Chapter Text
At some point, in between the time when his eyes fly open and the first chime of his morning alarm, Dick feels fine.
It’s half a second. He’s fooled into thinking that the warmth of the bed is from his own body heat. That his legs are only tangled up in the sheets.
His phone goes off. The screen lights up an unfamiliar room, vibrating too close to his face, setting his features awash in blue light. It blinds him for a second, long enough for his other senses to register the sour smell of alcohol and stale perfume, for wisp-thin hair to shift on his arm.
“Barbara?” His voice comes out a rasp, groggy with sleep, he reaches for his lover, recoiling at the too-slim figure lying next to him. He squints, but his stomach is already sinking.
There’s a pounding in his head, his eyes are throbbing. He can taste brandy on his tongue. The bed is too small, too firm. The legs intertwined with his aren’t thick enough. He doesn’t know how he got here.
He doesn’t know how he got here.
Dick shoots up, shoving at the blankets tethering him to the bed. He blinks sleep from his eyes, stifling a groan behind his hand, frantically patting the bed for his phone.
The figure shifts, a head of dark hair nuzzling into the pillows.
For a moment all he can do is stare, the alarm echoing in the silence of the bedroom. She’s only wearing a t-shirt, one leg thrown over the duvet, her bare skin on display.
Dick doesn’t know this woman.
She stirs, and he freezes, breath catching in his throat. It’s too dark to make out her features as she half turns to him, eyes narrowed in irritation. “Turn that off, would you?”
He slaps a hand over the phone, swipes the alarm away.
The action plunges the room back into darkness, and, foolishly, Dick is relieved. It’s easier if he doesn’t have to look, easier to lie to himself and say he must be imagining things. He’s motionless, clutching his aching head, racking his brain for the last thing he remembers.
“You don’t have to stay,” The woman says, once the sound of their tense breathing grows too loud and too awkward. There’s a hint of confusion under the words. “Thanks for the night, I guess.”
The words are too callous, too casual, for the shame they ignite. Dick only half hears her, swallowing hard and unable to respond. He’s stuck in the past, trying to trace his steps, to figure out how he got here. If he said yes, if he…
If he didn’t.
His body moves on his own, going through the motions. He fumbles for his clothes, checks the time on his phone— 5:02 am— drags himself out of the bed on limbs that threaten to collapse under him.
The sound of his breathing is too loud in his ears, too fast. Just thinking is a monumental task, thoughts fogged under the weight of whatever hangover he’s trying to kick.
He finds his shirt right by the bedroom door, and that makes it worse. Makes his knees shake so hard he thinks they might buckle, because he can imagine, he can…
Why was he drinking? Why is he here?
He pushes into the hallway, then the joint living room and kitchen, eyes scanning the generic apartment, only half-taking in the cluttered, personal space. Scrambling to put on his shoes, Dick unlocks his cell, checking for missed calls that just aren’t there. He can hear the woman moving behind him, probably getting out of bed, probably confused about him. About his quick escape.
But the thought of facing her, of spending any more time in this place, makes him dizzy with panic.
Shit. Shit, what is Barbara going to think?
He leans hard on the wall, stopping for a moment to breathe. It’s a mistake, gives him time to stare down at his shoes and notice they’re on the wrong feet, that he isn’t wearing socks. That he’s going to have to make his way home wearing the same clothes he did yesterday, and that’s…
He’s done that before. Awkwardly sneaked out of Barbara’s window to avoid the commissioner, wandered back to the manor in day-old clothes just to be subjected to Alfred’s wry smirk and Bruce’s amusement. Neither of them said anything about it, they never did, but if they saw him now.
Dick swallows around the lump in his throat, brushes his hair out of his face, and pushes open the door of the apartment.
He feels sticky and overheated. Dried sweat clings to his skin, an acrid taste at the back of his mouth. More than anything, he wants a shower.
More than anything, he wants to be wrong, wants to wake up alone and realize this is all some sick sort of nightmare.
It’s not until he’s stepping onto the concrete pavement of a Gotham proper sidewalk, assaulted by a stiff breeze that cuts through his clothes, that he realizes he has no way home. If he had his wallet and keys, then they’re still up in that apartment with that woman. There’s no sign of his bike parked on the side of the cracked streets.
He can’t fathom going back up there, not now, but he can’t walk home in this weather either.
It snowed last week. The ice has melted into slush that puddles in the drains and drips from the stoops. He doesn’t even have a jacket, and the shivers have already set in.
Dick wraps his arms around himself, and crumples to the ground.
He can’t cry. He can’t. He has to find a way home, figure out what happened last night, confront— Confront Barbara about this.
She’s not. She’s never going to forgive him for this.
The cold sinks into his clothes, makes his bones ache with the chill, but it sends a wash of clarity over him. It’s easier to think now that he’s outside of that stifling room. He can breathe.
He knows what to do, knows to open his phone and pull up his contacts. Barbara might hate him for this, but Bruce…
Bruce will be disappointed, maybe even angry with Dick for putting himself in a situation like this, but he won’t leave him here.
The phone rings for longer than Dick is comfortable with. Long enough for him to realize that the man must be asleep, that he’ll be waking up Batman to come pick him up after a drunk mistake. That this is beneath him.
Dick is beneath him.
Dick is too fucking stupid to not get blackout drunk and sleep with some stranger. He has a girlfriend. He cheated on his girlfriend, like some sort of asshole, and he has the audacity to not even remember it.
His stomach cramps fiercely, the first few hot tears trailing down his cheeks, cooling immediately. He feels brittle, like the slightest touch could shatter his fragile composure.
Of course, that’s when the call connects.
“Dick?” Bruce’s voice is the last straw. The sheer confusion, the neutral, if irritated, concern in his tone. He sobs into the receiver, teeth chattering so violently he can hardly get the words out.
“I— I fucked up, B.”
He needs to say it, to explain just how badly he’s messed up, but he only sobs harder, dragging his knees up to his chest.
The streets aren’t empty, Gotham’s never are, but it’s early enough that no one’s paying attention to the teenager quietly breaking down against the wall of an alley. The billboards and light-up advertisements have started to come on, lighting up the road signs.
“Okay,” Bruce says evenly, not denying it. Dick doesn’t know what he was expecting, but the calm is a relief. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to take it if Bruce started yelling now. “Are you in danger?”
Dick bites down the instinctual yes. He’s not in danger. Technically, he’s fine, despite the frantic beating of his heart.
“No.” He shakes his head, fisting at his eyes in a pathetic attempt to stop the tears. His fingers are going numb and red from where they’re wrapped around his cell, and he switches hands, exhaling vapor. “But. But I need you t–to come pick me up. Please.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“No,” He says, before he can think about it, before he can read the signs and come to a conclusion because he’s not a fucking idiot. But apparently he is, apparently he’s useless, and stupid to boot, so focused on his own panic that he can’t put two and two together.
Bruce’s voice comes back with an edge to it. “Are you injured, did—”
“I’m fine,” Dick says, sniffing hard. “I— I’m next to that cafe on the corner of main and fifth. I just. Don’t know how I got here.”
It’s an excuse, and a lame one at that. He can put together the pieces. Even if he was drunk, even if he can’t remember it, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. He— he let some stranger take him home and he slept with her.
He has a girlfriend. He didn’t want to, but he did it, like some kind of slut. Why the hell was he drinking?
“I’m on my way,” Bruce says, back to the impassiveness. Then, “Stay with me, chum. Have you been drugged?”
“What?”
“You’re slurring your words.”
Is he?
Drugs would explain the dizziness, the blank slate where his memories are supposed to be, but so would a night of drinking, and Dick can smell himself. He’s been to bars in the Alley that smell less like booze.
So he says, “I don’t know,” and it comes out small childish. Bruce doesn’t call him on it.
“I’m fifteen minutes away,” Bruce says, and, before Dick can even ask, he adds, “I’d like you to stay on the line.”
So he does. He hears it as Bruce opens the garage and starts his car, and the sound of the engine revving nearly manages to drown out his hitched breathing. Dick sniffles, rubbing at his nose, and forces himself to acknowledge his surroundings.
The streets are congested with early morning commuters, though the foot traffic won’t pick up for another hour yet. It’s too cold and dreary to be out for no reason. The sidewalk is wet, and it’s slowly soaking the seat of his pants, only serving to make him colder. He shivers, goosebumps prickling up and down his arms.
Dick stares across the block as a bakery slowly comes to life, lights flickering on one by one, the silhouette of a person outlined against the curtains drawn over the display windows as they move around.
“—istening? Dick?”
He swallows thickly, forces his mouth to open. His tongue is leaden, robbing him of the eloquence he usually uses to spin silver.
“I’m here.” He says, and it sounds hollow to his own ears.
“Just a little longer, chum. What’s the damage?”
“Headache,” Dick says, because that’s the most pressing, even more than the gray film over his vision or the nausea that twists his stomach. It feels like his brain is going to explode. “I— I think I’ve been drinking.”
“You said you were going to the Lamonts’ pool party last night,” Bruce says, so reasonably. Like there’s no connection between that and this.
And how could there be? He’s clearly in Gotham Proper right now, and Edward Lamont lives as far from the border of Bristol and Gotham as it gets.
“I knew there’d be alcohol there,” Bruce admits, though he doesn’t have to. Dick knew he knew, knew that he’d roll his eyes and not really give a shit if Dick came home tipsy. Bruce is cool like that. He trusts Dick to make his own decisions.
Or, at least, he did. He might reconsider after this.
“I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Eight minutes,” Bruce informs him, and he manages to make it soothing.
He pulls up in seven. Dick watches the navy blue BMW weave through traffic, going at least twenty over the speed limit, honking impatiently at anyone who has the audacity to slow it down. Something in Dick’s gut unravels at the sight of it
He doesn’t get up, doesn’t think he has the strength to, now that the adrenaline has steeped into frigid exhaustion. Bruce sidles the car right up to the curb, and Dick just barely manages to summon the will to lift his head.
Instead of rolling down the window, Bruce throws the vehicle into park, climbing out and rounding the side to face Dick. He’s clearly just woken up. There’s sleep in his eyes, hair uncombed and face unwashed. Alfred would have a fit if he knew Bruce left the house like this.
Already, a few observant Gothamites have taken notice. Dick winces at the unsubtle shuttering sound of a digital camera. This is going to be in the papers by tomorrow.
“I’m sorry,” Dick says, when Bruce comes to stand right in front of him. His sight-line is level with the man’s shoes— slippers, really, further emphasizing how much Dick’s inconveniencing him. Like a needy infant, waking up their parent in the middle of the night. God, there’s something really wrong with him.
Bruce heaves a sigh, or maybe just a breath, it’s hard to tell when he’s refusing to make eye-contact. He crouches at the waist, ducks his head and puts a hand on Dick’s neck, forcing him still, using one thumb to tilt his chin up.
“Oh, Dick,” He says, sounding endlessly sad. Disappointed. “What happened, chum?”
For the second time this morning, Dick bursts into tears. Only this time, he has a solid, brick wall of a man to hold him up.
Bruce kneels on the wet, cold streets of downtown Gotham, letting Dick soak his pajamas with tears. It feels like benediction, when all he really deserves is penance, and he hates himself for giving in. for letting Bruce hold him without coming clean about what he’s done. The kind of person he’s allowed himself to become.
He tries, he does. Broken, disjointed apologies burble out of his mouth between wet sobs, but Bruce doesn’t let him finish, doesn’t let him get anything out, hushing him, petting Dick’s hair down.
They stay like that for just a second, or maybe an eternity. All he really knows is that he isn’t ready for it when Bruce starts pulling him up, urging him toward the car.
He takes up most of Dick’s weight, just short of actually picking him up and setting him in the passenger seat. Dick isn’t much help, shivering and crying still. His head hurts too much to coordinate gross motor at the moment.
Bruce must understand this, because he reclines Dick’s seat for him, buckles the belt across his waist. The inside of the car is relentlessly warm, the heaters aimed right at him.
He lets his head roll, closes his eyes against the LED lights of the dashboard, a fresh wave of hot tears spilling onto his cheeks at the familiar smell of pine car freshener. He doesn’t know why he’s crying so much. He doesn’t think he has the right.
“It’ll be okay,” Bruce says, wiping his damp cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. His voice sounds oddly choked. “We’ll figure this out.”
He shuts the door then, and there’s a brief moment where Dick is alone while Bruce rounds the side of the car, and then the man is settling into the seat right next to him, turning up the heat impossibly higher.
The first few minutes are silent. Bruce drives like a maniac while Dick presses his forehead to the cold window, unbearably warm but shaking at the same time. At some point, he’s not really sure when, the man picks up Dick’s hand and puts it on the center console, letting his arm rest there, slim fingers tracing his thumb to find his radial pulse.
Dick doesn’t acknowledge the strange behavior, doesn’t think much of it, honestly. Everything is strangely distant now that he’s here, safe. He feels numb, detached, going through the mechanical motions of breathing and only half able to feel the tears drying sticky on his face.
He only really comes back to himself when they miss their exit for Bristol.
“Bruce,” He says, rousing himself. “Bruce, where’re we going?”
“The hospital, Dick.”
“Why?”
He looks over at his guardian, trying to parse through the shadows on his face. Bruce’s expression is stormy, a strain behind his eyes, mouth pressed into a thin, grim line.
Instead of answering Dick, he reaches over and pulls down the sun visor, flicks the mirror open.
Dick looks at himself, does a double take, and then actually looks at himself.
In a word, if he were feeling especially trite, Dick would say he looks like shit.
There’s a large, purpling bruise right under his eye, his lip is split, stark and vibrant against his otherwise bloodless face. His pupils are blown so wide they threaten to swallow his irises, the sclera bloodshot and irritated. There are— there are bite marks, hickeys, up and down the column of his neck. Brown, crusted blood stains litter his shirt.
He looks like he’s been through hell. He didn’t… Yesterday morning, he woke up with a pimple next to his eyebrow, and spent thirty fucking minutes in the bathroom mirror, just trying to get rid of it.
“What happened?” Dick breathes, and he’s not even sure the words leave his mouth. “Why can’t I remember what happened?”
“Chum,” Bruce says, and he sounds so, so choked about it. Like Dick is physically reaching into his chest and yanking out his heart.
“It was just a party, Bruce,” He says, watching his face move in the reflection, barely able to feel it as the skin of his lip tugs precariously, threatening to bleed again. “I swear, it was just a party.”
“I believe you.”
“Then how—”
“I don’t know,” His voice breaks, and Bruce has to take a second, to heave another of those big breaths. “I don’t know, Dick.”