Re: Books!
It was a talent that Dick possessed that differed him from much of the family, except for Dinah, who also had a way with people in her charming confidence. Maria wasn't such a people person, but like Bruce, that didn't make her bad people. She was out to save people just like Dick was. Growing up with Bruce made it easy to still be playful and tease the taciturn for Dick, though. Successfully, more often than not.
"Exactly! Functioning is good. Pretty sure there is some script in your handbooks that says you're not allowed to curl up in a ball and rock in the corner, so you just can't. Written standard procedure. Make it so."
"Probably. I went through a lot of cloaks," he said, finger to his lips thoughtfully, obviously remembering all the instances where Alfred had just looked at the bullet holes, rips, blade slashes, and stains of all kinds on his cloaks and just sighing, taking the unfortunate material away and the outfit returning perfectly whole, sometimes precisely stitched, sometimes not.
"Yeah. I liked looking at maps as a kid, trying to figure out where we were, where we were going, and then where all other places were in the world." A grin. "Yeah! They're pretty ornery creatures, mongooses. And I will be offended if we don't get some Disney up in this stand. I need to get caught up on all the newer ones."