𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐑𝐄 , nightwing

006 abandonment issues.

𝐈𝐓 had been what seemed like days before I heard any slight movement, both me and Rachel suspended in place. We had shared a sort of comfortable silence. We both had nowhere else to go and both had been lied to by Dick, who surprise, surprise, was in fact a massive dick. I had always felt he was keeping something from me, like he was holding back the truth, but I never expected it to be this.

The faint click of the rooftop door was close to startling me, cutting through the silence that had lasted far too long, but somehow, it didn't. "They're up here!" Dicks voice was like a knife to my heart. Walking closer to Rachel, he called out. "Hey, what are you two doing up here? I was worried." To come up here and act all caring and worried after writing that note? What kind of sick motherfucker did that? My guess was that he got off on getting people dependant on him and then ditching them. Suddenly, me and Hank had less differences, or at least one more similarity - that being wanting to beat the ever living shit out of Dick Grayson.

"Rach. Nate, what's wrong?" Hank joined the other two on the roof, and as open as it was to the soft breeze running chills down my spine, I felt the overall heat on the rooftop rise the moment he all stepped onto it. To act like nothing was wrong? I couldn't even face him. I left Rachel to explain it all to him as I continued to stare off into the distance, watching small matchstick box cars drive by. I'd even seen a girl jump out of a moving car earlier, whatever that was about.

Dick and the others awaited an answer but neither Rachel nor I seemed eager to give one. It felt ridiculous that we had to explain to him why we were upset. I mean, being abandoned is a fairly natural thing to be pissed off about, is it not? "You were gonna leave us here." Rachel spoke out in a sullen tone. It was clear she hadn't spoken for a while, and there was both a strong lack of emotion and an unparalleled amount of sorrow in it too, as if everything so far in her life was just proven 'too good to be true'. Just as he saw the crumbled note in her hand, his face dropped, instantly paling.

I just knew that she was probably overthinking and blaming herself, but I hadn't the heart to yell at her for it, because my mind was doing the exact same thing, and the last thing I'd want to do to Rachel was be yet another hypocrite feeing her lies. She'd had enough of that already with major dickwad over here. "You said you weren't but you lied."

"You must lie a lot. You're good at it." Rachel spat out, venomously, and yet it all seemed tired at the same time as she let it all out. All the pent up emotions she had been welling on for the past God knows how long on the roof with me. It had seemed that we'd both come onto the rooftop boiling over with a rage uncontainable, and a heart-breaking level of betrayal and sadness plaguing the both of us, but by the time they'd all arrived? We had already gone through all the fucking stages of grief and were simply accepting it, tired by yet another set of lies so casually fed to us.

"What is she talking about?" Hank cut in, clearly having not read the letter yet, and with the way he was before? I couldn't imagine this going down well. If he had half the gut-wrenching betrayal and fury that me and Rachel had bonded over after first reading the letter, Dick was soon to be a dead man.

"Hank, don't read that." Dick's hand flew out to snatch back the letter Rachel had just handed him, but it was too late, and Rachel's unnatural state had only wagered him more to read Dick's handwritten letter. "I..." Dick glanced around at everyone: Dawn then Rachel then Hank then me. Even with my back turned, I could just tell the mortified look on his face as he came to realise what had happened in his absence.

"It's got my name on it." Hank scoffed, snatching the letter back, just out of reach before noting Dick's guilt-ridden defeat and then proceeding to opening and reading the letter's contents, Dawn loosely scanning the page over his shoulder. Shame had seemed to knock him off his feet as he slightly edged back, knowing Hank was soon to be bursting with unbridled but reasonable rage, already predicting it and planning to not be here when he read it before everything went to shit. "What the fuck?!"