I Moderate (i_moderate) wrote in we_archive, @ 2006-02-19 16:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | alfred pennyworth, bruce wayne, dick grayson |
i_walktheline This Used To Be Our Playground [ Open / Dick ]
He missed Lucius. There was no one in City United Industries that he trusted to take over the day to day operations of the sections that had once been WayneTech. And he knew because he'd gone through every employee profile and department assessment trying to get to know this new version of the company. It'd left him with little time to do the things he wanted to do, when he wanted to do them. There was a reason Lucius existed in his universe and if he ever got back there, the man was getting a raise.
Tugging at his tie, and gratefully handing his briefcase over to Alfred, Bruce pondered if he wanted to just go upstairs and take a nap before heading out to the real work. He made a mental note to ask Barbara if she'd noticed an increased need to sleep since she'd been here, in the City. He wasn't able to get by on four hours the way he used to. It left him feeling out of touch with his body. Luckily the need hadn't come up too often for him to be awake that long.
"Soup, Master Bruce ?"
Bruce ran a hand through his hair. "I look it, Alfred ?"
"You look like you've just spent hours in talks with Lex Luthor, sir."
Bruce grinned. "Soup it is, Alfred. In my room ?"
"Of course, sir."
Putting his hand on the banister as he headed up, Bruce paused as a shadow flitted across the walls upstairs. It was too lanky to be Tim, and Tim would have been on the landing by now, scolding him like a fishwife for looking tired. The smile that started on his lips faded slightly when the shadow moved again. "Dick ?"
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/19/2006 16:50:54
It wasn't so much that Dick had been avoiding Bruce as much as he was just not in any hurry to run into the man. And if that meant trying to keep to separate paths and routines, then so be it. Now, though, it was apparent that living in the same building meant that you could only avoid the owner of said building for so long.
When he saw Bruce, and knew that Bruce had seen him, he tried to not look like he'd been lurking, or worse, sulking. He even gave the man a small smile. "Yeah. Hello, Bruce."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/19/2006 18:30:37
He shrugged out of his jacket as Dick came into view. "How've you been settling in ? If it wasn't for Alfred occasionally mentioning spoiling you with some dish or other for lunch I wouldn't even know you really were around. Been exploring ?"
Bruce started to undo his cuff-links as he took the steps one at a time to the second floor.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/19/2006 22:01:12
"Getting a feel for the place," Dick confirmed with a nod, and meant both the old house, and the new city. He was too restless to simply sit around, even if whatever acts of unsanctioned almost-police work didn't seem to have much of an effect.
"Hard to, when everything keeps changing," he admitted, "but it's turned out to be like getting used to 'haven."
Except for the faces. They were a bit different. It was strange to face a Bruce that he had known, but didn't anymore.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/20/2006 14:57:08
He shook his head with an almost chuckle. "Bludhaven, of all the places for you to go..." Bruce wanted to ask when did Gotham get to seem too crowded for him ? He didn't think the city could ever seem little league. But he had strong suspicions that once again the real reason had more to do with what people weren't telling him; the little gaps in their recounts. The reason it felt Dick kept circling him as if they were two male lions on the same territory.
"On your way out ?" He asked, tone slipping into something like neutral. "Alfred's going to insure I eat before patrol." He arched a brow and tilted his head in invitation.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/20/2006 19:43:49
Dick had forgotten for that second that Bruce didn't know that about him. Well, this Bruce wouldn't, without Babs or Tim or someone else telling him. It was a confusing concept at best.
He offered the other man a shrug and the same little smile. "It's a lot like Gotham wa- is. It was a good place to go." He took a few steps forward, towards the stairs, and shook his head. "Actually, I was just going to go track Babs down, see who else has turned up."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/20/2006 20:27:16
He nodded. "Then you haven't heard about Cassandra Cain." He took a few more up until they were even. "That was a surprise."
There was a pause, awkward and filled. "Dick ? I'm not expecting you to be the boy I sent off to college, but I used to know you." Bruce tilted his head, it wasn't quite what he wanted to get at. But he didn't feel like he knew how approach people anymore; because here he didn't really know them at all.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/20/2006 20:56:47
"Cassie?" Dick echoed. "No, I hadn't. Just a few names, in passing." He'd been meaning to catch up fully. Figure out who to watch out for, and who to look for. He didn't even know what he'd do if Blockbuster showed up here.
No. He knew what he'd do, generally speaking, but the different territory would change things.
"What do you want me to say, Bruce? I grew up, and I don't think you were ready for it." So he'd grown away, too. It was the simplest way he could think to put it.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/20/2006 22:08:00
The fine lines around his eyes got tighter. There was something blunt and hard in Dick's words. Like a blow to the back of the head. "I know I'm.."
He needed the right words. "You kept the night job. I'd always hoped maybe you wouldn't need to keep doing it once you finished college." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets.
"Was that it ?" But would that have created the tension that was finally making itself shown ? He was searching Dicks body and eyes for clues.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/20/2006 23:16:33
"I didn't finish college," Dick admitted sheepishly. "It didn't work for me. I didn't get close to finishing."
Gotham hadn't worked out either, in the end. Neither had being Batman, or trying to be. He canted his head to one side, not so much a dismissive gesture as a thoughtful one. Words were such tricky things, sometimes. He didn't want to make things any worse than they had to be.
"I think that was a lot of it. You'd never know it, but it's hard being in Batman's shadow for so many years. I guess, maybe we both saw me going in different directions."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/20/2006 23:32:44
Batman's shadow. It was his turn to look away, not dismissively either, but for the space to think. Tim went out of his way to say and try to prove he wasn't 'just another Robin'. Which, given that until the City he'd never thought of Robin as plural, was both a shock and perhaps a tell.
Dick had, well the Dick he knew had wanted to fight back at the night that took away his parents. He'd wanted direction, a purpose. And Bruce had done what he could to show him one way. His way wasn't for everyone, it hadn't even needed Alfred clucking at him for him to realize that; understand it.
"I didn't finish college either. You know that." He'd been too restless. There'd been something driving him and he'd had to find it and he knew it wasn't to be found in law books or psychology lectures.
But "Batman's shadow ?"
Shadows hid his alter-ego, worked for him. They were a part of who he was. He looked back at Dick realizing he'd asked out loud, but he was still thinking. Of how Barbara had been moving towards Oracle in his time, way before any incident with the Joker and two harsh bullets could have happened. Had Jason felt as shaded, or small behind a looming figure ?
Bruce didn't quite know what to think.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 14:42:36
"Yeah, well, I think after a certain number of nights in tights, the chance for a normal life disappears. College was too safe."
Dick sighed, and folded his arms across his chest, swaying slightly. Standing, and practically on the stairs, was an uncomfortable setting for this conversation, but they were both here now, and moving elsewhere would interrupt whatever sort of flow the dialogue had.
He nodded. "I needed to make my own space, and you... you always seemed to be in it, always trying to protect me, or shunt me along onto a certain path. I don't blame you for it," much, "but things changed and you... didn't."
Or he'd changed too late, like a cat springing after a butterfly that had already flown away.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 14:59:00
Bruce caught the silent 'much'. "I'm your..." He paused, cleared his throat. "I was his Father. Not a replacement." Bruce added the last quickly. "Never a replacement."
He shrugged but it was filled with confusion, maybe frustration. "How much time did he, I, get to change ? What change ? I trusted, trust you. I had you watching my back." Trusting someone meant thinking of them as a worthy indepedent person, at least in Bruce's mind.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 15:19:41
"You are. Or, you will be, I guess." The legal adoption had been a long time in the making, since Dick had thought of Bruce as, at the very least, a father figure for years before. "Fathers and sons don't always get along, Bruce. Sometimes, they completely stop getting along. I always came back, if you needed me."
He wasn't quite sure what Bruce was asking, and was even less sure of what he could say. If everything fell back into place, at some point, if this Bruce tried to change things, would Dick even exist in this sense? But in the end, it didn't matter. If he wouldn't exist like this, then he wouldn't care because he wouldn't know it.
"I don't know," was what he finally settled on. "It's not exactly something you can just pick out on a timeline."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 15:34:21
"How the hell could we just stop getting along ?!" It came out sharp and loud. Bruce rubbed his forehead. "Is that why there were two other Robins ?" He couldn't imagine replacing Dick. But had he, that him, replaced Dick ? Tried to ?
"Dick." There was a touch of plea mixing with the frustration even as Bruce tried to drain all emotion from his voice. "You have to have some idea." Bruce leaned against the banister.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 16:01:55
"It wasn't a 'just,'" Dick corrected. "Tim and Jason? Jason's here because you fired me. Tim's here because, well, after Jason, you asked me to be Robin again, and I was Nightwing already"
"If there is a 'just' in here, I guess it's that you just didn't get it. Being Robin isn't... it isn't a permanent state of being, not in the way that Batman is."
No, being Robin was a stepping stone. You could move on to being Batman, or die, or be someone else. Where Tim ended up was still up in the air.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 16:24:03
He heard what Dick was saying. And he supposed that being Robin had become something transient the moment Dick went off to college. But the bright loud, colorful noise in his head was 'You fired me'.
Fired. Sometime in the future he would think that Dick wasn't doing the job, wasn't focused ? Wasn't listening ?
"How can I be the one who didn't get it, if I fired you ? What happened to make me fire you ?!" What did you do ? What did you fail to do ? What could be so huge ?!
What could Dick have done that would make him feel that was the only...His thoughts flew to Max. Because he'd essentially fired Max, hadn't he. Because she was reckless, because she'd been undisciplined, because she disobeyed Batman and could have been hurt or caused other people to be hurt. But he'd trained Dick, trained with Dick.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 16:49:03
"Because you can't protect me from everything," Dick replied sharply. No, he snapped. It was definitely a snap. He hadn't meant to snap, hadn't even meant to get too far into this conversation, but even if this was a Bruce would didn't know what had happened, he was still Bruce.
"You thought you could. I got shot - not even close to fatally, and you thought that if I wasn't Robin anymore, I wouldn't get hurt anymore, and you could keep me safe. But you can't spend that much time training someone to be someone like Robin, or Batman, or Batgirl, and then just take it away and expect it to go away."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 16:55:36
His hands, slipped out of his pockets and curled into fists. Tension tightening his shirt across his shoulders. He hadn't been there when Dick was shot, he knew the gunshots searing across his memory were from a different time, a different loss. It didn't seem to matter.
His eyes coasted over Dick's body, trying to figure out where he'd been hit. But he didn't say anything, though his jaw was clenched tightly enough that he might have been holding back words.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 17:30:52
He had scars from it - two smudges of discolored, oddly-textured skin on either side of his right arm - but he wasn't going to volunteer to show them to Bruce. The mental scars, the ones that had changed their relationship, were already apparent.
"I'm sorry. You shouldn't even know about this," Dick said, subsiding a little. "But, that was a big part of it. Of why I'm not Robin anymore, and why I'm not in Gotham."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 20:53:50
"It's alright." He said almost immediately. "I wanted to know. But.." Bruce started to reach out, but his hand fell. He raised his eyes, tried to catch Dick's, but he stopped himself. He wouldn't talk if he looked in those eyes. There was something cold and hollow in the pit of his stomach. Dick shot, Jason dead, no wonder Tim's uniform was so heavily fortified. No wonder Tim had probably had to prove himself so hard.
"A whole city apart ?"
He exhaled softly, fingers curling together. "Just hearing about it...Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was wondering what right I ever had pulling you into this ?" Or that he'd been scared shitless, if he wanted to even begin to think truthfully.
Bruce dragged his attention to the present. But the hollow feeling wouldn't leave. He shrugged, as if throwing off the conversation and took a step so as to go get onto the landing and to his room. "You were looking for Babs. You should call first."
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 22:15:23
"You had Gotham covered. And I needed the space," Dick couldn't do anything but shrug, though he wasn't sure if he was trying to make his words lighter, or apologize for... something. He wasn't going to apologize for finding Bruce at fault. "I came back to Gotham if you needed the help, but you had other Robins. Batgirl. Allies that were closer."
He hadn't much considered Bruce's point of view, because he hadn't wanted to think like the man too much. "No. You didn't pull me into anything; you just pushed me out and slammed the door."
When Bruce stepped up, he took a few steps to the side and towards the stairs. Nodded, absently. "I will."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 22:28:26
He closed his eyes. He didn't even need the mental Alfred clucking in his head; though it helped.
"Dick, Richard." Bruce didn't look back. "You're my son. There's no one I wanted" needed "to see here more. If anyone had to be here at all. Nothing you could do would change that. Not being shot. Not moving to Bludhaven. Nothing."
Bruce started walking again, still not looking back, but paused. This was about more than him and Dick and probably always would be. "Robin is... " What ? Batman's son ? Batman's shadow ? "Robin isn't more important than that." Though that might not be what Dick wanted to hear, that Robin came secondary to him.
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/21/2006 22:55:21
Dick paused, genuinely confused, and curious. "Here - the city, or Gotham?"
He shook his head. "It's easy for you to say that, I think, because you haven't lived it yet. Bruce, as much as I'd like to be able to be the person that you know, it can't happen here. I'll work with you; I won't try to avoid you." as much, anymore "But I can't go back in time."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/21/2006 23:06:40
He turned around, taking the few steps down so they could be eye to eye. "I appreciate you working with me, Dick. But I want more than a working relationship with my son. You and Alfred were the only family I had. When I got here you were the two people I was hoping to see the most. And now you are here and you want me to treat you like a colleague ?"
Something flared in his eyes. "I won't do that."
From: [info]i_flybynight Date: 02/22/2006 13:46:32
"No, I didn't think you would," Dick replied unthinkingly. It probably came out meaner than he'd intended it to. "I don't want that, either. I just - I'm just telling you I can't brush off everything you haven't done yet. It's not going to be how you remembered it being."
Part of him knew that Bruce knew this; he had to, after all, after running into Babs and Tim and Jason already. Maybe others, too. It still seemed like a point worth stressing.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 02/24/2006 12:25:24
Things would be different, had to be different in the City and Bruce had done nothing but adapt since he arrived.
But it was frustrating not knowing what exactly had happened with family; to be paying for something and not know what that future version had been thinking when he decided that Dick never figuring out his reasoning and ending up resenting him was an acceptable outcome.
Even if Dick was still acting like someone he could be proud of.
"You're older, more experienced. I'll respect that. Show me it out there, and I'll respect that too."
He shrugged. "For everything else, maybe Alfred can translate."