#preferably someone who won't make him miserable and use that misery to become youthful

[scho17]

“It's all Dick can do to not imagine himself in Danny's shoes. Clutching a rescued Jason as they sobbed together. But Danny got to her in time. Dick didn't.”

oh that was wicked work just OW OWWWWWWWWW MY FEELINGS WHAT THE FUCK. I feel like I got sucker punched, granted, I really did ask for it and God, did you deliver.

Tim, in the bg who has absolutely no idea who these two are or what's going on but can really only infer based on what he can barely make sense of/hear over the unintelligible dialogue through the rain: So. Human trafficking?

Neither Danny or Ellie can exactly say no because well, yes, but it's government funded and sanctioned and, well, for it to be considered human trafficking that would imply them to be considered human, sentient, something of that realm which the governing body obviously does not think them capable of being.

DEATH DEFYING!! 🔥🔥🔥 It happens later down the line and is slow going. Alfred feels like he's watching Harvey and Bruce 2.0 because here are these two incredibly intelligent witty young men who do nothing but yearn for each other and it's so clearly obvious to anyone with eyes BUT THEM. It's truly painful to watch.

Punching the air. It’s Dick watching Danny’s retreating back, Ellie in his arms sound asleep with a soft but longing smile. It’s Dick babysitting and not knowing what the fuck he’s doing but doing it anyway and it’s all worth it after he hears either of them laugh, even if it’s at his own expense. It’s Dick learning to cook and take care of himself again after Jason’s death because while his passing shattered a piece of himself there are othes who need him too. If he can’t help even himself then what use is he as either Dick Grayson or Nightwing?

Fast forward to a couple months to a year or two in the future and Dick is sitting on their shared apartments couch, staring at a photo of Jason. It’s a photo of them at a fair, Dick only about seventeen in it with an arm around the shoulders of a barely thirteen year old Jason Todd. Both of them carrying cheery twin grins on their faces as Jason held out a large floppy teddy bear for the camera. Dick had won it for him at one of those scammy ladder climbing games and Jason had smiled so hard Dick’s cheeks had ached in sympathy.

He can’t help but wonder if Jason would be happy for him. He wonders if he has the right to have any of this when his little brother who deserved so much more will forever remain fifteen. Alive only in photos.

But Dick will only grow older. He's got a father and while they're never completely on the same page, he's there. He's got two younger brothers, one in the ground and the other still flying across the grimy Gotham midnight sky, both work like Atlas, and both 60% genius and 40% scheming little shit. Dick’s got a darling boyfriend and a little girl he thinks of as his own and it's good. So, so good. 

He wonders if his parents would approve. Dick thinks they'd be happy for him. He would like to think Jason would be too. 

For all that Bruce had called him irresponsible for bringing Danny into the fold in the beginning Dick could never regret it. Not when it lead to all of this. Their apartment feels so full and homely in a way it hadn’t when it was just him alone. 

AGH OH AND THEN JASON COMES BACK. Guys. Guys. I can be. Good. Normal actually. Wait guys how do we feel about dad friends Roy and Dick because I have. Thoughts.

There are crayon drawings plastered all over the fridge, letter magnets and cartoon ones pinning them in place. A throw blanket over the couch cushions, a rack holding shoes by the door - something Dick would have never thought to buy - there are tapestries and posters hung up and an eclectic variety of plates, bowls, cups, and utensils with residency in their cupboards because their little girl flat out refuses to use the forks that have too-long prongs or spoons with broad handles (“It’s just bad vibes Pa!” “Okay, well what about this one?” “No! That ones too heavy and it has patterns on the handle,”).

In some fucked up way it was kinda funny. 

Guy on the run goes to Bludhaven to keep a low profile and catches the attention of a vigilante. The universe is laughing at him, surely. 

Everything was fine up until a month ago. Really, it was. Danny had obtained his own shitty apartment and yeah, maybe his dead end job made him want to eat dirt more than usual but everything was fine. There weren’t any eyes on him and now there were. A certain bird didn’t know how to leave him alone.

“Can I help you, Nightwing?” Danny says in a flat tone, leaning his forearms against the rails of the fire escape. He isn’t a cigarette type of guy but if ever there were a time this would be it.

“Mhum. I want names, same as always.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “We both know I can’t tell you anything.”

“But you could.”

“I could,” Danny acquiesced with a shallow nod. “And then what? When they can’t get to me, they’ll get to you.” He sighs, feeling infintely tired “in any case, the big bad bat isn’t known for leaving things he doesn’t understand alone, and I’m not really looking to be a lab rat again. Zero out of ten do not recommend. Turns out being vivisected fucking hurts, man.”

“Why won’t you let me take them out for you? Besides, I’m not weak. I can hold my own just fine.”

And thats the million dollar question, isn’t it? Dannys gaze fixes upon the ill looking moon, pallor as he peers through the smog of the dingy city and into the sky. “Because he told me to wait.”

“Who?”

Clockwork. 

Clockwork told him to wait. To do the one thing he hates more than anything in the world. To do the unforgivable - to sit idle when they had Ellie. As much as he’d love to spit venom and recite every reason why the GIW needed to be taken care of much sooner rather than whenever Clockwork had in mind, he can’t. He’s - and Ancients, he’ll never forgive himself - scared. He’s scared.

Logistically, he knows he’s strong. Stronger than anyone in any of those facilities compounded. Stronger than Vlad in terms of raw power if not in wiles, he’s stronger than Pariah Dark. Danny has tested his mettle against the worst of the worst and came out on top but he’s still fucking scared. Isn’t that something? Crown prince of the Infinite Realms is scared. 

There’s no one to magically make it better. No one to lean on because he’s the strongest, he’s it. And if the strongest can’t stand up because they’re too busy having a panic attack at the sight of a lab coat then really, what use are they?

“I can’t tell you that.” He glances down to the alleyway below them. It’s filthy. Wet newspaper plastered to the pavement, old gum cemented in place like spots on a dalmatian. It looks a lot like how Danny feels most days.

Nightwing frowns. “I can help you,” he says. It sounds painfully earnest, like he believes he really, really, could. 

“That's a nice offer, Nightwing, but I can’t take it yet.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

There he is. That’s the boy the bat raised. “Can’t.”

*

The next time Dick sees Danny it isn’t in Bludhaven. 

It’s months later in her sister city, Gotham. Crime Alley, to be specific. It was during the tail end of a joint patrol with the newly minted Robin, Tim, whom he had sent back to the cave early. His eyes snagged on the figure of a young man carrying a child in the middle of the wet season, a thin thoroughly soaked through navy blue sweater clinging to him like a second skin. It was pouring down like the heavens didn’t know how to stop grieving. 

It seemed as anguished as Dick was in the immediate absence of Jason. He blinks tiredly and washes the thought away. There’s a little girl cradled in Danny’s arms with hair just as pitch black as his own, burrowing her small face in his neck, tiny arms clinging as the man himself runs his hand soothingly on her back, murmuring apologies into her hair. “I know, I know, I’m sorry Ellie, I’m sorry. It’s okay, it's- We’re out. We’re okay.”

It’s a painfully private moment, one that he feels guilty for witnessing. The girl - Ellie, sobs into Danny’s chest. It isn’t his place to watch, to witness this. All the same, he wishes he could comfort them somehow.