(Untitled)

[goldeneyedflash]

Bart wanted to take it back. What he'd shouted in response, what he'd done. But he couldn't Even if he'd had a time machine, it wouldn't change anything. Even as a little kid, he was still just a screw-up. So he'd ran. Ran until he could pretend the stinging in his eyes was from the wind. Ran until his legs burned, feeling like they were

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[cantstopmoving]

Even after Tim has napped and been returned to his friends, Bart's trail is easy to follow. Dick finds him in the orchard, covered in dirt and leaves and looking every inch the kid the island had made him.

Their relationship is still pretty tentative, but Dick can't leave a Titan, family, a kid, whatever the label you want to apply, he can't leave one suffering by himself. So he comes on him silently, Bat-like and drops to a seat next to him. "Yeah. It's not my favorite place either."

Instinctively, he starts plucking the leaves from his hair. "You want to talk about what happened back there?"

[goldeneyedflash]

"No," Bart said, simply, torn between pulling away and throwing himself into Dick's arms. He didn't really want to do either. He wanted it to be Tim. "Wanna go home, but there isn't anywhere to go..."

[cantstopmoving]

"Okay. I'm just gonna sit here for awhile then." Bart's got that look, like he needs a hug and a nap and possibly not in that order. Dick keeps his fingers busy pulling the leaves from his hair, and occasionally just running his fingers through it like he's combing it out. "My shoulders need a break before I take you guys home again. Sorry about that."

[goldeneyedflash]

"Is Timmy okay?" Bart asked, serious despite his apparent youth. "I didn't mean to..."

So many things went wrong lately.

[cantstopmoving]

"He's okay." Bart definitely needs a hug. Things aren't right between him and Tim. It doesn't take a genius detective to see that. And Dick's got more experience with relationships than most of the people they know put together.

"He just needed a hug and a nap." Dick tousles his hair affectionately. Bart's a pain in the ass sometimes but he's a good kid. "Not unlike you." He opens his arm and lifts an eyebrow. "I promise I won't tell another living soul."

[goldeneyedflash]

"Hrmph," Bart said eloquently, flinging himself into Dick's lap and wrapping his arms as far as they'd go.

"Don't want to sleep," he added. It wasn't that he wasn't tired, the yawn that he couldn't suppress showed that. But he was afraid of what was waiting on the other side of slumber, what waited in dreams.

[cantstopmoving]

"Oof." Dick laughs. What was he telling Jill about 'a big heart and a thick skull'?

He settles Bart a little more securely in his lap. Maybe he's not using them today but he'd rather not sing soprano, either. "You don't have to sleep," he says, rubbing his the heel of his hand up and down against Bart's back. "But you can. It's okay. I've got you."

All of them have nightmares. He's never met a kid hero that didn't. And even if Bart's not being resistant because of nightmares, it won't hurt him to hear it.

[goldeneyedflash]

Bart settled against him, wondering for half a moment if this was what it was like to have a family, have parents. It hadn't exactly been like that when he'd been able to spend time with his mom, but they were practically strangers.

"Stupid. Can't do anything right," he said, the words muffled against Dick's chest.

[cantstopmoving]

"Impulsive. Rash. Brave," Dick counters, giving up the effort to clean the leaves out of his hair for now and hugs him tighter.

As weird as this is, Dick's almost glad for it. Teeny Bart's not as prickly as the older version.

[goldeneyedflash]

"Not brave," Bart protested, remembering only too often he'd run away lately. He didn't know what to do anymore, how to be anything worthwhile. "Scared."

[cantstopmoving]

"You think I'm not?" He enfolds Bart in his arms, the way Bruce did on the first anniversary of his parents' death. "Even Batman's scared sometimes. We just don't let it control us."

[goldeneyedflash]

"Everyone around me gets hurt. Killed," Bart said, quietly. "I couldn't even get there fast enough to warn Kon..."

[cantstopmoving]

"This conversation needs to wait until you're not on a sugar-crash and fighting unfamiliar hormones, Bart." Even though he's pushing the subject aside, he's not dismissing it, or Bart. Bart needs a nap.

"We'll talk, I promise, but for right now, you're safe. Tim and Jill and Dairine are safe." Barbara and Monet are safe. "I'm here."

And he's not letting anything happen to any of them.

[goldeneyedflash]

"Coulda been a girl or something," Bart pointed out, relaxing against Dick. It felt good to let someone else shoulder the burden for a while. "They're okay, back home? The Titans, Rob, everyone?"

[cantstopmoving]

"At your current age, it wouldn't make much difference."

If anyone had tried to tell him Bart could relax, he wouldn't exactly have disbelieved them. But his belief would've carried a heavy dose of skepticism and a permanently raised eyebrow. It's the fact that he is relaxed, that he's finally let down enough to let someone carry the weight that keeps Dick's answer and his fingers as light as it can be while being honest.

"They're doing as okay as people like us can do in the aftermath of a war. They're living, they're loving, they're picking up the pieces and rebuilding." He smiles, thinking of his team getting back together. Maybe it wouldn't be as significant to Bart as it was to him, but his Titans had always been a symbol of the best they could be.

[goldeneyedflash]

"Seems like all we ever do, sometimes. Rebuild," Bart commented, sounding far too old for his current body. "Wish Max was here. He always had answers."

It seemed like it was only yesterday when he'd taken the ring and suit and spirits of the speedsters past and present and run into a future he'd never expected. When he was tired enough, or distracted, sometimes he had fragments of their memories, not the same as his, but there.

He started to open his mouth to say something, but a huge yawn interrupted the thought, causing it to vanish before Bart managed to say anything. Part of him wanted to stay up and talk, because he needed to tell someone. And he couldn't tell Tim because the younger Robin hadn't lived through it, was barely able to conceive of what had happened as being possible.

"Thanks."