Good mornings were a lie. Not the big earth shattering start over kind of lies, but the little lies that just shook the world a little bit. This week Dick had felt a nagging pain at the base of his skull every morning since Sunday. He looked at people who approached him like old friends blankly, searching for memories that weren't there yet. No one seemed bothered by it, but the blue eye'd brooder felt guilty. New memories showed up every morning, but nothing was quite as prominent as dying.

Eyes closed, breathing uneven and heavy. His broad shoulder rose and fell in random rhythms of quick and slow. He was struggling for air and there was no one around him and no physical exertion. He could feel the hand slipping over his nose and mouth. He could hear the voice telling him he was sorry. He tried to move his arms, struggled to get his head away, but the grip on him was too strong and for some reason he couldn't move. The memory was blurred around the edges, fuzzy as if his mind was fighting him. Bright blue eyes dulled as they stared directly into the face and eyes of the person who was unmoving. He could remember being afraid and then suddenly the fear left him.

He had almost always known the risks of this job. Bruce had reminded him daily in his training that mistakes could get him killed. Mistakes were costly and they couldn't afford to make them. He got his ass handed to him daily for months and months and years until he could finally hold his own, until the mistakes were few and weren't deadly, but could still cause injury. He had survived growing up in this business, but now as a man he wondered how many years he really had left. This human man with no special ability, no power, no inhuman gift to make him invincible. All it would take was a well-aimed shot to the head. People had tried. But it wasn't a well-aimed shot to the head causing the light behind his eyes to fade. It was a man, much like him squeezing off his oxygen. If death was the price to save the people he loved, he'd pay it. If it meant protecting the family he had acquired over the years, all of them from different parents, but all of them finding ties stronger than blood, then he'd pay it and he wouldn't negotiate with his fate. He didn't fear the end, he knew it was coming, it was just now that he knew the method. His eyes filled with tears, saying prayers in his mind until there was nothing. Until his heart stopped and he was gone.

It wasn't Dick that was trembling on the rooftop of Titan's Tower, the organization he had led for years from Robin to Nightwing. It was Danny. Danny now knew what it was like to die and shit… Dick couldn't blame him for being afraid. Danny was a part of Dick and Dick a part of Danny. Danny was learning the feeling of all the things Dick had gone through to be where he was in that moment and it was a lot to take in. Even if he couldn't remember it all, everything that happened, but his body could feel it.

The vice in his chest was tightening. Dick or Danny or whoever he was in that moment was struggling to breathe. He was dizzy and confused. Overwhelmed by his own senses kicking into overdrive. The man moved from standing to kneeling. He clutched his head and tried to remember to breathe. He forced himself to breathe in a normal in and out pattern until he was calmly breathing. Laying down and rolling onto his back, all he did was simply stare up at the night sky.

He could hear the voices below him, some of them filled with happiness and laughter as they played around with each other. The sound traveling through open windows to his ears. They sounded happy, some of them, thrilled to see more faces, more Titans. Just listening caused the replay of sounds in his head of conversations from what seemed like a lifetime ago. A group of stupid kids wanting to stop crime, but too young for the Justice League, still they were good at what they did. He remembered yelling Titans like a battle war cry and it brought a chuckle to his lips. God, he was ridiculous and he looked it too. They were misfits, kids who had something different about them that needed to be around other kids like them. They needed people their age to share their lives with as much as normal kids did.

It had been good. It had been so good until he knew he couldn't do it anymore and left. It seemed to be his motto. Stick around until you just can't and then fly. It worked this long. Dick felt it now. On the roof he could just disappear and go back to his apartment. Those who knew him would understand. It wasn't the first time he just took off without a word. The pieces of him saying yes had strong opposition. He had been asked there for a reason, there were people who needed him. Needed his help and guidance and even though he was doing this for the first time, it was still in his nature to attempt to take control and provide strength and support where he could. It had been engrained in him.

Climbing to his feet, he took unsteady steps, a deep breath with each until he reached the door. Hand closing over the knob he began to turn it. He couldn't be unsteady in front of any one else. He pulled himself together and started following the steps. A smile pulled on his lips. After all he was Dick Grayson, aka Robin, aka Nightwing, and he had a lot of things to do.