Steady On Forward

Chapter 5

A/N:

WARNING Chapter Contains: Explicit Sexual Content 

As previously mentioned, you can skip from the ❥ to the ❥‖ to avoid the explicit section if you wish.

—

As relieved as Dick was to have finally worked things out in his sex life, the rest of the repercussions from That Night weren't solved so easily.

He gritted his teeth as Tim once again talked around the point of a sexual assault case, as if hearing the straight facts would make Dick explode. And Tim was far from the only one — the whole family had been continuing to treat him differently, treading extra lightly around him.

They were somehow getting even worse about everything, and it was making him feel like he was really gonna lose it.

He didn't, though. He took deep breaths and counted to ten in his head before responding — if he even had to. He'd taken to just ignoring everyone for the most part. Just take it day by day, he told himself. Day by day.

◇◇◇

"So," Stephanie said, plopping herself down on Tim's sofa next to his feet. "Let's talk about Tarantula."

Tim shut the laptop resting on his stomach, and let his head fall back against the armrest. "Too much is speculation; I don't like it. Sure, I found out all sorts of non-relevant things, but cold hard facts about stuff to do with Dick? There isn't a lot that's useful."

"Well tell me what you have, and we'll work from there."

Tim heaved out a sigh, and dragged a hand over his face. "Alright. Catalina was Blüdhaven-based — grew up there before she went into the FBI — took up vigilantism as the second Tarantula not too terribly long after quitting and coming back to the city. She was like Hood, no problem killing, blah blah, you know this. Dick as Nightwing got her arrested for killing the corrupt Chief of Police, she got let off (thanks to her brother who was the Assistant D.A.), and then she ganged up with Blockbuster against Nightwing as revenge."

He took a deep breath before continuing. "Then Babs and Dick split and Babs was all jealous over her... Admittedly I don't know too much about that situation, but whatever, she was definitely a part of it even if she wasn't the whole reason. Babs said that Tarantula kissed Dick at some point and she got pretty pissy over it, but she didn't tell me what she said. Didn't really sound like Dick had control over it either."

"Yikes," Staphanie said.

"I know, right? So then at some point after Blockbuster tried to have someone blow Dick to bits with that bomb, at some point she decided to team up with Nightwing. This was when Blockbuster was really going in targeting everyone around Dick, and he knew his secret identity and...yeah, that whole mess.

"So I guess Catalina gave up on her revenge for the murder charge? Who knows. Maybe Babs and Dick breaking up was part of her plan."

Stephanie raised an eyebrow.

"Think about it, maybe Catalina was getting between them on purpose and trying to, uhh, win Dick's affections for herself." Get into his pants, more like, but maybe he shouldn't say that. "I mean, she did kiss him in front of Babs." He paused. "He really attracts the morally grey ones, doesn't he? I think Babs is like the only one not..." he trailed off. "Anyway, back on topic: (but see this is what I mean about a bunch of shit being all speculation, though), but anyway, Catalina teamed up with 'Wing against Blockbuster.

"They got a taped confession from him — this was all in Dick's case files — and somehow this confession got destroyed? All it said was 'recording was destroyed'. Don't know how, or why the hell he didn't make a copy, but whatever. Then—"