Chapter 1

Father busies himself around Damian's room: Damian himself is confined to bed rest he does not need and buried under blankets he certainly does not need but that make Pennyworth feel better. So he allows them. After all, it is not every day someone returns from the dead.

Damian watches Father adjust some meaningless ornament for a second time before turning to leave, and decides this is as good a time as any to ask the question that has weighed more and more upon his mind.

"Father?" Father turns, an almost smile on his face that now seems present almost any time he looks at Damian.

"Where is Grayson?"

An indescribable expression shutters Father's face down, rendering it as unreadable as his most stoic mask. Damian feels the urge to fill the sudden gaping silence with words.

"I assumed he was busy or on a mission; something that would stop him from being there to save me but I would've thought he'd have at least contacted me by now, is all. If it's a secret you don't have to tell me-"

"You don't need to know. Just… lie down, Damian. You can rest and we'll talk when you feel better…"

"I feel fine now, Father. Just tell me where he is or… or what mission he's on and I will stop bothering you, I promise!"

"Damian..."

"Please, Father. If you do not tell me I will go right now to find it out myself. I… I will call Colin or fly to anywhere but here and ask anyone but you."

"Dam… you need to stay calm."

"Fine."

"Then, I… I'm sorry, Damian. He's gone."

Damian's breath stops, feels caught in his chest; a vice clamps against his skull and all he can come up with are denials.

"Gone… to Tamaran? He is in space again. With-"

"He was captured by the Crime Syndicate. He was very brave, Damian, to the last. But there was a bomb tied into his heartbeat… We had to stop it. I was there. You know."

Father speaks strangely, and his words have no meaning and Damian remembers when he looked through Father's security recordings for his reveal of Todd's death and it was nothing like this Father should not sound like this, this is not how he would tell Damian that Grayson was… was…

"NO! You lie!" Damian flies upward, shoving blankets aside and lurches, unbalanced in onetwothree ways all at once.

Father rushes to his side as if Damian is in danger of injuring himself when Grayson is DE-

"He is not gone! I would know it!"

"Damian get back in bed…"

"Stop lying to me! Where is Grayson?"

"You know we can't bury heroes in private cemeteries anymore, not since-"

"I was there for the body harvesting incident, I am not referring to the harvesting incident, Grayson is not buried in a cemetery anywhere he is alive and well and I am going to him STOP LYING TO ME FATHER WHERE IS GRAYSON?"

Footsteps run to his room onetwoandonetwoandonetwo Pennyworth is here and Father is still lying and DAMIAN WILL BEAT THE TRUTH OUT OF FATHER HIMSELF

Arms wrap around Damian, Pennyworth, and it is a foolish decision since Damian could easily snap the man in two like this but Pennyworth is crying and apologizing and…

Damian, who has known Pennyworth for so long… he cannot deny that Pennyworth believes, that Pennyworth knows…

Alfred has never been wrong before. So if Alfred says that Grayson… that Dick is… that Dick… dead? Dead? Not Grayson. Not without Damian to protect him… Not without his Robin.

Damian shudders and even the familiar presence of Pennyworth is too much. "Where?"

Father opens his mouth and if he says one more word about private cemeteries and body harvests Damian will blow his head clean off his shoulders but Pennyworth says "By his parents," and one second later there are two Damian sized holes in the universe: one where he'd been standing a moment ago, and one boiling in his empty chest.