Evangeline wants to be (upintheclouds) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-18 13:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, nightwing, stephanie brown |
Who: Stephanie Brown and Dick Grayson
What: Two batkids talking about bat stuff and investigating the smell in Dick’s kitchen. Dick is the only responsible adult left in Gotham. God help us all.
Where: Dick’s apartment in Gotham
When: After the mayhem and chaos and Rising from the Deaaaad
Warnings: Obviously they’re going to have kinky sex on every surface of Dick’s bachelor pad.
Dick didn’t know when he’d suddenly become the responsible adult in Gotham, but he was trying to manage it. And most of all what he was really doing was trying not to forget about someone or something. There was a lot going on, and he was going to spend the next week getting “responsible adult” lessons from Barbara and maybe she’d help him do the looking after, because it was pretty clear that in this new Gotham with this new Bat that “looking after” wasn’t something that came easily. But to be fair, Dick had the benefit of having had the best teacher in the world on looking after.
He’d managed to look after a ten year old Damian and he supposed he could manage to look after an eighteen year old Damian. And Timmy. And Jason (God help them all). And Helena. And of course Stephanie who was on her way to his apartment. He’d hurried there himself, having been out and about doing the “looking after” and hoping to put the city to bed for the night because it had been a bit much.
He didn’t spend a lot of time at his apartment, but there was a need for it and it gave him a place to escape to when hanging out at the Manor was a bit too weird for him. He’d remembered that sense of dread when he’d lost his Bat. When he’d been as good as dead, that sense that he didn’t know what to do next. He still worried that he’d made all the wrong decisions, but there was still a part of him that thought he had done better than okay during the time without Bruce. But having Bruce, just not his Bruce, here was almost worse. They couldn’t read each other, they couldn’t communicate without saying anything from 19 miles away (exaggeration, but close enough). And he didn’t know who to ask for help. That part had made Bruce’s death back home cut that much deeper. At least here, and at least for now, there was a chance that things would fall into place.
Dick didn’t believe that they were all here to be one giant mixed batfamily all over again, but he did believe that if they didn’t fall into place - at least a little - Jason wasn’t going to be the last of them to die. This was a mess that needed fixing. And habits that needed to be broken on all sides. Or things were going to get very ugly very fast.
He hadn’t been lying when he said there was a weird smell, and he hurried around the house like a crazy person trying to find the actual source of it before Steph showed up. It wasn’t horrendous (he’d have sold the place and moved) if that was the case. But there was definitely something not right in his kitchen. The apartment was barely lived in, but there was also a slight layer of dust on the furniture and a laundry basket in the living room. Shoes in the entry way and dishes in the sink. The recycling was stacked (neatly) on the counter, but it was still stacked on the counter. There was definitely a single man living here. The video game controller cords were death traps across the living room, and there were three coffee cups on the coffee table that had accumulated over the last few days.
He found the source of the smell coming from the fridge and when he opened the container he jumped - startled and horrified and tried to find something to do with it. So he threw it out the window and watched it drop fifteen stories and bounce of what was either the dumpster or his neighbor’s car. Either way he’d handle it the next day. Once the offensive container was gone he febreezed the apartment like a crazy person (including the inside of the fridge), and lit some candles that Lois Lane had given him as an apartment warming gift. They smelled like vanilla. Great. But it was better than the mystery smell. Now it was barely there mystery smelled with an over abundance of tropical breeze Febreeze and the smell of sulfur from the matches that he had used to light the candles (they weren’t smelling the place up yet).
It was as good as it was going to get on short notice. He was just sitting down on his couch when he heard a knock on the door and he stopped himself mid-sit and stood back up. Looking through the peephole, he saw Stephanie and opened the door easily. “Hey,” he said smiling, his eyes were tired, but his smile was genuine.
Since the scene in the BatCave, Stephanie Brown was haunted by images replaying in her mind over and over and over. The wild look in Jason’s eyes, the green goop bubbling, the sickening weight of his dead body, the blood on the shroud. It nauseated her to think about it, to have that scream ring in her ears every waking moment. She hadn’t slept much, not since the party really, but especially not since Jason and the Pit. Damian was pretty AWOL, and she didn’t know or want to discuss things with him. If she was feeling awful about it, she couldn’t even imagine how the littlest Robin felt about everything. Guilty, probably, just like she was. She could have stopped Damian if she wanted, but she didn’t, and that was why she deserved to live with all of this. Right?
She wanted to bury the cowl six feet under the ground and never look back. In theory, that would be great. Cut herself off, live a normal life, she could be happy. But, she never could walk away. She could never leave the cobbled up family she had behind, even if they weren’t exactly hers anymore. Even if they didn’t work together, or mesh well. Tim knew that, and he called her out on it, and that made her feel even worse.
She almost didn’t accept Dick’s invitation because she didn’t want to be around anyone at all really. But she expected he would probably knock down the door to her apartment eventually, so she agreed. She made it over there in record time, considering that she used her grappling gear despite not being in costume -- all she had was her eyemask, hidden away by the time she arrived at Dick’s front door. “Hey,” she said, the ghost of a smile tugging her lips up. She looked exhausted, dark purples underneath her eyes, and like she had lost some weight. In her hand was a pizza box with a small pizza pie she had grabbed at a nearby pizzeria. “Didn’t know whether you ate or not, but I grabbed something.”
Dick smiled at her and stepped aside so she could walk inside. “I did what I could to get rid of the smell, the pizza will help.” He led her into the kitchen and took the box and set it on the counter. Before he went about getting the plates he stopped and looked at her for a second before he put his arms around her and hugged her tightly - because that was what Dick Grayson did. He could tell she was upset, it didn’t take a detective to figure that out. And he could list - at great length- the reasons why she should be. And he wanted to help, things were messed up but he was still him.
Steph followed him into the kitchen, taking in the attempt to tidy up his apartment in with an amused smile. Typical. She appreciated that he tried, though, especially with the mixture of Febreeze and everything else in the air. And, she was about to comment on it and ask what the lethal thing was when he wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened for a moment before her arms wrapped around his midsection as she buried her face in his chest. She didn’t cry, but she did have to bite down on her lip to stop a wibble, and she did heave a great sigh. “Everything’s so screwed up, Dick,” she said, voice slightly muffled but the strain of fought tears still present.
He tightened his embrace a bit and sighed, everything was definitely screwed up, and he knew better than most just how bad this could all get, and even worse - how taxing their lives could be. It was never going to be easy, but he knew it was important. It was what had kept him going on as long as he had. “Steph, we can sort it,” he said trying to sound confident. “I’m not always sure where to start, but we can sort it.”
Steph bit down harder on her lip, trying to will herself not to cry over everything that had happened over the past few months. Not even to mention the things before they showed up behind this door. She couldn’t even utter a word to Dick about many of the things bothering her, like Jason’s black, rage-filled eyes when he rose from the Pit or her strange correspondence with the Riddler. But, she shook her head all the same and gave a shaky breath. “I can’t even--I can’t do it anymore.” She pulled back, eyes red-rimmed with uncried tears, and she looked up at him earnestly. “I gave Bruce my cowl after the Halloween party. But, you can sort it out. I know you can.”
Dick didn’t know if this was the kind of situation where her mind had been made up, or if she was looking for someone to change her mind, he didn’t know which decision was the right one. Dick didn’t harbor the angst that Bruce did - not that he was completely without it - just that he channeled it into something different. Dick’s rage and pain wasn’t the job. The job he did because it was the right thing to do, and it was what he believed he was born to do. Sure he’d had doubts - he’d have been crazy not to. But it was what he knew, and almost all he knew. It was as important to him as breathing was, it was as essential to him as breathing was, the job was who he was. But he didn’t get lost in it, he didn’t let it consume him. Bruce - at least his Bruce - had a reason for everything he did. Every move he made was part of a bigger picture, maybe one he didn’t even have all the pieces to, but it was all exactly what needed to be done. Even bad choices, while there were consequences, seemed to be made with the longest term picture in mind.
Dick didn’t know what it was for Stephanie, each one of them had to work it out for themselves, what their work meant wasn’t cut and dry. They each had decisions to make every single day, decisions that they made so that normal people didn’t have to. He put his hand gently on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. When she looked up at him he recognized the look because he’d seen it on his own face a time or two. There were so many different ways to be exhausted and sometimes in their line of work they felt all of them at once.
“You can still do it, Stephanie,” he assured her. “But you don’t have to, that isn’t the same thing. But don’t say you can’t - because you can. I believe that you can, but you certainly don’t have to. But don’t let ‘can’t’ be the reason you stop either. Make it a conscious choice, don’t let it defeat you.”
Steph stepped back finally, not far enough to force Dick to relinquish his hold on her shoulder, but enough that she could breathe on her own again. None of them got it, did they? It frustrated her to pieces. At the end of the day, no one in the family got what she was feeling, what she was going through, who she was. Damian, most days, got close, but no one, in Steph’s mind, got her. At least not the way Riddler did, and she knew Dick would be upset if she said as much to him.
So, she wriggled out of his grasp with a quiet grunt. “No, I can’t. You don’t know what I did.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t. That Halloween party made me realize that I’m not the kind of person for this. I’m not good enough. I--I killed someone, Dick, and I liked it. Loved it, even. Let them burn and burn and burn until they crumbled underneath my fingers, and it felt good. I can’t wear that costume when I know what I did. It’s not right.”
Dick rolled his eyes when she wriggled out of his hug, that was such a batkid thing to do. He wondered if Bruce shouldn’t have put him in charge of all the young people while Bruce was just the creepster upstairs barking orders at them. Probably would have resulted in more hugs. As she spoke he stood there with his arms folded and listened to her intently, eyebrows up curiously, every now and again he stared at the floor. He hadn’t been at the Halloween party but from what he’d heard it was nothing but nonsense from everyone. “Look Steph, that’s awful and I get it, but from what I understand that Halloween party was nothing but some next level hinky shit anyway. It’s awful what you’re describing but you can’t hold yourself to that for all you know it was some creepy weird dream thing. Or you weren’t yourself because the Stephanie I know and love - well love at least seventy percent of the time anyway- doesn’t just burn people and say it feels good. There’s a better explanation than that.” And he was standing by that.
Her arms hugged herself tightly around her midsection. Tight, tight until she could hardly breathe because it made her feel better. To be breathless and distracted from everything going on in Gotham and in her life. Her lips twitched with the ghost of a smile when he teased about loving her and managed to say, “You love me all the time. Don’t lie.” After a moment, she turned away from him with a shrug. “None of you get it. It’s fine, it’s okay. Damian understands. Ri--Damian gets it.” She didn’t want to say that the Riddler got her, too. That he didn’t press her about returning to the cowl or sauntering out of the grey area back into the light. She couldn’t stand to even think about it. The idea gave her a migraine, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s fine. I’m okay.”
Dick furrowed his brow while she asserted that he didn’t understand and that Damian did, he wanted to be offended but he was a little beyond that at this point. “Well that’s one person,” he said seriously. “One person that gets it, one person that understands. And you’re right. I love you all the time, and if Damian gets it and understands then that’s actually two people who have your back all the time. You don’t have to keep doing this, but don’t get chased out either.”
Steph continued to pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment as she listened to Dick speak, and when she finally turned back around and dropped her hand, her eyes were bloodshot. “I don’t want to get chased out, Dick. Even if Tim thinks I should be. That I should just leave the family.” She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated with more force. “It’s fine. I’ve got everything under control.”
Dick gave her a look that clearly said he wasn’t buying it, but it didn’t last long. “None of us have anything under control but we’re all control freaks, so we’ve got that going for us.” Dick sighed and leaned against the counter with his arms folded. “Tim is an idiot sometimes, Stephanie. I don’t know why he thinks you need to be chased out, or that you should leave the family. Because you have damn well earned your place here, and Bruce, our Bruce, knows it too. Tim has something up with him, I don’t know what it is because he won’t talk to me, but you’ve got more people fighting for you than against you.”
Steph made a noise, as if she understood completely and didn’t want to hear anything more about it. Which, she didn’t. In her mind, no one really got it, and clearly, no one would. Instead, she turned to where the pizza was and opened the box, pulling out a slice for herself. “Pizza?” she asked, wanting to distract him, even if she knew Dick Grayson never really got distracted, not when something like this was hanging in the air.
Dick considered this one a battle lost, and he hated that. But it was clear she wasn’t going to talk to him, frankly it was clear she had no real interest in talking to him. Clearly this had turned into a massive failure, but she wasn’t running out and leaving so it was something. “Yeah,” he answered a bit pathetically and grabbed two plates from the cupboard.