Dick stands in the center of the apartment—his apartment now, apparently—breath caught high in his chest like something sharp. The silence hums, too loud, too clean. The kind of silence that means something has gone terribly, cosmically wrong.

He swallows hard. The argument is still ringing in his head, the way his own voice cracked when he snapped, “Sometimes I wish I never knew you!” The words feel foreign now, like someone else said them. Someone crueler. Someone dumber.

His fists clench at his sides. Breathing hurts.

“Okay… okay, this isn’t funny,” he mutters, though there’s no one to hear him. His eyes dart around the living room, scanning for any sign—shoes kicked off by the door, the mug you always forgot on the coffee table, that ratty blanket you claimed he stole even though it was definitely yours. Nothing. Not even the indentation on the couch cushion where you always sat.

His stomach drops.

He heads to the bedroom in two long strides, heart hammering. The closet door swings open with a shaky hand. Only his clothes hang there. The small section he always squeezed his things into so he wouldn’t crowd you out? Gone. The shelf where your gear rested after patrol? Empty. Not even dust in the shape of something that used to be there.

A cold panic creeps up his spine.

“Come on… don’t do this. Don’t—don’t be gone.” He presses his forehead to the doorframe, breath trembling. His eyes sting, but he forces himself not to blink too long, as if you might appear if he keeps watching.

He moves again. Kitchen, bathroom, hall closet—tearing them open, scanning, searching, begging silently for something, anything. Nothing answers him. Nothing remembers you.

When he reaches the small entryway table, he freezes entirely. That’s where your photo used to sit—his favorite one, the one where you’d stolen his phone and he caught you mid-laugh. Now the frame is empty, replaced by a cheap decorative vase he definitely didn’t buy.

His chest caves inward.

The universe twisted around the stupidest, ugliest thing he ever said, and he can’t undo it. He can’t breathe past the weight of it. His hand drags down his face, and his voice cracks as he whispers, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it.”

His knees weaken, and he sinks to the floor, back hitting the wall. His fingers dig into his hair. The world feels wrong—tilted, jagged, missing its gravity.

Because you were his gravity.

He pictures the last look on your face—the way your expression shattered just before the light swallowed everything. That’s the part that guts him. That he hurt you. That those were the last words you ever heard from him in this reality.

He presses a trembling palm flat against the floor, grounding himself against the rising terror. “Please,” he breathes, not sure who he’s pleading with. “Please give them back. Take anything else. Just… not them.”

Silence answers.

He tilts his head back against the wall, blinking up at the ceiling as if he expects it to crack open and return you to him. Nothing moves. Nothing shifts. The universe stays cruelly still.

A tear slips down, and he doesn’t bother wiping it away.

He whispers your name—quiet, reverent, broken—and for the first time in a long time, Dick Grayson feels utterly, devastatingly alone.