Robin one shot part 3!

Grey area besties

flashbossXD let me link their request to my villain Dick story so massive thank you to them

also THERE IS A REFERENCE TO A REALLY OLD STORY I DID IF ANY OF Y'ALL REMEMBER IT YOU GET BROWNIE POINTS  

This felt weird. 

It was so unnatural. 

Nightwing hadn't been alone in so long that now he was, the feeling was foreign. He hadn't been completely and utterly alone since his time as a child in the Juvenile Detention Center knowing that he had no home to return to or any family waiting for him. The source of this loneliness came as a result of moving out of his apartment with Wally upon confessing how he really felt about the hero gig. How was he supposed to know it would end so poorly? Wally must've told everyone Nightwing knew because the next minute he was swamped with messages, most of them harsh and unfeeling, urging him not to proceed with his plan of starting anew. Although the prospect of being alone was a terrifying one and he desperately didn't want to be, hadn't he already been alone as a hero wondering if it was all worth it? Nightwing couldn't stay where he was. He'd off himself in a month. 

So he packed up all his stuff, hit the final big red button on changing his identity, and began sleeping in a crappy hotel room since it was cheap until he figured out somewhere else to go. Nightwing would make appearances on patrol, being careful to make his movements erratic so his family wouldn't scout him out and drag him back to the hero life kicking and screaming. He found that he rather liked being malevolent. It'd come at a great cost to be crueller but boy did it feel good. He hadn't realised just how angry he'd been at everything he'd suffered until he allowed himself to let it all go. 

Still, the loneliness was getting to him more than he liked to admit. He'd begun to speak to himself just to fill up the empty air of his room. It started out as small mumbles here and there as though he was on a weird version of The Office but now he was pouring his heart out to a person who simply wasn't there. He knew no one was there. He knew that when he stared at the space beside him there was no one to fill it or someone pulling him into a well-meaning hug. No one was going to answer back aside himself. Yet it helped to talk to himself as though he were two people. It was on one of these occasions that he was interrupted.

It was a cold night in December, Christmas decorations were being put up around the city and Nightwing was sitting alone as always. He knew the holidays would be hard as such a family-centric person and the whole point of this time of year was coming together. Nightwing was basically off the grid since the criminals who did see him were critically injured before they could spread the word of where he was and he'd threatened the hotel manager that if he even thought to speak a word to another person about him being there then he'd happily beat him to a bloody pulp. There was always a rush when he threatened people now because he could follow through without being held back. He supposed freedom went hand in hand with loneliness. 

Unable to sit still in his room, he'd gone out into the night and found one of his favourite lookout spots he hadn't shared with his family as part of the Robin to Robin pitch talk he gave. The building always had scaffolding around it and if you climbed to the very top, you'd be met with one of the best views of the city. He couldn't climb all the way up at this time of year so he happily settled on one of the worker platforms.