Distortions
Title: Distortions on an Empty Face
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: DC abuses them more than me.
Summary: After being hit by Alexander Luthor, Jr., Dick has the opportunity to change things in Robin's life, though he is thoroughly stuck in his own.
Distortions Chapter 6
.:N:.
He had lied to them all.
No, that wasn’t right. Dick’s education would not let him fall for such a simple mind trap. They had simply believed what they wanted, as always, what was easiest for them. And Dick, despite knowing that their conclusions were wrong, simply let them believe what they wanted. After all, they never asked directly what the change was about, and he was careful to never give them a reason.
Dick knew the difference between telling a lie and not telling the truth. He was trained to know the difference. He was trained to use that difference to his advantage. He was trained not to have guilt for having that advantage, no matter the methods of attaining it. He was trained in guilt for being human, for not being perfect, for not being able to save everyone. Dick thought that he learned that guilt through emulation, and not as a part of Batman’s designed coursework.
Somewhere amid his life, that training had all fallen apart. Somewhere, he had learned the lesson wrong, and acquired the skills improperly, and toppled the entire program. Somewhere, he had moved beyond the training and the emulating to the point where he would never be Batman, or the idealistic image of a crime fighter Bruce had in his head, or even the idealistic image Dick had in his head. All that training and emulating got him to that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka’s body. Yet none of his training specified he should be in front of a mirror, desperately staring at his reflection.
His childhood sounded so inhuman when he thought of himself as the product of training. He therefore never thought of himself that way. Psychology would dictate that everyone was a product of their childhood, though Dick could see his being held up as some sort of twisted example. Not that he thought of it as twisted; he had long ago accepted that while he never wished for his parents to die, he would not trade Bruce for them. Perhaps, then, his parents were to blame for those incomplete lessons. Something they instilled in him conflicted with some primary component of his directives and he ended up becoming himself instead of what was intended. Eight years in the circus with his parents had somehow made him impure and defective in ways the curriculum did not anticipate and amend.
Before, Dick would’ve held this up as a point of pride. Like a child of the sixties, he had avoided the corporate machine that turned out happy-happy consumers in boxes. Only, Batman was hardly a corporate machine and Robin was the first sidekick and hardly in a box, but the point was the same. The pride was the same. Regardless of his guilt at being only human, Dick was content. He knew the precise list of warriors who could physically beat him, of masterminds who could mentally beat him, and the observers who could exploit his every flaw. Each list had a handful of people on it and he preferred it that way. Bruce, Conner, Cassandra, and even Barbara had shown him what life was like to have virtually no one on those lists. There lives were more proof his decision not to be the best was correct. In fact, the only list that was empty -- and he could say it without ego -- was the list of aerialists who could out perform him. But he had never competed for that title, nor did he have gymnasts knocking down his door in the middle of the night to have competitions. While the Flying Graysons were still spoken of in whispers among the carnies, the outside world had all but forgotten his abilities. It was an imperative reality for his night activities, and his only regret was that he didn’t have the fame as a tribute to his parents.
As for villains on the lists, Dick didn’t have to have the advantage to prevail. And if he couldn’t do it alone, he knew exactly on whom to rely. Or so he had thought until his life had been dissected piece by piece and a piece of his lie was exposed. The lie of being a leader and a teammate and a member of a family, because -- when he lost everything and had nothing left -- he had found himself alone and hesitant to ask for help. His one attempt to reach out after the fire had been foolish at best; his motives only pure until it was pointed out to him that they weren’t. All that effort into proving he could take care of his own city, all that talk of going it alone after Donna had died, all of it turned out only to be a posture since what he really wanted was for someone to notice. Notice beyond a roof over his head for the night or a change of clothes and some kind words, but fate was cruel when she wrote his story.
And when the fire had burnt out and the building rubble had settled and the last threads of his relationship had been torn, he had done something that had never been a lie; he had run.
The training could not account for his running, but it was there just the same. It had been since his first conflict with Bruce and he was old enough to grab his bike and just go. Dick had run back to the circus countless times, taken a road trip across the States, and had once found himself in Rio. The fact that he had followed Kory there hardly made it any less running away when he considered the position he had left the Titans. True, he found himself there -- he always found himself when he ran -- and returned of his own will. But that time when he had run with Catalina, finding himself was a lie. He was literally a stroke of the pen from signing his life away when his phone rang, and for the first time he had to be saved from his escape.
He could say that he was disgusted by the war that had inadvertently saved him, but sacrificed so many lives, including Stephanie’s. Lie, he had began his own war game against his city that had twisted the faith of a teenage girl and, at the end, sacrificed as many lives. He could say that he was confident about turning Rose against her father. Lie, he wondered who could have converted him from Bruce and what right they would have had to do so. He could say that he had saved Batman’s life entirely selflessly. Lie, he had died in penance for being human.
Death was not penance enough, otherwise he would not be at that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body.
He was the Boy Wonder again, staring in awe for the first time at his face in the mirror as he lied to himself so it would be the truth. There was no way for Dick to describe the power behind that image, the moment when Bruce had him look at his reflection and understand just to whom he had to lie. Then again, the training might have brought him back to the mirror, as -- well over a decade later -- he was still hypnotized by his own reflection. It was part of the reason he was not actively aware of his looks, because he would fall victim to the boy and the mirror. But the Boy Wonder was stuck in the mind of the Twenty-Something Wonder, who was staring out of the body of the Teen Wonder, into the reflection of the boy.
The circle brought him back to where he started. A puff of air from his pursed lips dislodged the few short hairs plastered to his forehead, his starting point, the lie he was concentrating on among all the others: the lie about his hair.
Odd that his hair had not bothered him the previous two days, but then again, he had only seen it in quick glimpses plastered to his head from sweat or spiked randomly from sleep. But he had looked in the mirror nearly half an hour earlier and seen the truth there and hadn’t moved his eyes since. Two little cowlicks fell down above his eyes, curling in towards each other. The same two cowlicks Dick had grown his hair out to purge from his image.
They had all assumed growing his hair long was an outer manifestation of an inner change. Considering the state of his life when he first began to let his hair grow, the conclusion seemed sound. In fact, if growing his hair was a subconscious outer manifestation of an inner change, his lie would not be a lie at all. But subconscious decisions like that were dangerous and, therefore, had been trained out of him.
It had started out innocent enough. The cowlicks had made him look young and innocent, the same innocence from which the whole affair had started. On some good days, his plan even worked and he could pull his hair back in a smooth line from his face. On most days though, those tufts of hair had refused to grow and instead of the curls falling on his forehead, the hair fell in his eyes. Even after his plan had failed and caused him more trouble, Dick didn’t bother to get it cut. Sure, he got it trimmed and kept his hair orderly, but as much as he though about it, as much as he wanted it short again, he could never bring himself to request the cut.
Fortunately, Foxy didn’t wait for him to ask.
The idea had come to him then, slowly as he spent his nights cleaning up Blackmask from his newly claimed city. People reacted to him differently based on his hair. Not just the Bat Clan or his former teammates or the police department, but the people he passed for a few seconds on the street. Dick could control their reactions to him, needed that control.
He hated himself when he controlled information and manipulated his friends and teammates. But the hatred only came when he had finished the necessary task and the training relaxed, or when he was lecturing Bruce for doing the same thing. Those around him all thought the same sentence during those moments, the same thought, “if Dick could only see how much like Bruce he is.” The thought came with a hidden, guilty, sorrowful look in the eyes, no matter who was thinking it. He had been reading the thought so long there wasn’t a person who could hide it from him. That was another one of his lists, the list of similarities between himself and Bruce, and that control was near the top of the list. While he could not change his nature, he could exercise it harmlessly, most of the time, though his hair.
The scheme did require more planning than an observer would think. While relatively easy to shorten his hair, months were required to grow it past his ears again and start the cycle over. Those closest to him were the most observant though, and even an inch in length would signal them. Tim and Alfred especially read his hair length as a sign of rebellion, an unconscious sign of rebellion, and reacted to him accordingly. The idea that he would do it consciously was undoubtedly absurd, not only because the idea of controlling people though hair was absurd, but because Dick was highly unaware of the impact of his looks. Which was true, except for his hair.
Tim might not actually find the idea of controlling people through hair ridiculous. The time and hair gel spent on making those haphazard spikes look casual was evidence enough of Tim’s attempt to separate Tim Drake from Robin. In that way, Tim was again so like what Dick had learned of Ryeka -- the spikes, the separation, the mission. Dick had seen Tim’s potential early on, maybe from the moment the teen tracked him to the circus and certainly during their early training session together when they sat for seven hours outside the park. The potential to be Batman, something that Dick lacked, the ability to toss everything away for the mission.
Back then, Tim still had parents and a home and security. In many ways, even with parents, Tim had as little as Dick did when he became an orphan. How else could a boy stalk a vigilante for years without the boy’s parents finding out? But still, his parents had both been alive and Tim had been young, and Dick was hardly going to encourage Tim’s potential to lose himself as Bruce had done. So he had hidden it, worked hard to help Tim become his own Robin, to fit into Batman’s well oiled machine, just not all the way. The two worked well together, but not on the same level Dick and Bruce had.
The assessment had caused unforeseen consequences, such as when Spoiler was told of Tim’s identity, and Bruce was charged of murder, and when Jack Drake took Robin from Tim. In the end, Tim no longer had those things Dick was afraid to let him lose, and Tim only had Robin. An incomplete Robin because of Dick’s decision. Another problem to be fixed when he returned.
Dick was still unsure of how to return. There were case reports to read and questions to ask and stories to tell, and yet he was doing none of those things at that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body. He was not doing those things because he was thinking about the lie of his hair, not the lie of his existence to the people he had just eaten dinner with.
After writing in Ryeka’s journal, Dick had felt the pull of oblivion and crashed hard, with little warning. Only Cyborg’s incessant pounding on his door nearly six hours later brought him around. The lethargy remained though, and his body felt heavier and more tired than before he slept. But still he let the teenager drag him to the living room and drop him on the couch in front of a stack of pizzas the rest were gathered around. His exhaustion and hunger warred with each other as he tried to find the energy to eat. His so called teammates seemed subdued for the meal, and though he should have been paying attention and learning from them, Dick zoned. He made small comments when it was clear it was expected of him, but he kept bracing himself for someone to ask who he was, to demand to know where Ryeka was, or at least to explain his behavior over the past two days. They never asked, and although they did not seem comfortable with having a leader suffering from a recent near death experience, they seemed comfortable with him. And he seemed comfortable enough with them to let himself doze on the couch after eating two pieces of pizza. No one mentioned anything at all about his behavior until Beast Boy made an offhanded comment as he walked Dick back to Ryeka’s room. An offhanded comment about the state of Dick’s hair, a light teasing for its state of disarray. A light teasing which brought him to that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body.
Dick thought about the lie of his hair, not as an attempt to transfer his thoughts from the lie to his supposed teammates, but because his hair was in disarray. If he thought about the lie to his supposed teammates, he would have to think about the situation in which one of his own teammates had been replaced. If he thought about Mirage and her deceit in her attempt to kill Donna, then he might have to remember his own pain at her actions. If he thought about his pain, then he might not survive being the catalyst of it for others.
So he thought about the lie of his hair as he used the gel to slick back the two cowlicks which fell above his eyes. He parted his hair on the left side and combed his hair flat.
.:N:.
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: DC abuses them more than me.
Summary: After being hit by Alexander Luthor, Jr., Dick has the opportunity to change things in Robin's life, though he is thoroughly stuck in his own.
Distortions Chapter 6
.:N:.
He had lied to them all.
No, that wasn’t right. Dick’s education would not let him fall for such a simple mind trap. They had simply believed what they wanted, as always, what was easiest for them. And Dick, despite knowing that their conclusions were wrong, simply let them believe what they wanted. After all, they never asked directly what the change was about, and he was careful to never give them a reason.
Dick knew the difference between telling a lie and not telling the truth. He was trained to know the difference. He was trained to use that difference to his advantage. He was trained not to have guilt for having that advantage, no matter the methods of attaining it. He was trained in guilt for being human, for not being perfect, for not being able to save everyone. Dick thought that he learned that guilt through emulation, and not as a part of Batman’s designed coursework.
Somewhere amid his life, that training had all fallen apart. Somewhere, he had learned the lesson wrong, and acquired the skills improperly, and toppled the entire program. Somewhere, he had moved beyond the training and the emulating to the point where he would never be Batman, or the idealistic image of a crime fighter Bruce had in his head, or even the idealistic image Dick had in his head. All that training and emulating got him to that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka’s body. Yet none of his training specified he should be in front of a mirror, desperately staring at his reflection.
His childhood sounded so inhuman when he thought of himself as the product of training. He therefore never thought of himself that way. Psychology would dictate that everyone was a product of their childhood, though Dick could see his being held up as some sort of twisted example. Not that he thought of it as twisted; he had long ago accepted that while he never wished for his parents to die, he would not trade Bruce for them. Perhaps, then, his parents were to blame for those incomplete lessons. Something they instilled in him conflicted with some primary component of his directives and he ended up becoming himself instead of what was intended. Eight years in the circus with his parents had somehow made him impure and defective in ways the curriculum did not anticipate and amend.
Before, Dick would’ve held this up as a point of pride. Like a child of the sixties, he had avoided the corporate machine that turned out happy-happy consumers in boxes. Only, Batman was hardly a corporate machine and Robin was the first sidekick and hardly in a box, but the point was the same. The pride was the same. Regardless of his guilt at being only human, Dick was content. He knew the precise list of warriors who could physically beat him, of masterminds who could mentally beat him, and the observers who could exploit his every flaw. Each list had a handful of people on it and he preferred it that way. Bruce, Conner, Cassandra, and even Barbara had shown him what life was like to have virtually no one on those lists. There lives were more proof his decision not to be the best was correct. In fact, the only list that was empty -- and he could say it without ego -- was the list of aerialists who could out perform him. But he had never competed for that title, nor did he have gymnasts knocking down his door in the middle of the night to have competitions. While the Flying Graysons were still spoken of in whispers among the carnies, the outside world had all but forgotten his abilities. It was an imperative reality for his night activities, and his only regret was that he didn’t have the fame as a tribute to his parents.
As for villains on the lists, Dick didn’t have to have the advantage to prevail. And if he couldn’t do it alone, he knew exactly on whom to rely. Or so he had thought until his life had been dissected piece by piece and a piece of his lie was exposed. The lie of being a leader and a teammate and a member of a family, because -- when he lost everything and had nothing left -- he had found himself alone and hesitant to ask for help. His one attempt to reach out after the fire had been foolish at best; his motives only pure until it was pointed out to him that they weren’t. All that effort into proving he could take care of his own city, all that talk of going it alone after Donna had died, all of it turned out only to be a posture since what he really wanted was for someone to notice. Notice beyond a roof over his head for the night or a change of clothes and some kind words, but fate was cruel when she wrote his story.
And when the fire had burnt out and the building rubble had settled and the last threads of his relationship had been torn, he had done something that had never been a lie; he had run.
The training could not account for his running, but it was there just the same. It had been since his first conflict with Bruce and he was old enough to grab his bike and just go. Dick had run back to the circus countless times, taken a road trip across the States, and had once found himself in Rio. The fact that he had followed Kory there hardly made it any less running away when he considered the position he had left the Titans. True, he found himself there -- he always found himself when he ran -- and returned of his own will. But that time when he had run with Catalina, finding himself was a lie. He was literally a stroke of the pen from signing his life away when his phone rang, and for the first time he had to be saved from his escape.
He could say that he was disgusted by the war that had inadvertently saved him, but sacrificed so many lives, including Stephanie’s. Lie, he had began his own war game against his city that had twisted the faith of a teenage girl and, at the end, sacrificed as many lives. He could say that he was confident about turning Rose against her father. Lie, he wondered who could have converted him from Bruce and what right they would have had to do so. He could say that he had saved Batman’s life entirely selflessly. Lie, he had died in penance for being human.
Death was not penance enough, otherwise he would not be at that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body.
He was the Boy Wonder again, staring in awe for the first time at his face in the mirror as he lied to himself so it would be the truth. There was no way for Dick to describe the power behind that image, the moment when Bruce had him look at his reflection and understand just to whom he had to lie. Then again, the training might have brought him back to the mirror, as -- well over a decade later -- he was still hypnotized by his own reflection. It was part of the reason he was not actively aware of his looks, because he would fall victim to the boy and the mirror. But the Boy Wonder was stuck in the mind of the Twenty-Something Wonder, who was staring out of the body of the Teen Wonder, into the reflection of the boy.
The circle brought him back to where he started. A puff of air from his pursed lips dislodged the few short hairs plastered to his forehead, his starting point, the lie he was concentrating on among all the others: the lie about his hair.
Odd that his hair had not bothered him the previous two days, but then again, he had only seen it in quick glimpses plastered to his head from sweat or spiked randomly from sleep. But he had looked in the mirror nearly half an hour earlier and seen the truth there and hadn’t moved his eyes since. Two little cowlicks fell down above his eyes, curling in towards each other. The same two cowlicks Dick had grown his hair out to purge from his image.
They had all assumed growing his hair long was an outer manifestation of an inner change. Considering the state of his life when he first began to let his hair grow, the conclusion seemed sound. In fact, if growing his hair was a subconscious outer manifestation of an inner change, his lie would not be a lie at all. But subconscious decisions like that were dangerous and, therefore, had been trained out of him.
It had started out innocent enough. The cowlicks had made him look young and innocent, the same innocence from which the whole affair had started. On some good days, his plan even worked and he could pull his hair back in a smooth line from his face. On most days though, those tufts of hair had refused to grow and instead of the curls falling on his forehead, the hair fell in his eyes. Even after his plan had failed and caused him more trouble, Dick didn’t bother to get it cut. Sure, he got it trimmed and kept his hair orderly, but as much as he though about it, as much as he wanted it short again, he could never bring himself to request the cut.
Fortunately, Foxy didn’t wait for him to ask.
The idea had come to him then, slowly as he spent his nights cleaning up Blackmask from his newly claimed city. People reacted to him differently based on his hair. Not just the Bat Clan or his former teammates or the police department, but the people he passed for a few seconds on the street. Dick could control their reactions to him, needed that control.
He hated himself when he controlled information and manipulated his friends and teammates. But the hatred only came when he had finished the necessary task and the training relaxed, or when he was lecturing Bruce for doing the same thing. Those around him all thought the same sentence during those moments, the same thought, “if Dick could only see how much like Bruce he is.” The thought came with a hidden, guilty, sorrowful look in the eyes, no matter who was thinking it. He had been reading the thought so long there wasn’t a person who could hide it from him. That was another one of his lists, the list of similarities between himself and Bruce, and that control was near the top of the list. While he could not change his nature, he could exercise it harmlessly, most of the time, though his hair.
The scheme did require more planning than an observer would think. While relatively easy to shorten his hair, months were required to grow it past his ears again and start the cycle over. Those closest to him were the most observant though, and even an inch in length would signal them. Tim and Alfred especially read his hair length as a sign of rebellion, an unconscious sign of rebellion, and reacted to him accordingly. The idea that he would do it consciously was undoubtedly absurd, not only because the idea of controlling people though hair was absurd, but because Dick was highly unaware of the impact of his looks. Which was true, except for his hair.
Tim might not actually find the idea of controlling people through hair ridiculous. The time and hair gel spent on making those haphazard spikes look casual was evidence enough of Tim’s attempt to separate Tim Drake from Robin. In that way, Tim was again so like what Dick had learned of Ryeka -- the spikes, the separation, the mission. Dick had seen Tim’s potential early on, maybe from the moment the teen tracked him to the circus and certainly during their early training session together when they sat for seven hours outside the park. The potential to be Batman, something that Dick lacked, the ability to toss everything away for the mission.
Back then, Tim still had parents and a home and security. In many ways, even with parents, Tim had as little as Dick did when he became an orphan. How else could a boy stalk a vigilante for years without the boy’s parents finding out? But still, his parents had both been alive and Tim had been young, and Dick was hardly going to encourage Tim’s potential to lose himself as Bruce had done. So he had hidden it, worked hard to help Tim become his own Robin, to fit into Batman’s well oiled machine, just not all the way. The two worked well together, but not on the same level Dick and Bruce had.
The assessment had caused unforeseen consequences, such as when Spoiler was told of Tim’s identity, and Bruce was charged of murder, and when Jack Drake took Robin from Tim. In the end, Tim no longer had those things Dick was afraid to let him lose, and Tim only had Robin. An incomplete Robin because of Dick’s decision. Another problem to be fixed when he returned.
Dick was still unsure of how to return. There were case reports to read and questions to ask and stories to tell, and yet he was doing none of those things at that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body. He was not doing those things because he was thinking about the lie of his hair, not the lie of his existence to the people he had just eaten dinner with.
After writing in Ryeka’s journal, Dick had felt the pull of oblivion and crashed hard, with little warning. Only Cyborg’s incessant pounding on his door nearly six hours later brought him around. The lethargy remained though, and his body felt heavier and more tired than before he slept. But still he let the teenager drag him to the living room and drop him on the couch in front of a stack of pizzas the rest were gathered around. His exhaustion and hunger warred with each other as he tried to find the energy to eat. His so called teammates seemed subdued for the meal, and though he should have been paying attention and learning from them, Dick zoned. He made small comments when it was clear it was expected of him, but he kept bracing himself for someone to ask who he was, to demand to know where Ryeka was, or at least to explain his behavior over the past two days. They never asked, and although they did not seem comfortable with having a leader suffering from a recent near death experience, they seemed comfortable with him. And he seemed comfortable enough with them to let himself doze on the couch after eating two pieces of pizza. No one mentioned anything at all about his behavior until Beast Boy made an offhanded comment as he walked Dick back to Ryeka’s room. An offhanded comment about the state of Dick’s hair, a light teasing for its state of disarray. A light teasing which brought him to that particular point in time and space: in Ryeka's small personal bathroom the evening of the second day he was aware of being trapped Ryeka's body.
Dick thought about the lie of his hair, not as an attempt to transfer his thoughts from the lie to his supposed teammates, but because his hair was in disarray. If he thought about the lie to his supposed teammates, he would have to think about the situation in which one of his own teammates had been replaced. If he thought about Mirage and her deceit in her attempt to kill Donna, then he might have to remember his own pain at her actions. If he thought about his pain, then he might not survive being the catalyst of it for others.
So he thought about the lie of his hair as he used the gel to slick back the two cowlicks which fell above his eyes. He parted his hair on the left side and combed his hair flat.
.:N:.