck for years. It was only recognisable as cursive with a few letter combinations; otherwise, you wouldn't catch it. It was typical of his eldest to make his own version of something.

The second was a style he dreaded to see. It was still cursive but was tilted drastically with random connections as though the acrobat was desperate to leave a trace before the words he wanted escaped him. When Bruce saw it, he knew what he was about to read was written when his ward was struggling. Considering how long the letter was, he couldn't help but wonder if this was the first draft or one of many.

There was no one addressed. This letter wasn't intended for anyone specific, just the first person who found it. For some reason, that concerned Bruce more. The desperation for someone to read it but no one to call out for. He shouldn't be the one reading it, he thought, but there was no way he could stop himself from doing so.

I hope you remembered my face, just as I haven't forgotten yours

I hope you mourned your future just as I mourn the future you took from me

I'll always be on that rooftop, I'll always be telling you no. When I'm not there, I'm sitting surrounded by my family and friends looking at me like I'm a creature attempting to wear the face of someone they held dear.

I wonder if you were always thinking about it, stuck there as you observe yourself committing one of the worst acts you could do to a person. Maybe you're disgusted with yourself, maybe you're proud. I'll never know and frankly, I don't care to know.

If you ever had children, I hope you'd see my face in theirs. If you didn't then I hope you looked at your mother and saw my face there. If you had neither, I hope you found my face eventually as in the off chance that I haunted your mind just as you haunt mine. Eager to remind you of something you'd rather forget. Making you question every friendship, every love and every interaction until you stop seeing people as they are and begin to see them as what they could be.

I hope you lived with the fear that it could be just as easy for someone to do to them or to you what you did to me and whilst I could never wish what happened on anyone, I want you to never know if it will. I want you to imagine what it would be like for someone to mirror your actions and never be secure in the knowledge that it wouldn't happen. When you walked down the street, I hope you tried to pick out people in the crowd before ultimately concluding that no one looked like they would. That's what makes it terrifying. It could be anyone. For me, it was you. For someone else, it may be anyone.

If you did rehabilitate yourself and came to regret what you did, I hope you knew that my forgiveness would never be provided. I hope you sat there heavy with the burden of it, our shared secret you dragged me into and knew that no matter what you did or who you became, I will always know you as you were and therefore that version of you will always exist. Whatever is etched into your gravestone will have no meaning. Whatever history you black out and try to bury will remain longer than you ever will. 

A part of me is pleased you're dead. You'll never do this to someone ever again and I should feel safe in the knowledge you won't do it to me again. I don't have to obsessively wonder where you are and if you want to pay me a visit. I don't have to fear that you'll come into contact with my family again. I don't have to see your name in another report Bruce wrote without knowing what you did to me. 

The only reason I haven't told him is to save myself the suffering of seeing my mentor, the man who taught me to protect myself, manage his expressions as I explain how despite all those hours of teaching, I was still a victim of something we sought to protect civilians from. I don't know if he'd look at me the same, if he'd be angry or disappointed or as empathetic as he can handle. I can't ever risk it. You died never knowing if I did. You died never knowing that I didn't.

Another part wishes you weren't gone so soon. That part wishes I got some form of justice and you were forced to live with yourself. That part, I believe, is too optimistic because logically, that would never happen. I could never go to the police as Nightwing and tell them what you did, I could only ever tell you what you did in relation to Blockbuster. I could never go as Dick Grayson either. You would never feel sorry about what you did, you would never regret it. I would live in fear of seeing you on the street or passively noticing your picture in the newspaper. 

It's unfair that I have to live with what you did. That I have to remember it in every vivid detail surrounded by a fuzz I can't clear. Yet, I'm not surprised. You died as you lived. A wannabe vigilante who wanted all the praise of being a hero without the conscience to be one. I bet you thought one big act of sacrifice was enough to wash off all the dirt you left on me. It didn't. You're just one less criminal to worry about.

If there is a heaven and a hell, I'm sure I've done enough in this life to meet you there. Though whether I'm there to observe your suffering or to join you, I'll be glad to know you ended up where you deserved to be. I hope I find you frozen in your last moments alive, wishing you could go back to where it all went wrong and change it. I can relate to you on that aspect. 

I'll be on the rooftop in the rain, the smell of blood flooding my nose and the feeling of bile rising in my throat. 

You will be in the middle of a battlefield far from everyone you know, thinking how on Earth you'll be remembered when nobody cares to wonder who you are anymore.

I won't speak these words at your funeral, an event I've long since missed and I'm pleased to have never been able to be present for. I don't know where you're buried. I just wanted to have the final word, spoken or not. 

I want you to know that whilst you rot, your body infested with maggots and being stripped to the bone, I live to spite you. I live to poison your legacy and kill it alongside you. In twenty years, you'll just be another person in a weird suit who wanted some recognition. People will try to remember your name but never get it right.  

When I die, I hope someone finds this. I hope they read it and although they may never guess what I'm referring to or who I'm referring to, in spirit that poison will remain erasing you from this world. Some say the worst fate is to be forgotten but I think an even worse fate is to be the only person left to remember someone who would get off on that fact. I can't wait for the day I no longer think of you when I hear the rain. I can't wait to have you finally forgotten you even if I have to die too. I'll enjoy the peace.

Bruce must've read it at least twenty times. The paper was now permanently indented with the outline of his fingers from when he gripped it. 

Bruce was well acquainted with regret following death but more so now than ever as he studied the letter. Words were crossed out in thick scratches like Dick had tried to carve them out of existence. Parts lingered and other parts went by too fast. It was a stream of consciousness yet Bruce didn't know when this was written. There were so many times he lost the man he knew in some way shape and form, plenty of rock bottoms he'd watched from a distance to the point where it could've been written ten years ago or yesterday.

For a while, he sat in silence with only the letter as company. He didn't know what or who it was referring to which Dick had obviously anticipated yet made no attempt to clear up. That alone told him whatever this person did, it had to have been awful. He tried to sift through memories of Dick beginning what seemed like a serious conversation before abandoning it but he was instead met with too many instances of his eldest looking like he'd been through hell and back that he had to conclude he would never find the right one. 

Now his son was far away and whatever trust between them had been shattered. There'd be no chance to bring it up without being met with a brick wall and he couldn't be upset about it because it was his own doing. He'd pushed Dick so hard that there was no way to pull him back, at least he couldn't think of any feasible way currently. 

Bruce sighed and folded up the letter to return it to the envelope. He held it in front of him as though it would suddenly reveal something he hadn't noticed before. With only the letter to bear witness, he promised himself that if they ever got to a place where they had some semblance of the trust he'd broken, he would ask about the letter. 

Perhaps it was selfish but he had to know. He wasn't content with this person being dead already. He didn't want to be the type of father that made their children unsure of whether they could come to him or not but he recognised that he already was one. There wasn't much he could do to change it. He would try though. For the sake of his first son, his first protege. The first child he lost through his own negligence.