They could hear the crying from all the way down the hall. Loud, strident wails piercing the air even as they emerged from the building's stairwell. Dinah hesitated, Wally still moving fast and already ten feet past her before he realized she wasn't keeping up. He turned back with clear impatience.

In the rush to get over here, thoughts busy with the revelations about Dick and running through scenarios on how best to break through to the stubborn teen, she'd neglected one crucial detail in all of this. Not a detail. A baby. A person. Who wasn't just a problem to be fixed, a situation to be contained, but a living, breathing entity in its own right. As much a victim of this as Dick was. A second victim. Was it a boy or a girl? She couldn't remember if Wally had even said.

She didn't have time to wonder though, or to stew in self doubts. Already unease was creeping back across Wally's face with each passing second Dinah delayed - each one of them infinitely longer in his perceptions, she was sure. She shook herself and squared her shoulders, marching past him and letting them both into Dick's apartment with the key Wally held out when his hand shook too much to find the lock.

Artemis practically flew around as she pivoted to face them upon entrance, and Dinah's eyes flew in turn to the bundle of swaddled up infant she held in her arms. The fog of vagueness that had lingered since Wally stumbled into her apartment was dispelled with a snap at the sight. No more blaming this all on some kind of fugue state or hallucinogenic spores. Damn. She'd really kind of been hoping for a last minute Poison Ivy reveal. Seconds later her gaze skipped down to the mass huddled on the floor against the wall. Nightwing in costume, sans mask, knees drawn up, elbows atop them, head in his hands and fingers white with strain as they dug into his temples in tempo to the baby's tearful wails.

"He started crying like ten minutes ago and I can't get him to stop," Artemis babbled. Dinah crossed the room in swift but steady strides and reached out to maneuver the infant from the younger woman's arms to hers without waiting. "I tried everything I can think of but I'm not good with babies, I didn't know what..."

"Shh," Dinah silenced her. Gentled her tone when Artemis blinked, a wet sheen in her eyes. Wally might have oversold the whole 'Artemis knows what she's doing thing', she reflected. Or else Artemis oversold it to him. It shouldn't be the revelation it is. None of them knew what they were doing here, none of them could. "It's alright, Artemis, you did fine. I've got him, he's going to be fine."

And a him it was, she realized, looking down for the first time at the baby in her arms. She'd half meant Dick, that she had Nightwing, that she'd take it from here with him rather than the baby, but her gut assumption proved true as she stared down at the squalling child. Congratulations, she thought bitterly. It's a boy. There should be balloons and cake and celebrating. Birth is a time of new beginnings. Of potential. No infant's entrance into this world should be this shrouded in hurt and pain. Especially no child of a boy as laughing and happy as the Robin she remembered meeting so long ago (not long ago enough). You've already got your father's record beat, haven't you, little one? He at least made it to eight before his trials began, but you. Where was your chance in all of this?

"You did fine," was all Dinah said though, voice soft for the baby's benefit even as she jiggled him in her arms, emanating reassurance and calm for all around. If only her Canary Cry came with a lullaby setting. "Better than fine. Now I need you to take Wally and go find someplace that's open right now. The baby's going to need some things. Diapers, clothes, see if you can find a temporary easily assembled crib, one of those plastic things until we can find something better."

"Are you sure?" Artemis hesitated, torn between not wanting to abandon her friend in his time of need and not wanting to crack under the stress of more than she could bear. Dinah could sympathize. She just couldn't afford to empathize, because she at least, needed to be able to bear this. Someone did. Why her? She sighed. Why not her? Fuck this life.

"I'm positive," she assured the younger woman, barely out of her teens herself. She looked over to Wally, busy ping-ponging between the two of them and Dick still huddled on the floor, yet to acknowledge either of them. "Go, now. I'm not sure how much later stores around here will be open."

"Superspeed," Wally said. The unconvincing grin he mustered looked downright macabre on his face. "Even if everywhere's closed around here, we'll hit up the West Coast. We'll find what we need."

"I'm sure you will." Especially since all she really needed was them gone. There really was no tactful way to put that without raising their defenses however. The last thing Dick needed right now was a 'who can help him more' competition meant to reassure its participants more than him.

They nodded again, two broken bobble heads on box springs, and left with a haste that at least could be faked on having a purpose rather than just an urgent need to be elsewhere. This was going to leave its mark on more than just Dick and the child - Dick's child, she forced herself to contextualize. But at least now she could focus on the one in most need of her help, not to mention the one least likely to accept it. And if she couldn't help him, she wouldn't be able to help any of them, because while it may have come as a surprise years ago when they all realized it was a son of the brooding Batman who'd become the lynchpin that held the superhero community connected, it was a truth they'd all since accepted.

They stayed as they were for awhile, him on the floor, her with his screaming child rocked gently in her arm. A solemn tableau painted in hues of moonlight and indigo shadows. Two Birds and a Baby she named the picture in her mind, but no, that wasn't quite right. She didn't belong in this scene, just a visitor passing through. It was the other two here who had to live in it, live with the consequences of one wrong move here, one misstep, one failed message catalyzing further harm rather than help. She soothed the baby, quieted him gradually. If there was a clue in there, an insight born of his heredity she could link back to a tonic to ease his father's pains, she couldn't find it.

In the end, it was Dick who finally broke the newly fallen quiet.

"Does Batman know yet?"

Batman, not Bruce. Dinah shook her head. They're one and the same, she wanted to remind him, wanted to shake him, wanted to scream in Bruce's face every time she'd watch him insist on the distinction over the past ten years.

"He's waiting back at Mt. Justice," she said. "But no, he doesn't know yet. He knows something is wrong, but I convinced him to let me come alone and speak with you first."

Dick snorted. "At least he actually listens to you."

"I think this makes the third time in the fifteen years I've known him," Dinah said wryly. "Don't go thinking I'm special. He only listened because I convinced him barreling in here would only make things worse. And the last thing your father has ever wanted to do is make things worse for you. He manages it sometimes anyway, but it's never his intent."

Not that intent matters, or is any kind of excuse for the harm or damage one actually causes, Dinah reflected. And normally it wasn't a line of thinking she'd ever open a door to at all, but with the past two years worth of tension between Dick and his father still a major source of the young man's turmoil, she figured it was worth it to see if Dick would seize the opportunity to defend Bruce. Lord knows Dick could hold a grudge against his father like no one's business, but anyone else trying it in his presence was usually a nonstarter.

To her disappointment - but not her surprise - Dick ignored the bait and instead just grunted. He stared at the floor, face alternately pale and purple under the neon glow that washed through the window via a strip club's signage across the street.

"I wouldn't have broken, you know," Dick said, never looking up. His lips twisted beneath the words, as if they tasted like something sour. "If he came too. I didn't...I don't want him here, not now, or yet, I mean. But it's not like. It wouldn't have broken me or whatever you're thinking. That's all I mean."

"I didn't say that it would, Dick," Dinah said carefully. But not so carefully as to lay credence to the idea she thought he was fragile. Not an easy line to traverse. Where's a tightrope walker when you need one? Oh, right. Crumpled up on the floor of his unlit apartment, afraid to even look at his own baby. Things were off to a promising start. "It's not either or. You're not broken just because you're not alright and you're not alright just because you're not broken. There's room for space in between."

She sighed and cast around the cramped apartment, dragging a chair from the kitchen table to settle down in front of him. The room was such a far cry from the opulence of Wayne Manor. She knew Dick had never been one to buy into the trappings of his father's wealthy lifestyle. She and Ollie frequently attended the same functions as the Waynes, and she'd smothered many a giggle at Dick and Jason's antics as the two reveled in shocking the Gotham elite with loud and pointed reminders of their impoverished 'low class' backgrounds. Still, looking around, she couldn't help but wondering how much of Dick's apartment and its placement was purely a result of not caring about things like wealth and status, and how much of it was a deliberate rejection of those things, of Bruce? Did it even matter? Or was she just stalling?

"You know, I've never really liked when people use that word," she mused. The baby in her arms stirred restlessly, his nose wrinkling. God. As a general rule, she preferred waiting until children were teenagers before interacting with them. She wasn't big on babies, usually - most people who cooed over their shrunken little faces and called them the most beautiful things they'd ever seen were just lying, in her opinion. But this one was a charmer. Or maybe he wasn't, and she was just already hopelessly attached because Reasons. Crap. Of all the times for a maternal bone to materialize.

"Broken. What does that even mean, really? It's just a description of a physical state, but people use it like a judgment. As though it describes what someone is, instead of simply a description of the state something's in at a particular moment. You can break something and then put it back together so you can never tell the difference, so what does it mean that it was broken? Why does it matter?"

Dick shifted for the first time since she'd entered the apartment. She might not be Batman caliber, but her own reflexes were nothing to sneeze at. Still, the suddenness of his movements were unexpected enough to catch her offguard as he reached over to the side and snatched up one of the escrima sticks he carried as part of his Nightwing ensemble. A slim but sturdy shaft of polished black wood about a foot long in length, it made a hell of a crack when he held it in both hands and brought it down over one knee, hard and fast enough to snap it in two. He tossed the two broken pieces onto the hardwood floor. One rolled over to rest against her foot.

"Can't fix that with crazy glue."

Dinah smoothed her features into careful non-reaction as she bent and reached down to pick up the broken stick, still cradling the infant in one arm as she rolled the shattered weapon in her other palm.

"No, I suppose not. But I bet you I could find a hundred other uses for this piece right here. Plenty of other things you could do with it, or things you could build with it. Use it as the foundation to make something else entirely, or even just carve it, turn it into a work of art, something beautiful. And whatever you end up with, could you describe it as broken? Yes, it wouldn't be your escrima stick anymore, doesn't do the same thing, have the same purpose, maybe what it was is broken. But what it is? What you make of it? Would that be broken?"

Dick jutted his jaw out, mulish, stubborn. A mirror of the expression she'd last glimpsed under Batman's cowl, not even an hour ago. They couldn't be more alike if they were blood. "I know what you're doing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Exactly what I should have known you'd do before I told Artemis she could send Wally to get you. Knew it was a mistake the second he left. I don't need a shrink right now, Canary."

She shrugged. "Good, because I'm done trying to be your therapist. I realized what a waste it was, on my way over here. I never caught a whiff of this brewing under your surface this past year, so obviously our sessions have just been a waste of both our time. I forgot that arrogant smart people make the worst patients."

That was enough to jolt a noticeable reaction out of him. Finally. It was a calculated gamble, one she already regretted as a swift flicker of hurt winged across his face, half-glimpsed and vanished as quickly as it came. It was a little harder for him to banish his gaping mouth. "Yeah, not your usual session starter," he agreed, in only the barest facsimile of his usual clever humor. But it was a start. "So I'm arrogant, now?"

"You always have been," Dinah said gently, trying to soften the blow of her harsh words. She quirked her lips in a half smile. "Just like your father. Difference is, you actually bother with social interaction and you're charming, so you can get away with it where he can't. And Dick...I'm not saying it as an insult. Or that it's a bad thing. I think you and Bruce are arrogant in certain ways, yes. I think you have to be. To do what you both do."

"You're both human, no superpowers, no magic, not even advanced technology giving you an edge. And yet you not only hold your own amidst heroes who have all those advantages and more, you take charge. You lead. You inspire. Mere confidence isn't enough to allow you to do that. You need something that goes beyond that, something that can only be called arrogance, because it's such a bone deep certainty that you can do all the things you profess you can do, that you are the right people to fight the battles you fight, that it's above questioning. There are a million and one reasons you both shouldn't be able to do the things you both do, and if there was even a second you doubted that you could, you probably wouldn't be able to. When you leap off ten story buildings with just a grapple line and your acrobatics to bring you safely to the ground, it's because you believe, no, you know, that you can defy gravity. Even though for seven billion other humans, gravity can't be defied. Dick, I'm an Olympic level gymnast. You don't see me leaping off ten story buildings if I can help it because I know I'm good, yes, but that doesn't mean I know in a battle of me vs gravity, I'm always going to win. You do. You know that. You believe that. And that is arrogance, yes. But it also happens to be justified, in your case."

He mulled that over, not looking thrilled, but at least looking engaged now, and she breathed a bit easier. Good. Engaged she could work with. It was a start. "Okay. Fine. So what about that makes me a terrible patient?"

"I never said terrible," she protested lightly. "I said the worst."

He glared.

She relented. "It's like Superman's invulnerability. Most of the time, that's exactly what he needs to keep him safe. It's all he needs. But in some specific, rare instances, even if it's only 1% of the time, the very thing that makes him so hard to hurt, makes him hard to help. All it takes is that one bullet that can pierce his skin, either because it's Kryptonite, or it's enchanted, or something else...and suddenly, that same invulnerability that keeps him safe 99% of the time is the very thing making it so hard to operate on him, to cut into him and dig out the one bullet that made it past his defenses. Dick, answer me this. What's the first thing you do when you're confronted with a problem?"

"I assess the situation and determine a course of action, I guess," he frowned. "Why?"

"Because when the problem is you, when it's something that's happened to you or something involving your behavior, the kinds of things that a therapist is meant to help you with, you do exactly that. You assess the situation, you assess yourself, your own behavior, and you come to a conclusion. Which means by the time you ever arrive at my doorstep for a session, you've already diagnosed yourself. You've made up your mind. That arrogance that gives you the strength, the certainty, the conviction you need to tackle every other obstacle you face without hesitation, it has you equally convinced that the conclusion you've already drawn about what's wrong with you or your behavior, it must be true. That you've got it already figured out. And so instead of our sessions being about me helping to guide you to a conclusion or helping you find the inconsistencies in your own logic or reasoning - that's not what you're actually there for. Because you're sure you already have the answer, and so instead of looking for it, you're really just looking for it to be validated."

She gave him a moment to absorb that, drawing a breath before continuing.

"And here's where you being so damn smart becomes a problem - because you're brilliant, Dick, just like Bruce is, you know how to read people, you know how to manipulate people, you can do it without even having to think about it. And so instead of telling me what you need to say, you tell me what you think I want to hear. And we get further and further away from actually helping you as you steer our sessions towards the conclusions you've made because of what's bothering you...instead of towards the conclusions you'd draw if you were ready to face it."

Dick leaped to his feet, face flushed in the moonlight. He stepped forward, aborted that when it drew him closer to her and the baby, features twisting in a heart-wrenching moment of agony for the briefest moment before he stepped away again. Carefully breathing in, making a visible effort to drop his voice despite his obvious agitation. Good. Awareness of his surroundings. Thinking beyond the moment to consequences of each action. Engaging more and more with his surroundings. She'd piss him off to Hell and back if that's what it took. Be angry, Dick. Rage. Scream. Yell. Hurt.

"So what?" He asked with a sharp, acidic laugh. He paced, arms buried in his armpits, hunched over, eyes on his boots as he wanders circles. Pent up, restless energy. All the frenetic motion of Robin, of Nightwing, of a bird made for flying yet still stuck on the ground.

"You think I don't know what's bothering me? You think...I freak out a little and Wally runs to you and tells you something and you come back and find me all freaked out on the floor and you've got it all figured out from there, from just that, but you think I can't figure it out on my own? I'm brilliant, you said, but you think I'm all messed up because I can't face it, I can't see it even when its right in front of me?"

"That's not what I'm saying Dick," Dinah tried, but he just laughed again. Jabbed a hand towards the baby in her arms, took it back halfway.

"I know what happened, Canary," he bit out. "I was there. I don't need you to hold my hand and walk me through it so I can face it. Yeah, okay, I get it. I was raped. Tarantula raped me. I can say it. I'm not - I'm not in denial. I've been doing this since I was ten, I'm not...I know the statistics, I know it's not any different just because I'm a guy. I get that men can get raped, that they can be raped by women, that there's no other word for what happened to me. That it wasn't my fault, that I was in shock, that I can't be blamed for her taking advantage of me in that state. I know all that okay? It's not a fucking revelation to me, I don't need anyone's help to fucking face that!"

"Then what's the problem, Dick?" Dinah asked softly when he ran out of steam, or breath or both. His hair was wild in disarray, his stance a contradiction of defensiveness and a pending attack. His chest heaved like a bellows even though he'd yet to raise his voice past a low-pitched hiss. "If you know all that already, where's the problem? What are you having trouble with here? What reason does someone who's already faced all that have for hiding it from his friends and family for a year?"

"There's no problem, that's my whole point," Dick insisted, throwing his arms wide. "Fine, I freaked out for a minute because I just found out my rapist had my fucking baby, and I thought it was over and done with but...jesus. I'm not...it's not because I can't deal with what happened. God, nothing even happened! It was barely anything. I barely even remember it I was so out of it, and then it was over. She didn't hurt me, its not like it was painful or I was drugged or it left me damaged or something, okay? I told you, I've been doing this for ten years. I've SEEN victims okay, real victims, women and even men who are so fucking traumatized by what some sicko did to them they can barely get out of bed in the morning. I've seen victims left beaten and bloody by their attackers, who've...it was nothing like that, okay?"

Dinah nodded. "And that. That right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

Dick blinked and rocked back on his heels. Blindsided by her calm and her seeming non sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you misdiagnosed," she said with a helpless shrug. "You've been so busy reacting to what you thought was your problem, what you were convinced must be bothering you - whether or not you were able to admit that you were raped, that you could be raped even though you're a man, let alone an accomplished fighter able to protect himself - that you left yourself wide open to something else entirely. Tell me. What do you know about Impostor Syndrome?"

"It's a term sometimes used to describe over-achievers who have trouble internalizing their accomplishments. Perfectionists who think they're frauds because they don't know how to take credit for their own achievements and say its because of luck or timing or something other people did," Dick frowned, puzzling through both the question and the aim of it. He raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound like something that applies to someone as arrogant as me."

"Don't be a little shit, Dick," Dinah said with small smirk. "And you're right, I don't think any of that applies to you. However, it's also used in another capacity, to describe trauma survivors who are unable to internalize their own trauma. Who deflect from it, or mitigate it, treat it as less than it is on the basis that it wasn't as bad as what's happened to someone else. It's especially common in trauma survivors who are noted for being especially empathetic or who have caregiver personality types. People who are so used to self-identifying as someone whose role or purpose is in helping others, that they find themselves unable to identify as traumatized because it might shift the focus to themselves instead of people they feel need it more. Does that behavior sound a little more familiar?"

Dick hesitated, eyes on the floor and darting every which way as though looking for escape from a trap.

"It should," she pressed on. "Considering you've been doing that for a long time, much longer than just this past year. Pretty much as long as I've known you, in fact."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you do whenever someone brings up your parents or their deaths?" Dinah asked softly. He flinched. Ducked his head to the side. Jaw tightened again. "You say it was a long time ago. Or that at least you have Bruce now. Or that you wish other orphaned kids could be as lucky as you ended up. Always shying away from the idea that you might need sympathy or comfort because of what happened to your parents and pointing instead to everyone else who needs it more. And it only got worse when Bruce adopted Jason."

"Don't -" Dick warned. His head snapped back up, fire in his eyes, but she refused to be deterred. Not when she finally had his full attention.

"You never allowed anyone to dwell on any of your myriad traumas once Jason came along. Not just your parents, but what happened with Two-Face, the first time you faced the Joker, nothing. You'd always deflect, always shift things back around to Jason. And what a hard life he'd had. So much harder than you, you insisted. At least your parents loved you. At least they didn't abuse you like Jason's father abused him, or were a drug addict like his mother was. Someone mentioned the time you spent in a juvenile detention center as an eight year old, all because some racist bitch of a social worker didn't like that you were Romani, and your response was that at least you didn't have to live on the streets like Jason did before he met Bruce."

"This has nothing to do with Jason!" Dick ground out, heated.

"It's not about Jason, Dick. It's about you. Because your brother had a hard life, yes. It's true. He suffered terrible traumas before Bruce found him and adopted him. And not a single one of those things are made less true, or invalidated or in any way threatened just because terrible things happened to you too. So why do you insist your pain was less than his? That yours didn't matter just because his existed?"

"It's not the same thing," Dick insisted stubbornly. "You can't compare what happened to my parents to the twelve years of shit Jason had to live through."

"I'm not though, Dick. You are. You're the only one saying one must be worse than the other. All I'm saying is both existed."

She sighed. "Trauma isn't a scale to be measured on. It doesn't require a minimum threshold, and it doesn't have a ranking order. It's not about how much harm was caused or how much damage someone did, because at the end of the day, trauma is transformation."

"What do you mean?"

Dinah held up his broken escrima stick, still cradled in her hand. "Trauma is force that causes change. It's not about the act of damaging. It's about what's left behind once the damage is done. I could break this stick into two pieces. It would take a certain amount of force, a certain amount of damage. And once that was done, we'd be left with two pieces here instead of this one. But then give me another stick the same size, same dimensions, only this one is made of metal. I could break that in two as well. But it would require a whole different kind of force, a whole different order of damage. But in the end, once it was done, we'd still be left with two pieces of that too, instead of the one we started with."

"Two different sticks," Dinah continued. "Two different traumas. Two different applications of force. And the only thing in common is in the end...both sticks would be transformed. Neither would be what they were originally. Not less. Not more. But different. Changed by the trauma they endured. You want to quantify that trauma? You probably could. It'd be arbitrary, but you could do it. You could calculate the force used, define parameters for the damage it caused. But what would that mean? What's the outcome? What happens because you decided one trauma was greater than the other? How does that alter the fact, the reality, that in the end, the survivors of those two different traumas are changed? Something different from what they started as?"

"But it is different," Dick insisted. He looked confused though, rather than forceful. "Context matters. The situations matter."

"Yes, they do," Dinah agreed. "But it's a question of focus, not degree. Which trauma was worse only really matters when you're focused on the trauma. When you're looking at what the trauma leaves behind though? When you focus on the survivors? All that really matters is...how are they different? How were they changed?"

"Dick, you only started getting angry and frustrated when you compared what you went through to what other rape victims you've seen over the years have gone through. What they went through is terrible, yes. It doesn't mean what happened to you wasn't terrible as well. You said you weren't hurt, it wasn't painful, she didn't damage you physically. That doesn't matter though. Because rape isn't about any of those things. It's not about pain, it's not about how much it hurt. Rape is about theft."

He flinched at that, taking a step back.

"Rape is theft," Dinah pressed forward. "It's betrayal. It's someone taking something they have no right to, something precious, something that can't be taken back. It's taking away someone's right to choose who they share their body with, its using someone's body against them, against their wishes. That's what Tarantula did to you. Whether it hurt or not, whether you remember it fuzzily or in full detail...she took something from you, something you can't get back, and in doing so, she changed you forever."

He shook his head, eyes back on the ground. Denial but not denial. Acceptance but not acceptance. She forged on.

"And the thing is, you're right. You haven't been in denial about what happened. You know that she raped you, that that's what it is. What you haven't faced though is that it's not about how much that hurt you. It's about how much it changed you. Because you're different now, aren't you? And you're smart enough that you figured that out as soon as it happened, that you're not the same anymore, because I'm willing to bet everything looks different to you now. Because you lost something you didn't even know you could lose until it was gone. A sense of security you took for granted, that something like this could never happen to you, except now you know that it can, and it did. We're all made up of our experiences and your experiences now include something they didn't before, something big, something that left a sizable impact, and the be all and end of it all is that you've changed, and you know that...and you keep looking for an answer as to why. Why is everything so different now? Why are you so different?"

She sighed softly.

"And the problem is the only answer you have for that, you decided wasn't good enough for you. Because it wasn't as bad as it could have been. As bad as what happened to other people. And so you've trapped yourself because you know something's different but the thing that caused it, the thing that changed you...it wasn't big enough to explain this change, you decided. You didn't suffer enough, it didn't hurt enough, and so it's not a good enough reason for you to not be who you used to be. And so you keep finding the flaw in yourself, deciding that it must be that you're weak, that everything unsettling you, upsetting you, it's not because what Tarantula did warrants those changes, it's because you can't cut it. That's what you've been telling yourself, haven't you? You're not a survivor, because you don't think there was anything for you to survive. You're not traumatized because the trauma doesn't count. You didn't suffer enough, so that can't excuse all the turmoil you feel."

Dick paced restlessly, all that frenetic energy he always carried with him ratcheted up in intensity until Dinah was half convinced he was going to shake himself to pieces if he didn't find an outlet soon. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite ready to stop.

"All those other victims you described seeing over the years. When you helped them, did you tell them you were sorry for what they went through?"

Dick paused and raised haggard eyes. "Of course I did. Why?"

"Why did you?" Dinah asked, arching a brow. "You didn't do anything to them. You weren't apologizing for something you caused. So what did it mean, to tell them you were sorry?"

"I don't know. It's just...it's what you do. It's a comfort."

"Why though? What about it makes it a comfort?"

"I don't know, it just is. It lets them know somebody cares, I guess," Dick raged. "What are you getting at? You have all the answers, you tell me!"

"Think it through, Dick," Dinah said, firm. "They don't know you. You're a stranger to them. What does it mean for a stranger to tell a victim they're sorry, that they care. What does it matter? What does it do for them?"

Dick stared at her. His face wide and open and searching as he hunted for answers in the shadows of his room, of his own mind. He looked like he'd run a marathon, his body limp and exhausted seeming, like he was only remaining upright by the barest of threads.

"When I tell someone I'm sorry for what happened to them. I don't know. It tells them I see them, I guess," he said hesitantly. She nodded, encouraging him to go on. "That I see what they've been through. That I'm sorry they went through it."

He focused his eyes on hers, with a little more clarity this time. "I tell them...they survived, I guess. That what happened to them...it didn't just happen, it wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. It mattered. What happened to them mattered."

"Yes," Dinah agreed softly. "And every victim you've ever helped, as Robin or as Nightwing, every survivor you've told 'I'm sorry this happened to you' - every time one of them looks in the mirror and recognizes that they aren't the person they were before it happened, that they've changed...they can hold on to that memory of you saying you're sorry. And they know. It happened. It mattered. It is the reason they're different. It is the reason they changed."

Dinah hesitated, and then she said: "I'm sorry it happened to you, Dick. I'm sorry it changed you. I'm sorry that you can't go back to the way things were. I can't tell you it will get better with time. You aren't injured. This isn't a wound that will scar over if you just leave it alone long enough. You can't heal a transformation. But you can decide what you change into. You can decide who you become, even if its not what you were. It'll still be you. A whole you. A complete you. Just a different you. Just like you became someone different after your parents died. I never knew you before that changed you. But that didn't make the you I met any less worth knowing."

He sobbed. Just once, like it was ripped out of him. A tangled, tormented wreck of a sound, his face contorted in a rictus of misery beneath eyes that glistened with a watery sheen, reflecting the wan illumination. It was all he allowed himself, before he found his usual iron control and slammed the gates shut, expression going blank, but it was enough. It was a beginning.

"It's like quantum mechanics, huh," Dick said, like he was testing himself, his voice, once he'd given himself a minute to settle. It was hoarse with emotion but it steadied as he remembered how to use it, how to calm it. "The actual act of observing things affects reality on a quantum level. Defines it. Things exist in a state of flux, of indeterminate potential, until observing them settles them into the form they're observed in. Maybe...maybe acknowledging someone else's...trauma, makes it more real."

"Maybe," Dinah conceded thoughtfully. "I mean, I'm no Boy Genius so that's not somewhere my mind would go. I could see how someone who was, however, might arrive at that metaphor. I would be careful about relying too much on it though."

He frowned. "Why's that?"

"Defining reality through someone else's observations is a two way street. Someone relying on that metaphor could infer the wrong thing from it," she said. "For instance, they might convince themselves that the less they remembered an event, the less other people knew about it, the less real it was. Like if it was fuzzy enough and they never told anyone else, that could make it not real. Like it never happened."

"Oh," he said, subdued. "Yeah, I could see how that could happen."

"Did it?" Dinah probed. "Do you think that has anything to do with why you didn't tell anyone?"

"I don't know. Maybe, I mean, I guess? It wasn't anything conscious, I don't think, I just...I wanted to forget," Dick shrugged. Sighed. Scratched at his eyebrow. Cast a sidelong glance at the baby still sleeping contentedly in her arms. "Look how well that worked out anyway."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Do you resent him for that?"

"What? No," Dick snapped his head back. "God. Artemis kinda asked the same thing, why do people keep doing that? He's a baby, Canary, he's like...two days old, he didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm not trying to insinuate anything, Dick. We have to ask because it would be normal if you did. We all make associations in our brain, whether we like it or not. We're hard-wired to connect dots, and he's connected to well, to your trauma. It might not be pretty, but it'd be understandable. But if you say you don't, then you don't. I believe you."

He shook his head again, jaw clenched tight, lip jutting out - sullen, angry. At who though, Dinah couldn't guess. Too many options. Her. Tarantula. The world. Then he cast a hesitant, almost shy glance at her, peeking up from beneath his lashes. He licked his lips. Hesitated. Then: "Do you think he looks like me?"

She glanced down at the baby in her arms, but checked herself and cocked her head to study Dick more closely before answering. Tried to gauge his intent with that. "Why? Do you think there's a chance he's not actually yours?"

Dick just shook his head vigorously.

"No," he laughed, though not quite as acidic as before. Still with a flair of self-deprecation though. Still. Baby steps. She'd take any improvement over none at all. "Between the timing and everything else, I mean, yeah there's maybe a one and a million chance he's not, but pretty sure that'd just be denial talking. No, I just. I was just wondering. Do you think he looks like me?"

She nodded and then sighed through her nose, looking down again but more thoroughly this time. It was the first she'd allowed herself to really study the child in her arms, to be honest. But yes, yeah she could see it. His skin was a soft brown a little bit darker than Dick's own Romani heritage could account for - she vaguely remembered reading in a file somewhere that Tarantula was Latina, so the blending of those two ancestries would explain it. She'd always thought it a bit silly to read things like jawline or noses or other facial features into a newborn, all chubby cheeked and round faced and likely to grow out of it in time anyway. But even with that she could see how someone might make the case that the shape of the child's features roughly matched Dick's. Not much hair yet, just faint wisps of what was to come, a few fuzzy black strands sticking out every which way. He was sleeping now, having tuckered himself out with his crying jags earlier, but she could still remember her first glimpse of his baby blue eyes. They were called that because lots of babies had blue eyes when they were born, settling into their true coloring over time. But those eyes had been all Dick Grayson. She was willing to bet they were staying exactly as they were.

"Yes," she said at last. "He looks like you."

Dick glanced away, but not before she saw a soft, barely perceptible curve of his lip as though pleased. Quickly masked, but she was taking notes after all.

"That's what I thought when I first saw him," he said, almost gruffly. He exhaled heavily. "You asked if I resent him? No. It's...god. Honestly, I think maybe it'd be easier if I did."

She furrowed her brow and waited for him to continue. He didn't disappoint, resuming his pacing.

"I never really thought about having kids, you know?" He started, and she nodded, pangs shooting through her at the absent reminder of just how young he still was. "I mean. Bruce sat me down when I was fourteen and we had The Talk, I guess, and so I thought about it a little then, like what would happen if I accidentally got a girl pregnant. But I never really thought like, I wanted them, you know? Or if I ever did have one, maybe it'd be when I was older and like, I could adopt, like Bruce did, because I know how many kids already out there need homes and maybe I could pay it forward? But I never figured it was a big deal if I never had any of my own, like biologically or whatever, it wasn't something I needed."

He stopped. Swallowed. Stared at the baby for a long while, the child shifting in Dinah's arms as though aware of his father's intense scrutiny.

"But then I was there, and the prison doctor or whatever...she showed him to me, and he looked like me, I thought. But also...he looked like my dad. And my grandpa. Because we had pictures, I don't know what happened to them when my parents died, I only got to grab a few things from out trailer and I didn't know where they were, but I remember seeing them. Baby pictures from my dad's family, the Graysons, going back...I don't know, I think almost all the way back to World War II? My family was in Poland at the time and, I don't...I don't know what all happened back then, because I was too young to talk about stuff like that, I figured my parents were probably planning on telling me more when I was older. But I was just looking at him, and remembering all those baby pictures of all the men in my father's family, and my dad teaching me the trapeze when I was five and telling me how his dad taught him when he was that age and his dad him going back and back and back because my family had been in the circus for like, forever."

He drew a short breath, like he was steadying himself.

"And I was looking at him, like, this little tiny baby in my arms, and thinking he looked just like me, and just like Dad, and it hit me, you know? And I just remember thinking that...that for the last ten years I've been the last of the Flying Graysons, the last one there'd ever be, probably. And now I'm not anymore."

"And then...," he stopped, choking on the words, face screwed up like he was in pain and Dinah half started out of her seat in alarm before he bent over at the waist to gasp for air, raising a hand to ward her off. He straightened, found his breath again. "And then I just, for a second I felt...god. I was almost grateful, you know? To her. And how messed up is that? I hate her. I know what she did, and I hate her for it but then I'm looking at this little baby in my arms, another Grayson, and he's something I never knew I even wanted and might never have had if it hadn't happened and I don't...god, that's so fucked up and I don't know what to do with that I don't know how to handle that, I hate her, I do, I need to."

"Dick. Stop. Breathe," Dinah said, and she was up and at his side in an instant.

"I can't," he gasped, tears prickling at the edge of his eyes, cheeks flushed, staring up at her desperately, still hunched, still wheezing. "I can't, I don't...I...I need to..."

"I think you need to hold your son is what you need to do," Dinah said softly. "I think that's the only thing you need to do right this second. Can you do that for me?"

Frantic breaths still whistled in and out of his nose as he stared at her in alarm. He shook his head, abruptly terrified. "No. I can't...he's sleeping. What if I wake him up?"

"Then he'll be awake," Dinah said firmly, guiding his arms into the proper positioning as she maneuvered the precious bundle from her arms into his. "And it'll still be okay."

The boy that wasn't yet a man but couldn't any longer be a child stared down at the tiny thing in his arms, enraptured and afraid to breathe all at the same time. Dinah huffed a quiet laugh. "You know, I had this whole thing scripted out for asking you how you felt about him and what you wanted to do, that you have options and whatever you wanted to do, it'd be okay, it'd be perfectly understandable."

He nodded absently, still entirely focused on the being in his hands.

"Kinda looks like I don't need any of that after all," she finished casually.

"What if I can't, though," he breathed out, like the possibility of failure was a pained confession it hurt him to admit. "What if...Canary, I shouldn't, I mean...I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to do this."

"Let me let you in on a little secret, kiddo. I'm pretty sure nobody ever does. They figure it out. Or they don't. You however, have a pretty damn good track record at figuring things out."

That quieted him for a time.

"If I keep him," he said at last, drawing the words out slowly. "Everyone will know. Won't they? What happened to me. It's either that or they think I wanted to...with her...and I don't want that. Ever."

"Yeah," Dinah said reluctantly. "Probably. Yeah. I guess it comes down to whether or not you're willing to let her be the reason for what you decide."

He nodded, and she put a hand on his shoulder and stared over it at the tiny little thing full of potential and possibility.

"It's not either or, Dick. Just because something good came of it doesn't mean what happened wasn't terrible. And just because something terrible happened doesn't mean something good can't come of it. There's room for space in between."