Chapter Twenty-One

"I...had a change of heart."

Dick raised a single eyebrow. "You. Jason Todd. Red Hood. Had a change of heart? You've had the same grudge on that crab apple tree in the backyard since you were twelve, Jason. I don't believe you."

"Well it's true, okay!" Jason threw up his hands. "Look. I don't know what his deal is, and I don't care anymore. Don't you think he's entitled to his secrets? I mean, he's already lost so much, Dick, can we really take away his personal identity too?" Jason sighed, leaning back on the railing he was propped on. "What he said today, about not knowing what it's like to have a real family, I just- it's hard to-" Jason broke off, not able to find the right words.

"It reminds you of yourself." Dick prompted. "You didn't know what it was like, either. You struggled, and you lashed out. You see yourself in him, in the way that he's trying his hardest right now to be a part of a family that probably feels really distant to him." Dick knew what that feeling was like. Hell, if he didn't see himself in Nico a little bit too...

"The night of the party, when the Joker took us, he told me the same thing." Jason continued. He felt bare, and he hated feeling like this. It felt like he was sharing a too-personal moment with Dick, something that he should keep to himself, but he was trying too. Trying to be a better brother. "He told me that he knew I didn't trust him, and that it was okay because he still got to be a part of a family. He's never had anything like this, and I'll be damned before I take that away from him, Dick."

Dick studied his younger brother. He was a detective, he knew when people were lying, and Jason...wasn't lying. He really did connect with Nico, on a level that Dick knew no one else in the house had reached him on. Dick also knew that as much as Jason hid himself away behind mask after mask, especially after his return from the Pit, that he was trying too. Dick had noticed the small moments of the real Jason that slipped through and he was so proud of his brother for trying. For coming back to them, for having the strength it took to go through what he had.

And maybe that's why he was so protective of Nico. Whatever Nico had gone through had left him just as broken and hidden away behind his own layers of protection as Jason. And Dick wanted nothing more than to be able to take that hurt away from all his brothers, but he couldn't. So he supposed he could let Jason have this one, because the both of them needed someone to be able to hold onto the hurt that was too heavy to bear alone.

Even if Jason was a terrible liar and Dick knew that Jason knew exactly what Nico was hiding, he would let it go. Hopefully, one day would come where Nico felt he trusted them enough to let them in on his secret without prompting.

"Alright. I believe you, Jason. And I'm not going to take this family away. From either of you." He looked Jason in the eyes, making sure he was paying attention. "I will always be your big brother, Jason. That's never going to change." Jason smiled, relieved. "But I'll tell you what does need to change- you. Go have a shower, you smell like gunpowder and burnt cheese."

Jason scoffed. "At least I actually do exciting stuff, Dickless."

Dick lunged at Jason, who danced away, both laughing. Jason accidentally ran into Tim coming out of the elevator, and he threw the smaller boy at Dick to buy him time to get in the elevator and shut the door, flashing Dick an evil grin and the middle finger through the closing gap.

-

I met Damian in the kitchen. Which wouldn't have been weird if it wasn't currently three o'clock in the morning. Damian and Bruce had returned from patrol a few hours ago, so he should have been in bed.

"Uh, hi." I said, eyes squinting against the harsh lights and voice rough with sleep. "What are you doing here?"

"Good morning." Damian answered cordially. "I'm having a snack." I noticed the bowl of Lucky Charms in front of the boy. "I might ask you the same question, however."

"Oh, uh. You know." I vaguely waved my hand as I opened the fridge, searching through the contents. I pulled out a bag of bagels, figuring I could probably also do with a snack. I was down here with the intent to get myself some coffee to stave off sleep for the rest of the night, but I didn't want to explain that to Damian so I settled for some cream cheese and carbs instead.

"No, I don't know." Damian said, watching me carefully as I figured out how to work the toaster and searched for a spreading knife. "Top drawer beside the oven," he said, guiding me in my sharp utensils quest. Gods, I was so tired.

I didn't answer his implied question, watching the coils in the toaster grow hot. There was an uncomfortable silence until the sharp sound of the bagel popping up scared the shit out of me. I jumped half a foot in the air, nearly summoning my sword before calming down. "Holy fucking hells," I muttered, fishing the hot bread out of the toaster with an evil glare. I spread the cheese on it and took a bite, heading for the door, when Damian stopped me.

"I thought you had to make a sacrifice." I looked back, and he seemed nothing less than genuinely curious so I slowly slunk back to the table and dropped into a seat across from him.

"Well, not always. Only meals and celebrations and stuff. I don't think a three-am bagel snack counts as a meal."

Damian inclined his head, agreeing. He swirled the marshmallows around in his bowl. "Do you get nightmares?" He finally asked, and I blinked, swallowing a bite that was too big and coughing.

"Why- why do you ask?"

"You display quite a few symptoms of clinical PTSD. I was only wondering." He glanced down at the remnants of his soggy snack. "Sorry if it's insensitive. Alfred says that sometimes I'm 'too harsh'."

I laughed a little. "I don't think so. I mean, you're right, I definitely have PTSD, and nightmares are both an unfortunate side effect of both that and just being me, so you're right. And I don't think you're harsh, I think you're honest."

Damian raised an eyebrow. "That's the same thing."

"Not always. Sometimes the truth is harsh, but no matter what, people should hear it. How they react is on them, not you. You're giving them facts that they deserve to know." I sighed, examining the seeds on my half-eaten bagel. "There are a lot of times in my life where I wish someone had just handed me the truth. Cold, hard facts, and not some...sugared, coddled version of some vague semblance of the truth. It would've saved me a lot of pain and a lot of time if I had someone like you." I looked up and smiled at Damian, who had forgotten about his cereal and was watching me with an unreadable expression. "So you're a nice change for me."

After a moment of silence passed, he finally nodded. "Thank you." He muttered, and if I wasn't mistaken, I could hear some kind of emotion clinging to his voice, but when he cleared his throat and looked up, it was gone.

"Since neither of us are likely to get back to sleep tonight, would you like to...watch a movie or something?"

I laughed softly. "Sure. I don't really know any good ones, so you can pick."

As it turns out, Damian is a Star Wars fan, something I had heard of but had never seen myself. He insisted we see them all after I told him I didn't know anything about the franchise, and I agreed. Which may turn out to be a bad idea, since there are about five million movies and spin-off shows. But it gave me a distraction from the echo of a bronze jar's lid closing, so it was a welcomed bad idea.

Damian wanted to watch the movies in order of how they were made instead of the chronological order of the movie's events, so we started with Episode One, which was a whole movie, not an episode. He made us popcorn and we both sat on the couch, which we pulled close to the TV so we didn't need the volume too loud.

We were about half an hour into the second one when I began to fall asleep again. It was hard to stay awake, swaddled in warm blankets, with the soft sound of the movie and Damian's breathing in the background, and before long I found my eyes dropping closed and stubbornly staying shut.

I was woken by the sound of someone yelling, and abruptly sat up to find myself no longer in the Wayne mansion, but instead surrounded by an inky dark blackness that stretched in every direction as far as I could see. The floor beneath me had a cool, wet feeling, yet when I lifted my hand, my skin was dry.

I must be dreaming, but this didn't seem like one of my nightmares. I must be having a demigod dream, then. Great, because these definitely don't suck in almost every conceivable way. I scrubbed my hands over my face and climbed to my feet, looking for any sign of why I was here. It must have something to do with the prophecy, right?

The screaming picked up again, and it sounded a lot closer this time. It also sounded hauntingly familiar, a voice I had come to know well in the last few years, but a voice I had never heard scream in such a pained, fearful, animalistic way.

"...Father...?"

i couldnt wait to finish the cliffhanger im not sorry and neither are any of you **narrows eyes knowingly** 

you will not believe the amount of times i misspelled bagel and begal and it auto-corrected to beagle so nico was suddenly having a casual conversation with damian while eating a puppy. youre welcome for fixing that hahaaa....