omni

He was only Nightwing now. Not Dick, not Robin, not the Apprentice, not Renegade. He had no need for a day job, he'd stolen every penny of Slade's he could get his hands on, and thus no need for any life other than his nighttime one. He didn't have friends, allies, no one to call him by any other name.

Just Nightwing.

It's the only name he'd ever chosen for himself.

Xxxx

"Dick."

Nightwing stiffened but didn't turn around.

He hadn't heard that name in five years.

"Holy shit," Hood breathed. "It is you, isn't it?"

Nightwing was frozen in place, his heart beating rabbit-fast beneath his ribs. His lungs constricted and he knew if he didn't keep himself under control he'd start hyperventilating, so he slowly shut himself off, piece by methodical piece. Once there was nothing left of him, he turned, composure regained, muscles relaxed.

"That's not a nice thing to call someone," he said lightly.

Hood's voice was rough. "Don't. Don't do that, don't play dumb." He reached up and ripped his helmet off. His dark hair was sweat-damp and mussed. This was the first time Nightwing had seen him up close since Hood was 15. His jaw was sharply defined in manhood, small scars of various shapes and sizes spotting his face, one larger one trailing from just behind his right ear to curve along his jaw. It would have been a painful wound.

His teal eyes were wide and wet.

"Dick, you're alive." His voice was much less menacing without the voice modulator, though still not the same as Nightwing remembered it—it was deep and gravelly now. But the tone and cadence were the same. He could hear the undercurrent of the voice he'd been so familiar with years ago running through it. "What happened?" Hood began to take a small step forward, but stopped himself as though he didn't want to spook Nightwing, didn't want to drive away the man he didn't realize was no longer his brother. "Did you…did you come back? Like me?"

Nightwing only knew bits and pieces of Hood's story, just the little snatches of it he heard here and there. He'd tried to stop himself from caring enough to listen to any of the whispers, but he'd still taken them in. It was important to know your enemy, after all.

He knew that the man was Jason Todd risen from the grave. The fact that the Red Hood was the former second Robin was little-known, but he'd been lucky enough to hear it from one of the few people who did. He'd heard rumors from his times working with the League that Hood had been exposed to the Lazarus Pit, but it had not been his means of resurrection, merely a method to heal his catatonia.

He knew that before he'd been submerged in the Pit, Hood had been a source of entertainment in the League’s fighting pits, a captive gladiator, an empty weapon.

Nightwing knew a little about the latter.

He hesitated before coming to a decision. There was no point in denying it—once the Bats had so much as a suspicion, they would root out his secret eventually, there was no doubt about that.

"No," he responded. "I was never dead."

Several unnameable emotions crossed Hood's face, none of them good. "You—you’ve been alive this whole time? Why didn't—you didn't—Why? Why didn't you come home?"

"Why didn't you?" It was a low blow, but he didn't pretend to be above those. He knew Hood hadn't come back to Gotham right away, either. He'd trained with many lethal teachers for years before he'd come back. Some of the same teachers the Apprentice had trained with, as a matter of fact. He'd been satisfied to hear of Hood's…dispatch of several of them. Were they not useful allies the Apprentice would have liked to have done so himself.

Anger flared in Hood's eyes. "You don't have any right to say that. You don't know anything about me."

"And you know nothing about me!" His sudden vehemence took Hood aback, wiping the anger off his face.

It was an unacceptable display of emotion, but he had to remind himself that he was allowed those now. "You have just as little right as I to make any judgements, Hood."

"You've been in Bludhaven. For over a year. Right next door. Did you even think about coming home? Did you think about us at all?"

Every day! he wanted to cry. But he didn't. He may be allowed emotions, but that didn't mean he wanted to have them.

"Go home, Hood. Whatever answers you came here for, you won't find them."

Hood's jaw clenched and he took that step forward he'd been holding himself back from. "You can't just say that, Dick. How can you be so…callous?"

Nightwing barked a humorless laugh. "Says you? After your little crusade?"

"I was sick." He jabbed an unkind finger against his own head. "I was messed up. I'm still messed up. But you…Dick, you were never like me. You were light and fucking sunshine and you loved harder than anyone I've ever met. What made you into this?"

Nightwing ground his teeth. He didn't want to be a part of this conversation anymore. Jason's physical step closer wasn't driving him away, but his metaphorical ones were. "I'm not any of those things anymore, Hood. I'm not coming back. And I won't tolerate any more Bats stepping foot in my city. Consider this your only warning."

He turned and grappled off the building, leaving Hood's shouts of protest behind. Hood barrelled after him, but Nightwing was lighter and swifter and he quickly left him behind.