Evangeline wants to be (upintheclouds) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-09-09 12:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | barbara gordon, door: dc comics, nightwing |
Who: Dick and Babs
What: Reunion!
Where: Dick's Gotham apartment
When: RECENTLY
Babs crept carefully through the building. It wasn’t that she felt unsafe, exactly. This was one of Dick’s places. There were fewer places safer. Then again, she wasn’t exactly a guest in it. One might say she was an intruder.
After all, it’s not like she got in through the front door with a key.
This was a different man than she had known, older, and with more hideouts than she was used to. Thankfully she had her future self’s computer at her fingertips. It didn’t take long to find his place in Gotham and in no time she found herself bypassing security and roaming around his place.
He’d find her. One didn’t exactly break into vigilante safe houses and expect them not to be alerted in second, but that was the whole point. After giving herself a quick tour she made her way to the kitchen, keeping the lights off and letting her black clothes blend in with the shadows. Light cut through the darkness when she opened his fridge, bending forward to review the contents and tossing her red ponytail back over her shoulder. Wrinkling her nose, she spied Chinese takeout cartons that she was sure was a few days too old. She’d left it alone in favor or snagging one of his beers and closed the door with her hip. He wouldn’t miss one.
Dick was a creepy son of a bitch, raised by the creepiest of the creepers. So it shouldn’t have surprised him that he was sitting on the roof of his building watching Babs wander around his apartment on the screen of his phone. He would have been amused at most of it, if he wasn’t so enthralled that Babs was walking around. On legs. It wasn’t that it was a huge difference, everyone knew Babs was still Babs and everyone was still definitely scared of Babs wheelchair or not. But it had just been so long since she’d been that young. Since he’d been that young.
He was getting a bit nostalgic, and then she took a beer. That was the last straw. He scaled down the side of the building and fire escape ladders. He climbed in through his own window and cleared his throat as he did. “The economy is in crisis, Babs,” he said sitting on the sill with one leg still outside and leaning his back against it. “I can’t just start handing beer out. Besides, what are you? 12? 13?” Smirk. Smirk. Smirk.
Hers matched his, a smirk seen in the scant light that poured through his kitchen windows. Moving toward his drawers she picked out the bottle opener and let the opening sound cut through the quiet air around them.
“We can’t all be old men like you, Dick,” she countered, taking a quick swig from the bottle and leaning back on the counter. From where they stood, she couldn’t quite make out his face but she doubted he was that much older than her. “Guess that’s why it took you, how many minutes, to corner me? Too busy watching me plow through your system before coming out?” She tut-tutted and shook her head. Watching and waiting for the right moment. She knew how all the steps. “I’m disappointed. I was hoping for a challenge.” She gave him a half shrug before taking another pull from her beer.
He felt older than her, perhaps not as much, but he’d lived about a dozen lifetimes since he’d seen Babs before her injury. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to guard my beer. I was happy to let you snoop, but you went for the fridge. It’s like a dagger to my heart.” He climbed in the rest of the way then. Black jeans and a black tee shirt, unsurprising and completely uninteresting. He joined her in the kitchen and grabbed a beer of his own and smiled at her as he looked her over. “It’s good to see you again, Babs. Been a weird handful of months around here.”
“So I’ve noticed.” He gave her a once over and she returned it in kind. For all that might have changed, they were still Dick and Babs. They weren’t shy, and she was curious to find some physical difference to account on this age gap between them. A beard, maybe. She was vaguely disappointed. “Not the least of which is me having to break into your house to see you. No invite? Now who’s wounded.” She gave him a mock pout before taking another drink. “Fancy digs, though. Didn’t like Blüdhaven?” That was, at least in her time, where she last saw him.
“I’m just surprised it took you this long, I wasn’t aware there was an invitation needed at this point. Most of the time you just use your key,” he said completely aware that the timelines were screwy - but it was a valid point just the same.
“I still have the place in Bludhaven,” he said with a shrug. “Damian and I may go back - but I think we’re needed here for a bit. Too much crazy shit goes down we can never stay away for long. Plus I think Bruce needs to pay my rent twice a month, it’s character building.”
She rolled her eyes at his pointed ignoring of their mistmached histories. “Dick, the last time I saw you you were a million years younger and just moved out of Gotham.” That and they weren’t exactly on key giving terms anymore, having moved on to other people in their lives. But she held that one back.
She snorted softly as he talked about making Bruce pay, taking another long pull of her beer. “Mad at him?” To say she didn’t quite understand was an understatement. She thought back to what she knew had happened to him. Being here. The pit. A different Bruce. It seemed more than a little misplaced to lay that all at the feet of a man who didn’t know them. Though she knew it was easy to say, since she didn’t have that relationship with Bruce the way the boys did.
“Sometimes history repeats itself,” and it had. At home with Dick’s coming and going. And here. And with Babs. And with everything.
At her question he took a few swallows from the bottle in his hand and exhaled slowly. “That’s a loaded question. And there’s about a dozen answers to it that all lead the same place. So I’ll spare you the details - because I’m not that proud of them - and say that the very simple answer to the very loaded question is no. No I’m not mad at him. But character building helps us all,” he said with a smile. “Seen him yet? Or am I the first stop on the comeback tour?”
A look, hurt and annoyance in equal measure, graced her features when she wouldn’t go into detail. There were a lot of little details she was missing by being the newcomer and it frustrated her to no end to feel like she was one step behind them all. But she’d let it slide, let him keep his pride, and hid her thoughts behind a pull of her bottle.
“I’ve seen him,” she nodded before a smirk tugged at her mouth. “He at least was at the Manor, unlike some people.” She could let that one slide too, but where was the fun in that. “It’s weird seeing him younger. But he looks much the same. Even more serious than before, and that’s saying something. But we had a good talk.” Another drink. “How’s the brother?”
Dick sighed, “It’s complicated, Babs. He’s not the same guy - we’re still getting to know each other. It’s been awkward, but I don’t have a lot of business being mad at the guy. It has never worked well for me no matter what incarnation or timeline we’re dealing with.” That much was true at the very least. And he wasn’t sure rehashing it would be all that beneficial for anyone.
“I come and go,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t trying to be dismissive or frustrating. Though he knew he was all of the above. “Sorry I missed you though.”
The mention of Damian was a good subject change, it was something he didn’t mind talking about, and frankly he was rather interested to see Babs and Damian in a room together. “Damian is great, he’s always pretty great all things considered. He’s also a complete shit but I’m not sure what else anyone expects. It’s always interesting when people expect him to be agreeable.”
Dismissive and frustrating was exactly what he was being but Babs held her tongue, conveying her agreement in a look and a shrug. His apology came with a soft huff, the sound drowned out as she took another sip of her beer, but when she set it back down there was an even softer smile on her face. Fine, fine, apology accepted.
It grew even wider as he explained Damian. “I got a sense of that from what little we spoke.” Brief, but he certainly made an impression and she laughed a little in remembrance. “Somehow I’m not that surprised you two get along.” Opposites tended to balance themselves out when working together. It always struck her as so whenever Batman teamed with a Robin. Trickling over into their non-masked lives (or vice versa) was inevitable. “Still work together?” As far as she could tell, Damian seemed around the age a Robin would want something different and Dick wasn’t exactly sporting a Batman mantle anymore.
“No one has been more surprised than me that he and I turned out to work well together. Bruce took his attitude too seriously and it frustrated him. I laughed at it and it pissed him off and made him less likely to do much more than cluck at me.” Which was something that Dick would never get tired of, bonding with Damian had been some of the best times he’d had.
“We do. Mostly in Bludhaven these days, but we’re back and forth to Gotham all the time. Shit keeps hitting the fan.”
“Some things never change, I guess.” Her smile was soft, warm but small. It was nice hearing about him and Damian, something good amongst all the bad she was told had happened to Dick. But she couldn’t help but feel… disconnected. Between replacements (not one Batgirl, but two), a new commissioner and her oldest friend in the city going through hell and back without her around, she felt a huge distance between them in the small kitchen.
She took a long swig of her beer, downing the last of it, and hunted around nearby for the recycling bin.
“Well, you’re probably beat,” she declared as the bottle dropped with a soft clang. She liked to assume the nightly scouring of the city hadn’t changed and sleep wasn’t exactly a commodity to turn down. “And I probably should give the legs another stretch.” A long rooftop run would do her good. Re-familiarizing herself with what should have been familiar.
He chuckled then and set his beer on the counter with his arms folded in front of him. “I’m not sure if that’s comforting or not,” he said and winked at her.
It was still strange seeing Babs upright and walking around and being so young. He couldn’t complain, he was glad to see her face that went without saying. “Well if you’re staying in town, I’ll see you again soon. Maybe I’ll drop by Bruce’s place and brood a little in your general direction.”
She wasn’t so sure if it was comforting either so instead she just smiled in the face of his wink and kept quiet. She did laugh as he mentioned brooding at her. “Be still my heart. A gentleman brooder,” she said, her hand flying to her chest as she tilted her head back to swoon dramatically. “Come swing by the Clocktower. I have a clocktower now, apparently.” She gave another amused huff to herself. Surprise real estate. Sidling up to him she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a tight hug, figuring it would do to make up for not properly greeting him (and stealing his beer). “See you later?”
He hugged her back tightly, it had been a long time since he hugged anyone - he was pretty sure it was Stephanie - and seeing as how he hadn’t talked to Stephanie, let alone hugged her, in far too long that was saying something. “Definitely. I’ll come by the clocktower, we’ll tell time. It’ll be great.”