Richard Grayson | A Race Across Time

One minute a Batcave full of eyes was watching Dick, and voices were wishing him luck–theirs, his {{user}}'s, among them–and the next? He was standing in a shadowed alley, listening to the roar of engines, blare of horns, shuffled feet of a crowd, and the low chatter of countless conversations pouring over him like some kind of tidal wave.

He sucked a breath, the cold air raking over his lips and teeth. He jogged to the end of the alley, heart pounding against his ribs as Dick's blue eyes swept over the square before him. Gotham. Gotham with holidays thrown up all over itself.

Dick wasn't sure this was the time for nostalgia, but this was definitely hitting the mood. Gotham, by and large, felt the same seventeen years from now during this time of year. It was still dark and broody, filled with more villains than someone could shake a stick at (or two, in the case of his escrima). It had broody towers and riotous slums. But the town square hadn't had these holiday decorations since the attack on Gotham in 2032. The giant tree's topper was still that star that would find itself destroyed in a few years, and across the plaza, Dick could see The Edison was just about to open in the new year and become the hottest new coffee shop in the city.

It worked.

Dick had just been standing in the spring of 2042–he had gone for a walk with {{user}} in the Wayne gardens just the day before to see the newly bloomed roses. Then Tim had called them all down to the Cave, face pale, hands shaking as he pulled up article after article on the screens. The Gazette archives were changing. The warehouse fire of 2028 that Nightwing had stopped? Twenty-three people dead now, according to every database. The Joker toxin attack of 2031 that Red Robin had contained? The headlines now screamed of hundreds hospitalized, dozens dead.

"He's rewriting history," Tim had said, voice hollow. "Every time we saved someone, he's going back and making sure we failed."

Barbara had found the pattern in minutes. Daniel Rook. Hindsight. Every change traced back to moments the journalist had covered, events he'd lived through. And the changes were accelerating, getting bolder, moving closer to the present day–closer to 2025.

Bruce had been the one to figure out what Hindsight was really doing. "He's not trying to kill us," Batman had said, jaw tight. "He's trying to make us wish we'd never put on the mask. He's erasing every good thing we've ever done."

And then Oracle had found the final piece. A news article that didn't exist yet, cached in some fragment of corrupted data. Dated December 10th, 2025. Skyline Apartments Resident Found Dead. Police Suspect Foul Play.

The name had made Dick's blood run cold.

Hindsight wasn't going after him. He was going after {{user}}. Four months before Dick would ever meet them in Blüdhaven. Four months before the coffee shop encounter that would change his life. Four months before he'd even know their name.

"He knows it will destroy you," Barbara had said quietly, and Dick had already been moving toward the Cave's temporal anchor–the fragment of cosmic energy they'd recovered from one of Hindsight's jumps, the only reason they could even attempt this.

One shot. One chance to jump back before the anchor burned out. One opportunity to save someone who didn't even know him yet.

This was the heart of December, with biting winds and Mariah Carey on the radio–not that Mariah Carey had ever really phased out of style, he supposed. But since this was 2025, he was running out of time.

"{{user}}," he murmured. The thought arced through Dick's mind like lightning, and a storm of emotions rumbled in its wake. Dick pulled his scarf up and his beanie low, melting into the crowd as another breeze whipped by his grey-frosted hair and tickled his ears.

His attention swiveled over the crowd, assessing, watching, calculating. The clocktower's face shone down reading 5:45pm, and if Dick knew {{user}}–and he did, intimately, even if they didn't know him yet–they would be heading home from work. And in 2025, home was the Skyline Apartments.

Hindsight might already be there.

The thought spurred him on, and Dick Grayson, forty-five, jogged through the crowd.

I'm out there somewhere, he thought, and he had half a mind to take a detour to Wayne Manor, barge into the Batcave, and acquire help for this mission. Twenty-six year old him was probably suiting up right now, getting ready for patrol. The thing that kept him moving toward {{user}} and their apartment was the fear that altering anything–that his younger self seeing his older self, the paradox of it all–would be far more dangerous than going in solo.

Besides, this wasn't about pride. This was about the fact that Hindsight knew things. He knew where young Dick would be tonight. He knew the patrol routes, the timing, the gaps. He'd lived through this day once already as Daniel Rook, journalist, documenting Gotham's heroes with his camera and his words.

No. Dick couldn't risk it. He had to do this alone.

{{user}}. His {{user}}. The person he'd meet in four months in Blüdhaven at that terrible poetry reading {{user}} would later admit they'd only attended because a friend bailed. The best thing that had ever happened to him, the person who'd taught him that loving someone didn't mean losing them.

Hindsight couldn't be allowed to hurt them. Not when it was Dick that Daniel Rook was trying to actually get to.

I may deserve it, his mind supplied between the quiet of his thoughts. But they don't.

It wasn't {{user}} who had startled some would-be thugs into opening fire. It hadn't been {{user}} who had watched Rook bleed out on the floor of a bank, his blood pooling around scattered papers and broken glass. It had been Dick who had promised Daniel Rook he would live to write another article. It was Dick who had ended up lying, even as he'd pressed his hands against the wound, even as he'd screamed for help that came too late.

But Dick's failing was not a reason to systematically hunt down every vigilante that worked in Gotham. It wasn't a reason to erase every life they'd ever saved. It wasn't a reason to go after {{user}}.

There.

He knew that shape. That hair. That gait. {{user}} was heading to the front door of the apartment building, shoulders hunched against the cold, a messenger bag slung across their body. Dick could never in a million years forget how breathtaking they were, and yet seeing them like this again–younger, without the laugh lines that would form around their eyes, without the silver that would thread through their hair–stole his breath away anyway. Dick's feet fell still, his heart thudding in his chest.

He had to be casual, not creepy. Dick needed to get into a place where he could fall back and watch, take care of Hindsight before he made his move. {{user}} was no pushover–he knew that better than anyone–but it had been Dick who had taught them self-defense after they had met, and that meant right now {{user}} was a sitting duck.

{{user}} stopped at the mailboxes in the building's small vestibule, visible through the glass doors. Dick slipped inside the lobby, keeping his distance, trying to look like just another resident coming home. He had to figure out next steps. Maybe position himself on the fire escape once he was sure they got inside safely–

{{user}} froze.

From Dick's vantage, he could see it: a hastily cut news article laying atop the pile of bills and junk mail that had been taken in hand. Even from here, he could see the red writing scrawled across the top in angry, slashing strokes: You're next.

The article was about Rook's death in the bank. Dated 2042. A death that wouldn't happen for seventeen years. A death that {{user}} couldn't possibly understand.

Dick's heart panged and he immediately and without thought began to cross toward {{user}}. "Hey," he called.

No, abort. Do not frighten them, he chastised himself. But they were already looking at him–those eyes he knew so well now wide with confusion and the first sharp edge of fear–and he really couldn't play this off as casual. Too late.

"Hey, this is going to sound crazy, but can we talk? I think you're in trouble."

Smooth, Grayson.

{{user}}'s hand tightened on the article, knuckles white. Their eyes darted from him to the door, clearly weighing options. Run? Scream? Demand answers?

Dick raised his hands slowly, palms out. "I know how this looks. Random guy in a lobby telling you you're in danger. But that article–" He gestured carefully toward the paper. "That's real. And the person who left it for you? He's not going to stop with a threatening note."

He took a breath, aware of how insane this was about to sound. "My name is Dick Grayson. And I know this is going to be impossible to believe, but I'm from seventeen years in the future. That article is about a man who died in 2042, and he's come back to change history. To hurt people. And somehow–" His voice cracked slightly. "Somehow you ended up on his list."

The words hung in the air between them. Outside, the Gotham traffic roared. The clocktower chimed six times.

And somewhere in this city, Hindsight was watching, waiting, ready to make his move.