Ayo, you thought I was going to leave the whole Spyral situation alone? With the angst? HA. I was just waiting.

TW: THE WHOLE SPYRAL THING 

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https://www.thehotline.org/

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

It was a bad day for the acrobat. His breakfast burned, his milk soured, his suit was ruined, everything ached and let's just say he was only just holding it together when Damian and Jason began ranting about their deaths. Given that he was still not really over either of these deaths and he was already having a bad day followed by a bad patrol, this was the last thing he wanted to hear after a mission. "Guys, can you two not do that right now?" he asked as he was stitched up. He should've seen the bullet coming but he didn't and so now he had a fun bullet wound. Another scar to add to the gallery that cursed his skin. Jason huffed at the request and waved his hand dismissively. 

"Sorry, I thought I heard the guy who faked his death try to police the people who actually died," Jason answered. 

"I did die," he mumbled back. Technically he did die. Granted, it wasn't as dramatic as either of theirs nor was it as painful but he did die. He was resuscitated right after and no one was told that part. Not for a long time. He really did hate that. What he hated, even more, was that it wasn't his fault that nobody knew that. Bruce allowed them to think he was dead even though he knew that Dick was okay and in a coma to heal. He went so far as to hold a funeral. The whole thing made his stomach twist in knots and anxiety. Horrible fantasies bred from how easy it was for Bruce to watch the family suffer and then let Dick take the fall after forcing him to go undercover. He took a deep breath as the needle once again pierced his skin. 

"Ah ah, fakers don't get a word in," Jason argued. 

Had it been any other day then Dick would've been fine with it. Well, not fine. He'd beat himself up over it later in the sanctity of his room or his apartment. How he should've been stronger and fought against the will of his mentor, how he should've gone behind Bruce's back and told everyone, and how he should've done something because he was an adult now with his own agency and didn't need the permission of his guardian to do what he wanted. Today wasn't any other day. He'd had a bad day and the last thing he needed was his brother invalidating his trauma. Besides, he was always feeling guilty over it and what for? So Bruce could continue to be seen as an okay guy? Well, he wasn't. When Dick refused, he got beaten into submission. The man watched his family grieve. He knew he painful that process was and yet not once did he break. Not once did he say anything. No, he let them hurt. He hurt them and none of them knew that. Well, he wasn't going to cover anymore. "You know what? Fuck you. You don't know anything about what happened," Dick snarled. This reaction promptly caught the attention of everyone in the room. Everyone who had been hurt by Bruce and those that didn't even know he'd hurt them. Everyone including the man who managed to fuck up his own kid even more for "the greater good" and then didn't even have the balls to admit what he did. 

"Woah, cool it, Goldie."

"No, no I'm not gonna cool it. Here's what really happened Jaybird," he spat out. The venom in his words was almost tangible. "Actually, everyone should listen to this because I'm done protecting the bastard of a father I have."

"Dick," Bruce began. "Let's not do something we'll regret."

"Really? Something we'll regret?" He laughed darkly and hopped off the table, pushing away the hand that went to still him. There were more injuries to fix and more to sew up but what would happen if they weren't? He wasn't going to bleed out. They'd heal weirdly and perhaps get infected but he wouldn't die. This was more important anyway because he didn't want to hear one more joke at his expense over something he had no choice in. That was more painful than anything else. "There is no we in this situation. It's you and only you. I'm only in it because you dragged me here. Tell me, Bruce Wayne, do you regret telling everyone who ever cared for me that I was dead when you knew for a fact that I was alive?" His voice was even but the tone was something none of them wanted to hear repeated. It was dark and bitter, paired with a smile that Joker would be jealous of. Bruce tensed at the question but didn't say a word. Instead, he took to glaring. "Do you regret going so far as to hold a funeral and make a grave for a man you knew full well was alive?" Eyes fell on the Dark Knight for his response to the accusations yet silence remained his go-to reaction. "Oh, and here's the real question of the hour I would just love to know, do you regret beating a newly healed traumatised ward you raised until he agreed to go undercover for your shitty mission and then letting his family think that he did all of this of his own free will because he didn't want to ruin everyone's perception of you?"

Silence had never been so deafening. It lasted far longer than any of them could stand but Bruce wouldn't break it. This made Dick chuckle. The pure absurdity of all made it so if you didn't laugh, you'd cry and he'd spent enough time crying so why not laugh? "Shocked that I finally outed you?"

"That's enough now Richard," Bruce decided was the best response. It was not, evidently, when the eyes on him suddenly narrowed and glares replaced curiosity. He folded his arms defensively and maintained his stare on his broken and bruised former protege. Hardened by years of justice, loss and a bitter need to protect the majority, he'd forgotten the minority. Those he threw under the bus. Those he sacrificed. The sacrificial lamb that was Dick Grayson was now fighting back and it was clear he hadn't quite expected that. 

"That's what you have to say for yourself?" Alfred asked, unable to continue any work on Dick with the truth bomb's destruction lingering. "That's your response?" His glare was the harshest out of the group. It actually made Dick feel validated in how he'd been feeling all this time. Everyone here was mad which he wasn't surprised about but seeing it felt so nice. So comforting. "I am quite unsure where you got the idea that you could treat your children like that, Master Wayne, but I assure you I don't take lightly to you laying a finger on my grandchild in anger!" 

"People's identities could've been released. People could've died had they succeeded in making the bioweapons using Justice League DNA," Bruce defended. He always had something to justify himself. There was always some way he neutralised the things he did to make sense to himself. That's all that mattered in the end. As long as it made sense to Bruce then it didn't have to make sense to anyone else. "He had to go over there and put a stop to it."

"Why does that negate our right to know where Dick was?" Jason asked. He'd hit Dick when they saw each other again. He'd made jokes about it all this entire time without knowing the truth. The jokes were only fair game when everything was out in the open. That's why he could joke about his own death and various other things. Guilt began to wrap around him and he found himself slowly moving to stand closer to his foster brother in solidarity but also as some sort of apology.

"I couldn't trust the information wouldn't leak," Bruce argued back, digging his own grave further. "Then I lost my memory and it became a whole mess but my intentions were in the right."

"You beat me until I agreed!" Dick pointed out.

"You let us assume Grayson did this all of his own autonomy!" Damian added. He'd already backed away from his father and retreated to be closer to his father figure. He'd been there for him all this time yet Damian had held the disappearance close as a reminder that it could all end but if it wasn't a real choice to run then it couldn't be a reason to lay in wait. "You may have lost your memory at the time but you regained it and never once corrected the story."

"And look at what has become of talking about it! That's why it was fine without being meddled with," he snapped like a cornered dog. You could practically hear the snipping of lifelines as the arguing continued. Each of them had given so much to Bruce that at this point, the debt was unpayable despite the riches he owned. 

"You don't understand," Steph said in an almost solemn tone but there had been an underlying frustration beneath it. "Do you know how hard it is to be dead to those you love? For them to have a funeral and for them to mourn when you were right there? Of course, you do because Batman has gone missing before so why the fuck did you make him disappear?"

"Did you even want me to come back?" Dick asked slowly. 

"Dick, I-" Bruce cut himself off. Finally, he didn't know what to say but it was at the worst moment. The only thing his ward actually wanted an answer to. The proteges of Batman watched as it hit the acrobat. His eyes widened and he went so deathly quiet as a pain flooded through his chest. They could see how much it hurt. There was nothing quite like that rejection. 

"I can't believe that running away was the best idea I had as an overdramatic teenager. I should've never come back," he muttered. He went to leave but Alfred grabbed him by the shoulder. 

"Let me fix you up before you leave," the butler insisted. "Master Wayne, I suggest you leave."

"Leave? I own this place! Why should I leave?" The group of makeshift siblings squared at the answer he gave.

"He asked you to leave. We won't be as polite," Jason cautioned on behalf of the group.

They stared at the man who stared back at them for what felt like forever. He was waiting for them to break but they weren't about to. Not now and not anymore. He'd finally pushed them all too far that they could no longer justify what he did nor look past it. He narrowed his eyes before muttering a curse under his breath and walking toward the elevator. None of them stopped their glare until he was gone. They then turned to the acrobat who had already been attended to by Alfred. He sat on the table, holding his head in his hands while the butler worked to fix him up so he could get the fuck out of dodge. "That was intense," Duke stated. His beginning in this family just got even more confusing. 

"Welcome to the family," Dick replied grimly. He let out a sigh and sat up but they could tell he was still sick to his stomach about everything that went down. 

"You should accompany me to the Titans' meeting tonight. I shall be staying there for a few nights before staying with you until you receive some kind of compensation," Damian announced. The acrobat smiled warmly at that and didn't protest it. They knew he probably needed the company until he got back into the groove of things.

"Sounds like a plan I can get behind," he answered. "Thanks for sticking with me."

"As if we'd stand with him after we heard that," Tim commented. "Are you gonna be okay?" He shrugged, not knowing what else to say or do because he genuinely didn't know. "Well, you've got us. If you need anything." 

"Thanks. I think right now I need to faceplant a bed and take a nap."

"As long as it's not a dirt nap," Jason joked. He smiled in response. Things weren't going back to normal, he knew that but that was a good thing. They were entering a new era now. One without their patriarch. Where it would lead, he didn't know but he found himself looking forward to it.