Work Text:
"Imagine: to ask
and to be answered.Even the son of god
knows what it is
to beg and be met
with silence.—Passiontide, Lisabelle Tay
i.
On the 96th day Bruce didn't call, Dick remembered their old game. There were two kinds of faith, Dick had tried to tell her—the one children had, and the tired, worn thing you held onto like balloon string long after the POP; the helium-high; the bright yellow of it in smithereens over your good shoes.
Dick had smiled as if to say, Guess what I got.
Her file read: Abigail, ex-military. Current head of the Sisters of the Ascended Veil. Her sneer said: unbeliever. Around her neck, the cross-shaped security pass that would allow Dick's team and several concussed Hadrian girls access to the bunker below the missionary outpost.
Through his in-ear, Helena barked over gunfire, "Get us shelter, Grayson. We'll handle Chang."
Chang, the rampaging meta in the sky. The ground shook with each distant blast. Tiger grunted, "Allah have mercy—" then came a staticky CRUNCH, a sound of which could've been anything from a tungsten rifle or a body, flattened like a sad, watery diner pancake.
Nerve strike, grab the pass, get it over with, Grayson. But Holy Head Honcho had taken one look at Dick and announced a bankruptcy of faith. Like Dick wasn't fluent in the daily death-defying act that was his life. Sure, his Catholicisms were a little rusty. His Talmud, worse. He had a pocket rosary from his mom that was missing two beads. Some of the old Bludhaven PD were severe Protestants, from whom Dick stole a fun Jesus fact he liked to pull out during parties, which was that when Jesus cried out at the ninth hour, a time for the regular ol' lamb sacrifice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?—which of course meant, My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?—did you know it wasn't the pain of crucifixion that freaked Jesus out so much, but abandonment? Of separation eternal? How the sin of man, cast on his shoulders, had blackened his soul, cutting him off from his beloved father/brother/self in one?
Your "fun fact" is kind of a buzzkill, actually, Roy told him once. So Dick's experience with religion was a little slapdash. Sue him. It was just funny, was all. The Sisters, serving only God and select iron-fisted strongmen of the south, were said to possess a faith so absolute they could give Lanterns a run for their money—and even then they'd never know the scale of the miracles Dick had seen: 1) In three months, it would be Dick's death anniversary; 2) Bruce was still missing his check-ins; 3) here Dick was, persisting.
Closer now, the orange blitz on the horizon. Abigail stood before the imposing door of the outpost and did not budge. "You insist on entering holy ground with your… polluted soul. Even if what you say is true, and there is a hidden bunker beneath this land, only the Lord's handmaiden may—"
"Enter holy ground, yes, yes, of course." Dick peered over her purple habit, into the black eye of the CCTV camera. Waved for the whole congregation watching. "Is it the whole… me being a dude thing? Fair enough, but you'll take my girls, won't you? They're just children." Children behind him groaned in a heap of limbs. Stowaway stalkers, really, but under Dick's protection, like all kids by default; a fact that would continue until the end of time. "You love children."
His Hypnos spasmed as Abigail blinked, rebuffing the mental suggestion of care-love-cute aggression.
"Or not?" Dick rubbed the baby fever from his eyes. "Huh. Guess having a maternal instinct's totally passé now."
"Your wicked offspring have no room here, outsider. Adopting strays is not the work of Handmaiden."
"So you'll let me do it for you? Good idea." One more time: the illusion whirled hot behind his eyes, bright as confetti. "You've wanted help for so long. I'll make it easy. I raised a few strays myself, y'know, they turned out great." Dick winced and did not think of Damian, the cold damp square of earth in the ground. "Wow, you're so relieved I'm here, huh? I clean, I cook, I make a kickass French toast—"
Sister Bitch put her hand in his face. "We do not gorge ourselves on the Sabbath. Enough, I can feel your… evil, in my head. Whispering, testing me. But my will is strong, as all my handmaids are." His earpiece crackled again: "WHERE'S MY EVAC, GRAYSON," boomed Tiger's voice, ornery and magnificent, and Dick almost broke character with relief. Abigail moved behind the door to bolt it closed. "If God wills you to die today, Man With No Face, then so be it."
Dick shoved a Hadrian crossbow into the gap. Good metal; vanadium. Dick could kiss it.
"Sorry, God, not dying today."
"You claim to know God's will!"
"Not God's." Dick grinned at her fury-blotched face. "Just a man's."
Earlier, while she'd monologued about his apocryphal state, Dick had noticed the discoloration on her crucifix. It was the kind that could only come from restless hands. Skin bitten off, nailbed raw, cracked. Was this kinship, then? There was no gun, no gauntlet or secret spy gizmo that could rival the intensity of her conviction, Dick knew that now, except for what he always had, inexplicable and ordinary as his own hands. A battle of devotion was a battle Dick was always going to win.
"Remember? That day, you were careless. You lost everything, in front of so many people, and they—they just watched. But that man… he saved you. Took you in." Dick edged his foot into the door. "You've been falling for so long, Abigail, but he caught you. He caught you."
Abigail's face went slack. Dick felt bad for turning the crankshaft all the way; now her irises began to whirl in time with his—lazy at first, then fast, faster; trenchant like bloody pinwheels.
"Hasn't been easy, huh? Yeah, I hear ya. It breaks you up inside, to be away from everything you love, you even turned to religion. But he hasn't forgotten you." And this would never get old: seeing the false memory annex the room in a person's mind, shuffle the furniture, slap new paint on the walls. "C'mon, Abbie. Don't you remember? How good it all was?"
The early years—warmth traded under a heavy cape—a steady weathered hand on his back, like a new limb, a new wing—careening down dirt highways, soft rock on the radio—wind and rain; tinsel and dazzle—learning to divine the city's thousand moods, its metals—Gotham's rooftops unfolding beneath their feet, a pop-up picture book, and they were the kings of this land—they were winning the games, shooting threes, giving the people what they want—they were burning—burning something holy—
Abigail whimpered. Clutched her head. Dick felt several nerves burst; his or hers?
"He was just one man, but he—" What was he saying now? "He changed the world for you. He changed, for—he—"
Finally, Abigail staggered back, like whatever she saw was unbearable. "Dear God."
Dick reached for her. Panicked, he realized his Hypnos was still churning, memory after over-saturated memory, an engine with no kill switch. He fought a wave of tinfoil-flavored nausea. Found his feet. He'd been abridging the images as they streamed out of him—cutting Bruce Wayne out of The Batman to spare his identity—only for his feelings to cloud the system, a poison agent too sticky and hot and impossible to delineate. All he wanted, dammit, was to make her like the man, the way socialites and fanboys did—or at least dip her finger in the pool of Dick's great unpayable debt—so she'd open the bunker gates once Dick asked. Blood sprang up his eyes; the world lurched Looney Tunes-style. Imagine the things I'd survive, Dick thought distantly, if I loved Bruce less. Too late now, anyway; the Hypnos was still free-wheeling—an infinite carousel ride from hell, and Dick was both the prancing horse and its white-knuckled passenger; he was in all the horses, in all the seats; in one, he was swearing a candlelight oath—in another, nine and dying on a gurney—he was choking on radioactive fumes—he was watching Bruce as he suffocated by Lex's hand and saw the naked, childlike terror on his face, and even then Dick loved him; his wrong god, always too late—
Abigail reached out, seeing in threes. "Batman—"
"Yeah, he—" Another wave of sugary rust, pastel bile. "He's—even after everything that's happened—despite what you feel, he's—worthy. Of your loyalty. Of your—" Dick caught himself on the doorframe. "He has a mission for you."
Fingers clawed at her habit. "I can't—"
"You can. You will." Something too thick to be tears trickled down Dick's cheeks. It stained his teeth when he smiled. "Robin," he said, "that's you."
Abigail collapsed to her knees like someone shot.
The first symptom of Hypnos overuse was a fucked up vestibular system. Leaky Ear, Helena called it. Left was right was up was down was all around. Eventually, Dick made his way through the gap in the door and reached her.
"Oh God—how do—b-but if—" she stammered. "I'm Robin—"
"Yeah," Dick agreed, and then injecting more enthusiasm, "Yay."
"What have I—?" She grabbed his shoulder like it was a ledge before a tall height. "I'm failing him."
"Not yet. There's still time. There's a meta out there, hurting your good neighbors. My friends are taking care of it, but they'll all need evac eventually. They're gonna come knocking, and you're going to let them all in. They'll need food, medical attention. You won't turn anyone away, Abigail, every life is precious, and we don't—what the hell. You know this part already."
"Food, shelter, yes," she mumbled. "I catch people, yes. I'm Robin."
"That you are, and that you do, so now—"
"I'm his partner, yes. His best friend. His—"
"Robin, focus." Dick shook off a dumb hot flash of irritation. "Aren't you gonna tell your ladies to open the bunker?"
In minutes of memory-planting, thirty feet of military-grade steel gates surrounding the outpost slid belowground, revealing the bright green manicured lawn of The Ascended Veil. The Hadrian girls cheered then fainted again. At least Tiger wasn't bellyaching on the comms anymore.
"Great job, Rob," Dick said. Then he blacked out.
When he came to, he was staring up at a canopy of acacia trees. Abigail-Robin was herding the last of the Hadrian kids into the outpost. Atta girl. Dick blacked out again; light and shadow careened across his eyes. The burr of gunfire was closer now, a sick bass beat. These were the pathetic gray hours of the Hypnos after-party; his brain sloshed like the primordial ooze they served at Spyral's cafeteria. What day was it in his mission log again? 50 or 300? Was it 10:47 P.M. yet? Yesterday's check-in had come and gone, like the day before, and the day before that, and still nothing from Bruce, and maybe it was just as well because something was happening to Dick that he had no idea how to explicate in a report. How, sometime in the desert, in the blue waning hours in bed with only the 5mm microphone wrapped around his knuckle, the cottony derealization not unlike the first few months after Donna died, the dark and its nothing had fishbowled around him—paring him down, to his core elements. Somehow, the coming home ceased to be the point.
I need to see if they broke you, Bruce told him back at the Cave. I need to see if you still have the heart you once had. Somehow Dick heard the hidden plea there: after everything, can you still jump, can you still trust me to catch you? And Dick punched back so hard that Bruce finally remembered who the hell he was talking to. Dick was no one's martyr. Was no one's boy. He was the guy who wore the colors his parents died in, then kept up the business of living. Somewhere in the growing up he'd forgotten that boy—maybe they both did.
Before Dick could trip on his feet again, a hand steadied him. It took him a while to recognize her: Holy Head Honcho. Her face was open, unburdened, and flushed with life. "Hey, you're okay, mister. Robin's got you. Emergency evac's underway, my girls are getting everyone settled as we speak." She was right; a horde of people were streaming into the outpost, on foot and riding on Spyral-issued vans. "Get it aaaall nice and tidy before B-man arrives. Where's our friend anyway?" Before Dick could speak, she shrugged. "Well, whatever, he'll meet us on the other side."
Dick followed her into the grass. The blood drying on his cheeks felt tacky, like face paint. "Yeah," he said, "Thanks for helping out, Rob."
"Thank you," she said, looking at him, the ground jolted again—the meta was a full blight on the horizon now, sputtering in the air with a vengeance after Helena's military van—and Abigail was already turning to sprint, towards where she was needed, like she'd never stopped a moment in her life, and giggled like they were playing; it was an invitation; call and response. "For helping me remember. It's been so dark, and and and, hard lately, this life and I—I almost forgot who I was, you understand?"
"Yeah," Dick heard himself say, swallowing hard. He gave chase. It could be a game, again, if he wanted. And who would blame him, for being happy? "Yeah, I know."
ii.
Dick woke with the birds. Dreaming of Damian. Grave in his mouth, wet as birth. Alive, he reminded himself. You're alive, dammit. He took to the rooftops, furious with life. Red sun on the rim like a bloody line on a knuckle. Up here, the egrets were halfway through their migration. Everyone else was coming home. Front handspring, roundoff, cuff the sky, Grayson. Nothing like a good fall to open the pores. And don't look down; that's where the dead are. In the dream, Damian had told him something, something important—something that would've saved his life. But he couldn't remember; he'd have to go back. A jump from this high, Dick thought, surely. Surely gravity would return the words. It didn't take. It just hurt. Earthbound, Dick peeled himself off the ivy-sprawled grounds, took his torn hands and knees back to his room, where he could pull on his gray shirt and cargo pants. A uniform always smoothed him over, like filling a pothole with cement. Walking down the hallway to answer Mister Minos' office summons, Agent 37 wore his smile out like a pocket knife, and all day people gave him a wide berth, knowing better than to cut themselves on him.
Two months ago, Bruce missed his first check-in. Dick gave it fourteen days.
On the thirteenth, he cracked. He didn't know it then. Weeks later, the realization hit him in the shape of Midnighter's fist sailing through the air at high noon at some abandoned port in Santa Ana, Cagayan, barely catching his unshaved jaw, and his brain ping-ping-pinged with the equivalent of a victory MIDI jingle.
If this was a game, someone else was piloting Dick's avatar. The illusion of choice, huzzah!
"And if you lose?" Even over the black cowl, Midnighter had a face that said fuck you without ever having to say anything. It reminded Dick of Jason: the cruel downward slant of his new mouth, healed wrong. "What do I get?"
Lazy lumbar stretch until Dick's shirt rode up, revealing the dark hairs dusting his navel. "I'm sure you'll think of something you like."
Midnighter's jaw ticked. "You're a freak, Grayson."
"Yet you came anyway. Shot, chaser," he said with a shrug. Then when he was warmed up, "No weapons."
"Missed my hands on you so much, you shoulda just asked."
"Pretty please," Dick said.
Sparring with Midnighter was not unlike fighting an AI of Bruce. An unstitching. Surprisingly not joyless. In fact, Dick had cracked more real smiles in the past few minutes than that whole spar back at the Cave, where Bruce had asked him to fight for keeps, every blow commanding: be better than what took you from me—be bigger, meaner—and then it wasn't fun anymore, which meant the probability of Dick wise-cracking was at an all-time high; but at every turn Bruce looked like he'd do worse than dislocate some bones—like break down crying—so Dick didn't joke and didn't complain and fought back instead, like a hound kicked out of the hell where it was born.
"I was thinking," Midnighter said, after a brutal strike to the chest sent Dick sprawling on wet metal, "you should listen to some John Coltrane. Broaden your fucking horizons, yanno? Better yet—some Jaki Byard."
Dick moved with the blow, pulling into an upward swing. A rusted hook dangled above him. Would it hold—? Too late to think. He grabbed it with one arm and surrendered to the pendulum swing. "Wow, music recs for me? That's—" he whipped his boot across Midnighter's jaw, "—sweet."
By the time Midnighter recovered, Dick had leaped over oil puddles, piles of rotting rope, finding vantage points in the labyrinth of yellow and red crates. It stunk something fierce in here. Sweet, day-old fish guts. The air was tacky with salt and bilge cleaner. "The thing about the greats, Grayson, is they're not afraid to use a multi-stylistic approach," Midnighter's voice floated above the port. "Stride. Bebop. Avant-garde. Not a line of music ever gets old. Shit's fresh. You could be like that, if you were smart. Guess you can't help it if your taste's cheap."
He stressed the word by throwing a heavy crate where Dick was crouched. Geese shrieked and scattered. Dick slid back into the open, offended. "Hey, I didn't get a Walkman 'til I was eighteen. Sorry if I'm still growing into my music palate." Another crash, as he sidestepped another flying hunk of metal. "And Spotify's blocked at Spyral. They play lots of Spice Girls in the lobby, though."
Next throw was a feint, because of course it was. Dick ducked out of an incoming shadow only to find himself cornered by another; bigger, meaner. His chipper greeting got cut off as Midnighter dragged him close for a guillotine choke. "Game's getting stale, Grayson," Midnighter lamented against his ear. "I'm reading you better, faster, than you can change." A decade of instinct kicked in; Dick dropped to his knees, breaking the iron hold, and rolled with their weight to topple the balance; Midnighter threw Dick off like he was a bad puppy. "I can see it, you know? All your influences. Shotokan," he sidestepped Dick's cruel kick to his thigh femoral nerve, "Juijutsu," brushed off the encroaching hand for the armbar, "Krav Maga," took the low kick with a hearty grin, then caught Dick's fingers in their trajectory for the eye gouge combo, which was annoying, before headbutting Dick, which was infuriating. "And when all that doesn't work—" Midnighter got under Dick's attack line first; he sank in like a javelin, all forward unstoppable motion, to catch him by the tender in his throat and drop him to the ground for the Irimi Nage, "—back to Aikido, Christ, always with the Aikido. Snore." Stars swam in Dick's eyes, or neon little fishies. "See? Daddy Bats made you master it when you were itty bitty Robin in the panties, didn't he?"
He was right; but no one ever dared mock the gift of Bruce's training in front of him. When Dick tumbled down the barge's edge, he aimed a rotting crab at Midnighter's head, and that one, right there? 100% pure, rancid, itty bitty Robin.
The crab glanced off the cowl. Splattered with viscera, Midnighter's grin looked even nastier. "The best part—the crunchiest, juiciest part—is that you keep trying to bluff, but I'll always pick it out, kid. Your biggest influence of all. Every musician has their go-to when they're backed into a corner." Midnighter crouched to look at Dick as he hung from the railing. "The same old, tired chord."
Below, the oily water was so black, it was blue. "And they say I'm a talker."
"I know what you're like, Grayson, when no one's looking. Always daddy's little boy, huh? Even when you get big, you ain't big." The computer in his eye kept damning Dick: past, present, future. "Even when you get out, you ain't out."
Dick had missed Jason's funeral, but he'd dreamt it often enough he could tell you the made-up color of the trees bracketing the clearing, the angle of the light coming through, the scuffed-blue of his sneakers. In this morning's version, he'd slipped into the open grave. This time, Damian was there. Above them all stood Bruce. The edge of his spade raised. Dick begged as wet earth drenched their ankles. Don't do this, Bruce. You're killing me. You're killing me. And everywhere the endless dark and the worms and the cloying long-dead flowers and all of it was going to swallow them whole, until Damian turned to Dick and spoke the words, and Dick remembered.
Midnighter blurred as he lunged.
Hunkered over, after clambering up the railing, Dick stayed head bent, tensing and un-tensing his calf, waiting, stretching the moment to its limit, until even the air would snap. Then, when he'd exhausted all possible moves, he slid fluidly under Midnighter's legs on the slippery deck and bumped him off-balance. What occured to him then did not come from one mentor; it was from all of them; all of Dick; jazz.
"Ah, shi—"
There was a splash.
Then, several colorful curses.
"First to hit the water," Dick gasped, tonguing the split inside his mouth, tasting salt, sea. He looked up at the sky and felt scrubbed clean. "That was the deal."
Eventually, Midnighter slapped Dick's hand away, hauling himself into the deck like a big wet jungle cat.
Dick trilled a mournful, descending melody in a minor key.
"There you fucking go, you homesick little freak."
The air pulsed, the barest refraction. Then the rectangle of strange light bathed the deck. Dick took one step towards the door.
On the other side—
It was silly, how once just the thought of it soured him all over. Now, he yearned for that time like a child, wanting to skirt by the shadow of its gothic superscrapers, its greasy electromagnetics, the eternal soap opera of rain that drenched its orphans and kingpins alike; he wanted to press his cheek against the door, hear its rattling, living breath pass through its ribcage the way Dick did to Bruce the first time he got shot. I'm alive, son, I'm alright, Bruce said, casting the magic spell, it took hours for Bruce to pry Dick's icicle-fingers from the grooves of his chestplate, and then later, when Dick discovered the tattered bullet hole in it, the betrayal had felt like Bruce died, twice over. Life Before often had that opaque, dreamlike quality: like being immersed in a book you loved, when halfway you saw the invisible strings, the author puppeteering the cast, the planets, the cut-out trees, acting all the lines. You saw the bags under his eyes. The script, unfinished, propped on the corner. Contradiction after contradiction.
The last time Bruce had spoken to Agent 37, Bruce had confessed, voice going taut and clipped in that rare telling way, "Birdwatcher—Dick… you do know that to have you there, away from me, I…" and then never finished his sentence. Bruce never finished his sentences, not when that sentence could've saved Dick's life. Which was a drag most times. Most times? Dick wished, more than anything, for the curtain to close over him. Once more he wanted to be that version of himself again, close enough to smell the severe shine on the Kevlar weave, feel the rough-shaven jaw, the hand on his neck grounding him. He wanted Bruce to say, Batman always dodges the bullet, and then believe it, like the young do.
Birds cawed overhead. A quick trip wouldn't hurt. Dick imagined the flowers on his grave, turned to compost. Roses, maybe? Dick always liked carnations, Timmy would know, those sunny festive ones, maybe lilies if they were short. Tim would've planned a perfect service. And knowing Tim, he'd have overthought the whole affair and then panicked, falling back to old classics. So: roses.
On the other side—
"So that's a door, yeah," Midnighter stretched the word out mockingly. "You're supposed to step through it—"
Like with all crossroads, Dick remembered again, Alfred lifting the red-yellow-green costume like a wilting petal. The decision is yours, sir, he'd told him; he hadn't been Robin in a while. Or you could walk away from this crusade and spend your life in happier pursuits.
Or I could do some good, said the boy-shaped thing in his memory.
Calmly, Dick thought, I'm at the wrong damn door.
"Actually," Dick said, stepping back from the shimmering indent in the air, "wanna get out of here, grab some drinks? You, me, civilization, couple elixirs of life?"
Midnighter looked at him like he'd sprouted a head of talking mold. "What?"
At the bar where Dick found himself later—alone, Midnighter had turned him down—he'd spent two hours with the barkeep at the sticky table cluttered with beer bottles and glittery vodka shot glasses before Tiger retrieved him. Dick swatted his hands away. It was sweet of him, really, thinking Dick had been kidnapped, but c'mon, Tiger. He wasn't drunk. Ask again after this shot though. This long, lovely shot. Dick had never been a believer, not the way those Sisters were from their upcoming mission, but he felt a kind of kinship for the way they dragged themselves to church after the cruel battering week, all minimum-wage blues and slumped eyes. Palms to the sky, incandescent. Something inside Dick was licked down to the wick. Just a fucking sec, Tiger. No, he wasn't getting down this table. Can't a prodigal praise for a bit?
Praise arch-frenemies and partners who secretly cared. Praise the small shower room in Milan where he and Tiger tried to fuck and vowed never to try that shit again. Praise the graffitied Batman symbol he saw on the concrete wall yesterday, amongst the crushed bodies, that had held long after the quake to protect a family of two, a technician, her twin, and her old, senior dog named Beans, and that night, for the first time in weeks, Dick had dropped swiftly into a good hard sleep. Praise sleep, for dreams of dead brothers it lets him see. Praise these all-seeing eyes, that on the daily allow Agent 37 the honor to manipulate, mansplain, and malewife. Praise the mission, though inconvenient, allowed him to secure a future where all his loved ones were safe and in one place—
Clark, opening the sky like a blue envelope, amen.
Roy, threading a ribbon through Lian's hair, amen.
Donna, proud and ever at his side, amen.
Tim, head tucked under Dick's chin. Amen.
Jason and his fuck-you mouth, still kicking. Amen.
Bruce getting old, amen. Witnessing his hands change at 40, at 60, 80, amen. Bruce trading gadgets for walking sticks. Drawing cars and trains and rockets like he used to, before, amen.
Kory and Roy and Babs, amen. Alfred and Cass, amen. Wally and Gar and Raven, amen. Bludhaven and her ugly stepsister city, forever, amen. Praise the Spyral mission, if this was the future it promised. Praise to the future, to all the people who belonged in it. He'd carve their initials in if he had to. He called their names.
(Had a bad dream, Dick said into the dark.
Reaching for his cold hand, Damian said, well, then have a better one!)
iii.
"First day of spy school tomorrow," Dick singsonged from the top of the stairs.
Bruce leaned back against his seat at the computer and sighed in a brittle way. Broken glass, leftover from their week-old fracas, still crunched under his boots. They would need to invent a new kind of vacuum to get everything out.
Like any night before debuting a brand new routine, with its set of tricks and manners, its proselytizing posture, sleep evaded him. Dick didn't mean to linger, only Bruce called out, "Come here."
Dick went.
Up close, Bruce's bulk looked vaguely off-kilter, like that time he'd decided to dive after a car that had plunged into the Gotham Bay and knew he would not come back for air for a while. It was silly, but Dick thought Bruce was going to throw a punch again. And he'd just healed his nose, too. Then Bruce clicked a button, and the computer bathed them in blue light as he explained the features of the Hypnos technology he'd analyzed—from the ocular root to the photoreceptive scanner, all the chemical changes the implant would bring to a body; showed him how to assemble the 5mm mic that would serve as Dick's lifeline, and two upgrades he'd installed since their last late-night stand up: advanced microelectronics, for ultra-efficient processing, and Dick's request: that it could fit snug into a cufflink, lapel pin, or earring. For safety, one would need to dismantle and then assemble the line from scratch each time. Bruce demonstrated how, with steady, faithful hands, the failproof way it could be sealed, a time-tested language only they could decode, working and reworking the wiring until it was perfect and unbreakable and lovely to witness.
Dick knew this already.
"Show me again," Bruce said, and when Dick assembled the commlink adequately, "Faster." And Dick did, shaving a whole solid second off. Bruce nodded, small pleased tick in the corner of his mouth. Then there was the drop-off point to discuss, the meeting cadences, potential individuals of interest, some more admin and housekeeping. After Dick recited it all back, there was nothing left to say. The practical thing, for both of them, would be to go to bed; big day tomorrow. Instead Dick took the seat beside Bruce to cycle through old footage. Panessa Studios. Monarch Theatre. The night stretched. Bruce assembled the commlink again, this time 0.82 seconds faster, the showoff. Somewhere, bats chittered. When Dick's eyes grew heavy, and his back pain flared from all the sitting, he moved to hunker on the floor.
Like foglights, Bruce's eyes watched.
"Quick nap," Dick explained.
"Surely," and his voice was a fine sediment in Dick's ears, "that position won't be kind to your neck."
Propped against the humming computer, Dick shrugged in a lazy, so-be-it motion; this body, it was fluent in trading one pain for another. Sometime later, he woke to trickling bass up his spine. It was like being gently rocked by a wave. Bruce must've turned on the late-night radio: right between the fading end of Mazzy Star, to the rumbling beginnings of Blue Öyster Cult. The song always felt like eating bread in a temperate room and burying a friend. There were fingers in his hair. It triggered memories: losing consciousness in the Batmobile; the half-lit sidewalks at patrol; the long ride home after they peeled him out of the machine; Bruce's wordless, heady comfort. Dick began to shake. He reached out, and gripped Bruce's boot, embarassed for the way his face contorted. In answer, Bruce's gloved hand held the back of his head tight. Released. Tightened again. A variation of the game they played to pass the time since Dick donned the yellow cape. Bruce, Dick would say. To which Bruce would answer: Yes? Dick would call out again: Bruce. And always—sometimes cross, sometimes late, sometimes with a playful, long-suffering roll of the eyes, because Bruce was right there and Dick was a cackling imp of child—but always, thundering back to find him: yes, yes. Call and response. Over and over, until Dick calmed. Like this, Dick felt the way all Robins must've felt, tucked against the great impossible wing of the Bat. Crack in his heart: a foothold. Despite its faults, the day had tried to be good. He felt young, like someone's son.