Dick sat on the long spine of the west wing of the manor and stared at the granular snow gusting around him. The cold wind cut straight through to his bones, steadying him somewhat, but the depths of his despair still called. I don't know what to do, he sobbed. I…I betrayed the most important thing I believe in. Everything I do – work, Nightwing, all of it – was based on that central tenet of not killing. But…but I did. I killed a man, and I let him kill someone else first. And now…now everyone has to hate me. Why would anyone want to be around such a fucking hypocrite? 'Don't kill, don't kill, don't kill…blam!' My life in a nutshell. I could have done so many things differently…

"Dick. Stop. Please," a painfully familiar voice begged from behind him.

He hadn't expected to have the roof to himself for long, but for all that he'd anticipated that Bruce would chase after him he couldn't have imagined the desperate, pleading tone those three words had been spoken in. "I can't," he cried back, keeping his eyes forward in order to avoid seeing the other man's expression. "I'm a…a murderer. I…I can't. I don't know…" A series of faint crunches indicated the billionaire's approach, and then there was a wall of warmth beside him, around him, pulling him into an embrace. "Let go," he struggled weakly.

"No," the grip tightened. "I'm not letting you jump, baby. I…I couldn't…if you…no," he concluded firmly.

"I hadn't thought of jumping, but…" Falling. No, that's not how I want to go. Not…not like mom and dad.

"No, damn it! That wasn't a suggestion. Don't you dare hurt yourself. Don't you dare. Talk to me, please."

Dick suddenly found his face nestled in the same spot on his former guardian's shoulder that had caught so many of his tears in the past, pressed there by a panic-spasming hand. Let me go, he whined uselessly in his head. Let me…let me go away. Then you don't have to be ashamed any more, Bruce. Maybe…maybe that will make up for what I did, at least a little bit. "…I don't want to."

"…Ouch, Dicky," Bruce frowned down at him, wounded.

"No, I just…it's easier if everyone just goes ahead and hates me now, okay? I…I'm too confused about everything to deal with a bunch of different reactions, so…everyone should just hate me. I deserve it," he choked out hoarsely.

"You do not deserve it. And the people who know you are not going to hate you, no matter how much you think that they should. Think about what you're saying. Do you honestly believe that Alfred will hate you, or Tim, or Damian, or Jason, Barbara, Wally, Clark, Leslie, Diana...any of them? And your fellow officers, how could they hate you for doing your job? For doing what they might have to do themselves someday? They aren't feeling hate right now, Dick, I guarantee it. Relief, maybe, that it wasn't them, and a fair bit of pity, but I have no doubt that the majority of them will be supportive, not hateful, about all of this. If any of the people I listed off are nasty, I guess I'll just have to beat sense back into them. But that's not going to happen, because they know you. They'll know how much this is tearing you up inside, chum, and you know that that's the truth. So stop this. Stop this, please. Let the people who care about you help you. Let…let me help you. Please," he whispered against his son's ear. "Please don't do this. Don't let this destroy you. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Yes I did, Bruce! I could have done better!"

Damn it, why won't you just believe me? It's my own fault for training you to question everything, I know, but it's very inconvenient right now, he sighed internally. …We shouldn't be out here. Your skin is ice, and the roof's only going to get more slippery. The low pitch won't save us if we lose our footing or if you try to…well. I'm not letting that happen. "Maybe you'd better come inside and explain your logic to me, because I'm not following," he gambled.

"…Huh?"

"Inside," he repeated the crucial point. "We're both going to freeze out here."

"…You go. I want to be numb."

Jesus, Dick, don't say things like that. "I'm not leaving this roof without you. If you get hypothermia, then I'm getting it right along with you." He paused. "Do you really want to see Alfred that angry? Because I don't."

"I…" I am kind of chilly, he mused. I get cold faster than Bruce does, but…I don't want him to get sick because of me. I've already done enough to hurt him today. "…Okay. I guess we can…go in."

Bruce wished fervently that there was some way they could get back through the window without dangling from the side of the building, but he could only watch fearfully as his son hung for a moment before folding himself up and disappearing inside. If he had let go right then, he gulped as he followed suit, I couldn't have done a damn thing. I would have just…watched him fall. A shudder raked him as he lowered the sash. …I wonder if I would have jumped after him.

Shaking the thought off – he didn't let go, he's fine, he's right here – he turned to the bed. Ooh, kiddo, did you have to curl up exactly the way you used to when you were just a scared little boy trying to hide from your nightmares? And that look… he nearly pouted as he caught sight of wide, watery blue eyes peeking at him over the younger man's pulled-up knees. I remember that look. That's the 'hold me and make it all go away' stare. I haven't seen that in a long, long time…

"Okay, chum." He sat down on the mattress as he spoke, grabbing the folded blanket at the end of the bed before scooting back to lean against the headboard. "Here." Feeling a bit low on body heat now that they were back inside, he spread the light quilt out over both of them, then pulled Dick close with one arm. "Now…how could you have done better?" Talk it out with me.

"I…I should have been less complacent, to start with," came back through chattering teeth. "Just because the bank is always fine when I go in was no excuse for not noticing what was going on before I was in the m-middle of it. I…I might have been able to retreat before anyone saw me, before I said anything, and called for backup. Or…I should have fired when he moved to shoot the hostage. He was fast, but…I should have been faster. I should have ant-t-ticipated him, but I didn't, and now that lady – she was just trying to help, Bruce, she just wanted to let me know that there were others, too – is dead. And…and if I had sh-shot him in the arm when he was moving to shoot her, I'll bet he wouldn't be d-dead either. I screwed it all up, all of it, and two people paid with their lives."

"…You're human, Dick. You said you got complacent, but to be fair…you can't be on hyper-alert all the time."

"You are."

Bruce nearly laughed. "No. I'm not. When I go to work in the morning after a night of late patrol, do you think I'm suspicious of every phone call, every business associate? Do you think I watch everyone in line at the coffee cart in the lobby and try to pick out who's most likely to have intentions of robbing the place?"

"Yes."

"Di-ick…" I'm not infallible. I used to think I was pretty damn close to it, but…kids have this odd ability to see and to point out all of the faults you're blind to yourself, and yet still love you. That goes double for clever little eight-year-olds with a seeming superpower when it comes to making people adore them right back.

"Well, you make it seem that way! And besides, that isn't your day job. But it is mine. Don't you see? I…I dropped the ball. I wasn't good enough, and now two people are dead."

"Even if you were on alert every moment of every day, some things would get past you. You know that I'm not…perfect," he admitted. "You know I've made mistakes, or just failed to see something that maybe I would have at another time, or if I'd had an extra cup of coffee that morning, or if any one of a thousand other factors had been different. Hell, do you know what I actually do while I'm waiting for my latte in the morning? I take my phone out, I hold it at an angle so no one else can see the screen, and I pretend to be staring at it, but…I'm actually closing my eyes and sleeping for a minute until I have to move up."

"…And you get away with that?" a small, almost amused voice asked.

"Been doing it for years."

"Huh. But…" he shifted, "that doesn't change the fact that if you go off-duty a little, no one…no one dies. I went off-duty while I was on-duty."

"You didn't go off-duty, Dick. Not from what you told me. You said earlier that you threw away all the training we did together, but what you did in that bank demonstrates the exact opposite. You walked into a situation that you weren't expecting and reacted quickly and effectively, and that's what I trained you to do. Being prepared is great, but it's much more important to be able to react appropriately even when you aren't prepared. You can't go through life trying to prepare for every single possibility or peeking around every corner as if something's going to bite you; not even Batman is quite that paranoid. But if you make that turn and there is something there to hurt you or someone else, you have to be ready to respond. And you were. You're here with me now, and those other hostages are home safe with their families, because you didn't throw away your training.

"Yes, two people died, and that's tragic, chum. It really is. But there could have been so many more husbands, wives, parents, and children who received an awful phone call this afternoon. If you hadn't walked in and done exactly what you did, who knows how many of them would have died? You mentioned that if you'd looked before you went in, you could have called for backup. Then what? Maybe that extra few seconds, or those extra few uniforms, would have been what pushed that man over the edge and made him start shooting everyone. Maybe if you'd tried to take him down without your gun he…he would have shot you, and then proceeded to shoot everyone else. The point is, you have no way of knowing, the same as you didn't know that you were going to be able to pull the trigger until you did it.

"There's something else that you need to realize, too. In a way I think it's bothering you almost as much as having accidentally – and that's important, Dick, this was an accident, and one that you tried to prevent – killed the robber. What you need to know," his voice dropped in pitch, "is that no matter what my expression was when I saw you at the festival last summer, and no matter what my personal feelings are about guns in general, there is no possible instance in which I would choose to save a criminal's life over yours. Obviously I'd prefer to be able to save you both in any situation, but…if someone is absolutely going to die, it had better not be you. It could have happened today; he could have shot you, have…have killed you, by design or by as equally accidental an event as when your bullet hit him. Do I particular like that you have to carry a firearm for work? No. Not at all. But earlier, when you described that moment when the two of you were staring each other down, do you know what I thought?"

"…No," a faint murmur answered. "What?"

"I thought, thank god that you were armed. I know, it caught me off guard too," he agreed when the younger man gave him a shocked look, "but I think I understand how I could feel that way, beyond the obvious reasons of wanting you safe and with your mask intact. Now, we both know that introspection isn't exactly my strongest suit, and I'm still working on this theory, but hear me out. To me," he ventured slowly, "a gun represents power. Huge power, Dick. I am afraid of that power, not only because I've seen it abused so many times in my life but because I know that it is a power that is beyond my ability to control. I don't just mean when someone else is wielding it; I mean for me, personally. If I picked up a gun, and brought myself to do what you did today…to pull the trigger…I don't believe that I would ever be able to stop. I would lose myself to it.

"But you…you've always been stronger than me, Dick, ever since the day I met you. Maybe not in the sense of punching someone into next week, but…in every other way. You'll never be corrupted by your gun the way I would be, and I think that your reaction to what happened demonstrates that. You have the strength to wield its power righteously and conservatively, and only when there is literally no other option. Even then, when that moment came along you managed to subvert the thing's entire reason to be, aiming to disarm rather than to kill or even incapacitate. That took an immense amount of self-control, and I know it without so much as laying a hand on a gun. If there is anyone in this world that I could possibly trust to never misuse that power, it's you. Today you showed me that that trust is in no way misplaced.

"Whether there was a gun involved or not…there aren't words for how proud I am of the way you performed. Yes, two people are dead, and like I already said, that's a tragedy. But that tragedy was not your fault, and while I know that that seems impossible to believe right not, I have to ask you to just trust me that it's true. When it comes down to it, chum," he met the gaze that hadn't left his face since he'd begun to speak, "I guess the most succinct way to put it is that you're no Joe Chill, and you never will be. I have absolute confidence in that fact."

The younger man's eyes widened, his mouth visibly trembling for an instant before he dove at Bruce and closed what few gaps had remained between them. "…You really don't hate me? Not…not even a little bit?" he asked in a porcelain voice.

"Not even an iota, Dicky," the billionaire swore, squeezing his son tightly. "The only thing I hate is that you feel like I should."

"…I just don't know what to do, Bruce. I…I feel so lost. I don't think I have the strength to…to tell people what happened. To listen to what they have to say back, even if it's supportive. I just…don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. If everyone hates me, they'll say their angry bit and then stop talking to me about it. But people who want to help…they want to talk about it all the time, or they give you these looks so you know that they're thinking about it, and that makes you think about it, too, and…and I can't do that. I don't have it in me. I just don't. And then the review board, and the media, and…and everything…I just want to lock myself in a room and never come out. I don't want to deal with it, I just…I just want it to go away."

"I can't make it go away," Bruce sighed, "but at least here you'll be sheltered from it a little. I don't want you going back to Bludhaven, Dick, at least not for a good while. Let this resolve itself while you focus on what you need."

"…I don't know what I need."

"Then…maybe you should let me try and figure that out for you. Is that okay? I'm not going to send you fleeing into the night again if I do that, am I?"

"So long as you keep your hands off of my mask and I can have a say in things once I have, you know, half a clue of what's going on, I think I can deal with that for a while."

"…You don't think you should take a little break from night work?" I hate to even suggest that, but...what if you froze up out there, afraid that whatever you did would result in another death? Then you'd be the one who ended up…who got hurt.

"No. I think night work is going to be one of the few times that I can actually put it all out of my head, more or less. I've always been best at ignoring my civilian problems when I'm on patrol, you know that. Besides…if I stop going out, I'm afraid I'll get scared and not be able to start again. I have to…to keep reminding myself that not every fight is going to end in a death." He gulped. "I felt better earlier, when we were out on patrol, than I have since I walked into that bank and this all started. I need my mask, Bruce."

"…Then I won't argue." I hate it, but I won't argue. I'm not throwing us back down that same old road, not when you're already dealing with so much.

"…Really?"

"Really."

"…Wow."

"But I do want you to talk to someone about this."

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

"A psychologist, Dick. Someone who has experience dealing with this sort of thing."

"…You're serious, aren't you? But you loathe psychologists!"

"I don't want to risk screwing it up, chum. I'm not saying we can't talk – I want you to find me or call me whenever you need to talk, you know that – but I am saying that I want to make sure you're in the best hands possible. When it comes to figuring out all of those tangled emotions you're carrying around after today, I'm going to have to have assistance."

"I'm that screwed up, am I?"

"Not screwed up; just hurt, scared, confused, and more than a little uncertain. All of which," he assured, "is perfectly natural, and not in the least shameful."

"I never needed a psychologist before, and I've been plenty screwed up in the past."

"Yes. But there was never a gun in your hand before, and while that doesn't bother me as much as you obviously thought it would, I know it bothers you. That's the salient point, Dick, is taking care of what you need. Not me, not the media, not the other people who were affected by this; you. That is what I'm concerned about. As for everyone else…unless their goal is to help you, they can go to hell."

They were silent for a long time after that, simply sitting with their arms around one another and soaking in comfort. "…Bruce?" came finally.

"Hmm?"

"…I don't want to be alone tonight."

"I know. You aren't. And you won't be, either."

"You won't leave if I fall asleep?"

"No. I'll stay right here in case you need me, just like when you were a baby."

"…I was never a baby here, Bruce."

The billionaire leaned his head back in the semi-dark and smiled beatifically, remembering. "…You were to me, chum." Sometimes, he mused as Dick gave a sleepy sound of comprehension rather than arguing, you even still let me treat you a bit like one. And while I wish the circumstances that got us to this point tonight hadn't been so horrific, I'll never, ever complain about stealing a few more minutes like these from life. Craning his neck, he pressed a gentle kiss against his son's hair. Good night, baby. Sweet dreams. And if they aren't sweet…I'll be here for you. I swear it.

Author's Note: I hope you all enjoyed this story! Thanks for reading, and double thanks to those of you who have been so kind as to review.