dick grayson. (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} blackandblue) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chances_rpg,@ 2025-03-02 13:16:00 |
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| Entry tags: | dc: dick grayson (comics), marvel: julio richter (comics), ~!game plot: dreamwalking |
LOG: DICK & RIC
Who. Dick Grayson & Julio Richter
When. November 28
Where. Ric's Apartment → his dreams
What. Exhaustion = tricked into sleeping = Ric's dreams
Warnings. Canon suicidal ideation and depression
"I promise I'll be ready to talk about it someday. I mean, not that there's much more to talk about, that was kind of... you get the picture, you know?"
When. November 28
Where. Ric's Apartment → his dreams
What. Exhaustion = tricked into sleeping = Ric's dreams
Warnings. Canon suicidal ideation and depression
The shower was quick, and cold, and he left a note on the refrigerator that he would be back in time to help with the food preparations for what they were bringing to the Thanksgiving meal being put on. He needed to not be under the watchful eyes of his family just then while he tried to sort out the best course of action.
His phone pinged with a text. Parade's less fun to watch alone. I made breakfast. Dick couldn't help the stupid grin that appeared as he entered the elevator. Oh, he had considered taking the stairs all the way down to the lobby to just keep going but he had already showered and no one needed him to be a sweaty mess. Ric had been a surprising development and one Dick was allowing himself to enjoy.
The 'boyfriend' title had already gotten used and Dick had been surprised but there'd only been a quick confirmation that they were both fine with it. Billy Maximoff threatening to beat Dick up had been hilarious and they'd shared the parts of the conversations that hadn't been too personal for the kid. It was actually sort of flattering since Billy couldn't have really known about the trail of broken hearts Dick tended to leave in his wake. But to be fair, those had often come from his being Nightwing and that taking precedence every time.
So, Dick showed up at his boyfriend's door and knocked with a cheerful grin on his face. Sure. They could watch the Macy's parade on TV.
Ric greeted him with a kiss as soon as the door opened, one hand going to the back of Dick's neck to pull him in for it and the other grabbing at the front of Dick's shirt to pull him in to the room so he could shut the door behind him. "Morning."
This whole thing with Dick was going better than Ric had ever dreamed of. It was almost smooth, this relationship, which probably meant that he was going to find some way to fuck it up soon. That, or Star was going to miraculously show up here and throw everything into chaos just by existing in the same world. They still hadn't had the exes talk, really, and Ric wasn't looking forward to discussing all those details.
He backed toward the couch, drawing Dick with him. "You..." he interrupted himself with another kiss, "...get comfortable on the couch, and I'll bring our breakfast. It's just eggs and toast, nothing fancy, but hey. I didn't burn it."
He could get used to this, honestly. Ric was hardly his only bossy, handsy partner and Dick was definitely not complaining. Like everything else, it was about equals. He chuckled into kiss and made a pleased, surprised sound in the back of his throat as Ric's hand grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him forward.
For someone like Dick, he didn't tend to physically end up somewhere he didn't want to be under normal circumstances. But there was zero reason to fight and why would he? This was fun. It felt easy. Dick went willingly and then paused to look between Ric and the couch and then back again. "Not gonna lie, that wasn't where I thought the order to get on the couch was going to go." Dick laughed and it felt lighter than the past several days had. Not to be outdone, he lifted his hand to thread lightly into Ric's hair and leaned in to take another kiss for himself. "Let me let you in on a little secret. I don't mind burnt eggs or toast."
His eyebrows waggled and then he separated himself only to toss himself onto the couch and make himself comfortable, as he'd been told to. His expression was all innocence as he watched Ric. Belatedly, he remembered that getting horizontal was a bad idea and he pushed himself into a seated position where it gave him a better view of watching his boyfriend move toward the kitchen.
When Ric came back, it was with two plates of fried eggs and buttery toast that was only a little darker than golden brown, forks balanced precariously on their edges. "Dig in," he said, presenting one of the plates to Dick before tossing himself down beside him on the couch with the other. "We can put something on, if you want to, or we can just... enjoy each other's company, I guess, that's a thing that people do."
Not that he had any objection to enjoying Dick's company in any way shape or form. Since their relationship had moved forward he'd done plenty of that enjoying at every opportunity.
Dick murmured his thanks as he took his plate and watched Ric take his seat, watching that precariously-balanced fork with the same intensity that he usually used to take in all the minor details of a space. "Put on the parade?" he suggested. So help him, he'd actually wanted to watch it the second Ric had mentioned it over text even if it had been a joke.
He toed his shoes off next to the couch so he could bring one foot up, tucking it under his thigh. Oh, there were plenty of other ways he would have liked to simply drape himself along the couch but he was trying to stay on the conscious side of things still. He maneuvered a fried egg onto a piece of toast and used that as the conveyance method of shoveling the food into his mouth. Dick had much better manners than that, drilled into him by Alfred and shown off at galas and events through most of his life. But there was something about being able to just be the casual side of Dick Grayson that held a lot of appeal.
The mention of enjoying each other's company flew straight over his head, however. Because his mind simply wasn't keeping up with the nuances of every conversation. Innuendo, be it on purpose or accidental? Forget it. He didn't have the (horny) brain cell to spare.
Ric had meant it about the parade, so he was glad Dick actually wanted to watch it instead of just humoring him. He put it on, looking over to Dick with a small smile as the man ate his food like an actual child. "You heathen."
He liked that, though, Dick being relaxed enough to have bad manners with him. Dick was charming, sure, and Ric even believed most of it was just natural, but he wasn't so much of an idiot that he didn't realize that there was almost always an act going on around other people. Being in the club that got to see Dick Grayson act like a normal person? That was pretty special, he thought, and he planned to enjoy it.
He did notice the dark circles under Dick's eyes, though, noticed and immediately began planning to do something about it. Ric had a few tricks and deceptions up his sleeve, too, and he was pretty confident that he could convince his boyfriend to take a little nap whether he realized he was going to or not.
Instead of rushing to the end goal, though, Ric ate calmly, steadily, like a normal person Dick, calculating the best angle to get Dick to relax enough to drowse off the whole time.
"Am not," Dick argued, though the two simple words were questionable as they were said through a mouthful of food. When he had managed to chew and then swallow, he glanced at Ric with a wry grin. "You know," he started, "in about two weeks it will have been a full year since I've been here. How crazy is that to think about?" Nearly a full year of not having the weight of Nightwing and Batman's-Protégé on his shoulders. Don't get him wrong: Dick loved being a hero. It was in his bones and etched into his soul. But he'd been able to relax and he had been able to make sure his brothers could have that same feeling. For some reason, they tended to follow his lead.
Another bite was shoveled into his mouth and Dick turned his attention back to the TV. A parade wasn't particularly interesting when you weren't at one in person but the feeling of normalcy and tradition was an enticing draw. Dick hadn't really considered Thanksgiving dinner fast enough to make the plans necessary so they were crashing May's family(-and extended) dinner but normalcy and tradition at the forefront of his mind meant he was thinking about Christmas dinner. He sank back into the couch a little more, mind wandering.
"Did you ever think you'd be here a year later?" Ric asked with a low laugh. Not exactly here as in here on his couch, Dick hadn't even known him to expect that a year ago since he'd arrived significantly after the other man, but... on his boyfriend's couch watching the parade, with his younger brothers all somewhere in the building safe and sound and no one in any danger of death and dismemberment any time soon.
Rictor sure hadn't thought he'd be on his own couch with his boyfriend on Thanksgiving this year, at least. He hadn't expected to have a boyfriend, for one, unless he and Star happened to be on again. For two, he'd expected to be in the middle of some fucked up situation with Exaclibur that would keep him too busy to even notice the holiday in the first place.
The shake of his head was at least honest as he finished chewing. It also gave him a moment to be grateful for that revelation before he swallowed and smiled at his boyfriend. "Nope. Especially with how little I've actually traveled since being here," Dick said. Superheroes rarely stayed in one place for very long even if it was only temporary. And Dick had relocated a few times in the time before--no, in the time between arriving and returning to San Francisco. His mind still did a queer little stumble on occasion when he tried to line up his timelines. He knew the linear timeline but he had been gone for so little time from San Francisco and had immediately returned to finding out what Slade had done in his absence.
There was only so much time one had to process that sort of insanity.
"I don't really want to stay here, especially for the rest of my life, because I'll always worry about home even if it's in some sort of time-stasis," he admitted quietly and immediately gave Ric a guilty look. "But it's amazing to just have all that massive weight off my shoulders for now. Having the boys-" a laughable description if one didn't know Dick's sense of responsibility for them "here makes that even more attractive. They get to be normal. Safe. If B shows up, maybe that will change. Maybe we'll add that fight to our list of fights as I'd refuse to let him take that away from them. Who knows?" Them. Not 'us'. Dick would give up everything in an instant if it protected those he loved.
His lips curved into a smile that was half fond and half impish. "You're a pretty big added bonus. Especially since, you know, I tend to mess up relationships pretty easily. The costume gets in the way most of the time." Maybe it wasn't the right thing to say, any of it, but at least it was honest. And maybe honest in a way Dick wasn't usually simply because he was so sleep deprived. But... he didn't think so. He wanted to be honest with Julio Richter.
They hadn't talked about that far out before. The future, in general, where they were going, what their plans were for even a year down the road from now as a couple. Part of Rictor didn't want to talk about it because he knew as well as Dick that if the opportunity knocked, they'd have to go back to the worlds they left behind.
"For me it's my ex, getting in the way." Rictor hadn't talked about Shatterstar much. It had never seemed like the right time, but... "Every time I started to actually get over him, he'd turn back up and we'd start the whole messy thing all over again."
Of course, it helped that Star had done the whole hero thing too. If you were talking about who was the bigger deal between the two of them? Definitely Star.
"The ginger alien?" Dick asked, casting a grin at the other man simply because, yes, he remembered that odd little coincidence they shared. The subject might not have been funny but... "Starfire was one of mine. Babs though," he said and gave a quiet sigh. "Why do we get back into the whole thing over and over again?" Dick asked as he slouched down without thinking about the motion. He felt sluggish, that was why. Which was why the words that came out of his mouth next didn't manage to get stopped before they were voiced. "What would you do if he showed up here?"
"I don't know." Rictor wanted to be able to say that he'd never go back to Star again, but he hadn't thought he would the first few times either. He wouldn't say that Star had never ruined another relationship, or something that could have become one, either.
He leaned forward, put his empty plate on the coffee table so that he could scoot closer and put an arm around Dick's shoulders. Dick was tired, obviously tired, which meant that he was exhausted beyond what a normal person would be able to handle. If Ric could keep him distracted, he might be able to trick him into a nap.
He turned his face to press a kiss against Dick's head, easy and affectionate. "He does have a way of turning up when you least expect it. Like the time he outed me in front of my team."
The arm around his shoulders was dangerously warm but Dick was too willing to fall for it. With disgustingly-accurate aim (because it was unfair, really, when he was as sleep deprived as he was), he tossed his plate onto the one Ric had set down. And didn't break anything in the process.
Dick leaned into the kiss as his grin softened into an affectionate smile again, eyes falling closed--only to jolt and go tense all over as he turned his head to look at Ric. It was a near thing that he didn't whack their skulls together in the motion. "He outed you?" Dick asked, voice a little more loud than he meant and his tone incredulous. "Without context: what an ass."
"To be fair to him," Ric allowed, "we'd just snapped him out of being mind controlled. He wasn't exactly himself at the moment."
The kiss had felt like coming home, back then, even in front of his entire team. He'd gotten a lot more comfortable in his own skin since then, but that moment had been terrifying just as it had been freeing to finally have the big secret out in the open.
It said a whole lot about their respective situations that that made complete sense even without the story behind it. Dick still narrowed his eyes for a moment before huffing a sigh and turning his attention back toward the parade that neither of them had really been paying attention to. Since his shoes were already off, it wasn't any effort to bring his other foot up and allow himself to rest against Ric.
Dick was... quiet. Sure, that could be blamed on whatever float the hosts were going on about at the moment but, no, he was starting to zone out. That was what happened when someone like him was in a place where he felt safe. And it wasn't like it wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep on that very couch.
Wait. Dick shook himself. "When you were a kid, did you ever want to figure out how to jump onto the top of a float and just ride it?" he asked, trying to distract himself. Inane questions helped.
Dick was fighting sleep very much like a toddler, and it was pretty cute. Ric didn't draw attention to it, just held him closer against his side. "I mean, sure, doesn't ever kid? Not one of these floats though, they don't really show American Thanksgiving celebrations in Mexico. I don't even need to ask you, though, you'd do it today if you had the chance."
He liked that about Dick. Dick helped him remember how to have fun.
"What about you, did you always watch the parade as a kid?" Ric's voice was carefully casual, but soft enough that it wouldn't wake Dick if he did fall asleep. He looked like he could drop off at any second.
It wasn't a question; if given the chance, Dick absolutely would attempt to ride a float. He had done it before but in The parade? Maybe he needed to add that to his bucket list.
"Nah," he replied quietly. "Every once in a while, if we were stopped somewhere and could." Circus life. "And then things were usually too busy with B," Dick added with a small shrug. Busy as Bruce Wayne, busy as Batman, the holidays were so rarely about them. He went quiet again, thinking back over the years until everything just sort of... blurred. And then his gaze slowly went unfocused.
Dick's downfall was that he should have never leaned against the comforting, warm weight of Julio Richter. The arm around his shoulder, the way he'd gotten tucked in closer. He was done for and then his dark head of hair slowly shifted until his head was resting somewhere between the man's shoulder and chest. Dammit.
Just in case, Rictor kept up a soft commentary on the parade for a little bit longer, hoping that the rumble of his voice in his chest would keep soothing Dick into sleep. It was a little too effective though, because pretty soon?
Pretty soon he was standing on a ledge, high atop a building in New York City.
He could feel it--or, he couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel his connection to the earth, couldn't feel her underneath him ready to answer his call. Couldn't feel her surrounding him, keeping him safe. Protected, like his mother. Wanda Maximoff had taken that from him with three words: no more mutants.
His breath rasped heavy in his throat as he looked over the edge, at the sidewalk far below. People looked like ants down there, but they were few and far between. It was late, late enough that most people had already gone home for the night. He was doing his best to make sure that there was no one there to traumatize when he landed.
Well. Shit. Dick hadn't been sleeping so he couldn't be certain that this wasn't his dream and he was just envisioning one of his current favorite people in one of his favorite cities. NYC would never be the 'Haven or Gotham but the skyscrapers were things of beauty. So, he simply stepped up onto the ledge next to Ric and peered down without an ounce of concern.
"Which building is this?" he asked with genuine curiosity. If he looked around, he could probably trace one of his routes and figure it out from there. But Dick was busy considering the height--and how long he would have to get a line out before he became a street pancake. Terminal velocity in a fall like that was always a concern for his poor shoulder and back muscles, not to mention the potential for snapping his neck.
"Don't know. Don't care," Rictor said. He didn't recognize the man beside him, not in the strange fog of the dream. Dick didn't belong in this memory, so Dick wasn't there.
He looked down over the edge again as well, breath catching. It really was a long way, a very long way to fall. He wondered if it would hurt, dying this way. He wasn't any stranger to pain, and he wasn't afraid of it either, so that wasn't enough to stop him.
"So what's your angle? Please stop, you have so much to live for?"
"I mean, sure?" Dick asked and looked up at the other man only to tilt his head. Alright. Definitely not his dream so- He blinked. "Heights aren't really a thing for me. I like them," Dick said casually. "Skydiving became a new hobby. Wanted to break all the records, you know? Because I'm an overachiever or something."
He looked out in front of them, at the city instead of at the ground. "So how about... you jump, I jump?" Dick asked, extending a foot out into the open air like he was testing for some sort of invisible platform that he knew didn't exist. He had used the tactic before; he had also been in uniform before.
Well fuck. Ric didn't want to be responsible for someone else dying. (Again, his mind supplied, because he never really forgot how dangerous he could be.) He huffed a sigh, relaxing back against the wall of the building.
"You don't understand," Ric said, and he heard the undertone of his voice, something sort of like a whine but he wasn't going to call it that. "You--you don't know what I've lost."
Even now he was conscious of it, that absence where a presence should be, where he should feel the earth far beneath him. It was just... blank. Empty.
"No," Dick agreed and turned to put himself directly between Ric and the ability to easily go over the ledge. There wasn't any room for error if the man still decided to move forward but Dick was counting on him to not do so even if the other man didn't currently recognize his own boyfriend. Dick understood that; he hadn't recognized Jason's presence until it was suddenly there.
So he stood there, feet interspersed with Ric's own and the open air at Dick's back. "I know what loss is, though," he said, gently, "and everyone's is always different. Do you want to tell me about yours?" The prudent thing would have been to try and coax the man away from the ledge entirely before getting him to talk about things. But maybe Dick was used to keeping himself in such a position, not letting the person feel like they'd lost complete control over the situation until they were ready to give it up willingly. And if Ric still went over the ledge? Dick would be there, whatever that was going to end up looking like. And he prayed to a god he didn't believe in that whatever this dream 'magic' was that the rules still applied: they'd wake up before dying on the streets below.
The stranger was close, too close even, but Ric couldn't push him away. He wanted to kill himself, not anybody else, and if this guy wasn't going to... if he wouldn't let him do it, then... but it was stubbornness that kept Ric on the ledge anyway, that didn't have him suggesting that maybe they talk about it somewhere more comfortable. Maybe once this guy heard Ric's story, maybe he'd agree that life wasn't worth living.
Fuck, if he hated mutants, he might push Ric off himself.
"No more mutants," Ric said, as if that explained it all... but it didn't, not to anyone who wasn't one of them. "Wanda Maximoff said 'no more mutants' and I lost part of me. LIke a limb. Like my heart, and she ripped it out of my chest. Do you know what that's like?"
Dick could have tried to lie. He was good at lying. He could have also wrestled Ric to safety and just been done with it. But...
"Not a part of me like that, no," he said softly. "I'm only human. No powers. But I watched my parents die. The three of us, we were a trapeze act," he explained. His boyfriend knew this. But this dreamstate version didn't. "One of the ropes was cut. They swung out and it broke. We didn't work with nets. Part of the allure of our act," Dick went on and gave a tight, small smile that wasn't any kind of amused. "My heart broke on that floor right there with them."
They were far too close for the gesture to mean what it usually did: Dick offered his hand. The positions were usually reversed and a savior was attempting to yank the person back from the ledge. "Nothing was ever normal after that. I had to figure out what my new normal was and settle into that and figure out how to live my life." Dick was offering his hand as a comfort. "The pain, the hollow part... it never really goes away, though. All you can try to do is either guard it or fill it with something else."
"You don't... I didn't explain it right. My abilities, they aren't just... it's not just shaking the ground, man, I can--could--feel the earth. Feel her like she was a part of me, or I was a part of her. How am I supposed to just... fill that? The whole planet, that leaves a bigger hole than anything could ever fill up." Rictor shook his head, not ready to take that hand yet. Not ready to let go of his pain and move on yet.
"I'm sorry about your parents," he said. "No kid should have to go through that. But... but I can't keep living like I'm whole, I'm sorry."
Dick didn't give up, didn't try to talk back anything he'd already said. "But you do," he said quietly. "You can keep living like you're whole, even when you're not. Because the alternative sucks. It might not seem it right now," Dick continued and knew he was falling into the usual shtick that others did, "but you won't ever know it if you decide this is your only option. Once you take that step, there isn't any taking it back."
He kept that offered hand where it was, patient without being cocky. "I don't really want to keep giving you all the usual phrases and tools I've learned to talk you down from doing this. You're smart. And you're hurting. But I promise you that you're strong enough to survive this and thrive. And, hey, I already told you I'd go with you so my best interest is at stake here, too." Dick smiled. "Take my hand. We don't even need to go anywhere yet." And once the dream was either over or shifted to allow for them to talk, there were going to be more questions.
Everything still felt terrible, but... Ric took the stranger's hand anyway. As long as they didn't have to go anywhere yet, he guessed it was fine. And it felt less...
Lonely.
And then, as his hand met the other man's awareness fluttered in. Slowly but perceptively, Ric's eyes widened with panic. Oh shit.
Well, that wasn't actually what he'd expected but Dick was going to take it. He recognized that flicker of change and watched Ric's eyes widen. Dick leaned in and wrapped his free hand around the back of his boyfriend's neck in a secure, grounding hold. "Hey, hey it's fine. Shh," he soothed. The hand Ric had taken suddenly had their fingers threaded together. "Hi. This is why I wasn't sleeping. Looks like we ended up in yours instead."
"Shit. Shit." Ric's breath caught in his chest as he stared at Dick. "This... uh. This isn't what it looks like?"
Except Dick had just talked him through it, talked him down from it, so he knew very well that it was exactly what it looked like. Ric sighed and let his head drop forward. "This is definitely not a part of my past that I was planning on talking about."
Dick just raised an eyebrow as Ric tried the weak argument and immediately gave up. "Hey," he said softly and let his hand move from the back of Ric's neck to lift his face with two fingers at his chin. "We don't have to talk about it if you really don't want to. But I'd like to, just so that you know you can trust me with this sort of thing."
He paused to chew on his bottom lip; it wasn't like Dick had told his boyfriend everything. "And I do want to hear about everything you want to tell me," Dick added. "Whenever you're ready, whatever it is. This? This doesn't scare me. It makes my heart hurt for you, that you went through this. But it doesn't scare me away." A part of my past meant it wasn't just some random dream. But a memory. Just like what Jason had walked in on and why Dick had stopped sleeping. "Think we can move though? Dream or not, I'd feel more comfortable scootin' you away. A swan dive after my boyfriend while in my civvies doesn't sound like fun."
"Last time, they'd just talked me down from it when Jamie's dupe pushed me off the building." Ric guessed he hadn't really talked about his time with X-Factor Investigations. It was too tied up with his depowered state and then with Shatterstar. "Rahne was pissed at me."
"Think we can manage to wake up? I've never been into the whole lucid dreaming thing." Rictor screwed his eyes tightly shut, trying to figure out how to open them in the real world.
Dick kissed his boyfriend, just a lingering and soft thing. I'm here. When Ric screwed his eyes shut, Dick's grin appeared. "Pain usually works," he said.
And that was the only warning he gave before he leaned and sank his teeth into the flesh beneath Ric's ear, hard enough to bruise on its own but just shy of drawing blood. Far more fun than pinching.
Ric woke with a gasp, sitting straight upright and dislodging Dick in the process.
Of course, he then turned to try to catch him before he went too far. "Can't believe you bit me," he murmured, but then again that was just like Dick. "You could have warned me, you asshole."
The jolt was enough to wake Dick at the same time but where instinct would have made him reach out or otherwise attempt to catch himself, he was exhausted and disoriented. Ric caught him and Dick blinked in confusion for a moment before letting out a burst of laughter. "You liked it," he grinned.
"That's beside the point," Ric argued, but he found himself with a reluctant smile on his face anyway.
The smile fell away quickly, though. "I promise I'll be ready to talk about it someday. I mean, not that there's much more to talk about, that was kind of... you get the picture, you know?"
Not the whole picture. That memory didn't tell Dick the full story, the way that Ric still got low sometimes. That he lost control of his powers, when he got that low. That he was a danger, when he got that low... but Ric was fine. He was doing fine, so why did they need to talk about that? He was... life was good. Life was better than it had any right to be.
Dick held his tongue but then moved and flowed to his feet, holding his hand out to Ric much like he had in the dream. "I'm not going to push you to talk about it. I got the gist but I also don't think it's something you could be holding in. Talk to me about it, talk to a professional about it, doesn't matter. Don't hold it in."
He offered a small smile. "Want to go take a walk and avoid more sleep? Or want to say fuck it (and Dick didn't use that sort of language so casually) and go to bed anyway? Clearly I know how to wake you up. Maybe it works in the reverse." There was a guarded look in Dick's eyes at the offer, however. He was afraid of them ending up in one or more of his nightmares but who knew how the whole thing worked? Maybe they wouldn't even end up in the same dream at all. He wiggled his fingers in invitation.
It was on the tip of Rictor's tongue to point out that the pot was calling the kettle black here, but... they all had their nightmares, in this business.
"Fuck it. Let's go to bed. It can't... no, it absolutely can get more embarrassing from here, but let's go to bed anyway." Rictor could use a good cuddle after that dream, and Dick obviously needed the sleep so if he was willing to lay down? Ric wasn't going to refuse.