(no subject)
It wasn't supposed to be anything. His last time out. He'd meant to tell them, he really had. To tell them he was quitting, that he couldn't do it anymore.
Because he wasn't supposed to do it anymore. But Dick had gotten to the headquarters after refusing to put on his costume for so long, and it'd felt -- it'd felt good. Maybe he'd gotten a little attached when he hadn't meant to, and he couldn't quite muster the courage to tell them he was leaving.
Especially since HQ was in a mess. The Outsiders had more to worry about at the moment than a member that was about to up and leave on them.
So Dick had let it go, relied on words he'd been given, that maybe it -wouldn't- be the same every time. He'd decided that maybe he'd give it another chance.
That'd been his first mistake...
"Is he here?"
"Of course he is, sir. It's most good to see you, but you must admit, arriving unannounced is never the wisest of choices..."
...and his second mistake had been leaving. Chasing after a foolhardly impulse, going to Bruce... he shouldn't have left Roy alone. Even though it'd have meant ignoring his training, contacting Bruce through less secure methods, he shouldn't have left. But he'd had to. The news that they were secretly funded by Wayne industries was shocking, and the news that Roy had been getting tips from Batman was worse.
He had barely been able to control his anger the whole way there. The Outsiders were -his-, his and Roy's, and how dare Bruce even try to step in on that, control it again...
"What the -hell- is matter with you? I mean, aside from the obvious! Ignoring the many layers of denial, and the fifty feet of psychological body armour that you throw up to avoid feeling anything! Aside from that --! And the pathological need to control everything on Earth and beyond! Ignoring all that! What -exactly- is your burning desire to deceive, lie, and manipulate the only people who give a god damn about you!?"
"You getting to a -point-?"
...and anger had heated with him, heated bad. But Bruce wouldn't take the bait. He wouldn't -take- it, and it'd been all wrong. Yes, he'd been funding it, but not for a sense of control, but because he believed in them. And Bruce was damaged somehow, and Dick had left him alone far too long. Yet another thing to feel guilty about, except there wasn't time. Because apparently this was to be the day of shocking revelations, and it was all unravelling.
And he'd never been giving them any tips at all.
And Roy was with whoever the hell it was that was pretending to be Batman.
And he was in trouble...
"You've been feeding Arsenal -information- on criminal activity. You've helped us make cases. I'm just saying that it would..."
"Dick, I haven't done anything of the kind."
...and it was the day from hell, that's what it was. The day from fucking hell, and maybe this was all a sign that he shouldn't have kept himself signed on after all. But he couldn't bother with that now, and Wally had nothing on the speed it took for him to get from Gotham back to New York. And Roy was bruised, he was battered and beaten, but he'd escaped with his life. But there was no time to take a breath of relief, because when they got back to Headquarters...
"Bruce, are you... are you telling me that I shouldn't trust you?"
"I'm telling you you shouldn't trust -anyone-."
...because there was more. They'd been betrayed from -within-, and one of their own was fiddling with things. Not just fiddling, but -hurting- them, making everything that could ever go badly wrong do exactly that. And it was time for his third mistake, letting Roy do exactly what he wanted to do. But it was what needed to be -done-, so Dick let him interrogate each of them, trap them within the headquarters...
"But -why- lie to me, of all people? Why would you lie to me. -Me-."
"I'm sorry."
...and it was Shift. God, it was -Shift-, and he'd never have thought. But no matter what Roy said, no matter what the clues pointed to, something felt off. But there was no time whatsoever to focus on that, because.
Because it is entirely the day from hell, and maybe if Dick hadn't made any of those mistakes, things would have, could have somehow gone better. Maybe he'd have noticed a distress call earlier, if there had been one. Maybe one of them would have noticed suspicious activity. But everything went down exactly the way it was somehow supposed to, and now he's left staring at his little brother on the viewscreen, crying and broken...
"-Tell me-. Don't act like nothing's... Bruce, what's happened..."
"I'm not sure..."
...and pleading. "Nightwing... Nightwing, we need help..."
Blood running cold. What's going on? Who did this?
"S-Superboy. Superboy attacked us..."
He'll kill him. Dick'll kill him, somehow. Except that's against their stupid fucking code, and he's just going to have to hurt him very very badly, because the stupid little clone broke his little brother...
"You expect too much out of me. You shouldn't place that much faith in me."
"I have more faith in -you- than -anyone-."
...But they don't even have time to worry about that, do they? Because now they're under attack. And Roy was -wrong-, they were all -wrong-, and it was never Shift all along. Indigo, the one they thought they'd redeemed with new programming, the one they'd all come to care for?
It turned out they'd never redeemed her at all.
And maybe you could never redeem a being who had once been programmed to kill.
Because she's changing, and she's attacking them, and she...
"Outsiders. I am Brainiac 8. I am your destruction."
...it's all out of control...
"Stay sharp. Someone's taken great care to orchestrate this, and now it's begun to unravel. It changes everything."