She dreamed she'd go to California

There everyone would adore her

And all her mates will call her'Til four in the morning

Is there any life on Mars?

Is there any life on Mars? 

Dick coughs, his lungs burn deep in his belly. 

His back was under the sand, it was cool now. His hair is wet. 

"You with me now kid?" Slade's gruff voice is over him. 

Dicks vision swims, "I think so."

Slowly he sits up. Slade's wet too. "Why are we wet?" 

"What do you mean why are we wet? What's the last thing you remember?" 

"I walked down here to clear my head. I was thinking about Joey, now I'm wet. You're here and wet too."

"Are you alright to walk?" Slade dodges explaining, and Dick sort of notices. 

"Yeah, should be." 

Standing invites the spinning, but it's easy to push through. 

Slade keeps a brutal pace and kept looking back at Dick suspiciously. 

When they make it back to the safehouse Dick asks again "why are we wet?"

"You seriously don't know? Kid, don't play games with me."

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking."

"You just tried to kill yourself, you are really lucky I went to go check on you since you'd been gone too long." 

"What?"

"So you weren't trying to kill yourself right now? Cause I thought we had moved past that years ago." 

"No, Slade I swear. I honest on high and just went for a walk. I started thinking about Joey and woke up coughing." 

Slade did not look convinced and relented, "go get some dry clothes on. You look sick enough is." 

Dick goes to take a hot shower to get some semblance of warmth back into his body. His eyes burn from tears and he guesses salt. 

You are a fool little Saphia. So brave. For what. 

_________________________________

Jason is learning he knows even less about his brother than he thought he did. 

Apparently, Dick drinks like a sailor, has had multiple suicide attempts, and was thrown out by Bruce as a teen. 

Tim shows up and Dicks shell of an apartment with his laptop and immediately gets to work. He moves some boxes in an attempt at a makeshift table. He looks over to the kitchen and seems to momentarily despair at the ghost of Dick's coffee machine. 

"Give me like 20 minutes to get passed B's encryption. While I'm doing this someone needs to explain when the hell is going on."

Donna speaks up first, "So you remember that senior Titans mission a couple months ago?" 

"Yes. It happened at the same time as Titans East had that mission to Atlantis." 

"So, we sorta had to fight a demon and it possessed Dick." 

"And he's been possessed for months."

"Yes."

"And no one thought this was pertinent information to share with anyone." 

"The senior Titans knew about it. Dick last we knew had full control. Raven doesn't think she will be able to take control for more than a few minutes at a time. Dick was explicitly told to do nothing. To stay in his gods forsaken apartment while I fix this." 

"Something is wrong with him." Tim insists.

"What makes you say that?" Donna's voice is full of concern for her spirit twin. 

"He gave me Nightwing." 

Donna starts cursing in Ancient Greek, and Jason has no idea what she's saying but her tone is full of bitter rage, and her face twists in concern. 

She whips her phone out and starts dialing, "Wally, this is so much worse than we thought. Code Jericho. Tim and Jason can't find him either."

A loud fuck is heard through the phone, followed by I'll alert the others. 

Donna's phone crushes in her hand like it was made of paper. "Di immortales deodamnatus!" 

"Code Jericho?" Tim asks softly from his keyboard shield. 

"Okay, so that one requires some explanation, but it essentially is OG Titian's code for 'Dick is being suicidality stupid again instead of going to therapy.'"

"But why Jericho?" 

Donna's voice comes out shyly for the first time Jason has ever known the warrior princess. "I'm not sure that's for me to tell."

"Please Donna," Jason begs. Donna has shared so much point blank, he doesn't think he could stand not knowing. He's come so far in under covering his brother's shadow self. The things Dick never felt he could trust Jason with. 

"Okay." Donna pauses, and starts again, "okay." 

"Jericho is the love of Dick's life-" 

Tim interrupts, "then how come we've never heard of him or met him? We are his brothers!" 

This time it's Donna's turn to interrupt, "because he's dead. He's been dead for years now." 

She pauses to collect herself. The room falls so silent you could hear a spider cross the ceiling. 

When she starts again she notices she has Tim and Jason's pure undivided attention. 

"Jericho Wilson-" 

Tim gasps and Donna shoots an unimpressed annoyed look. 

"Yes, Tim. As in the son of Deathstroke the Terminator, Slade Wilson."

"Anyway, Jericho was such a kind soul and Dick loved him with everything he had. Jericho was going to ask Dick to run to Canada with him and get married. They were going to leave the life and be happy together. Until one day, a group called the Evermores grabbed them in cives. They tortured and experimented on Dick and Joey for seven weeks and 3 days before we found them. We still to this day think Dick took the brunt of it, going off how their bodies were when we finally got to them. Dick was half dead, and Joey. Well, Joey didn't make it. It took hours to coax Dick into releasing Joey's corpse." 

"Does Bruce know about this?" Sweet innocent Tim asks, with his wide doe eyes. Jason isn't sure if he wants to smack Tim upside the head or protect him from the cruelty in Donna's laughter.

"Don't think so. He didn't notice that Dick was gone for over a month and a half. Didn't notice what happened after either. But this is coming from the same man who gave CPR to that damn clown so it's clear that he doesn't care about Dick's feelings, safety, or frankly about Dick in general." 

Tim asks "What happened next?" at the same time, Jason asks "Bruce did what with the Clown?" 

"He spent the next three years paling around with fucking Deathstroke, that's what. I'm sure Bruce has tons of files about it. But never thought that Dick was hurting. After losing the love of his life, being tortured, then finding out his brother died, that maybe it was time to step up and be a dad. But no. Dick decided to go looking for that in Slade." 

Jason's head is spinning. 

"Donna, what do you mean he gave the Clown CPR?" Jason has to know.

Maybe she was referring to another clown. Another mission. 

But no, this is Gotham, and Gotham is one cruel mistress. No one here makes reference to a clown without meaning Him. 

"Jason, ἀγαπητέ, Dick strangled the Joker to death shortly after you died. It's a part of the reason we didn't go looking for him when he first disappeared after, we thought he was just laying low for a while and would eventually make his way back to the Tower. We thought he would trust us to protect him. We never thought he would go to Slade, choose Slade." 

"Protect him from what," Jason demanded. His head is pulsating. What would the Titans have to protect Dick from? 

"Jason, I think you know." Donna's voice was full of sympathy like honey tea to a sore throat. 

"What Troy. What could Dick possibly need protection from?" 

"Jason," Donna tries again. "When you tried to kill Cobble how did Bruce react? And you were in costume..."

Donna keeps talking, but for the first time in years, Jason can't see anything but green.