What Happens After

One Of My Previous Patients Was Your Best Friend

“Mr. Grayson.” the voice echoed through the empty hall. Dick woke from his thoughts. He quickly stood up and made his way to the through the hall. He hesitated for a second at the door at the end of the corridor then knocked. “Come in!” said a voice from inside the room, it was the same that had called his name over the speakers. He lets himself in and looks around the room.

He’s greeted by the same odd stuff you’d probably find in any therapist’s office. The room is big, the walls a greyish blue decorated by at least two dozen paintings of all sizes. Most of them looked to be impressionistic or abstract, many only two or three colors. The floor was black and white marble covered by a fluffy baby blue carpet. In the middle of the room stood a dark oak desk and a red couch with two white pillows. There was only one window in the entire room, but it was huge (about the same size as the largest window at Wayne manor). The weather outside was cloudy, but not gloomy, actually quite pretty Dick thought. He took a seat on the red couch admiring the bookshelves covered in all kinds of books in all colors and genres. He turned his attention to the person sitting behind the desk that’s covered by piles of files. A man shorter than average height with dark hair and black rimmed glasses is sitting there. He looks back at the paper that’s in front of him.
“So, Mr. Grayson-” “Dick,” he quickly replies out of instinct. “Just call me Dick.” he gives the man a small smile. “Okay then. My name is Luke Johnson. You can call me Luke,” Dick nods. “And I will be you therapist from now on. Do you know why you’re here Dick?” “PTSD” Dick smiles sadly. “Good… I mean that you know.” Dick nods again. “Well then you can lay on the couch if you want and start telling me your story. Don’t mind me as I will be taking notes.” Dick nods once more and removes his shoes. He lays on the couch putting both pillows behind his back. He thinks for a moment. “First I need to know one thing… Can you keep a secret?” Luke shoots him a confused look. “Dick you realize I’m a therapist the most important rule in my line of work is doctor/patient confidentiality.” Dick looks at him, a little amused at his reaction. “Okay… I’m trusting you to not tell this to a single soul or my family will come after you and they will find you.” Luke looks at him oddly and then leans forward curiously.

“I am Nightwing.” Dick says in such a serious tone that accompanied by a face of such seriousness that it made him look more like his adoptive father than himself. Silence follows… Luke doesn’t look surprised. “So you are that Dick Grayson” Luke’s face lights up and he seems more interested in Dick than before. “What?” Dick looked very confused. “I’ve heard a lot about you Dick Grayson.” “You what?” Dick was suddenly scared that his secret was already out and this was some kind of trap set up by the Joker. He slowly reached for his phone, but he didn’t want to seem like he was catching on to no alert Luke so he continued the conversation “How do you know? Who told you?” His hand was on top of his pocked where his phone was. He grabbed his phone and stood up so he could bolt to the nearest exit as soon as he had called Batman. “Relax.” Luke said chuckling. “One of my previous patients was your best friend.” Dick looked at Luke questioningly “…Was?” Dick’s shock turned into a frown as he caught on to who Luke was talking about. “Yes Wally West.” Luke says his smile fading. Dick sits back down and puts his phone back into his pocket. There is a moment of silence. “I’m sorry for reminding you of him.” Luke says placing a tissue box on the end of his desk, where Dick could reach it. “It’s okay…” Dick says swallowing the tears that were creeping up his throat. “He mentioned you a lot. And now I get to have your perspective on the stories he told me.” Luke smiles trying to get back the positive energy they had started this session with. Dick gives him another sad smile. “That’s not exactly why I’m here Dr. Johnson.” Luke’s smile fades, bringing up Wally West had put a distance between them. “Right. I am sorry. That was not very professional.” “It’s alright. Everyone can make mistakes…” Dick sighs heavily, “As did I.” Luke swiftly grabs a pen, opens a blank notebook titled ‘Richard Grayson’ and looks up at Dick “Are you ready to talk about it?” Dick nods “I think so.” he takes a sip of water from the glass on the small coffee table in front of him and leans back on the couch.

“The full story starts with Batman giving me a mission. We were trailing a highly dangerous organization smuggling alien technology. Batman believed I was finally ready to take on such a serious mission. He let me decide who I wanted to take with me on this mission, the people I deemed most useful and trustworthy. The task was simple to track and transport the alien tech into a secure location. The mission shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, but there were complications. It felt really weird and at some point I felt as though I had been set up for failure. We had no clue some of the alien tech was of Martian origin and disabled our mental link. I had no clue I would be fighting against my own brother-in-law. I guess that’s where it went wrong. I was extremely panicked and couldn’t focus on the mission when I saw him in the enemy’s front lines…” Dick pauses. The next sentence was hard for him to get out. “So when I realized finally what was happening… I was too late… We were losing… Both Roy and Kaldur were dead and Jason, though on the winning side, fatally wounded. I just broke. I told the team to retreat, took Jason and rigged the place to blow up in 2 minutes. We barely managed to save Jason and we didn’t have the time to get Roy’s and Kaldur’s bodies out of there…” Dick’s eyes were in tears which were slowly flowing down his face. Luke finished his noted and pushed the tissue box closer to Dick with his pen. Dick took one from the box and dried his cheeks. “Ever since then I’ve just felt so guilty. When I got back, Batman was furious. Our mission was transporting the tech, not blowing it up. I left Gotham after that and found a mediocre place in Bülhaiven. I did go back to the funerals but stayed hidden. I mean I’m sure Batman knew where I was. He knows everything. I didn’t even take out my Nightwing suit out of my bag for two months.” Dick had calmed down after taking another sip of water. He stopped talking. Remembering that night. Events looping in his head.

Luke let him be for a few minutes while he kept writing in the notebook before continuing the conversation, “You’ve lost people before, correct?” Luke was trying to sound as sincere as possible. Dick answered straight away “Yes…” “And how did coupe with those deaths?” “Well…” Dick thinks for a moment and continues “First were my parents, with their deaths Bruce was really the first one to help me. He took me in, helped me get revenge and had me going to a therapist for months.” Dick took another sip of water. He didn’t feel sad, it happened a long time ago and the people responsible were dead. “There were some others, that didn’t really affect me in any way… Then there was Wally…” Dick sighed “I was devastated, left the team, got a girlfriend, but I couldn’t stay away. I went back and then this happened and now I’m here…” his emotions caught up with him. Dick’s eyes had so many distinctly different emotions at the same time in them that Luke had a hard time finding them all. He was entranced by Dick’s eyes and the mysteries they contained. Luke blinked to clear his head and took a long and thoughtful sip of his coffee.

The clock rang. Dick’s time was up. “I look forward to our next session, how about next Friday at  6.30 PM? We can talk longer then.” Dick nodded at Luke “Sounds great, thank you.” And walked out the door.