Entry tags:

barbara gordon, dick grayson

WHO: Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson
WHAT: Hallmark's Christmas Movie Countdown (can't believe they replace the Golden Girls with these tbh)
WHERE: Small Town, USA aka Wassail, Massachusetts. Yep. Wassail.
WHEN: Right here, right now
RATING: It's Hallmark not Lifetime

When Dick and Barbara took a trip through the doors, their intention had been to try to find a place that would be promising for doing a little Christmas shopping for their house and for each other and end the adventure with a dinner date. All in all, it sounded like a good time. They'd not taken a trip through the doors since their unfortunate encounter at that awful hotel a while back, so hopefully since they'd gotten that bad experience out of the way they'd wind up with a much better one this time. Balance, right? Sure. And if not, well, they were Batgirl and Night Wing. They could handle themselves and there was no one he'd rather be stuck in a tight spot with than Barbara Gordon.

When they went through the doors, however, things immediately changed.

---

Dick Grayson had long since come to appreciate the small town life. Orphaned very young by an untimely accident that cost his parents their lives, he'd been taken in by his grandmother and moved into the small town at just five years old. It'd been a rocky start, though. He was often the kid who got in trouble for acting out in school and getting into fights. He had a lot of broken pieces to his heart that took a long time to mend. Eventually, he came to appreciate the community and group effort it took to make a small town function. The town specialized in all things Christmas. Christmas trees, Christmas cookies, wreaths, ornaments, stockings. It was a thing. They didn't call it Wassail, Massachusetts for nothing.

That was why Dick had struggled with being there in the earlier years of his life. He didn't want to celebrate Christmas or be immersed in holiday spirit after losing his parents, who'd both been big Christmas enthusiasts. His grandmother owned the bakery that produced cookies fresh everyday, for the town and nationwide because their town was kind of a kitschy find for people who really liked Christmas. Dick had hated it until he was about sixteen years old. He was a hard nut to crack, but insert Barbara Gordon into the equation and everything changed for him. He'd fallen madly in love with her, and yes, with Christmas.

But being young and in love was hard, and she had big dreams. Dreams that took her away from the town that Dick was tightly connected to. He felt he was holding her back by not wanting to leave, so he did the only thing he knew how to do. He let her go. It had him regressing back into his more closed off ways from his childhood, but he still had his Christmas spirit.

Now in his late twenties, he was the one running the bakery as his grandmother was aging and couldn't keep up with all the orders anymore. Dick was just finishing baking a tray of sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles baked into them to put out for anyone passing by; a tradition his grandmother started that he continued. You didn't have to buy cookies to eat them, as far as she was concerned and Dick was upholding that train of thought. He arranged them in the shape of a Christmas tree, then turned to his cousin who was also working that day. "I've gotta run to the market to get more four and sprinkles," he said. "Back in a little bit."

Dick swung his scarf around his neck and pulled on his coat, then stepped out onto the sidewalk and headed toward the market.