Fic: Change My World 2/8 (Batman)
Feb. 11th, 2008 04:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Change My World 2/8
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Misfit
Word Count: 4,052
Series: Change My World
Summary: Despite his amnesia, Dick can remember a few things about his old life. Just not what took Barbara away from him.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Barbara woke up to the sound of her support rings knocking together. The air conditioner was stirring them. The air conditioner never started this early, so Dick must’ve turned it on. With a groan, Barbara took hold of the rings hanging from the ceiling and pulled herself up before they could jangle any more. After her abbreviated night with Dick, they sounded too much like taunting.
Then she swung herself out to climb into her chair, as usual, and it wasn’t there. Of course not. Dick had taken her to bed. Romantic idiot. She couldn’t have been at least pragmatic enough to spoil the mood and ask him to bring the thing she needed to move into her bedroom? Cursing herself for her own foolishness, Barbara summoned up the holographic console on her bedstand and ordered in another wheelchair. It rolled out of the closet and to her bedside, knocking over a table lamp in the process. Wonderful. Barbara made a mental note to work out the kinks in that thing’s navigation routine.
Righting the lamp on her way out, Barbara was greeted by loud music and the tone-deaf karaoke of Dick Grayson. He was bopping around the kitchen, managing to do five things at once. He had found a pair of Bermuda shorts and a sleeveless shirt with “X-TREME!” written on the back in a splashy font.
That does it, I definitely have to clean out my closet more often.
“Uh, Dick?”
“What is this music?” he asked, tossing a pancake up in the air and catching it with the same skillet. “It’s awesome!”
“Milla Vanilli.”
“Never heard of ‘em!”
“They’re new.” To you, at least.
Dick shuffled the pancake out onto a stack of the same. “What’ll your pleasure be? I’ve got pancakes, eggs benedict, some oatmeal…” The microwave beeped. “Warm oatmeal,” he corrected himself. “And some bacon.”
“I’ll just have a grapefruit.”
His face fell. “Don’t have that.” Then he really looked at her. “Oh, darn, your wheelchair! We left it in your alien room!”
“It’s alright, that was just… alien room?”
“Yeah. The room where you’ve got all the sci-fi stuff. What is that, Thanagarian, Kryptonian?”
“Dell.”
“Never heard of that species.” He dug a batter into the pancake mix. “Sure I can’t tempt you with one? I can make it shaped like Mickey Mouse.”
She smiled despite herself. “Fine. One.”
It was delicious in a way Barbara couldn’t have ever imagined and she couldn’t believe how many days she’d skipped breakfast in favor of cereal bars and the promise of a large lunch… only that large lunch was only always some protein shake designed to fill her up while tasting vaguely of raw egg. Even when she went outside the house, it was always fast food, never a sit-down restaurant.
“Feeling any better?” she asked, putting a stop to her self-pity right there.
Dick’s hand automatically drifted toward the new bandage he’d wound around his head. “Headache’s gone.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Then there was a shrill, piercing note, followed by the familiar throbbing sound as Batman teleported in. There was nothing; then he was faded; then finally corporeal.
“Bruce!” Dick said, forgetting himself. He shot to attention, but couldn’t conceal a wide grin.
Batman, so grim, so serious, looked at him askew. “Dick.”
Barbara giggled under her breath, a hand over her mouth to cover it up.
“I see you’re awake,” Batman said.
“Yeah, never felt better, sir.”
It’d been a while since Batman had been called “sir” by Dick. He started mildly. “Who attacked you?”
“Someone attacked me? Oh, yeah, I guess that would follow. Somewhat more dignified than slipping while getting out of the bath, wouldn’t ya say?”
Barbara interrupted. “Dick, could we talk in private?”
Dick made a face. “You’re going to talk about me, aren’t you? And it’s not gonna be pretty. Why can’t you ever plan me a surprise party or something?”
Batman looked at Barbara, his expression demanding answers… in a very puzzled sort of way.
“Dick, this isn’t… you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then why can’t I stay?”
“Dick, now,” Batman said, and Dick was out of there.
“That’s handy-“ Barbara began to comment, when Batman was suddenly standing over her.
“Dick is regressed to a child-like mental state. When were you planning on telling me that?”
“It’s not child-like so much as…” Barbara searched her vocabulary. “Piece-meal. He’s forgotten a lot of what’s come before, but he’s still himself. Just… jolted. Like a computer from a cold reboot. The data’s still there, it’s just not up on the screen.”
Batman gave her an interrogator’s stare, as if he could intimidate her into confessing that everything he didn’t like was a bad joke on her part. Barbara crossed her arms and gave him his own stare back at him. She wasn’t afraid of him. After the night he’d laughed with the Joker while she’d laid in a hospital room, she barely even respected him. Bruce was only human. Maybe less.
Finally, Bruce cracked, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t something you could see, only feel. Barbara doubted she could’ve detected it if she wasn’t in the same room.
”Is he going to be alright?”
“He’ll be fine,” Barbara assured him. “In time.”
“I want J’onn to look him over.”
She waved her hand, dispelling the suggestion. “I’m not sure Dick’s in any condition—“
“He never will be unless we help him.”
“Nothing invasive,” she bargained.
For a moment it looked as if Bruce wanted to demand to know who she was to naysay him on the subject of Dick Grayson. But finally he nodded curtly: “Agreed.”
Alright, why am I so pissed off at Bruce? He’s not the one who gave Dick a concussion. At least, if he were, he probably would’ve mentioned it. If he felt I needed to know. Damnit.
***
Alright, Dick wondered, since when had Bruce and Barbara gotten so chummy? Just yesterday the Dynamic Duo had been keeping her at arm’s length. It’d only been a few months ago that they’d let her know their secret identities. And now he was like a little kid being sent to his room while the grown-ups talked. It was a clue, a clue to what he didn’t know, but Bruce had trained him to recognize clues and this was definitely a clue.
Dick walked back into Barbara’s alien technology room. The furnishings had improved. There was a girl, about his own age, sitting in a rolly chair. Redhead, too. Since his technique with Barbara didn’t seem to be cutting it, maybe it was time he did a little practicing. Purely for research, of course.
He straddled his own rolly chair and flung himself into the middle of the room, ramming the back of her chair. The girl was so surprised that she disappeared.
Dick’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Holy disappearing act!” He looked around for her, even checking under the desk. “Uhm, Red? Red? Come out, come out, wherever you are.” When that didn’t work, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted “Olly olly oxen free!” Still nothing. As long as he was in the realm of the absurd, he half-expected for Green Arrow to jump out from behind a supercomputer. “Oh God, I killed her.”
“DAAAAAARK VENGEANCE!” someone shouted, just before a stapler bounced off his head.
“Oww! What the heck?” Dick spun around. There was Red, holding a keyboard like a cudgel. “Hey now, cutie-pie, why don’t you set that down nice and easy? You break anything in here, I’m dead meat!”
“Does that mean you’ve had enough or are you thirsty for some more DAAA-“
“Heard you the first time,” Dick said, rubbing the bump on his noggin. “Man, you Women’s Libbers play ‘hard to get’ for keeps!”
“What are you implying, that I’m some sort of man-hating lezbo? Birds of Prey aren’t, like, synonymous with that! And even if we were, that wouldn’t mean we hated men, just that we didn’t care for—“
“Dick Grayson,” he said, extending his hand in introduction before she could blather anymore.
She shook his hand energetically. “You can call me Charlie, or Misfit if you want. I don’t have much of a secret identity. Yet.”
“That’s a nice handshake, Charlie.” Dick leaned in for the killer, his hand pulling Charlie in close enough for his breath to stroke her cheek. “Nice and sexy.”
Charlie’s cheeks went rosy. “Oh, uh, thanks. I try not to squeeze too hard, because I don’t know my own strength and I break stuff sometimes.”
“That’s fascinating. Do you know how they say hello in Europe, as I learned when I traveled there on a close personal friend’s yacht?” he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed its back, taking the dishwashing glove from her hand first. “That’s if you’ve just met. If you’re friends…” Softly, slowly, his lips fell on Charlie’s knuckles. “And if you’re more than friends…” He kissed the inside of her wrist like he would never stop.
“Oh, uh, wow…” Charlie was breathing heavy. “I just wanna let you know that I love older men when they’re not too old and I’m on the pill and I’m over eighteen and I’m kinda slutty. Blowjob slutty, not torn fishnets slutty. Don’t tell Dinah I said that.”
The quip about blowjob slutty was enough to make Dick forget the old man jibe. She couldn’t be more than a year or two younger than him.
“I heard…” Dick paused, unsure if he should give away Barbara’s identity, “our mutual friend using the radio in here. Mind showing me how that works?”
Charlie decided to come on strong. “You’ll have to give me a kiss.”
Dick grinned. The things he did for Gotham.
***
“Calling Speedy, calling Speedy.” Dick wiped some lipstick from his mouth. “This is short-pants. Light some fires and kick some tires, old buddy.”
The monitor blacked out, then came on again with a feed into a house Dick didn’t recognize. There was a slim blonde girl in front of the camera. She looked weary and vivacious in equal measures, like a tired woman who’d just downed a cup of espresso.
“Oh man!” Dick chortled, putting a hand over his face as a laughably bad disguise, one that might suffice to disguise whether or not he had shaved that morning. It was so laughable that Misfit… laughed. Dick shoved her away. “Okay, Blondie, there’s gonna be a handsome, naked redhead in your bed.”
“Yeah, I wish.”
“I’m serious. Can you give him a nudge for me? When he wakes up, tell him… DG is calling.”
The blonde girl paused. “Dick Grayson? Is that you?”
Dick held his hand over his face a bit tighter. “HOW DID YOU… Uhh… no.”
“Are you calling for Roy?”
“…Maybe.”
“He goes by Arsenal now.“
“He changed his codename? Why?”
“Don’t know,” the girl shrugged. “I like being called Speedy.”
“You’re Speedy? What is this, Earth-Genderbent? Is there a Batwoman chasing a Catman and some female version of the Joker?” Dick turned to Misfit. “And what would that make you, girly-boy?”
“Are you drunk?” faux-Speedy asked.
“No, ma’am, I never indulge in spirits,” Dick exclaimed proudly. “The only refreshments I need are cold glasses of water, cartons of milk, and the occasional soda pop. But not too much; it rots your teeth.”
“So is this, like, a practical bloopers thing? Teen Titans hazing ritual?”
“The Teen Titans aren’t hiring at the moment, but if you fill out an application…”
“Okay, this is getting boring. Drunk-dial someone else.”
The feed went dead. Dick blinked.
“I don’t drink!” He turned to Charlie. “Why is everything so different? Was I in a coma?”
“No. If you were, I would’ve given you a sponge bath.”
“That would probably give me some weird dreams. Strangely enough, I have nightmares about women pushing me down and ravishing me. What a thing to be afraid of, eh?” He shook his head. “Show me again how to work this thing? I want to talk to ‘Arsenal’,” Dick said with finger-quotes.
Charlie looked at the computer. “Delphi, connect to Arsenal.”
“Connecting,” the computer replied, before a new feed went live.
There was a little black-haired girl on the other end of the screen, her rounded face speaking of Asian ancestry. The pony T-shirt and the Oshkosh were all-American, though.
“Oraclady?”
“No, I’m…” Dick jerked. He’d forgotten to cover his face. Desperate, he tried to think up the most ridiculous name imaginable. “I’m Vin… Diesel?”
“You look different with hair.”
“Yes, I’d imagine so. Can you put your babysitter on the line?”
“You mean Tandy? She’s not here right now, because my daddy’s spending all day with me.”
“Good for you. I’m looking for a handsome, hopefully-not-naked redhead.”
The little girl pulled at one of her braids. “My daddy was right. You really are going through a dry spell.”
“Hey, shut up, I’m older than you!”
“You shut up!”
“No, you shut up!”
“I don’t shut up, I grow up. When I look at you, I want to throw up!”
Dick covered the video camera and looked at Charlie. “Darn, she’s got me there!”
“Just because you covered the camera doesn’t mean I can’t still hear you.”
“Double darn!”
A new voice came through the speakers. “Hon, who’re you swearing effeminately with?”
“Unca Dick!”
“Uncle Dick?” Roy picked his daughter up and leaned into the camera’s range. “Hey Dick. Don’t get upset about losing to Lian, she wins all the arguments around here too.”
“Can I have ice cream for breakfast?”
“No.”
“But—“
“That wasn’t an argument, that was a decision. See, semantics are important.” Roy turned back to the screen, on which Dick was aghast. “What’s the matter, bird-boy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Uhh… Roy… did someone hit you with an aging ray?”
“Why? Am I getting a gray hair?” Roy felt his hair.
“No, you’re just… you have a beard!”
“Goatee, actually.”
“When did you grow that!”
“I don’t know, months ago. I was getting tired of the soul patch. Just seems so boy-bandy.”
“Daddy’s beard is tickly!” Lian added.
“Daddy!? Roy, I never thought I’d say this in this context, but explain why that girl is calling you daddy.”
Roy ruffled her hair, looking at him funnily as if expecting a joke and trying to figure out its punchline ahead of time. “Because she’s my daughter. Duh.”
“When did you have her? When you were two?”
“Closer to twenty-two.”
“Stop right there!” Dick held up a finger. “I think I’m in some sort of time vortex. Don’t say anything lest I gain knowledge of the future and accidentally change the course of history!”
“Okay. So, you coming by for pool on Saturday?”
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO!”
“Play pool?”
“Give me knowledge of future events!”
“Knowing there’s a game of pool on Saturday is going to change history?”
“When Deutscher is elected President and we all live in a horrible dystopia, don’t come crying to me!” Dick shut the computer off and walked away from it. Then turned and walked back to it, only to fall into a stringent pacing. Charlie was reminded of a caged tiger at the zoo. Except cute.
“Okay, I have my doubts about time travel. Whoever the Dell are, I doubt they have the technology to talk to the future. Einstein’s theories would render that virtually impossible. Obviously, years have passed since the last thing I remember. Couldn’t have been in a coma, because then my body would be in no condition to move around. Unless…”
He felt his body.
“Nope, no robotic exoskeleton. What does that leave? Wait a minute… older man?” He switched to Charlie. “How old am I?”
“I don’t know! You look twentysomething to me. Did I mention I’m eighteen?”
“Where’s the nearest mirror?”
***
Dick examined himself in the bathroom. His face looked so familiar… then he tried to reconcile it with his recollections of the past few days. Yes, there’d been a change. He put a hand to his face. Stubble chafed his palm. Yup, definite change. He hadn’t even thought to notice it. Some detective. No wonder his face was so itchy.
He looked at his hands. Bigger. His arms were hairy. So was his chest. And he had scars. He took off his shirt. Jesus. His body looked like a satellite image of some war-torn country, set to flesh. Bruises were fading off his skin in a rainbow of colors, the best a putrid yellow staining his belly. He leaned over the sink, looking closer at his reflection. No scars like Bruce’s, but they were there. A stitch-job near the hairline; probably a broken bottle. All teeth accounted for, thankfully. Down at the neck, there was a bruise like someone had tried to strangle him.
Then the scars really started. A knife wound across the collarbone, a few miscellaneous gunshots, puckered and angry. One really big one on his left shoulder. The others were small caliber, ricochets, skims. That one was a direct hit. He could tell the bullet had lodged in there pretty good. Might’ve even hit bone. Bits of it might even still be in there, if it was one of those nasty frag-headed jobs. It was practically ancient, while a relatively newer one was on his leg.
Teeth marks on his thigh… had to be Killer Croc, although they were so pale and faded he couldn’t tell. Another scar, a coarsening of his skin which he couldn’t identify as acid or fire (probably some kind of lit accelerant, then) coursed down the side of his torso and under his waistband. He tugged his pants down.
Whoa.
That was certainly different.
Dick shook his hips and it swung from side to side between his legs. Okay, he could get used to that. But why hadn’t he noticed that when he’d taken his last piss? Not that he was in the habit of admiring his own manhood (of course, last time he’d checked he hadn’t had much to admire), but damn. He really had to take that thing for a test drive.
Pulling back on his shorts, Dick looked around and found some shaving cream and a razor. They were pink, but not being familiar with razors, Dick assumed that was traditional.
***
Dick emerged from the bathroom with multiple squares of quilted paper towel on his face, covering up numerous nicks. Barbara was waiting for him.
“So, uh, you figured it out?”
“Yeah.” Leaving the door open, Dick walked over the bathroom carpet and sat down on the bath’s edge. He noted how long his legs had gotten. “What happened? Ray-gun?”
She shook her head. “Crowbar. The way I figure it, your memories have been shuffled and your mind’s assembled them into a fractured narrative of your old life. I’m guessing that more memories are starting to surface now?”
Dick looked at his hands. He ran the fingers of one over the knuckles of the other and had a sudden flash of what it felt like for bone to crack at the end of his fist, the technique, even a little of when and where he’d learned the technique… but without context, it was useless.
“A little. You do look a bit more… mature than I remember you being.”
“I’ll let you get away with that just this once,” Barbara said, holding up a finger (the pointer finger, not the one he would’ve expected).
"Would it have helped if I said 'Your boobs look bigger'?" He hunched down next to her. “Barbara, I wanna know everything that happened. Are me and Bruce still partners? Do they call you Batwoman now? What do they call the Teen Titans now that we’re not teens?”
Barbara’s mouth dropped open. “Uhh… I think it’d be best if we let you remember all that on your own. I’d hate to influence you.”
“Okay. If that’s what you think is best.” Dick got up, suddenly energized with motion, and bounded over to the window above the weight scale. He parted the curtains of the small window there and looked out at the city. “If this is the future, where’s the hover-cars and jet-packs and food that comes in little pills?”
“Things didn’t quite happen the way we thought they would.”
“Speak for yourself, I turned out nice. Although I’d thought I’d have a cool scar by now. But hey, least I don’t have to worry about zits and hair in weird places.”
“You’re worried about hair?”
“It’s what got me thinking of getting rid of the short-pants. Did I ever go through with that?”
“Yes,” Barbara said. “And in its place, fishnet stockings.”
“You lie.”
“I can show you your hoard if you want.” Or, as it was also called, things Dinah had left behind in the move.
“No, thank you.” Dick opened the window and leaned his head out. Then with a short hop he was crouched on the windowsill, hanging above the city. For a moment, Barbara thought he would bay at the sky. “Feels so weird, being grown up and still having the mind of a kid. Someone should make a movie about it.”
“They did. It was called Big.”
“Right! Tom Hanks! He’s a funny guy! What’s he done lately?”
“Won an Academy Award for Best Actor.”
“Turner of Turner and Hooch won an Oscar? What else, have apes evolved from men and blown up the Statue of Liberty? At least tell me I’m not married.” He gave her a sly glance that didn’t quite disguise the fact that his eyes darted down to her ring finger.
“Well, since they changed the laws, Slade’s been leaving a lot of Modern Bride magazines in the bathroom…” Barbara teased.
“Okay, your joke-making privileges are hereby rescinded. I will make all your jokes for you from now on.“
“So that’s to be my pun-ishment?”
“Your joke-making privileges are restored. Come over here a moment.”
Barbara rolled closer to him. Dick spun around so he was seated, looking into the bathroom.
“What is it?”
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Like I said, I’m not comfortable telling you…”
“Then don’t tell.” Figure awash with old confidence, he stepped down from the windowsill. “It’s not that kind of question.”
He crouched down to eye-level and Barbara knew what was coming. Knew it the moment his hands slipped behind her, one at the nape of the neck and his other circling around her waist to splay at the base of her spine. Thank God, he missed the mass of scar tissue there. She felt herself be pulled forward, so she was fully in his arms, and then his lips were against hers. She reddened, opened her eyes and closed them and opened them again. Her hands squeezed the armrests of her wheelchair so hard she thought the plastic would splinter. Instead, he stopped kissing her and all the tension he’d summoned up within her came out in a breathy sigh.
“That,” Dick said, “is an answer. You hesitated.”
“You surprised me,” Barbara said defensively.
“It’s more than that. Almost like you were afraid of me.”
“No, never.” Just what you make me feel. Like when you walk out the door, like I know you will. Like you always do. Like I always make you do.
His eyes bored into her, reading every little thing she tried to keep hidden. “We broke up?”
Barbara gave in. “Yeah.” The word was a clod of dirt hitting another clod of dirt. No life in it.
Dick flinched as if struck. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
”Did you do something wrong?” Dick asked, not accusingly, but desperately. “Because if you do, I forgive you—“
“Stop that! No one did anything wrong. We just… drifted.”
“Drifted!?” he demanded. He was touching her again, but she had to look to notice. His hands were perched on her thighs. The absence of sensation just reminded her all the more poignantly of the kiss. “How do you drift away from what we had?”
Good question.
It helps if you’re having casual sex with an ex-girlfriend.
And it really helps if I’m a cast-iron, shrewish bitch.
Instead of any of those things, Barbara simply said “We managed.”
Chapter 3
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Misfit
Word Count: 4,052
Series: Change My World
Summary: Despite his amnesia, Dick can remember a few things about his old life. Just not what took Barbara away from him.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Barbara woke up to the sound of her support rings knocking together. The air conditioner was stirring them. The air conditioner never started this early, so Dick must’ve turned it on. With a groan, Barbara took hold of the rings hanging from the ceiling and pulled herself up before they could jangle any more. After her abbreviated night with Dick, they sounded too much like taunting.
Then she swung herself out to climb into her chair, as usual, and it wasn’t there. Of course not. Dick had taken her to bed. Romantic idiot. She couldn’t have been at least pragmatic enough to spoil the mood and ask him to bring the thing she needed to move into her bedroom? Cursing herself for her own foolishness, Barbara summoned up the holographic console on her bedstand and ordered in another wheelchair. It rolled out of the closet and to her bedside, knocking over a table lamp in the process. Wonderful. Barbara made a mental note to work out the kinks in that thing’s navigation routine.
Righting the lamp on her way out, Barbara was greeted by loud music and the tone-deaf karaoke of Dick Grayson. He was bopping around the kitchen, managing to do five things at once. He had found a pair of Bermuda shorts and a sleeveless shirt with “X-TREME!” written on the back in a splashy font.
That does it, I definitely have to clean out my closet more often.
“Uh, Dick?”
“What is this music?” he asked, tossing a pancake up in the air and catching it with the same skillet. “It’s awesome!”
“Milla Vanilli.”
“Never heard of ‘em!”
“They’re new.” To you, at least.
Dick shuffled the pancake out onto a stack of the same. “What’ll your pleasure be? I’ve got pancakes, eggs benedict, some oatmeal…” The microwave beeped. “Warm oatmeal,” he corrected himself. “And some bacon.”
“I’ll just have a grapefruit.”
His face fell. “Don’t have that.” Then he really looked at her. “Oh, darn, your wheelchair! We left it in your alien room!”
“It’s alright, that was just… alien room?”
“Yeah. The room where you’ve got all the sci-fi stuff. What is that, Thanagarian, Kryptonian?”
“Dell.”
“Never heard of that species.” He dug a batter into the pancake mix. “Sure I can’t tempt you with one? I can make it shaped like Mickey Mouse.”
She smiled despite herself. “Fine. One.”
It was delicious in a way Barbara couldn’t have ever imagined and she couldn’t believe how many days she’d skipped breakfast in favor of cereal bars and the promise of a large lunch… only that large lunch was only always some protein shake designed to fill her up while tasting vaguely of raw egg. Even when she went outside the house, it was always fast food, never a sit-down restaurant.
“Feeling any better?” she asked, putting a stop to her self-pity right there.
Dick’s hand automatically drifted toward the new bandage he’d wound around his head. “Headache’s gone.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Then there was a shrill, piercing note, followed by the familiar throbbing sound as Batman teleported in. There was nothing; then he was faded; then finally corporeal.
“Bruce!” Dick said, forgetting himself. He shot to attention, but couldn’t conceal a wide grin.
Batman, so grim, so serious, looked at him askew. “Dick.”
Barbara giggled under her breath, a hand over her mouth to cover it up.
“I see you’re awake,” Batman said.
“Yeah, never felt better, sir.”
It’d been a while since Batman had been called “sir” by Dick. He started mildly. “Who attacked you?”
“Someone attacked me? Oh, yeah, I guess that would follow. Somewhat more dignified than slipping while getting out of the bath, wouldn’t ya say?”
Barbara interrupted. “Dick, could we talk in private?”
Dick made a face. “You’re going to talk about me, aren’t you? And it’s not gonna be pretty. Why can’t you ever plan me a surprise party or something?”
Batman looked at Barbara, his expression demanding answers… in a very puzzled sort of way.
“Dick, this isn’t… you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then why can’t I stay?”
“Dick, now,” Batman said, and Dick was out of there.
“That’s handy-“ Barbara began to comment, when Batman was suddenly standing over her.
“Dick is regressed to a child-like mental state. When were you planning on telling me that?”
“It’s not child-like so much as…” Barbara searched her vocabulary. “Piece-meal. He’s forgotten a lot of what’s come before, but he’s still himself. Just… jolted. Like a computer from a cold reboot. The data’s still there, it’s just not up on the screen.”
Batman gave her an interrogator’s stare, as if he could intimidate her into confessing that everything he didn’t like was a bad joke on her part. Barbara crossed her arms and gave him his own stare back at him. She wasn’t afraid of him. After the night he’d laughed with the Joker while she’d laid in a hospital room, she barely even respected him. Bruce was only human. Maybe less.
Finally, Bruce cracked, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t something you could see, only feel. Barbara doubted she could’ve detected it if she wasn’t in the same room.
”Is he going to be alright?”
“He’ll be fine,” Barbara assured him. “In time.”
“I want J’onn to look him over.”
She waved her hand, dispelling the suggestion. “I’m not sure Dick’s in any condition—“
“He never will be unless we help him.”
“Nothing invasive,” she bargained.
For a moment it looked as if Bruce wanted to demand to know who she was to naysay him on the subject of Dick Grayson. But finally he nodded curtly: “Agreed.”
Alright, why am I so pissed off at Bruce? He’s not the one who gave Dick a concussion. At least, if he were, he probably would’ve mentioned it. If he felt I needed to know. Damnit.
***
Alright, Dick wondered, since when had Bruce and Barbara gotten so chummy? Just yesterday the Dynamic Duo had been keeping her at arm’s length. It’d only been a few months ago that they’d let her know their secret identities. And now he was like a little kid being sent to his room while the grown-ups talked. It was a clue, a clue to what he didn’t know, but Bruce had trained him to recognize clues and this was definitely a clue.
Dick walked back into Barbara’s alien technology room. The furnishings had improved. There was a girl, about his own age, sitting in a rolly chair. Redhead, too. Since his technique with Barbara didn’t seem to be cutting it, maybe it was time he did a little practicing. Purely for research, of course.
He straddled his own rolly chair and flung himself into the middle of the room, ramming the back of her chair. The girl was so surprised that she disappeared.
Dick’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Holy disappearing act!” He looked around for her, even checking under the desk. “Uhm, Red? Red? Come out, come out, wherever you are.” When that didn’t work, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted “Olly olly oxen free!” Still nothing. As long as he was in the realm of the absurd, he half-expected for Green Arrow to jump out from behind a supercomputer. “Oh God, I killed her.”
“DAAAAAARK VENGEANCE!” someone shouted, just before a stapler bounced off his head.
“Oww! What the heck?” Dick spun around. There was Red, holding a keyboard like a cudgel. “Hey now, cutie-pie, why don’t you set that down nice and easy? You break anything in here, I’m dead meat!”
“Does that mean you’ve had enough or are you thirsty for some more DAAA-“
“Heard you the first time,” Dick said, rubbing the bump on his noggin. “Man, you Women’s Libbers play ‘hard to get’ for keeps!”
“What are you implying, that I’m some sort of man-hating lezbo? Birds of Prey aren’t, like, synonymous with that! And even if we were, that wouldn’t mean we hated men, just that we didn’t care for—“
“Dick Grayson,” he said, extending his hand in introduction before she could blather anymore.
She shook his hand energetically. “You can call me Charlie, or Misfit if you want. I don’t have much of a secret identity. Yet.”
“That’s a nice handshake, Charlie.” Dick leaned in for the killer, his hand pulling Charlie in close enough for his breath to stroke her cheek. “Nice and sexy.”
Charlie’s cheeks went rosy. “Oh, uh, thanks. I try not to squeeze too hard, because I don’t know my own strength and I break stuff sometimes.”
“That’s fascinating. Do you know how they say hello in Europe, as I learned when I traveled there on a close personal friend’s yacht?” he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed its back, taking the dishwashing glove from her hand first. “That’s if you’ve just met. If you’re friends…” Softly, slowly, his lips fell on Charlie’s knuckles. “And if you’re more than friends…” He kissed the inside of her wrist like he would never stop.
“Oh, uh, wow…” Charlie was breathing heavy. “I just wanna let you know that I love older men when they’re not too old and I’m on the pill and I’m over eighteen and I’m kinda slutty. Blowjob slutty, not torn fishnets slutty. Don’t tell Dinah I said that.”
The quip about blowjob slutty was enough to make Dick forget the old man jibe. She couldn’t be more than a year or two younger than him.
“I heard…” Dick paused, unsure if he should give away Barbara’s identity, “our mutual friend using the radio in here. Mind showing me how that works?”
Charlie decided to come on strong. “You’ll have to give me a kiss.”
Dick grinned. The things he did for Gotham.
***
“Calling Speedy, calling Speedy.” Dick wiped some lipstick from his mouth. “This is short-pants. Light some fires and kick some tires, old buddy.”
The monitor blacked out, then came on again with a feed into a house Dick didn’t recognize. There was a slim blonde girl in front of the camera. She looked weary and vivacious in equal measures, like a tired woman who’d just downed a cup of espresso.
“Oh man!” Dick chortled, putting a hand over his face as a laughably bad disguise, one that might suffice to disguise whether or not he had shaved that morning. It was so laughable that Misfit… laughed. Dick shoved her away. “Okay, Blondie, there’s gonna be a handsome, naked redhead in your bed.”
“Yeah, I wish.”
“I’m serious. Can you give him a nudge for me? When he wakes up, tell him… DG is calling.”
The blonde girl paused. “Dick Grayson? Is that you?”
Dick held his hand over his face a bit tighter. “HOW DID YOU… Uhh… no.”
“Are you calling for Roy?”
“…Maybe.”
“He goes by Arsenal now.“
“He changed his codename? Why?”
“Don’t know,” the girl shrugged. “I like being called Speedy.”
“You’re Speedy? What is this, Earth-Genderbent? Is there a Batwoman chasing a Catman and some female version of the Joker?” Dick turned to Misfit. “And what would that make you, girly-boy?”
“Are you drunk?” faux-Speedy asked.
“No, ma’am, I never indulge in spirits,” Dick exclaimed proudly. “The only refreshments I need are cold glasses of water, cartons of milk, and the occasional soda pop. But not too much; it rots your teeth.”
“So is this, like, a practical bloopers thing? Teen Titans hazing ritual?”
“The Teen Titans aren’t hiring at the moment, but if you fill out an application…”
“Okay, this is getting boring. Drunk-dial someone else.”
The feed went dead. Dick blinked.
“I don’t drink!” He turned to Charlie. “Why is everything so different? Was I in a coma?”
“No. If you were, I would’ve given you a sponge bath.”
“That would probably give me some weird dreams. Strangely enough, I have nightmares about women pushing me down and ravishing me. What a thing to be afraid of, eh?” He shook his head. “Show me again how to work this thing? I want to talk to ‘Arsenal’,” Dick said with finger-quotes.
Charlie looked at the computer. “Delphi, connect to Arsenal.”
“Connecting,” the computer replied, before a new feed went live.
There was a little black-haired girl on the other end of the screen, her rounded face speaking of Asian ancestry. The pony T-shirt and the Oshkosh were all-American, though.
“Oraclady?”
“No, I’m…” Dick jerked. He’d forgotten to cover his face. Desperate, he tried to think up the most ridiculous name imaginable. “I’m Vin… Diesel?”
“You look different with hair.”
“Yes, I’d imagine so. Can you put your babysitter on the line?”
“You mean Tandy? She’s not here right now, because my daddy’s spending all day with me.”
“Good for you. I’m looking for a handsome, hopefully-not-naked redhead.”
The little girl pulled at one of her braids. “My daddy was right. You really are going through a dry spell.”
“Hey, shut up, I’m older than you!”
“You shut up!”
“No, you shut up!”
“I don’t shut up, I grow up. When I look at you, I want to throw up!”
Dick covered the video camera and looked at Charlie. “Darn, she’s got me there!”
“Just because you covered the camera doesn’t mean I can’t still hear you.”
“Double darn!”
A new voice came through the speakers. “Hon, who’re you swearing effeminately with?”
“Unca Dick!”
“Uncle Dick?” Roy picked his daughter up and leaned into the camera’s range. “Hey Dick. Don’t get upset about losing to Lian, she wins all the arguments around here too.”
“Can I have ice cream for breakfast?”
“No.”
“But—“
“That wasn’t an argument, that was a decision. See, semantics are important.” Roy turned back to the screen, on which Dick was aghast. “What’s the matter, bird-boy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Uhh… Roy… did someone hit you with an aging ray?”
“Why? Am I getting a gray hair?” Roy felt his hair.
“No, you’re just… you have a beard!”
“Goatee, actually.”
“When did you grow that!”
“I don’t know, months ago. I was getting tired of the soul patch. Just seems so boy-bandy.”
“Daddy’s beard is tickly!” Lian added.
“Daddy!? Roy, I never thought I’d say this in this context, but explain why that girl is calling you daddy.”
Roy ruffled her hair, looking at him funnily as if expecting a joke and trying to figure out its punchline ahead of time. “Because she’s my daughter. Duh.”
“When did you have her? When you were two?”
“Closer to twenty-two.”
“Stop right there!” Dick held up a finger. “I think I’m in some sort of time vortex. Don’t say anything lest I gain knowledge of the future and accidentally change the course of history!”
“Okay. So, you coming by for pool on Saturday?”
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO!”
“Play pool?”
“Give me knowledge of future events!”
“Knowing there’s a game of pool on Saturday is going to change history?”
“When Deutscher is elected President and we all live in a horrible dystopia, don’t come crying to me!” Dick shut the computer off and walked away from it. Then turned and walked back to it, only to fall into a stringent pacing. Charlie was reminded of a caged tiger at the zoo. Except cute.
“Okay, I have my doubts about time travel. Whoever the Dell are, I doubt they have the technology to talk to the future. Einstein’s theories would render that virtually impossible. Obviously, years have passed since the last thing I remember. Couldn’t have been in a coma, because then my body would be in no condition to move around. Unless…”
He felt his body.
“Nope, no robotic exoskeleton. What does that leave? Wait a minute… older man?” He switched to Charlie. “How old am I?”
“I don’t know! You look twentysomething to me. Did I mention I’m eighteen?”
“Where’s the nearest mirror?”
***
Dick examined himself in the bathroom. His face looked so familiar… then he tried to reconcile it with his recollections of the past few days. Yes, there’d been a change. He put a hand to his face. Stubble chafed his palm. Yup, definite change. He hadn’t even thought to notice it. Some detective. No wonder his face was so itchy.
He looked at his hands. Bigger. His arms were hairy. So was his chest. And he had scars. He took off his shirt. Jesus. His body looked like a satellite image of some war-torn country, set to flesh. Bruises were fading off his skin in a rainbow of colors, the best a putrid yellow staining his belly. He leaned over the sink, looking closer at his reflection. No scars like Bruce’s, but they were there. A stitch-job near the hairline; probably a broken bottle. All teeth accounted for, thankfully. Down at the neck, there was a bruise like someone had tried to strangle him.
Then the scars really started. A knife wound across the collarbone, a few miscellaneous gunshots, puckered and angry. One really big one on his left shoulder. The others were small caliber, ricochets, skims. That one was a direct hit. He could tell the bullet had lodged in there pretty good. Might’ve even hit bone. Bits of it might even still be in there, if it was one of those nasty frag-headed jobs. It was practically ancient, while a relatively newer one was on his leg.
Teeth marks on his thigh… had to be Killer Croc, although they were so pale and faded he couldn’t tell. Another scar, a coarsening of his skin which he couldn’t identify as acid or fire (probably some kind of lit accelerant, then) coursed down the side of his torso and under his waistband. He tugged his pants down.
Whoa.
That was certainly different.
Dick shook his hips and it swung from side to side between his legs. Okay, he could get used to that. But why hadn’t he noticed that when he’d taken his last piss? Not that he was in the habit of admiring his own manhood (of course, last time he’d checked he hadn’t had much to admire), but damn. He really had to take that thing for a test drive.
Pulling back on his shorts, Dick looked around and found some shaving cream and a razor. They were pink, but not being familiar with razors, Dick assumed that was traditional.
***
Dick emerged from the bathroom with multiple squares of quilted paper towel on his face, covering up numerous nicks. Barbara was waiting for him.
“So, uh, you figured it out?”
“Yeah.” Leaving the door open, Dick walked over the bathroom carpet and sat down on the bath’s edge. He noted how long his legs had gotten. “What happened? Ray-gun?”
She shook her head. “Crowbar. The way I figure it, your memories have been shuffled and your mind’s assembled them into a fractured narrative of your old life. I’m guessing that more memories are starting to surface now?”
Dick looked at his hands. He ran the fingers of one over the knuckles of the other and had a sudden flash of what it felt like for bone to crack at the end of his fist, the technique, even a little of when and where he’d learned the technique… but without context, it was useless.
“A little. You do look a bit more… mature than I remember you being.”
“I’ll let you get away with that just this once,” Barbara said, holding up a finger (the pointer finger, not the one he would’ve expected).
"Would it have helped if I said 'Your boobs look bigger'?" He hunched down next to her. “Barbara, I wanna know everything that happened. Are me and Bruce still partners? Do they call you Batwoman now? What do they call the Teen Titans now that we’re not teens?”
Barbara’s mouth dropped open. “Uhh… I think it’d be best if we let you remember all that on your own. I’d hate to influence you.”
“Okay. If that’s what you think is best.” Dick got up, suddenly energized with motion, and bounded over to the window above the weight scale. He parted the curtains of the small window there and looked out at the city. “If this is the future, where’s the hover-cars and jet-packs and food that comes in little pills?”
“Things didn’t quite happen the way we thought they would.”
“Speak for yourself, I turned out nice. Although I’d thought I’d have a cool scar by now. But hey, least I don’t have to worry about zits and hair in weird places.”
“You’re worried about hair?”
“It’s what got me thinking of getting rid of the short-pants. Did I ever go through with that?”
“Yes,” Barbara said. “And in its place, fishnet stockings.”
“You lie.”
“I can show you your hoard if you want.” Or, as it was also called, things Dinah had left behind in the move.
“No, thank you.” Dick opened the window and leaned his head out. Then with a short hop he was crouched on the windowsill, hanging above the city. For a moment, Barbara thought he would bay at the sky. “Feels so weird, being grown up and still having the mind of a kid. Someone should make a movie about it.”
“They did. It was called Big.”
“Right! Tom Hanks! He’s a funny guy! What’s he done lately?”
“Won an Academy Award for Best Actor.”
“Turner of Turner and Hooch won an Oscar? What else, have apes evolved from men and blown up the Statue of Liberty? At least tell me I’m not married.” He gave her a sly glance that didn’t quite disguise the fact that his eyes darted down to her ring finger.
“Well, since they changed the laws, Slade’s been leaving a lot of Modern Bride magazines in the bathroom…” Barbara teased.
“Okay, your joke-making privileges are hereby rescinded. I will make all your jokes for you from now on.“
“So that’s to be my pun-ishment?”
“Your joke-making privileges are restored. Come over here a moment.”
Barbara rolled closer to him. Dick spun around so he was seated, looking into the bathroom.
“What is it?”
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Like I said, I’m not comfortable telling you…”
“Then don’t tell.” Figure awash with old confidence, he stepped down from the windowsill. “It’s not that kind of question.”
He crouched down to eye-level and Barbara knew what was coming. Knew it the moment his hands slipped behind her, one at the nape of the neck and his other circling around her waist to splay at the base of her spine. Thank God, he missed the mass of scar tissue there. She felt herself be pulled forward, so she was fully in his arms, and then his lips were against hers. She reddened, opened her eyes and closed them and opened them again. Her hands squeezed the armrests of her wheelchair so hard she thought the plastic would splinter. Instead, he stopped kissing her and all the tension he’d summoned up within her came out in a breathy sigh.
“That,” Dick said, “is an answer. You hesitated.”
“You surprised me,” Barbara said defensively.
“It’s more than that. Almost like you were afraid of me.”
“No, never.” Just what you make me feel. Like when you walk out the door, like I know you will. Like you always do. Like I always make you do.
His eyes bored into her, reading every little thing she tried to keep hidden. “We broke up?”
Barbara gave in. “Yeah.” The word was a clod of dirt hitting another clod of dirt. No life in it.
Dick flinched as if struck. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
”Did you do something wrong?” Dick asked, not accusingly, but desperately. “Because if you do, I forgive you—“
“Stop that! No one did anything wrong. We just… drifted.”
“Drifted!?” he demanded. He was touching her again, but she had to look to notice. His hands were perched on her thighs. The absence of sensation just reminded her all the more poignantly of the kiss. “How do you drift away from what we had?”
Good question.
It helps if you’re having casual sex with an ex-girlfriend.
And it really helps if I’m a cast-iron, shrewish bitch.
Instead of any of those things, Barbara simply said “We managed.”
Chapter 3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 03:39 am (UTC)Yeah, he's very... Bat-Mission when it comes to emotions, but ironically enough not to Bat-Mission itself.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 07:21 pm (UTC)“I just wanna let you know that I love older men when they’re not too old and I’m on the pill and I’m over eighteen and I’m kinda slutty. Blowjob slutty, not torn fishnets slutty. Don’t tell Dinah I said that.”
So wrong!! But funny.
Good stuff, looking forward to the next chapter!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 03:37 am (UTC)I think that's Misfit's character conception in a nutshell. She's fun to riff off of.
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Date: 2008-02-12 12:27 am (UTC)I loved Dick's encounters with Misfit and Arsenal... and the talk at the end made me all squooshy. :)
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Date: 2008-02-14 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-15 03:16 am (UTC)DUDE AWESOME! I GOT NIGHTWING ACTION!
...
BabsMiss Gordon's gonna kill me, isn't she?Ok, despite the ominous sense of impending doom I'm sorta getting here, I'm totally enjoying this. And I don't just mean enjoying Nightwing. Though I'm doing that too. This is hilarious!
“Yes,” Barbara said. “And in its place, fishnet stockings.”
I hope she manages to convince him it's true!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 07:02 pm (UTC)I think I'd attract an entirely different readership if Barbara convinced Dick that he used to dress in Dinah's clothes. But I think most people can get there "Robin dressing up in women's clothes" fix from canon (thanks, Judd!).
no subject
Date: 2008-02-15 07:12 pm (UTC)“No, ma’am, I never indulge in spirits,” Dick exclaimed proudly. “The only refreshments I need are cold glasses of water, cartons of milk, and the occasional soda pop. But not too much; it rots your teeth.”
*giggling madly*
“No, I’m…” Dick jerked. He’d forgotten to cover his face. Desperate, he tried to think up the most ridiculous name imaginable. “I’m Vin… Diesel?”
“You look different with hair.”
ROFL!
Whoa.
That was certainly different.
Dick shook his hips and it swung from side to side between his legs. Okay, he could get used to that. But why hadn’t he noticed that when he’d taken his last piss? Not that he was in the habit of admiring his own manhood (of course, last time he’d checked he hadn’t had much to admire), but damn. He really had to take that thing for a test drive.
*dies*
But that painful ending brought me back...so hurty and yet still managed to be sweet...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 07:04 pm (UTC)I think that's Batverse family values in ten words or less. Glad you enjoyed it.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-16 10:01 pm (UTC)“Dick shook his hips and it swung from side to side between his legs. Okay, he could get used to that. But why hadn’t he noticed that when he’d taken his last piss? Not that he was in the habit of admiring his own manhood (of course, last time he’d checked he hadn’t had much to admire), but damn. He really had to take that thing for a test drive."
Oh, yeah. It does. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 07:03 pm (UTC)