A/N: This is set five years after Season One, but it goes AU before Season 2. Things like Jason and Tula's death still happened, but this won't be following the Season Two blueprint, which means no Reach Invasion, Kaldur's not undercover, etc. This will be twenty chapters, and is the first in a trilogy. Dick and Tim are the only two Bat-bros in this one, but the sequels will have Jason and Damian as well, just to head off some questions as to whether this will ultimately include Red Hood and Damian-as-Robin.

You don't need to have any knowledge of the comics to follow this, but I am drawing from some pre-nu52 Nightwing storylines, specifically stuff with Blockbuster and Tarantula. But that will all be explained in the context of the fic, so for anyone who's just a fan of the show, you should be able to follow along fine.

Also, this fic deals heavily with the aftermath of rape and its recovery, so massive trigger warnings for that, though there won't be anything graphic onscreen.

CHAPTER 1

"Wally. I need you."

Wally West was a creature of habit. He was also extremely fast. Between the time he picked up the phone and the moment his best friend's tone registered, a half a dozen good-natured insults had already escaped his mouth. Then audio signals caught up to whatever part of his brain controlled the infamous Kid Mouth, and his jaw slammed shut. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it like an unfamiliar piece of alien tech that needed a Green Lantern to explain it. There were none present, and his stare lingered long enough that Artemis rose halfway from her chair across the table from him.

"Dick?" He questioned softly. Half hoping this was some kind of trick or trap or alternate universe swap, as any of the above would be more familiar ground than the raspy, strangled sounds transmitted across the phone. If it were anyone else, Wally would say they'd been crying. But Dick was a Bat, even if him and his old man were on the outs at the moment, and they were allergic to that basic physiological need. If Jason's funeral couldn't coax a few sobs out of his older brother, Wally really wasn't prepared to handle a situation that could. "You alright, buddy?"

"Yeah. No. I…can you come to Bludhaven? My apartment. I…"

"Need me. Right, got it. Say no more. Are you hurt? Should I call Bruce?"

"No!" Even expecting it as he did, the vehemence still managed to take Wally by surprise. He'd been trying to get Dick to talk about whatever issues were keeping he and Bruce at arms length for over a year now. But it wasn't anger or bitterness fueling this refusal. There was panic underneath it. And Dick had never been afraid of the Bat. He was the only one who had never in his life been afraid of the Bat. "Just you. Don't call the Team, or Babs. Please."

"Okay. What about Artemis?" Wally tried, testing the waters. His girlfriend stared anxiously, a thousand questions of her own apparent on her usually taciturn face. "Can I bring Artemis? Maybe she can help too."

"Yeah. Okay," Dick said at last. Wally wasted no time nodding vigorously at the girl in question, and she darted out of the room. No doubt grabbing their coats and arranging for someone to look after their dog. They were so sympatico. He took a moment to revel in that, cling to that bit of truth, of familiarity in the face of a Dick Grayson expressing uncertainty. The first Robin didn't do uncertainty in the way that the Flashes didn't do slow. It did not compute. Error, error. Blue screen of death. Reboot required. "I'm okay. I just…"

"Need us," Wally finished for him, subtly stressing the us to reaffirm that more than one would be coming to his aid. Wasn't sure if it registered, if it'd do any good even if it did. Whatever this was, it was uncharted territory. A knot of unease churned in his gut. He wasn't going to like whatever he found at Dick's apartment, was he? He wasn't going to like it at all. "We're on our way. Hang in there."

"Yeah." He heard his oldest friend take a deep breath. Steadying himself - but in the way normal people did. Not the way a son of the Batman did.

"Wally? Hurry."

"Let's go," he was shouting to Artemis even as he hung up the phone. She darted back into the room, coats in hand and eyes wide.

"Wally, what the hell is wrong? Is Dick okay?"

"I don't know. I have no idea. He said to hurry."

She had just enough time to flinch at that before he scooped her up and dashed out the door, making for the nearest Zeta tube at top speed. She knew as well as anyone - as well as Dick - that there were certain things you just didn't need to say to Wally, as a given.

First and foremost of those things?

Hurry.

It took fifteen seconds to make it to the Zeta tube the League had installed near their college. A whole ten seconds to input the various passcodes and bio-checks needed to initiate the transport sequences before they zeta-ed to Mt. Justice. It just wasn't practical to allow for point to point transit across the entire zeta tube network, and so a few places like Mt. Justice and the Watchtower acted as central hubs for all other access points.

While they all talked on the phone constantly, Wally and Artemis had only been back to Mt. Justice twice since 'retiring' to try the college life and year and a half ago. Both times they'd been called in to assist with extreme emergencies, and so they should have been prepared for Conner and M'Gann to dash in at the sound of their names.

"No time to talk, catch you later," Wally shouted back to their confused faces even as he punched in the commands to take them to the Bludhaven tube. The world fell away in another dizzying display of blinding golden light. It occurred to him he'd done nothing to convince his former teammates that their unexpected arrival wasn't something to be concerned about.

He wouldn't be surprised if even now they were calling up the directory to see where they'd gone, if they might be following along themselves to see what had him and Artemis in such a rush to get to Dick. He was pretty sure that wasn't what Dick wanted right now. He couldn't make himself care. He was too busy resenting every second it took to navigate the half mile between the Bludhaven tube and Dick's apartment.

Bludhaven wasn't like Gotham. There wasn't a Wayne Manor, aloof and alone on a hill outside the city limits where a speedster could rush to and from without attracting notice. Just a squalid, derelict downtown in which Dick's apartment building was one of many. It squatted in the center of his block, flanked on both sides by buildings equal in their neglect and decay.

Dick liked it. His own origins were humble, and he'd never needed the decadence that surrounded him once Bruce took him in at age eight. Better yet, with all the tabloids sporting their own theories on where in the world the oldest Wayne heir was off gallivanting, no one was looking for him here, and privacy was worth its weight in gold to him.

But to Wally, all it meant at the moment was he was reduced to normal, human speeds if he didn't want to attract the wrong kind of attention and lead someone to question what a metahuman might want with this particular building. He and Artemis dashed hand in hand down the cracked sidewalks, their breath misting in the frozen mid-December air, weaving in and out of the late night crowds. He hated every single person forcing him to step back, reorient himself, find a way around them, losing valuable seconds each and every time. His stomach cramped painfully.

Dick buzzed them up the second Artemis hit R. Grayson on the panel outside the main lobby. They took the stairs two at a time - even there, Wally was forced to forgo his superspeed as an old lady waddled down the stairs opposite them. Finally they reached the top floor and spilled out into the hallway. Artemis pounded on Dick's door. Wally didn't waste time with that and pulled out his key.

The whole way over, his thoughts had been consumed with many varied and colorful possibilities, scenarios, explanations. He was prepared to be ambushed by ninjas, by shapeshifters, by killer androids. Wally rushed into the room, ready to confront some supervillain holding Dick hostage at gunpoint, even knowing a mere hostage crisis could never bring panic to Dick's voice. But still, he'd thought. Maybe it was Vandal Savage. Maybe Ra's or the Joker or some alien invasion beachhead centered in Dick's apartment. He was prepared for anything.

Anything except a baby swaddled in a pile of blankets on the floor. Dick was huddled up against the wall across from it, staring at it like some kind of poisonous snake. He didn't even look up when Wally and Artemis barged into the room, just stayed seated on the floor, arms clutching his knees to his chest, his eyes locked on the small child with a lost, glazed look in his eyes.

"Hey Dick. We're here," Wally said, when half a minute passed without his friend acknowledging their presence. Artemis shut the door gently behind them. The lock clicked shut and resonated in the empty quiet. They exchanged a glance.

"Dick? Whose kid is this?" Artemis asked.

Seconds - always so much longer to a speedster than to a normal human - ticked by with agonizing slowness. Wally edged further into the room so as not to spook his clearly rattled friend. Artemis lingered by the kid, both of them looking him over for any signs of injury or abnormalities more as a matter of habit than anything else. Couldn't have been more than days or weeks old at most, judging by what little experience Wally had babysitting Uncle Barry's twins. Old enough to keep its eyes open…tiny blue dots glaring up suspiciously. Face red and pinched in the manner of a newborn who'd exhausted itself screaming - he couldn't tell at a glance if it was a boy or a girl. Gut said boy, but he was trying not to listen to his gut right now. His gut was also telling him something was horrifically wrong and to run the fuck away, and that just wasn't an option.

"Mine," Dick said at last. His voice was a bare ghost of a whisper.

"Okay." Wally nodded, swallowing thickly. He wasn't a stupid man, no matter what image his usual happy-go-lucky persona might convey. He'd suspected as much from the second he laid eyes on the kid, but the answer did nothing to answer the much more obvious questions of 'how', 'why', and 'what the fuck is going on'. "Who's the lucky mom? Anyone I know?"

"Tarantula."

That he had absolutely not been prepared for. It threw him just long enough for Artemis to get the drop on him, gripping his arm like an iron clamp. She squeezed a painful warning before his big mouth had a chance to scream out 'omg what the fuck were you thinking how could you sleep with that nutcase what is wrong with you' because, yeah, okay, so that probably wouldn't be helpful right now.

Wally had never had the dubious honor of meeting the vigilante who'd done more to fuck with his best friend's head than all of Gotham's crazies combined, but everything he did know about her had him raising his metaphorical hackles at the mere mention of her name. A non-powered, self-appointed vigilante with little training and even fewer boundaries, she'd been obsessed with Nightwing from the moment he debuted in Bludhaven, trying to get some distance from his adopted father in Gotham.

Problem was, that obsession had taken a dark turn when she found her morals didn't meet the rigid standards the Batman had ingrained in his son. When Dick wouldn't accept her help in dealing with Blockbuster, a crime lord related to one of the Team's oldest enemies, she decided to pledge her allegiance to Blockbuster instead. With her help, he'd uncovered Dick's identity and launched an all out war on Nightwing and anyone close to him. Of course, then he'd fucked her over too, and infuriated at the betrayal, Tarantula murdered him. Right in front of a shell-shocked Dick Grayson, who'd already been driven to the breaking point by Blockbuster's assault on everyone in the city he knew and cared about.

He'd turned her over to the authorities of course, but the fallout had been…bad. Almost a year later, and his best buddy still visibly wore the emotional scars from those events. Wally and the rest of the Team had done everything they could think of to help Dick put himself back together, but no matter how much they reinforced that Dick wasn't responsible for Blockbuster's murder, the one person Dick truly needed to hear that from was still keeping his distance. Whatever wedge had been driven between Dick and Bruce by Jason's death, it still lingered. And as long as it did, these particular scars weren't going anywhere.

Still. He'd been getting better. He had been, Wally was sure of it. Smiling again, laughing, showing up for casual nights out with the rest of the Team. Nothing like this.

"How did this happen, Dick?" Artemis asked. Her voice was brisk, professional. No judgment. She was asking for a debrief, not a defense. She'd always been better at detaching than Wally was. "Walk us through it."

"I can't…I don't really remember." Dick remained focused on the baby. He seemed to grow agitated when they blocked his line of sight, so they abandoned that idea, kept to the side. His own blue eyes were clouded and confused, and it only then hit Wally that he was wearing his Nightwing costume, but with his mask off. It looked like he'd thrown it to the other side of the room. "I mean. I remember it happening, just not really…"

"The details are fuzzy," Artemis clarified. Nothing audible changed about her tone, but Wally knew his girlfriend well enough to know that something had changed for her. Her face took on a slightly harsher cast, the difference almost invisible to the naked eye but practically a blaring red warning siren to him. She'd jumped to some conclusion, something had clicked for her and Wally shook his head, racing to keep up. He wasn't used to being the one left behind. What was he missing?

"Yeah."

"Can you remember where it happened?"

Wally creased his forehead as the archer knelt, gently coaching their friend. Not that he wasn't relieved to hear there'd only been the one time, but he knew Dick and Tarantula had worked together for a period of weeks and things did tend to happen when two young, attractive and very athletic vigilantes were working in close proximity and had a lot of adrenaline to burn off. How had Artemis been so quick to figure out that they'd only slept together once? And what difference did the setting make? Shouldn't they be focusing on the elephant - sorry, the baby - in the room?

"The roof."

"Which roof, Dick?"

Silence.

"Nightwing. What building was it?"

"His."

Another beat. Anyone but Wally would have missed the slight hitch in his girlfriend's voice. "Blockbuster's?"

"Yeah."

"It was right after, wasn't it?"

Right after what? Wait.

What?

Wally couldn't help himself. He flinched. No, call it what it is, he fucking staggered, the back of his knees hitting Dick's bed as he fell on his ass with a thump. The other two ignored him.

"I couldn't…I didn't know what was happening," Dick whispered hoarsely. Pleading. "She pulled me up there, said we had to get out of there, and I…just went. But then we didn't go anywhere, and I didn't know why, but she just kept saying it was okay, it was all going to be okay and I just went with it I just let her…I didn't…I didn't mean to, it wasn't like…"

"Dick! Hey, hey, breathe, its okay," Artemis shushed him, pulling back when he dodged away from her touch. Wally just stared, like the useless fuck he was. What were they talking about? What were they saying? "You were in shock. You weren't in control. You know that Dick. You know how these things happen. It wasn't your fault."

Dick kept panting. Artemis kept shushing. Wally kept staring. Round and round and round they went.

"Did you know she was pregnant?" She asked, pressing again once Dick's breathing leveled out. Wally wanted to shout at her, yell at her to knock it the fuck off, that she was going to give him a panic attack, leave him alone. He couldn't find the words.

"No. She called from prison a couple of times, said she needed to see me but I didn't want to…I mean, I should have but I just…"

"Hey, hey, its okay, I was just asking, you don't need to explain yourself. When did you find out?"

"Tonight."

Wally was screaming, he was pretty sure of it, so why weren't they looking at him, why couldn't they hear him screaming?

"Okay. Walk me through that, how did that happen?"

"She called me again, on one of the burners I use as Nightwing. Said Nightwing needed to come see her or she'd start calling Dick Grayson and let everyone wonder why she was calling him."

"Bitch," Artemis swore softly.

"When I got there, she showed me him and said I needed to take him or he was going to go into the system. That she'd explained 'about his father'," Dick broke for a bitter laugh that came out more like a sob, "and her lawyer got the warden and a couple of other higher-ups to let me take him off the books because of the danger he'd be in as a known child of a hero with my reputation and history. She spread around who his father was to push their hand, make sure they didn't have a choice."

"Bitch," Artemis swore again, with more vehemence. "She could have called Dick Grayson. He'd have had more than enough pull to get him through legal channels. Then again, you were seventeen nine months ago. I don't suppose she was eager to voluntarily add statutory rape to her list of crimes even if nothing else could be proven."

Dick shook his head, getting worked up all over again. "You don't get it. She wanted everyone to know. She wants people to know he's Nightwing's son. I walked out of there with him. People saw, 'Mis. Everyone saw. I didn't know what else to do, I had to get him safe, I had to get him home…"

"Why didn't you tell us?" The words ripped themselves out of Wally's throat before he could stop them, knowing they were a mistake even as they happened. "Jesus Dick, you never said a fucking word, why didn't you tell us what she did, we could have helped! Goddammit, why do you always have to be such a fucking Bat about everything, we could have done something!"

"Wally!" Artemis roared, honest to God fucking roared and he rocked back, misdirected rage buried underneath an avalanche of guilt as his best friend practically cowered against the wall. He had a second that lasted an eternity to register the disappointment in his girlfriend's eyes before she dismissed him and turned back to the best friend he should be comforting, he should be helping, he should be…anything.

"Dick. Nightwing. I need you to focus," she said. She grabbed his shoulders and forced his attention. "You can compartmentalize this, you have the training, okay? Let's take one thing at a time. There's an innocent at stake here, right? The baby. The baby's innocent, right?"

"Yes!" Dick snapped his head up, horrified. "Of course."

"So he needs to be protected, right? Before we do anything else, we need to focus on figuring out what the best thing to do for him right at this moment, yeah?"

Dick nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. So do you want one of us to take him home to our place? He'll be safe there, or we can keep him here. Which do you think will be better for him? Somewhere else? Or here?"

He hesitated, looking past her at the baby, clearly torn.

"Do you want him to stay? Or do you want him to go somewhere else tonight?"

"No," he whispered. Shook his head. Cleared his throat. Spoke with a little more confidence. "No I don't want him to go."

"Okay. Okay, so then we need to find someone who can help us with him, right? He needs to be taken care of before we can worry about anything else, right?"

"Right," Dick said, wary.

"Okay. So how about if Wally goes and gets Black Canary for us? I think she's the best person to help here. She's not going to talk to anyone you don't want her to, and she's been helping Roy with Lian. She'll know what to do, don't you think?"

Sometimes Wally just really loved his beautiful brilliant blonde bow-woman. Like, obviously he always did, but sometimes he just really needed to kiss her for being so much smarter than everyone else. Of course Black Canary would know what to do, she was a trained psychologist, she'd helped Dick more than anyone over the past year. Why didn't he think of that?

Dick nodded slowly. "Just Black Canary, right?"

"Right, just her," Artemis reassured. "Nobody else needs to know yet. It's best we keep this contained until we come up with a sure plan of action, you know? For the baby's sake."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Alright." Artemis looked up at Wally, features masked in stern authority. "Wally's going to go get her and come straight back. He's not going to stop along the way, he's not going to talk to anyone else, just there and back again as quick as he can, and we're going to wait here with the baby. Everyone clear on the plan?"

Both boys nodded. Wally couldn't help but notice his friend hadn't looked over at him since his own outburst, and his insides twisted in misery. That he couldn't blame on Tarantula or Bruce or anything but his own big fat mouth. He bolted up and headed to the door as Artemis continued to talk softly behind him.

"We should probably get the baby off the floor though. Do you want to hold him?"

"I don't…"

"Here, how about I hold him and come sit next to you. How's that sound?"

"Okay."

Wally hesitated by the door, head rested against the frame as he tried to find some kind of reassurance of his own to utter, some kind of penance for being a failure of a friend, for not knowing how to say the right things like Artemis, not having known how to recognize how not okay Dick was this past year. Living in his fantasy land, thinking he was getting better, that everything was just going to go back to normal. Because that ship had sure sailed, huh? Whatever happened next, there was no more pretending that anything was ever going to be the same again. Not after this.

"Wally."

He jumped and glanced over his shoulder, where his girlfriend was leaning against the wall, nestled up against Dick with the baby in her arms.

Not the baby.

Dick's son.

His eighteen year old best friend's son.

Born of rape.

Because some sick freak had raped his best friend and he hadn't even known.

"Yeah, I know," Wally said bitterly. "Hurry."

Ducking out of the small apartment and slamming the door to keep all the misery and regret and pain trapped inside it, Wally West did what he did best.

He ran.