Chapter Text
“Hey, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up,” Wally’s voice was soft, but not heavy with sleep.
Even though Wally was laying on top of the sheets rather than under them, his body was curled around Dick's like a book jacket. One knuckle slid gently along his jaw to rouse him. Dick’s eyes slid opened slowly, though he wasn’t entirely certain he had been asleep in the first place. It was hard to tell these days when all that greeted him was the back of his eyelids rather than any dreams. Not even the run of the mill stress dreams about turning up to school in his underwear. Turning over, he blinked slowly at his boyfriend who was already dressed for the day despite not being a morning person.
“Hi, baby.” Wally stroked his thumb under his eye, smiling softly. “Happy birthday.”
Dick managed a little contented noise in the back of his throat, leaning into his touch. Leaning in closer, Wally bumped their noses together before coaxing him into sitting up against the headboard and proudly presenting him with a wobbly stack of pancakes and a steaming cup of coffee. Wrapping both hands around it, Dick took a deep drink. Balancing the mug in his lap, he tore the pancakes into pieces with his hands, chirping his thank you as warm cinnamon sugar goodness melted on his tongue. Behind him, his wings shuffled, adjusting to the way he was leaning against the headboard, feathers in a bit of a disarray from sleep.
Wally stole a bite of pancakes, licking sugar from his thumb before speaking. “You’ve got big plans today. See, I tried to call dibs on your twenty-first, figured we would get the Titans together, go out, get wasted, it’s classic, you know? But—“
‘My family’ Dick signed.
“—your selfish, greedy family wants to have your whole birthday all to themselves!” Wally waved his hands theatrically, rolling off the bed to his feet, and gathering clothes as he went.
Dick looked at him with amusement.
“We’ve worked out somewhat of a compromise—“ Wally held up a pair of jeans for inspection.
Dick shook his head. Wally held up another pair, setting them on the bed when he got a nod before moving onto the closet to rifle through the shirt selections.
“—Jason, Stephanie, and Cass will all be watching over Bludhaven this weekend so the Titans can steal you away for a bender, but that did mean I had to relinquish today, your actual birthday, to their grubby little hands.”
Dick made grabby hands at the distressed grey sweater Wally held up for inspection. It wasn’t anywhere near cold enough for it, but Dick’s core temperature tended to run ten degrees south of normal these days so it was always sweater weather as far as he was concerned. Adding the sweater to the stack of clothes on the foot of the bed, Wally rifled through their nightstand until he found the auto-injector. Kicking off the blankets, Dick shivered slightly at the cool air on his bare legs. Wally was practically a built-in furnace, leaving Dick warm enough to sleep in boxers and a t-shirt at night, but without his boyfriend curled around him, goosebumps raised along Dick’s skin.
Even with the needle hidden in the auto-injector, Dick couldn’t help the way his hands curled tighter around his mug, and his heart rate picked up at his least favorite part of their new morning routine. Wally swabbed his thigh with a rubbing alcohol pad before injecting him in a practiced motion, and covering the pinprick with a bandaid. An implant hadn’t been an option after Dick's blood had been pumped full of electrum; his healing factor had just broken it down in his system before it could give him a slow and steady dose of the anti-toxin. The daily injections were more concentrated to beat out his healing factor, dosage upping every few weeks to try to bring him back to baseline human. More or less human at least.
“You’re due at the manor in about an hour,” Wally told him, taking the dirty dishes from his hands, and stepping out of their bedroom.
Rolling out of bed, Dick brought the clothes Wally had set out for him to the bathroom. Placing them on the counter, he turned the shower up as high as it could go. Taking a deep breath, he settled his wings back under his skin. Previously the only mark his wings had left behind were twin scars on his back when tucked away, but now they left dark ink spills along shoulder blades and down his arms like someone had knocked over a water glass on a painting of a crow.
Tipping his head back into the warm spray, Dick combed his fingers through his hair, tugging the knots free. Letting it grow so long wasn’t exactly a sensible choice --it was distinctive, not to mention a potential hinderance in a fight if not properly secured— but that didn’t stop him from having a seven step hair routine and picking each little knot free as he worked conditioner into the strands. Coiling a lock around his fingers, he tried to turn over the decision of braids, ponytails, or leaving it loose in his mind, but reaching an actual conclusion escaped him. Like his brain stalled out when it realized he was the one supposed to make a decision.
Tim called it decision fatigue. Dick called it shutting down and staring at the wall for three hours because trying to decide what boxers he wanted to wear had brought his whole day to a crashing stop. Not to even mention the fact that after boxers came jeans, shirts, sweaters, and then the god damn hair conundrum—
Stepping out of the shower, Dick dressed quickly, though not quick enough to keep the chill from settling under his skin. Or perhaps it never fully left and the steam of the shower was an illusion of warmth. Wiping his hand over the fogged up mirror, yellow eyes met his own, but it was slowly becoming a familiar sight rather than an unsettling one. Plucking the colored contacts from the cabinet, he blinked hard a few times to adjust to the feeling once they were in place before glancing in the mirror. Blue.
A blue his family spent weeks trying to find the exact shade of when requisitioning the specialized contacts from STAR labs. There had been diagrams, paint swatches, and several close up photos of Dick’s face over the years. Bruce claimed it was for identity concealing purposes, but the photo he brought as “proof" was from when Dick was thirteen and beaming up at the camera with a surly Jason under his arm, so Dick was relatively certain it was nostalgia more than anything practical.
Turning away from the mirror, Dick finger combed his hair with oil as he stepped out into the living room, the locks beginning to wave as they dried. In the absence of deciding what to do with it, he supposed it would remain loose for the day. The kitchen had already been cleaned up --Wally blatantly breaking their ‘cook doesn’t clean’ rule— and Wally was humming along to a pop song as he hunted for his keys. The keys that actually hung from the hook for once. Lifting them with a little jingle, Dick bit back a smile as Wally turned towards him, not unlike a dog hearing the word ‘leash’.
“How did you know that’s what I was looking for?” Wally asked.
“I’m psychic,” Dick said, putting two fingers to his temple, voice coming out a little rusty from its first use that morning.
Wally made a face. “You think you’re so funny, huh?”
“One of us has to,” Dick said.
Wally bit back a genuine smile. “Shut up.”
Dick grinned. “Off to class?”
“Yeah, advanced fluid mechanics, it’s going to be thrilling.”
“Complain all you want, I know you’re actually geeking out the whole four hours, you can’t fool me Kid Dork.”
“Geeking out the first two, drooling on my notebook the second.”
“It’s good to have a healthy study-sleep balance.”
Wally snickered, tugging on his sneakers. “Do you want a ride to Gotham before I go?”
Dick shook his head.
Wally looped a finger in his belt loop, tugging him closer. “Let me know if the Bats keep you late, yeah? Or well, like, late late, and not your usual late.”
“I’ll be home before you wake up.” Dick picked at a loose thread along his collar. “I like falling asleep next to you.”
Wally cupped his face with one hand, tilting his face up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was never a light touch with Wally, never a whisper of a kiss, or a slight brush of his lips, nothing tentative about his touch. Just open-ended. A warm press of his lips just to the left of a proper kiss that Dick could turn into or take as a quick goodbye depending on his mood. Leaning into it, Dick slotted their lips together, and curled his fingers into the collar of Wally’s t-shirt to pull him closer.
Wally made a slight sound of surprise before tangling one hand in Dick's hair, the other skimming along the waistband of his jeans to lay at the small of his back to press him even closer. Completely fitted together, Dick almost lost his footing, leaning some weight onto the couch behind him. Wally took advantage of the shift of weight, damn near tipping him over the back of the couch to kiss him deeper. Fisting the back of Wally's shirt, Dick wouldn’t be surprised if they found little pinpricks from his claws later. Every inch of Wally was warm, lean muscle slotted against him and Dick wanted to sink his claws into him to keep them intertwined until he thawed the cold lingering in Dick’s bones. Longer even, until Wally melted him down completely. Breaking for air, Wally looked like he had been hit by a Mac truck.
“…what was I doing?”
Dick flicked his tongue over his kiss swollen bottom lip. “Going to class?”
“Oh shit!” Wally let go as he checked his watch. “I’m late!”
Losing his footing, Dick tipped over backwards onto the couch with an oomph, but rolled over onto his feet in time to flip Wally off as he raced for the door.
“Love you!” Wally called after him.
Dick flipped him off with his other hand, his own clothes disheveled and still-drying hair a mess. With a sigh, he straightened himself out, grabbed the keys to his bike, and left their apartment. Taking back roads so he could cut the corners sharp and tight, he reveled in the cut of the wind through his clothes, and the thrum of his heart in his chest as he picked up speed. Weeks before, he wouldn’t have been able to kick his pulse into gear even if he were whipping around the winding corners of a mountain road in the dark with a busted headlight. Pulling up in front of the manor, he let himself in, walking through the deceptively silent halls. With such a big house, sometimes it felt like it there were only pockets of sound. Of life. Sitting rooms holding the occupants got swallowed up by the rest of the empty halls. Dick’s feet carried him to the library on instinct.
Even if Dick hadn’t quit the dispatch center before becoming a full blooded talon, it would have been necessary afterwards. They had no timeline for when, or if, he would ever be fit to rejoin society fully. It meant he had plenty of time on his hands, most of which he spent in the library, finding himself particularly drawn in by the medical textbooks Thomas Wayne left behind. All of them were outdated and not particularly helpful to de-talonization, but he liked the case studies— they were so much more personal than the rest of the medical jargon. Just one person trying to wrangle their body into cooperation. It had inspired the EMT textbooks tucked away in Dick's own apartment, though it would likely be at least a year before he actually applied for training since his frequent sabbaticals from work (attempting to save the world and all that) had severely drained his bank account.
Running his fingers along the shelves, Dick wandered into the mythology section. Pulling one of the books from the shelves, he thumbed through stories of the origins of various Greek gods. There was an illustration of a woman draped in various threads spreading from her and disappearing from the edge of the drawing, several of them wound around her fingers, and behind her, tangled up in the string, was the starry night. Dick’s fingers tightened around the book, spine creaking in his grip.
Ananke. The primordial dictator of fate. The end of the eon of Chaos. Name derived from necessity. Inevitability.
“I should have checked here first.”
Dick glanced up from the book to find Tim standing at the end of the row of shelves, tablet tucked under his arm.
“Hiding away in the library won’t get you out of a check up.”
‘It is my birthday,’ Dick signed.
“And it will still be your birthday in twenty minutes when I’ve made sure our experimental serum hasn’t caused any cognitive deficits,” Tim said.
Closing the book, Dick set it gently back into its place on the shelf, fingers lingering for a moment before pulling his hand away. Following Tim down to the Cave, he let him run through the standard serious of cognitive tests (and a few less standard ones). Jason descended the stairs as Dick was walking in a straight line.
“Drunk driving, Dick? Again?” Jason asked.
‘Not funny’ Dick signed.
“I agree, you’re not,” Jason said.
“Jason, stop distracting him,” Tim said.
“From walking in a straight line? Dick could walk in a straight line on his hands across a telephone wire with a concussion, Tim. What is this supposed to prove?”
“It’s standard—"
“Blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah blah.” Jason used his hand like a puppet for each ‘blah’.
Tim’s eye twitched.
“How many more?” Dick asked.
“I just need to check that your wings haven’t atrophied from being retracted or shown any signs of reacting badly to the medication,” Tim said.
Dick shrugged out of his sweater, leaving himself in only a tank top in the cool damp of the Cave as his wings lifted from his skin. Stretching them out behind him, he let Tim take his measurements and jot down his notes before curling them in close again. Dropping onto the cot behind him, Jason started straightening out a few feathers.
“Seven step hair routine, but you leave your feathers like this,” Jason muttered.
“It just takes so long,” Dick said. “It’s not like I can just run a comb through them.”
Jason mumbled under his breath, pulling a few feathers loose, and straightening out the ones that had gotten ruffled from sleep.
“It’s fascinating how your wings showed little to no sign of atrophy despite you keeping them tucked under your skin for years. I mean, according to the rules of physics you shouldn’t even be able to fit them in your body, but then to not even have them react as thoguh they were being housed in a cramped space…” Tim reached out to run a finger along the curve of the top of his left wing, but the wing cringed away from his touch.
Dick gave him an apologetic smile.
Tim huffed. “I’ve never ripped any of your feathers out and yet…”
“It’s preening, I’m not plucking him like a chicken dinner.” Jason yanked another one loose. “And it’s because your hands are cold, dumbass.”
Tim blinked. “I— are you serious?”
“Get better circulation,” Jason said.
Dick whacked him with his wing, earning a splutter as Jason ended up with a mouth full of feathers.
“The wings have shown signs of growth and increased muscle mass since the first measurements. Leaving them out for several hours a day has clearly helped,” Tim said.
“Not like they give me much of a choice after a while,” Dick said.
The longest he had managed to keep his wings tucked away was twelve hours after the initial injection before the feathers literally started to climb out of his skin. It meant Nightwing had been reported to have taken a more literal stance on his name, though the wings had been reserved for being incorporated into his fighting style, especially since the metal tips he protected them with didn’t exactly lend itself to flying attempts. The metal tips had been designed to insure his wings couldn’t be clipped in a fight, but they had also ended up leading to the rumor that the wings were mechanical. Just another new gadget the Bats invented.
Tim picked up his coffee, wrapping both hands around it, and taking a contemplative sip. “The other improvements appear to have plateaued. Your heart rate is still lower than your former baseline and your body temperature is seven degrees colder than average, not to mention—"
“Any good news in there, doc?” Jason asked.
Tim pretended as though he hadn’t heard. “Not to mention your eyes have shown absolutely no signs of changing back to their original appearance. We could increase the dose again—"
“No,” Dick said, surprising himself at the interruption.
Tim blinked.
“The contacts work fine and with the injections I can still pass for my usual self, so… it’s fine. I’m fine. Consider me all better, Dr. Drake-Wayne.”
“Oh.” Tim shifted his weight. “You’ll still need regular check ups just in case, I mean, I’ve never worked with electrum before and—“
“Thank you.” Dick tussled his hair.
“You’re welcome.”
Tim set his coffee aside before reaching out tentatively, looking more than a little victorious as his wings didn’t pull away from the touch. Dick let him pet the feathers like a little kid in a pet store for a few minutes before shaking him off so he could tuck the wings back under his skin and pull on his sweater.
“You should head up,” Jason said. “Alfred’s been working on your birthday lunch all morning."
Dick blanched. “Wally just fed me.”
Tim frowned. “If your metabolism is still low we should—“
Dick hopped to his feet. “On second thought, I’m starving, so no more tests needed.”
Jason snickered. “Go, we’ll be up in a minute."
Dick narrowed his eyes. “You know you can’t surprise me, right?"
“God, Dick, not everything’s about you,” Jason said. “Maybe I had something personal to discuss with Timbers, here.”
“Yeah, Dick, don’t be so self-centered,” Tim said.
Dick held up his hands in surrender, heading up the stairs. Drifting into the sitting room, Dick tucked himself up in the armchair closest to the fire listening to the sound of footsteps heading in his direction, but not glancing over until Damian pointedly cleared his throat.
“I know the rest of the family plans to present you with your gifts after dinner, however, I felt it fitting to give it to you now."
Dick bit back a smile, holding out his hand. Damian hesitated a moment before setting a woven bracelet into his palm. It was made of red, yellow, green, purple, black, and even a little blue braided in an intricate pattern and fitted with fasteners to allow it to be taken on and off. The material was far too sturdy to be standard friendship bracelet string and after running his fingers over it a few times Dick recognized it to be the light kevlar weave the bats made their suits out of.
“I have noticed you seem to enjoy wearing clothes of your friends and family, it seemed fitting for you to have something you could keep on you at all times.” Damian tucked his hands behind his back, far too well trained to fidget, but the move was a tell none-the-less.
‘Love’ Dick signed before pulling him into the armchair beside him for a hug.
Damian squirmed, but put up no real protest to the action as there was no one to witness the way he adjusted to fit better under Dick’s arm, curled into his side. Clipping the bracelet around his wrist, Dick noticed a little metal object in Damian’s hand, thumb pressed against it like a man of religion absently thumbing his cross.
“You still have that?” Dick asked.
Damian turned the implant over in his fingers. “It… serves as a reminder.”
“A reminder?”
“Even with the implant, if your adrenaline spiked too high your features returned. You had to master control before you could return as Robin,” Damian said, eyes sliding away. “…I read your file.”
“Yeah. The goal was to keep the dose low enough that I could shift whenever I wanted, but that also meant that if I didn’t keep control of myself that it might slip out at the wrong time.”
“If it was important to you to be able to shift, why had I never seen it before?” Damian asked.
Dick mulled the question over. “I think… I think it was easier to accept the wings when I had no other option. If they were constantly a part of me, I didn’t have to feel bad that I liked them. I mean, it’s just how I was, even if it came from the hands of the Court. Once I had the option to keep them out of sight it felt… wrong.
“Or selfish that I liked them. The Court of Owls had given them to me to make me their ultimate weapon and using them felt like I was ignoring that. The training I could use to help people, but the wings weren’t necessary as Robin so why use them?
“And I think… I think a part of me was afraid it would be like saying it was okay. That what the Court had done to me was okay because despite all the pain they caused me, I liked the wings, the way it felt to glide over Gotham even if they could barely support me for more than a few seconds.”
Damian gave him a long look. “And now?”
“And now, I’ve come back around. The wings are still a part of me, no matter how I got them, and if some days I like them and others I don’t, well, I think that’s okay.”
Damian looked thoughtful. “On rare occasions I… I miss grandfather.”
Dick’s chest tightened.
“And what he taught me. Most of my training is… adaptable, but not all, and I had worked so hard to perfect my skills, to gain his approval, and now they simply rust.”
Dick wrapped his arm more securely around him, squishing him against his side.
“It is not the same,” Damian said.
“It doesn’t have to be.” Dick held him tighter, resting his chin on his head.
Damian leaned his weight into him.
Dick took a steadying breath. “You know, Wally and I have been talking about renting a bigger apartment.”
Damian made a curious noise.
“One with those fancy two headed showers so I can actually wash my wings without getting water everywhere and… and a second bedroom. I thought I’d ask Bruce if you could stay there on weekends. I figure he’ll say no—“
“Which puts you in perfect bargaining position to gain every other weekend privileges,” Damian said, twisting around to face him.
“Exactly.”
“Your timing is decent, father’s upstairs looking at your baby photos. I shall go abuse his sentimentality while I have the opportunity,” Damian wiggled free from his arms.
Dick smiled, watching him half-walk, half-run in the direction of Bruce’s office.
The quiet of the sitting room didn’t last for long, Stephanie walking backwards so she could gesture wildly as she spoke, Barbara admirably trying not to wheel over her toes as she weaved in and out of her way, and Cassandra’s silent steps just afterwards.
“Dick!” Stephanie turned on him. “You will not believe what Kitty said in class yesterday!"
“I still can’t believe someone willingly goes by the name ‘Kitty’,” Barbara said. “How old money is she?"
“How old,” Cassandra repeated pointedly.
“Good point, I’ve never met a Kitty who wasn’t pushing seventy,” Barbara said.
“You guys are totally missing the point!” Stephanie threw up her hands.
Dick bit back a smile.
Barbara rolled past her. “Happy birthday."
‘Thank you.’
“Oh, and yes, that,” Stephanie said. “Happy birthday, also, you will not believe…"
Dick listened as she started her story over from the top (much to the exasperation of two-thirds of her audience), nodding and shaking his head in all the right places. Cassandra climbed up onto the couch behind him, giving his hair a light tug in question. Once he nodded, she wove the strands into an artful, half-up, half-down. Dick tried not to think about how now there was a secret fourth option to the daily dilemma of what to do with his hair and simply enjoy the fact that he looked like a Viking. Once Jason, Tim, and Damian arrived Stephanie attempted to start her story over for a third time, but Barbara smacked her in the face with a pillow and she reluctantly gave up her tirade against her classmate’s atrocious opinions on The Odyssey.
Alfred rolled a dining cart into the sitting room which earned gobsmacked looks from the others.
“We’re eating in the sitting room?” Stephanie asked. “I thought I was going to get beheaded the other day for bringing popcorn in here."
“It is reserved for special occasions which this qualifies as,” Alfred said, setting several dishes on the coffee table stacked with little bite sized cakes of various flavors and other finger foods.
Handing him a cup of tea, Alfred gave him a pointed look as he also gave him a stack of napkins, lips just barely turned up to give away the joke. To remind him of the eleven year old who ate every meal with his hands, frequently wiped clean with Alfred’s precise touch, right down to the sharp claws like he was handling Martha Wayne’s fine china.
‘Thank you,’ Dick signed, reaching out.
Alfred grasped his arm for a brief moment before letting go and moving on to serve tea to the rest of the room, though there was one notable absence to the party.
“You’re joining us, right, Alfred?” Tim asked. “You said it was a special occasion.”
“Perhaps after I find Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “Perhaps I was not entirely clear when I informed him lunch was to be at 12 sharp.”
“I’ll get him.” Dick rolled to his feet. “Maybe if he feels bad enough about being late, he’ll give me a pony for my birthday."
Jason snorted.
Making his way upstairs, Dick slipped into the study. Sitting at his desk, he had his profile to Dick, and though he wasn’t forty yet there were lines by the corners of his eyes and a few strands of grey when the light caught his hair just right. It was the stress of his years as Batman, aging him pre-maturely, though he liked to joke it was them. In someways, Dick was sure it was. In the ways that he checked all of their trackers before turning in for the night to make sure all the birds were back to their roosts before he closed his eyes. Old wasn’t the right descriptor for Bruce, but aged perhaps. Dick rarely felt grown up, but aged… there were nights where he felt he aged in dog years.
“I thought Damian was joking when he said you were looking at my baby photos.”
Bruce looked up from the frame in his hands. It had been a clever feat of engineering to make the glass just so that if he tilted it at the right angle, he could see the real photo —twelve year old Dick Grayson in all his yellow-eyed fluffy winged glory— rather than the one laid on top of it of his Gotham Academy picture day photo.
“I thought your siblings would be keeping you occupied at the moment.”
“To distract me from whatever surprise they have planned?” Dick asked.
Bruce’s expression gave nothing away.
Dick sat on the edge of his desk, kicking his feet. “Are you in on this? Is that why you’re late for lunch?"
Bruce’s lips quirked up slightly. “No, this was their idea alone. I simply… provided resources.”
“So you didn’t get me anything for my birthday? I’m hurt, B.” Dick put a hand over his heart.
Bruce pulled out an envelope from his desk drawer, holding it to him. Taking it from his fingers, Dick slipped out one claw to slice it open, and pulled out a check. Dick’s shoulders tensed.
“It’s your college fund,” Bruce said. “Or a fraction of it. Training to be a paramedic isn’t quite as expensive as a four year college, but it should be more than enough to cover tuition as well as any textbooks or gear you may need.”
Dick’s chest tightened.
“I know you had plans to save up yourself and enroll in a year, but I started the fund when you first came to live with me and it was always intended to be put to use for your education—“
Dick wrapped his arms around his neck. Bruce startled slightly before his own arms curled gently around him, turning more solid when Dick showed no signs of pulling away from the embrace.
“It’s really not a very good gift,” Bruce said. “It was always yours.”
Dick pulled back. ‘Not about the money.’
Bruce’s brows furrowed slightly.
Dick cleared his throat. “I have something for you too.”
“I’m not sure you understand the concept of how birthdays work.”
Dick bit back a laugh. Producing a loose feathers from his pocket, he lined it up with a lock of hair, tying a knot with a few strands to bind them together before snipping the section off with his Swiss Army knife. Bruce’s eyes widened slightly as Dick placed the lock in his palm, holding it like a glass figurine.
“For your box,” Dick said. “Incase you were feeling really sentimental.”
Bruce blinked hard. Once. Twice. In the drawer of his nightstand, there was his mother’s old jewelry box aside from a few loose pearls and his parents wedding rings, Dick had no idea what he kept in it. Only that Bruce had given Dick an ornately carved wooden box to hold his mother’s tortoiseshell hair comb when he found him curled up in bed, clutching at it, and red eyed when the memories started to return. If hair held memories, Dick hoped he gave Bruce one of his favorites.
Bruce cleared his throat. “We’re late for lunch."
“You’re late for lunch,” Dick hopped to his feet. “I was sent to fetch you.”
“Mm.”
Lunch just barely avoided devolving into a food fight which Dick supposed should have been anticipated when it came to finger foods, but a sharp look from Alfred stopped it. He had even agreed to perch on the edge of the couch sipping tea and eating one of the little cakes which had certainly kept them on their better behavior. Best behavior was rarely an option when they had all of them in the same room. Dick tried seven types of cake, four sandwiches, and two different types of tea that he didn’t want to even guess the price tag of. It felt a little bit like a taste testing for a royal feast.
“…is it time for the surprise now?” Dick asked as the dishes were cleared.
“You’re insufferable,” Jason said, producing a blindfold. “Put this on.”
“What a shocking turn of events,” Dick said flatly, tying the blindfold around his eyes. “I never could have predicted this."
“Insufferable,” Tim said, helping him to his feet. “Truly.”
Dick grinned in his general direction, letting himself be tugged out of the manor, and guided into a car. It was one of Bruce’s favorites judging by the butter soft leather interior. It was certainly Bruce driving once the engine was turned on; father of five or not he still took his turns like he was in the Fast and Furious. The sound of upbeat music, the roar of machinery, and delighted screams met Dick’s ears as several pairs of hands helped him out of the car. The air smelled like buttered popcorn and fried dough.
“Man,” Dick said flatly. “I wonder where we could be.”
“Shut up.” Jason yanked the blindfold free revealing Gotham's amusement park (there were others but this was the only one that had yet to be overtaken by one villain or another).
“Happy birthday!” Stephanie blew a noisemaker in his face.
Cassandra dropped confetti on his head.
Dick’s eyes flicked back and forth over their faces. “This isn’t whatever surprise you’ve been working on for weeks.”
“No, it’s a red herring,” Tim said.
“Man, he didn’t even buy it for a second,” Stephanie said.
“Of course not,” Damian said, puffing out his chest in pride.
“This is part one,” Jason said, giving him a nudge. “Part two will come later if you don’t upchuck cotton candy on the zipper.”
Dick shoved him lightly before turning to Bruce. “You are going on the zipper with me, aren’t you?”
Bruce sighed. “If I must.”
Dick grabbed his arm, yanking him towards the ride. “Oh, you must.”
Bruce didn’t need all that much goading into going on various rides though they had to call a brief reprieve after the Spinning Teacups got a little too competitive and they all nearly ended up with a case of vertigo. Splitting up somewhat to try various carnival games while they got their sea legs back, Dick beat out Tim for the top prize at the ring toss by a narrow margin, holding up his giant stuffed unicorn in victory to the merchant’s exasperation. Tim bought a giant cloud of cotton candy to soothe the sting of his loss as they meandered through the grounds.
“Do you ever…” Tim chewed on the inside of his cheek as he trailed off.
Dick stole a bite of cotton candy while he waited for the end of his sentence.
“You said you don’t dream anymore.”
“Nope.”
“And when you did dream, or had a premonition, they were of all the bad things that happened, right?”
“Mostly.”
“What about the good parts?” Tim asked. “I mean, our timeline is so entirely different from the original one that there could be good things, great things that just never come to pass because of the alterations. People who are never born, people who die before their time, people we met that we never do now, people who were supposed to end up together who miss their chance—“
“Tim.”
Tim took a deep breath. “Don’t you ever feel like you’re missing out? I mean, you’re the only one who can remember any parts of the old time line, don’t you ever miss it? The original one?”
Dick looked out at the amusement park; Stephanie and Jason were deep in competition at a water gun game, Cassandra had her arms around a giant stuffed tiger she had won at another stall, Barbara was arguing with a vendor about rigging the basket toss, Bruce had Damian on his shoulders so he could properly survey the park and the paper map in his hand to decide their next destination.
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” Dick said.
Tim blinked. “What?”
“More things are in your control than you think,” Dick said. “Good moments, good memories, don’t just happen, you make them.”
“So, what? Happiness is a choice?” Tim asked doubtfully. “Is that what you’re saying to me right now?”
“Tim, I wouldn’t even be able to feel happiness right now if you and the rest of our family hadn’t worked so hard to bring me back. You chose to help me and I chose to let you.”
“I didn’t really think about it that way.”
“In this timeline we have more chances. More chances for good moments. And bad moments, I’m sure they’re coming even I can’t predict them anymore, but I want this timeline to be better, to be the one I want to live in, so I’m going to try to make it that way.”
“You are… disgustingly optimistic, did you know that?”
“Thanks, that’s what I was going for.”
Tim snorted, shaking his head.
“…you want to see which of us can eat more cotton candy and then go on the most rides without throwing up?”
“Scratch that, you’re just disgusting.”
“You’re just saying that because you know you’ll lose.”
“You’re on,” Tim said, snatching his cotton candy back. “I hope the paparazzi get a photo of you puking on Damian.”
Dick only smiled.
No one puked, but most of them ate enough fair food that they all had stomach aches by the time the sun had begun to set.
Bruce checked his watch. “We should get going. Alfred’s making dinner."
Stephanie gagged. “Don’t even say the word dinner. If you cut me, I would bleed powdered sugar."
Damian gave her a disgusted look.
“One more ride before we go, birthday boy?” Barbara asked.
Dick glanced around, eyes catching on one near the exit. “Damian, look! A merry-go-round!”
Damian scowled. “I am not going on that."
Jason grinned. “It's because you’re too short, isn’t it? That’s okay, squirt, I’m sure in a few years they’ll let you on."
“I am not too short! It would be absurd for me to pass the height requirements of nearly every other ride in this park and then be outlawed from—"
Dick caught Jason’s eye, stifling a grin. “Aw, Dames, it’s okay if you’re scared of the merry-go-round, I won’t tell—"
“I am not scared!”
Dick left the park with dozens of photos of Damian riding “the most noble option” of the merry-go-round, a black horse with it’s head held high, and mane blowing in the wind. There were almost as many of Bruce glaring at him from the pink unicorn the rest of the kids had managed to strategically leave as the last open option to him when he got on the ride. Dick had snagged a blue dolphin and spent most of the ride pretending to race Jason, Tim, and Stephanie (with sound effects of course) while Barbara pretended not to know them from the clamshell she and Cassandra occupied.
Dinner ended up with more talking than eating, especially with a few drop in guests in the form of Clark, Diana, and Barry who delivered well wishes and gifts, most of which made Dick’s throat too tight to say proper thank you’s to, but no one seemed to mind. As night set in properly, the bats suited up for patrol, though once Dick had his costume on, Jason tied the blindfold around his eyes once more and he was ushered into the Batmobile.
“Can I take it off now?” Dick asked for the dozenth time.
“Not yet.”
“…we’re at the top of Wayne Tower.”
“Oh you think you’re so smart,” Jason yanked the blindfold free. “That’s not the surprise jackass.”
There was an X-shaped harness across his chest and a pair of broad metal wings on his back. Behind him, each and every one of his siblings had their own wings fitted to their back, made to match their costumes, and tailored to their size.
“Welcome to flying 101,” Jason said.
Dick blinked hard. Once. Twice. Throat catching on a garbled little coo.
“All your tests are clear, your wings are in perfect condition, you are cleared for take off,” Tim said.
“We’re right behind you,” Stephanie said.
Damian spread his wings with a flex of his fingers, there must have been wires under his uniform, sensors to control them like they were an extension of his body. Turning towards the night sky, Dick stepped up to the edge of roof, the wind rifling through his feathers.
Dick leapt.
Sailing down, the lights of the city turned to streaks as he fell past them, wings tucked in tight to his body. Even the ground had blurred below him, looking more like the ocean than asphalt. As he fell story after story, his heart’s thump, thump, thump kicked up in his chest, soaring as he snapped open his wings. His descent slowed as his wings caught the air, beating down to keep him aloft in the night sky.
Dick tipped his head back as he laughed.
Looking up, he spotted a familiar shadow on a nearby rooftop, one hand on his yellow utility belt, resting over his grappling gun. Looking over his shoulder, Dick spotted the birds diving one by one off the rooftop after him. Tucking his wings in, he twisted through the familiar motions of his parents’ favorite tricks before snapping out his wings to catch him again. The sound of his family’s laughter —and the snick of a grappling gun— following close behind as he flew through the city.