A/N okay, so this fic is completely AU (I know I'm ignoring my other fic; I lost interest in it for the moment…but I'll probably pick it back up later). Damian isn't exactly my favorite character, do he's a pretty minor character. I have it where Dami, Tim and Jason are still with Batman. Dick has become Nightwing very recently even though the other batboys tried to stop him. Now even though he's still fighting crime, he stays well away from the Bats and his prodigies—who are looking for him; well, mostly Dami and Timmy. Jason is too, but he's more serious about it and doesn't include the others in case they get hurt.

…moving on. I'm probably going to incorporate Selina in there somewhere. And Bruce, Bruce is kind of sulking in his own little way at the loss of Dick. Alfred knows that they all screwed up, and he's not sure what the outcome's going to be, but he does want Dick home again. Ages: Dick (19), Jason (17), Timmy (15), Dami (12). I know they're not right, but just go with it.

Enjoy the sick!

Dick felt like shit, both emotionally and physically. He'd left them—because that's all they were to him now, nameless strangers—feeling sick anyhow, and the stress that went with going solo sucked ass. Not only that, but he hadn't eaten anything that day because his head kept ringing and HE'd been stressing Dick out about finishing a new mission in less than a day.

Now, after fighting crime on the streets for a week, he was beginning to wear. Not in the "I'm giving up lets be stupid" wear, just the "I need to sleep more than thirty minutes straight" wear. He was still strong and thinking clearly—well, as clearly as he could without 1) giving his position away to Dami and Timmy, who were actually on his track (how they'd managed that he didn't even WANT to know) and 2), that ringing in his head had grown a lot stronger, so thinking clearly without falling undefensive.

He crouched. While the rain made travel a little difficult, seeing as he already had other handicaps, he'd found a tall building with a reflective-glass rooftop, and was now hovering on the edge of it. Less than an inch forward and straight down from there, the city hummed with life. He wondered why NYC had dubbed themselves the city that never sleeps when Gotham oh-so-obviously fit the expression much better.

Maybe he would sleep here, even. After all, he had no money, and while it wasn't likely, he had to assume there were cops looking out for Dick Grayson, son of Bruce Wayne. Anyways, paparazzi always managed to find him even in the darkest places (it was useful, on occasion, how insanely accurate the press was in guessing their victim's location), so there would be no use venturing the streets as a civilian. Plus, even if he was soaked to the bone and numb in most places, for some reason he was oddly comfortable. Probably the height. He looked down.

Yeah, definitely the height.

"Never imagined I'd find you up here, Dickie-bird." Ro—Nightwing froze. The last person he wanted to find him, aside from Alfr—that man's butler, and the man himself. "Cold, dark and high up? Uncharacteristic today, aren't we?"

Dick chose to remain silent. While he wasn't certain, Jason may go away just by getting bored with the lull in interaction. Then again, he just may make things quicker by shooting Dick in the foot and physically dragging him back to the cave. Plus, his vision was blurry and black in some places, and he really didn't want to move.

"What," Jason asked, before thinking of a certain burglar and deciding to quote. "Cat got your tongue?" Dick bit his tongue, just light of drawing blood. He didn't turn, he didn't speak. He wasn't feeling like a Grayson anymore. Happy feelings gone, warm expression just barely visible behind the mask and hurt. "Dickie-bird." No reaction. "Dick." Just stay still. "DICK!" Jason apparently had gotten tired of feeling like he was talking to a wall. Nightwing felt Jason grip his shoulder and gasp in surprise when he got a lapful of the other, falling against the mirror-like glass. "Dick, what the HELL!"

Jason had almost thrown the boy off. Almost. But then, just for a minute, he didn't see Dick Grayson, the enigma hiding behind a mask of sarcasm and sharp comments, nor Robin, the sidekick that stayed just out there enough to be forgotten once you looked away, but never when he was there. He saw a very pale, very wounded nineteen year-old struggling to break the bonds that still circulated the guilt and pain of his old life, while trying to attach himself to a new one—one that wasn't his. He froze. Nightwing, a lone soldier with no family and no friends and no reputation, was barely conscious. He was obviously still a member of the bat family, Jason could see clearly, no matter how much the other tried to deny it or rip himself away from them. Yeah, he was definitely still meant to fill up that dark, blue-and-black room nestled between Dami and Tim's rooms, and his own while they were at it. But he wasn't Robin—there was nothing left to him there.

Yet, somehow, nothing had changed about him. Jason knew Dick thought he was hardened now—but he wasn't even close. Jay had seen people hardened by the violence and misery of the street, and he wasn't staring at one. No, Grayson was still that warm, loving, caring older-brother figure that remained calm even when the batman himself was edgy, and was sure of himself even as everyone else told him to act otherwise. He was still the person who had slept with Timmy for a week when they'd had a long bout of lightning storms, and the only person in the world who Dami would look at and not see as a cruel-prank victim. And he was still the person, no matter how much he tried not to be, that had coaxed Jason out of the corner of his own bedroom and allowed him to crush boy-wonder in a long hug, eventually carrying him to his bed and falling asleep there, above the covers, rubbing Jason's head softly and whispering comforting words as he dealt with his nightmares of the streets. Nothing had changed the way he bottled his pain and channeled it into helping his siblings stay rooted, stay safe, or the way he was still the same person that convinced Batman—fucking BATMAN—to take in the kid trying to steal his wheels and protect.

Jason sat there on the roof, Dick's now unconscious body resting like a puzzle piece with his own. The milky white forehead was burning, the white-locked fighter discovered, and he flashed back to the first time he had been sick.

It was two weeks after Bats had taken him in. He was still being rude to Alfred, who took it in stride for some odd reason and ruffled his hair at every competent remark (along with muttered, 'reminds me of the old times with Bruce'). He still refused to talk to Bruce, period. Even though he knew Bruce was Batman, and how terrified he should be of the masked vigilante. And every time Dick would come at him with a smile and a tray of oreos in that annoying, I'm-not-an-enemy way, Jason would punch or kick (or, on an off day, bite) him.

He'd woken up feeling rotten. Even so, he'd dragged himself out of bed and to the television room, integrating himself into the plush couch and holing up there until the day was gone and the dark of night fell. By then, he'd fallen asleep with blurry vision and a migraine, still sprawled over the cushions.

One of his nightmares of living on the streets had happened, the first of many. The way Alfred and Bruce told it—because no one could trust Dick to give himself full credit to anything, I repeat ANYTHING—Dick came in and just held him quietly as if it were the most normal thing in the world. That he'd sat there with his arms around Jason's smaller form comfortingly, tracing the lines of the shirt on his back, humming softly in his young alto tone. Then, when Jason had stopped thrashing around in his hold, Bruce said that the golden boy had picked him up and carried him to his bedroom, sitting there with him the entire night so he could comfort Jason every time the nightmares picked back up.

Jason had woken up the mooring after feeling much better than he had in years. On his bedside table had been a tray with flu medicine, a glass of water, and warm chicken noodle soup (Alfred did take credit for that, making a very Alfred rap on the head when Jason said it had been a little salty). Since that point, Jason had grown on Batman, been more polite to Alfred, and had even stopped kicking Dick (he still punched from time to time, even at his current age).

Now that he thought about it, Dick had always cared for everyone in the Bat household. There had even been a very awkward moment when Jason walked in on Dick hugging Bruce, who was still in costume, even though both of their expressions were neutral and the air silent of words.

They had never actually seen Dick break until his fight with Batman. Maybe that was why everyone had been so…disoriented by it. Grayson had been the gravity for them, always so modest and dependable. They…had never helped him. Hell, Jason previously doubted that the birdie could even HAVE an emotional breakdown.

That was why Bruce obviously didn't want Dick to leave. It would feel too much like abandonment, and anyways, they all needed him. He knew that. Now all they deeded to do was convince him that he needed them.

Which they did. Jason would prove it to him. That was a promise.