FIC: Facets of a fractured diamond (REMADE: Dick/Slade, Dick/Bruce)
TITLE: Facets of a fractured diamond
AUTHOR: Demon Faith
SERIES: Remade
CATEGORY: AU, Angst
PAIRINGS: Dick/Slade, Dick/Bruce
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 1,694
SUMMARY: He has worn many masks and played many roles. But what is left now?
NOTES: I am so sorry this has taken so long. However, I was kidnapped by Summer and Merlin, but finally, I am returned bearing the conclusion to this monster.
I hope you enjoy it and thank you for sharing this ride with me.
Dedicated to Kay - happy birthday, hon!
A flying Grayson
"Mom! Look at me!"
His handstand is graceful, perfect, and she laughs, stealing him off the tightrope with strong arms, holding him upside down as he laughs.
"That's enough training for today. Time to pack up."
She sets him back into his handstand and he dismounts with a flourish, running to help his father with the boxes. They need to be ready for the performance in a week, so everyone's training all the time, desperate for this to be the best performance ever.
They've been to Gotham before but this time Mister Wayne will be there. Mom says he's a very important man and he might give money to Mister Haley, so that the circus can keep going. Everyone knows that the future is uncertain and this is the only life he's ever known.
He never wants it to end.
An orphan
Everything is bleak here. Even the kind old man who brings him cocoa wears black and the wool blanket that covers him is warm but grey. He wants to go home.
But he doesn't have a home now. He has no family and no trapeze and no elephant. He has a huge bedroom with antique furniture and pressed linen. He has a butler and a backyard that stretches for miles.
He has a guardian.
Mister Wayne is black and grey, cloaked in shadows and frowns. He is nothing like Mom or Pop, and he doesn't want him to be. He is perfect as he is: the complete opposite of his parents. Because no one can take their place in his life. He won't let them. He'll hold on to the red and green for as long as he breathes.
Robin
"Be careful."
He laughs as he leaps off the ledge, the cord in his hands holding him to the night as he flies.
Bruce is at his side - no, Batman is here, but it's still Bruce, deep down. He wonders how people don't see, how they never notice the dimple in his cheek or the quirk of the lips that is perfectly him.
They never see the way he looks at him either, because the mask covers a multitude of sins, but he thinks that Alfred knows. Alfred has always known every secret he's ever had, and Bruce's too.
Once, he almost asked after Bruce's secrets but he didn't really want Alfred to tell. If he had caved, then Bruce might have known his secrets too and that was…unthinkable.
So, he flies beside his mentor and his guardian and his everything, because it keeps him alive. Being together in flight is all he will ever ask, even if his heart wants so much more.
…
Another day, another broken bone. He counts the days in burns and bruises, knowing that Batman will rescue him.
It's only a matter of time.
They hit him with the hose and he splutters, spitting out bloody water. It pools around his mangled hands and he struggles not to sob, to scream.
Batman is coming for him. He knows he is.
pain
He opens his eyes, but the light blinds him and they fall closed.
"You've been terribly wounded."
It takes a moment to register that he is not being beaten, and another moment to realise that the surface beneath him is a bed. "Wheh ah-i?"
"Do not try to speak. Your jaw is broken and one of your cheekbones has been crushed. It's amazing you can even breathe."
He's inclined to agree. But who is this person? And why have they rescued him?
How have they done what…he couldn't?
"Rest now, little bird."
And reality slides away.
Renegade
The bloods coats his hands and he smiles. He is alive again.
The knife sings in his hand and he is its master - he will not be parted from his weapons, not for a moment. Not even for Slade.
He flicks out the man's eye for his own amusement and then removes his overshoes, tipping bleach over the kill site. It is efficient and clean: the perfect murder, the perfect crime.
Bruce would be so proud.
He chuckles to hide the pain, throws up his hood and disappears into the night.
John
"Do you have to leave?"
He is a figure in the doorway, his face in shadow - calculated. He does not want to be seen as weak.
But he is an open book to the master of expressions, taught by the best to detect everything in the twitch of the jaw and the faintest hesitation in the words.
When the mentor is dead, he will be the unequivocal master. He will be himself again, complete, whole. When that man is dead, there will be no more memories. There will only be the chase and the kill.
"Are you going to answer me?"
And Slade.
He turns to him with a hint of a smile, knocking him out of the doorway and against the wall, pressing in close. He whispers against his lips, "Will you miss me?"
Slade is unimpressed; he couldn't care less. He needs to do this, and Slade knows this, knows it as well as the curves of his student's body. With a sigh, he pushes away and resumes his packing. The time for play can come later, after.
Some days, he thinks he could love Slade, if the capacity for love remained. That man has stolen everything from him.
It is time to take it back.
Mary
She is an angel. Perfectly formed, a touch of the naïve lingering, and yet also a hint of danger in the cut of her dress, the spike of her heel.
She is much more than a role. She has taken over, her mind fixated on the scent, and she will not relinquish control. She sleeps in a nightdress, wears a silk dressing gown for breakfast, and tours the city in her two-piece suit, an idle woman with money to burn.
Tonight is the culmination of everything they've worked for. Tonight, the illusion shatters. But she does not wish to think of that. Everything leads to the moment where she has him at her mercy, paralysed on the floor with the gun planted between his eyes. It will be…sweet.
Maybe she'll knock off the butler too, to complete the intrigue, finish this once and for all.
Even angels have to fall.
?
In the space between illusions, he relearns how to breathe.
His hands are busy, plucking the right clothes from the shelves with barely a thought. Something plain, unobtrusive - he wants to hide from everything. He needs to hide the scars.
The jumpers are a good idea, as are the long skirts - with pantyhose, of course, and a warm coat. He rejects the short black wig; it reminds him of Selina, and the long brown wig is Mary's.
And he cannot think about her.
The dusky blonde wig is perfect, bland. The thick-rimmed glasses allow him to mask the pain in his eyes, the shell-shocked look he can see in the mirror, the one that makes him look like the boy who died long ago.
He should leave Gotham. He knows this, and yet he knows he won't stay away for long. But this is too much like thinking and planning, and he can't do that anymore. It feels too much like Mary and Slade and…Bruce.
There is a face in the mirror and it is not his. It is the face of a lost little girl, who doesn't understand why the world has to be so cruel. She will fit in well in Blüdhaven.
She will fit in with his life.
Amie
He enters the café and she can't breathe.
She turns away and continues to clean the table, rubbing at it with the cloth in the hope that she can scrub away the memories flashing before her eyes. Broken trapeze. Draughty cavern. Flying in the night. Dying…dying…dead. A killer, a lover, nothing at all. And then him - spread out before her, ready to be slaughtered…
"Hey, what can I get you?" Laura's chirpy voice grates today.
"Black coffee, please, and…is that an apple turnover?"
"Sure is!"
"Great! I'll have it with cream."
The tone, the speech is all fake. She wonders what it hides. She still cannot read him; clearly not the master after all.
"Eat in or take out?"
She holds her breath.
"Take out, please. Busy day."
Her heart hearts. She tries not to think about why.
"Of course, Mr Wayne. That's two-dollars-fifty, please."
"There we are! Please, keep the change."
She sneaks a glance at him as he retreats and he looks over, but she's already hidden her face. It's too soon, too raw. She knows she should leave, flee to Blüdhaven where she can be safe. Safe from him.
But she can't stay away.
Dick
He sits on the sofa in the den, idly flicking through the photo album and sipping his tea. He doesn't want to see this, but he knows he must; this is the only way to reclaim his past, restore himself to the person he knows he should be.
"Good morning."
He looks up at the voice and smiles tiredly. "Hey."
Bruce sits beside him, an acceptable distance between them. "Still not sleeping?"
He shrugs it off and returns his gaze to the photos - first Christmas, first ball, first bank robbery. Suddenly, there's a hand on his arm and he struggles not to flinch.
"You can talk to me."
Slowly, he lifts his gaze to Bruce's…and stops. Because there's that look again, the one from the Cave, from the restaurant, from the park. The one that means…that says…
Without thinking, he closes the gap between them and gasps against Bruce's lips. One touch, two, and he…remembers. The feeling of flight, the freedom and the joy and breathing together…
Bruce's hand is trembling against his cheek and it begins him; it wipes the last trace of John, Mary and Amie from his skin. "Dick…"
The name is a benediction, a sanctification of his life, and he closes his eyes against the tears.
He is home.