if you were hoping the ending would be any happier than the original then you're wrong you silly billy

TW: mentions of abuse 

https://www.thehotline.org/

https://www.gov.mb.ca/stoptheviolence/index.html

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/

Dick wasn't sure where he and Bruce stood. He knew where they stood as Nightwing and Batman. They'd work together occasionally when cases blended together and implicated both of their cities, and they would call on one another when they needed help but overall respected that they were in charge of different cities so didn't drag each other away for anything unnecessary. 

It was so easy to fall right back into the routine as Nightwing and Batman because they'd always gotten along better when they hid behind their own masks and logos pretending they were on good terms for the sake of justice. It was never as easy when it was Dick and Bruce since there was nothing to hide behind and no real cause to force them to work out the strains of their relationship or distract them long enough not to stew on things.

His relationship with Jason was even harder to decipher. Similar to Bruce, they could work together if the job called for it although that didn't happen very often. Yet when it came to them as brothers, he was at a loss. Jason would go from hating his guts to practically begging for his attention the same way a cat would by inconveniencing him, forcing him to spend time together. It got annoying often and Dick had spent many a night wanting to slam his head into a wall because he had no clue if his brother actually gave a shit about him or if it was just some attempt at nostalgia. 

He couldn't put all the blame on Jason though. He could admit to himself that he'd look a little too longingly at the young man, wishing things were different so he didn't have to miss someone who wasn't really gone and still seeing that hallucination that would bully him endlessly. He could imagine how difficult it was now to see a person who was so brotherly compared to the person you knew who struggled to hold any kind of conversation with you. 

After the truth serum incident, both of the already struggling relationships were being crushed under pressure. Sure when they were heroes they could work well but Dick stopped coming to the manor and spending his breaks with them. They'd be lucky to see him on the news to know he was still alive because it took days for him to answer messages if they weren't urgent. Anyone else received a prompt response so they knew it was targeted at them. Dick knew it was petty to shut them out rather than talk about it but where did talking ever get them? They were all there for the fallout of his firing/quitting and that made it evident that he and Bruce could have a healthy conversation that didn't descend into a screaming match. 

In his defence, Bruce stopped inviting him back to the manor for weekends and would have Damian text if he was needed for babysitting which usually ended up with the teen staying at his flat for a few hours at a time. Other people had picked up on the shift in the fragile balance the three had but no one was willing to explain further than "something happened" or "it'll blow over" which could mean anything from a poorly timed your mum joke or someone got written out of the will.

Dick was content to just wait for it all to blow over. Well, not content but he'd prefer for that to happen over an uncomfortable conversation. Sure it left them with unresolved issues but it didn't hurt him all that much to exist with. Apparently, Bruce didn't get the memo and decided to make a bad situation even worse. He got a call from Tim around one in the morning and before he could even get out a hello, he was interrupted by his frantic voice.

"Did Bruce make you join Spyral?" He was so thrown off by the question that it didn't even register the first time he heard it. When it finally did, his body went cold with shock and then boiling hot from rage. 

"What did he say?"

"He admitted to everything, I just- Dick did he really hurt you and force you to go? I need to hear it from you."

"Who else did he tell?" Dick asked, hearing the question but not listening to it. He could barely hear himself over the blood pulsing in his ears let alone his brother. There was no way that Bruce was dense enough to do this behind his back. Sure he wasn't the best at communication and social awareness but he had to have known not to air out their traumatic history without the person he traumatised being there.

"Everyone dude. Duke asked what happened between you guys and he just came out with it. How you got hit with truth serum and then you got into an argument with him and then he just says that he needed to get the story straight about Spyral." Did Bruce hear "please please please confess our personal grievance to everyone" when they chatted or were the best dad awards looking for what a good dad didn't do? His mind flitted back to the conversation he had before the truth serum wore off.  

"One word. Spyral."

"Look-"

"No, you look. I asked to be left alone and you're pushing your luck. This is just like what you did when I was a kid. You'd push my buttons until I got mad enough to bite back then act like it was unprovoked! I'm not allowed to be mad at you, I've dealt with it, so don't come in here with that bullshit." He glared at his mentor, hoping he got that pit in your stomach you get when you mess something up so bad it couldn't be fixed. Whatever familial ties they once had were now stretched thin and as much as deep down he ached for them to be strengthened, he wouldn't put himself through it. "You know I mean what I say right now so take my words as seriously as I mean them. The day you first laid a hand on me in anger is the day I was sure I was not your son. You confirm it every time you hurt me. I've accepted I'm more of your friend than I am your child so don't come in here because now you're starting to feel guilty over it."

"I've always felt guilty about it!"

"Guilty enough to tell them what really happened?" Bruce made no attempt to reply. "That's what I thought."

That fucker. 

He really thought that was some kind of sign that would fix everything, didn't he? Bruce had once again missed the whole point. He wasn't angry that Bruce didn't own up to it, or at least that wasn't the part he was the most pissed about, it was the fact that he never apologised for something he supposedly felt sorry for in the proper way. All he did was sweep it under the rug and watch the consequences play out in front of him without ever once interfering. This didn't have to leave the two of them but of course, nothing could go the way Dick wanted when it came to his mentor's stellar parenting.

"Are you still there?" Tim asked. He must've been silent for a beat too long when he was seething.

"Yep," he gritted out. He didn't want to lash out at the younger because he'd done nothing wrong but it wasn't exactly easy to force down his anger so he could put on a happy fake facade. "Is everyone he told still at the manor?"

"Yeah, Jason is ripping him a new one as we speak. I mean- Dick he said he hurt you. Like more than just a punch and the fights we usually get into."

"I'm coming over."

"So he's telling the truth?"

"Yeah, and he's about to pay the price for it."

"Your plan was to tell them about Spyral to make it up to me?" Dick asked as he hopped off his bike. From the looks on his mentor's face, his reaction had neither been expected nor desired but he'd never been one for living up to what Bruce wanted. "That's your apology. To tell them you beat me until I agreed to go on a mission and fake my death." He wanted to laugh. In fact, he did laugh. A cold harsh cackle erupted from him before he could swallow it back down because it was so hilariously incompetent that a comedy writer could make one hell of a stand-up routine about it.  

"You said you wanted me to tell them so I told them. Now we're okay."

"No, Bruce, we're not okay because you didn't apologise! You just admitted to something that you only now feel guilty for because I brought it up. You didn't do it because you wanted to or felt you needed to. You did it to somehow cover up the hell you put me through without me even being there," he replied, his voice trembling as he put all his anger management exercises to work. 

He briefly wondered how on earth he'd ever lived with this man 24/7 when he was younger and testier but then he remembered the whole reason he still held onto faith that Bruce was a good guy was that he had been in the past. That Bruce would've never put him through Spyral in the first place. That Bruce wouldn't have forced so much upon him and then punished him when he couldn't handle the immense pressure that came with being the first boy wonder. 

"Did you expect a thank you? Thanks, B for telling my siblings how you abused me for your stupid fucking mission and only telling them because I distanced myself again."

"Maybe we should all take a breath and sit down," Tim suggested. He attempted to grab his older brother by the hand and hopefully lead him to a chair but he was brushed off. 

"No, you know what? You wanna fucking poke the bear you're gonna get the consequences of poking the fucking bear. Let me lay out some things for you right now and I know this won't be as satisfactory as when I was on truth serum but I swear on my parent's grave I mean every single word of it." 

His siblings all shared a brief anxious look, all silently debating if they should support the roasting of their guardian or if they should be putting out the fires before they burned Dick too. If Dick was swearing on graves then they were in for a real verbal beatdown and they conceded that it would be better to stand back for now until they saw the winds change against Dick's favour. 

"You, Bruce Wayne, are a vile person and half the man you ever were when I was a child. You would sooner throw your kids under a bus to save the world and then cry about it like you didn't push them than you would even attempt to see the bigger picture. You would sacrifice so much for so little gain that it makes me a little sick to think about everything I've given you in the pursuit of justice."

"I-"

"Shut up! You're going to listen and you're going to understand just how fucking mad you make me. You're listening not to respond but to hear what I'm saying," he snapped before Bruce could get more than one word out. "You wanna know what really kills me? How much of a fucking hypocrite you are. You'd throw a man who hit his kids in prison but the moment you do it, it's okay because it's for a bigger cause in your neverending search for what fills that pit you've had since your parents died. Well guess what Bruce, that void you have will never be filled and neither will mine and neither will theirs so as much as you just love to paint yourself as the saviour of lost souls, you yourself are just a lost soul hiding behind a mask." 

He took a step forward as he flexed his fists, trying desperately to articulate his feelings as best he could from behind the seething rage he felt. 

"The fuck of it all is that it still stings every time I see another kid in that costume that used to be mine, using a name my mother gave me, without understanding just how special it is. I've been replaced over and over again, you've shown me you do not care about my feelings or my well-being when it inconveniences you, and you've confirmed to me that the only reason I'm kept around is to be useful and easy. Well, I'm tired of being easy. I'm exhausted pretending that your shitty half apologies mean anything." 

He sighed and shook his head as he ran his finger through his hair. 

"Yet at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because it's not you feeling bad, it's me. I'm asking myself did I break you, did I somehow fuck you up when I was Robin that turned you into this, did I make a legacy that ruined the lives of other kids? For all the good I've done, have I really outweighed all the suffering I've caused as a result?" 

Then it struck him because truly what was the point of this? Eventually, he'd break down because he was so desperate for a family and a dad that sometimes there'd be that little crack of a good man. When he was injured and needed to be looked after, there'd be times when he'd wake up and Bruce would be sitting at his bedside running his fingers through his hair whilst reading a book to him. This would just be water under the bridge. Nothing about this mattered because... 

"Nothing ever changes with you. At least, not for the better. You get worse and then you expect me to just deal with it. I've given you everything I've had since I was nine, Bruce, and all you could ever give me back was the hope of things being better." 

He wished he could still feel that horrible anger that made him yell in the first place and he was desperate to get that back because it was so much better than feeling the heavy despair he was left with. Dick couldn't stay here anymore. He couldn't stay here again. In one misguided attempt at an apology, Bruce had effectively gotten rid of him for good. 

"I'm done hoping you're a good guy underneath all of it because it just hurts when you're not and I have enough things that hurt me going on up here. If they see you as a good dad and you are to them then great but I'm done with trying to make do with you as a father. Everyone else here, they're family but you, until I think otherwise, are just a guy who did me a solid by getting me out of juvie."

"Dick, please," Bruce begged but there was no use. Dick was pretty sure he could recite the usual spiel by heart because he'd heard it enough times and yet here he was. Done. "We can fix this, I promise we can."

"I fucking wish you left me there. I would've been better in that hell hole than dealing with whatever we have now."

"You don't mean that."

"Oh, I don't mean that? Want me to take some truth serum? Hey, maybe this time we can get into some real gory details." 

"Grayson, step away," Damian stated. He stepped between them and pushed the acrobat away lightly to create some distance. "We are on your side but you will do yourself no favours popping a blood vessel over someone who is hardly worth it." Still, Dick's eyes didn't move away from where they were boring holes in his mentor's skull. "Baba, I mean it." He could never say no to that name. He deflated with a sigh and finally looked down at his brother.

"Fine," he muttered. He began to turn away but suddenly whipped back around and threw a punch that landed so hard it nearly knocked his mentor off his feet. "Doesn't feel good does it, B?" he asked with a glib smile. "Now imagine that when you just recovered. A hundred times over."

"Grayson," Damian called, taking his hand and leading him away. 

"I'm going, I'm going." Bruce opens his mouth to say something yet no words come out when everyone but the acrobat shakes their heads at him. Whatever he was going to say, this wasn't the right time to say it. The words go unsaid. The tensions remain unresolved. The man just watched as the family he built but didn't have the right to mentor slowly bled away from him.