Blüdhaven didn’t sleep—it twitched.

Neon lights buzzed like exposed nerves, painting the streets in sickly blues and reds as Dick Grayson moved across the skyline. Nightwing, they were starting to call him. Not Robin. Not Batman’s shadow. Something new. Something his. The suit still felt strange sometimes—lighter, freer—but the city beneath it was heavier than Gotham ever was. Dirtier. Meaner. Less… structured. There were no familiar rhythms yet, no patterns he could predict. Just chaos and crime stitched together with desperation.

And Bruce.

Dick didn’t let himself think about him too much. About the last argument. The things said too sharply, too fast. About how neither of them had called since. They weren’t estranged, exactly—but they weren’t okay either. A fault line ran between them, quiet and dangerous. Still, every time Dick landed on a rooftop, some part of him wondered if Bruce would approve of his form, his timing, his choices. If he was watching. If he cared.

A scream tore through the night.

Dick was moving before the echo faded, boots skidding as he vaulted onto a neighboring building. The scene snapped into focus fast: a man in a cheap mask, panicked eyes wide, one arm locked around a struggling civilian. They were on the edge of a twenty-six-story drop, toes hanging over nothing but air. Sirens wailed somewhere far below.

“Hey,” Dick said, hands up, voice calm, steady. The peacemaker. Always had been. “You don’t want this. I know you’re scared, but we can fix this.”

The man laughed—sharp, broken. “You don’t get it! They’ll kill me!”

“No one dies tonight,” Dick promised. He meant it. He always did.

For a second, it almost worked. The man’s grip loosened. The civilian sobbed, clutched at the concrete.

Then the man’s eyes flicked to Dick’s mask. To the symbol on his chest.

“You think you’re better than me?” he snarled—and shoved.

“No—!” Dick lunged.

His fingers brushed fabric. Skin. Air.

The weight was gone.

Time fractured. The scream didn’t stop—it just stretched, thinned, until it snapped against the pavement far below. Twenty-six stories. No chance. No miracle. Just silence where a life had been.

Dick hit the ground hard as the man slammed into him, a blade flashing. Pain bloomed white-hot in his side. He barely registered it. Muscle memory took over—disarm, strike, sweep. The fight was over in seconds. The criminal was unconscious, bleeding, alive.

Alive.

Dick staggered back, pressing a shaking hand to his side as blood seeped between his fingers. His breath came too fast, too shallow. He slid down against the wall, the cold brick biting through the suit.

His first person.

The first one he couldn’t save.

He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw tight, trying to slow his breathing the way Bruce had taught him. In for four. Hold. Out for four. It didn’t stop the image—the falling, the sound, the awful certainty that this was on him. That if he’d been faster, smarter, better—

His comm felt suddenly too quiet.

Dick’s hand hovered over it. He hadn’t planned on calling. He didn’t even know what he’d say. They hadn’t spoken in weeks. Maybe longer. But the city felt too big, the night too heavy, and for the first time since coming to Blüdhaven, he felt very, very alone.

So he called.

In the Batcave—or somewhere in Gotham—Bruce Wayne froze when the signal came through. Nightwing. Not an automated alert. Not an emergency beacon.

A call.

“Dick?” Bruce said, already moving, already listening for what wasn’t being said.