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 7
.:N:.
The room began to spin -- hand, hand. The room snapped back into place -- foot, foot. The room crashed towards the platform.
Hand.
Sweat blurred his vision. Dick blinked until his eyes could follow the line of tension down his right arm as it branched into his hand and fingers. The line separated the platform and the training mats ten feet below him. Not that the height was dangerous, but the fall would have been precarious just the same. If his momentum had shifted his body any more to the right, or his hand set down any more to the left, he would have simply tumbled off the platform. Fortunately, his reflexes had saved him from almost a complete failure, as had all the previous saves which left him clinging to the words “almost” and “complete” as well at the edge of the platform. While he knew not to dwell on his failures during training, the knowledge did little to appease his inner judge; His score card had a big, block number zero on it. He had never been so unsuccessful with the basics -- the material his father taught him before he could walk.
Rolling his body back onto the platform, Dick felt the wave of needle pricks wash over his skin signifying his exhaustion. He had been pushing himself all morning and it was beginning to show, even in his reflexes. There was a time to push past his physical limits and a time to give into it; Dick rolled over again and set the platform controls to return to the ground.
Though he preferred to train on traditional equipment, the training platforms had caught Dick’s eyes as soon as he walked in the room. Cyborg had probably designed them to Ryeka’s specifications. They were a series of platforms where the user could control every aspect of them, from their size to their height to their movement. His father had always reminded him, “An Olympic performer can do their routine perfectly under the same set of conditions. But we must change our routine to be perfect under any condition.” The philosophy was the key to Nightwing’s fluid movements through apartments, down fire escapes, across rooftops, through parks, across highways, and anywhere else the chase would lead him. His father did not train him just to stay in the lines, but to plan for the line to move around objects and over potholes. The conditions of the streets during the parade would not always be ideal.
The platforms were the new technological way to practice his father’s lessons. Yet even with the large, stationary platforms, Dick had almost fallen. The countless times his body had been broken, Dick had relied on the training in his mind to retrain his body. With his thoughts broken from his body, his training remained slow and arduous.
Dick snatched a white terrycloth towel from the stack, careful to pat his face dry so he wouldn’t pull on the mask. Meticulously stretching each tired muscle, he dried his neck and arms leaving only a thin layer of sweat to catch the tower’s cooling air. Only when he paused to locate the towel hamper did Dick notice the sameness of the towel. This Titan’s gym was entirely different from the equipment to the location of the towel rack, but the towels’ scent was Titan Tower. In fact, so had his sheets' scent when he stopped to think about it. No matter if it was a weekend club house, the first tower, or the latest tower, the Titans used the same fabric softener, and apparently it applied across dimensions. All those times the Titans were near financial ruin, they could’ve been doing endorsement deals for fabric softener. The idea was ludicrous and trivial in the scheme of things. He had far more to worry about than the laundry.
As he walked out the door, Dick grabbed a clean towel and wrapped it around his neck. Unconcerned with how he looked smelling the towel as he walked, Dick navigated to the roof.
The towel's scent somehow countered the wrongness of the ocean air that hit him when he opened the outside door. Dropping the towel back to his shoulders, Dick moved to the railing and peered over, watching the waves crash onto the rocks below. No matter the ocean, the scene was breathtaking. “Titans West, huh?”
“I was unaware you were planning on changing the team name, Robin”
“I was unaware I was talking out loud. Did I disturb you, Raven?” Dick glanced over at the young sorceress who was floating in the lotus position. Her blue hood was up casting a shadow over her face, but Dick could see one eye staring back at him.
“Less so than the others. They were playing some sort of game with cheese in a dirty sock. I believe the cheese was made of soy, not that it matters other than it ended up in my room.”
“I see, and where are the others now?”
“Well, until the smell clears out of my room or they clean the fridge, I have hidden all the game controllers and the remotes. I assume they are cleaning the fridge.”
“Now that’s cruel.” Dick grinned remembering his own scare in the kitchen when he first went exploring. He moved across from her and waited for her to nod before sitting down. She was hovering above the roof, so he leaned back on his hands to get a better view. He was unsure if he was more surprised to find himself floating with her or because her hood had been pushed back.
“You seem different since your run in with Slade.”
“Do I?” Every lesson on blending in came crashing at Dick. His whole conversation thus far seemed to be asking questions. While his seclusion since coming to this dimension may not seem odd to his teammates, the black tank top and pants he was wearing would. Dick had long deduced Ryeka never stopped being Robin, but no matter the consequences, Dick’s body locked down when he thought of putting on the uniform again.
“You seem,” Raven tilted her head, “older.”
“I feel older.” Dick hoped it was true. As Robin he had felt young, in the days that Batman described as simpler, but Dick suspected he never felt young when leading the Titans -- except in failure. After all, the point of starting the Teen Titans was to prove to their mentors they were more than just kids. Tim never seemed young these days, Ryeka was most likely no different. If nothing else, Dick knew he was more experienced than his counterpart.
Raven snapped him out of his thoughts a few minutes later. “You know, Star still worries about you when you chase Slade like that.”
The accusation hung between them as Dick tried to think of some universal truth about Kory, even with the little experience he’d had with Starfire. “Starfire feels things intensely.”
“More so than us.”
With Raven’s flat, grainy voice, Dick couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question. “I mean, she hasn’t been trained to put feelings aside like we have.”
“Trained?”
“I don’t think it was intentional in my case. That would undermine the whole point of the bright colors and the horrible jokes, right? ‘You do not teach your students to acquire your wounds, you teach them what you did once you began to heal.’ But it’s there, mission after mission, as the body count began to rise, you turn yourself off to save one more life. And you don’t notice it because the value of that one life, that’s what’s been trained into you. No matter what horrible atrocities that person’s done, their life has value. It’s an impossible ideal to live up to,” how had he gotten off topic so fast, “but you don’t get to stop trying.” He brought the edge of the towel up to his nose for a moment, smelling the fabric softener through the moisture it had absorbed from the air. “But if you’re lucky, there will be people there for you when you fail, some of whom will have half the expectations of you anyway. That I learned on my own. But the ideals, those were trained.”
“I was trained to suppress my emotions, to prevent the atrocities I could bring. The training didn’t fail, it’s purpose did.”
A silence settled between them as they sat above the roof. The memories of Blockbuster seemingly slightly less horrible to Dick and the memories of his second Titan’s team slightly more recent. He allowed himself to wallow in them for a time before returning to his problem from that morning. Reviewing every move he made, he knew his sense of timing was off due to his new body. But even closing his eyes and going on instinct had failed.
“You’re thinking too hard.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re trying to fix, you’re thinking too hard.”
It was obvious. “You know, you’re right.” Dick dropped his feet to the floor and headed back towards the roof door. “Thanks, Raven. Remind me to repay you the meditation sometime.”
After a brief side trip to drop off the towel, Dick headed to the kitchen. He spotted Beast Boy learning on the closed refrigerator. “I thought cleaning the fridge was a group job.”
“It was,” Beast Boy crossed his arms and slouched down further, “but Star and Cyborg had a training session planned so they left me to finish the job.”
“Meaning you didn’t help with when they were cleaning earlier.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“How about a break? I need some help with some training of my own.”
“Really?” Dick could almost see stars in his teammate’s eyes “Dude, that would be awesome.”
“Meet me at the park in ten.”
Two hours later, Dick was moving smoothly between tree branches. While his moves were not enough to wow a circus crowd, with his mind focused on his opponent, his body was free to react. He and Beast Boy were well into their fifth round of hide and seek. Beast Boy’s ability to amplify his senses and speed and change size pushed Dick to concentrate on his detective and stealth skills. Twenty minutes into Beast Boy being tagged it, Dick was trying to keep his scent downwind of the green hound’s nose when his communicator began to beep. Cyborg was calling.
“Titans, we’ve got trouble.”
.: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 7
.:N:.
The room began to spin -- hand, hand. The room snapped back into place -- foot, foot. The room crashed towards the platform.
Hand.
Sweat blurred his vision. Dick blinked until his eyes could follow the line of tension down his right arm as it branched into his hand and fingers. The line separated the platform and the training mats ten feet below him. Not that the height was dangerous, but the fall would have been precarious just the same. If his momentum had shifted his body any more to the right, or his hand set down any more to the left, he would have simply tumbled off the platform. Fortunately, his reflexes had saved him from almost a complete failure, as had all the previous saves which left him clinging to the words “almost” and “complete” as well at the edge of the platform. While he knew not to dwell on his failures during training, the knowledge did little to appease his inner judge; His score card had a big, block number zero on it. He had never been so unsuccessful with the basics -- the material his father taught him before he could walk.
Rolling his body back onto the platform, Dick felt the wave of needle pricks wash over his skin signifying his exhaustion. He had been pushing himself all morning and it was beginning to show, even in his reflexes. There was a time to push past his physical limits and a time to give into it; Dick rolled over again and set the platform controls to return to the ground.
Though he preferred to train on traditional equipment, the training platforms had caught Dick’s eyes as soon as he walked in the room. Cyborg had probably designed them to Ryeka’s specifications. They were a series of platforms where the user could control every aspect of them, from their size to their height to their movement. His father had always reminded him, “An Olympic performer can do their routine perfectly under the same set of conditions. But we must change our routine to be perfect under any condition.” The philosophy was the key to Nightwing’s fluid movements through apartments, down fire escapes, across rooftops, through parks, across highways, and anywhere else the chase would lead him. His father did not train him just to stay in the lines, but to plan for the line to move around objects and over potholes. The conditions of the streets during the parade would not always be ideal.
The platforms were the new technological way to practice his father’s lessons. Yet even with the large, stationary platforms, Dick had almost fallen. The countless times his body had been broken, Dick had relied on the training in his mind to retrain his body. With his thoughts broken from his body, his training remained slow and arduous.
Dick snatched a white terrycloth towel from the stack, careful to pat his face dry so he wouldn’t pull on the mask. Meticulously stretching each tired muscle, he dried his neck and arms leaving only a thin layer of sweat to catch the tower’s cooling air. Only when he paused to locate the towel hamper did Dick notice the sameness of the towel. This Titan’s gym was entirely different from the equipment to the location of the towel rack, but the towels’ scent was Titan Tower. In fact, so had his sheets' scent when he stopped to think about it. No matter if it was a weekend club house, the first tower, or the latest tower, the Titans used the same fabric softener, and apparently it applied across dimensions. All those times the Titans were near financial ruin, they could’ve been doing endorsement deals for fabric softener. The idea was ludicrous and trivial in the scheme of things. He had far more to worry about than the laundry.
As he walked out the door, Dick grabbed a clean towel and wrapped it around his neck. Unconcerned with how he looked smelling the towel as he walked, Dick navigated to the roof.
The towel's scent somehow countered the wrongness of the ocean air that hit him when he opened the outside door. Dropping the towel back to his shoulders, Dick moved to the railing and peered over, watching the waves crash onto the rocks below. No matter the ocean, the scene was breathtaking. “Titans West, huh?”
“I was unaware you were planning on changing the team name, Robin”
“I was unaware I was talking out loud. Did I disturb you, Raven?” Dick glanced over at the young sorceress who was floating in the lotus position. Her blue hood was up casting a shadow over her face, but Dick could see one eye staring back at him.
“Less so than the others. They were playing some sort of game with cheese in a dirty sock. I believe the cheese was made of soy, not that it matters other than it ended up in my room.”
“I see, and where are the others now?”
“Well, until the smell clears out of my room or they clean the fridge, I have hidden all the game controllers and the remotes. I assume they are cleaning the fridge.”
“Now that’s cruel.” Dick grinned remembering his own scare in the kitchen when he first went exploring. He moved across from her and waited for her to nod before sitting down. She was hovering above the roof, so he leaned back on his hands to get a better view. He was unsure if he was more surprised to find himself floating with her or because her hood had been pushed back.
“You seem different since your run in with Slade.”
“Do I?” Every lesson on blending in came crashing at Dick. His whole conversation thus far seemed to be asking questions. While his seclusion since coming to this dimension may not seem odd to his teammates, the black tank top and pants he was wearing would. Dick had long deduced Ryeka never stopped being Robin, but no matter the consequences, Dick’s body locked down when he thought of putting on the uniform again.
“You seem,” Raven tilted her head, “older.”
“I feel older.” Dick hoped it was true. As Robin he had felt young, in the days that Batman described as simpler, but Dick suspected he never felt young when leading the Titans -- except in failure. After all, the point of starting the Teen Titans was to prove to their mentors they were more than just kids. Tim never seemed young these days, Ryeka was most likely no different. If nothing else, Dick knew he was more experienced than his counterpart.
Raven snapped him out of his thoughts a few minutes later. “You know, Star still worries about you when you chase Slade like that.”
The accusation hung between them as Dick tried to think of some universal truth about Kory, even with the little experience he’d had with Starfire. “Starfire feels things intensely.”
“More so than us.”
With Raven’s flat, grainy voice, Dick couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question. “I mean, she hasn’t been trained to put feelings aside like we have.”
“Trained?”
“I don’t think it was intentional in my case. That would undermine the whole point of the bright colors and the horrible jokes, right? ‘You do not teach your students to acquire your wounds, you teach them what you did once you began to heal.’ But it’s there, mission after mission, as the body count began to rise, you turn yourself off to save one more life. And you don’t notice it because the value of that one life, that’s what’s been trained into you. No matter what horrible atrocities that person’s done, their life has value. It’s an impossible ideal to live up to,” how had he gotten off topic so fast, “but you don’t get to stop trying.” He brought the edge of the towel up to his nose for a moment, smelling the fabric softener through the moisture it had absorbed from the air. “But if you’re lucky, there will be people there for you when you fail, some of whom will have half the expectations of you anyway. That I learned on my own. But the ideals, those were trained.”
“I was trained to suppress my emotions, to prevent the atrocities I could bring. The training didn’t fail, it’s purpose did.”
A silence settled between them as they sat above the roof. The memories of Blockbuster seemingly slightly less horrible to Dick and the memories of his second Titan’s team slightly more recent. He allowed himself to wallow in them for a time before returning to his problem from that morning. Reviewing every move he made, he knew his sense of timing was off due to his new body. But even closing his eyes and going on instinct had failed.
“You’re thinking too hard.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re trying to fix, you’re thinking too hard.”
It was obvious. “You know, you’re right.” Dick dropped his feet to the floor and headed back towards the roof door. “Thanks, Raven. Remind me to repay you the meditation sometime.”
After a brief side trip to drop off the towel, Dick headed to the kitchen. He spotted Beast Boy learning on the closed refrigerator. “I thought cleaning the fridge was a group job.”
“It was,” Beast Boy crossed his arms and slouched down further, “but Star and Cyborg had a training session planned so they left me to finish the job.”
“Meaning you didn’t help with when they were cleaning earlier.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“How about a break? I need some help with some training of my own.”
“Really?” Dick could almost see stars in his teammate’s eyes “Dude, that would be awesome.”
“Meet me at the park in ten.”
Two hours later, Dick was moving smoothly between tree branches. While his moves were not enough to wow a circus crowd, with his mind focused on his opponent, his body was free to react. He and Beast Boy were well into their fifth round of hide and seek. Beast Boy’s ability to amplify his senses and speed and change size pushed Dick to concentrate on his detective and stealth skills. Twenty minutes into Beast Boy being tagged it, Dick was trying to keep his scent downwind of the green hound’s nose when his communicator began to beep. Cyborg was calling.
“Titans, we’ve got trouble.”
.:N:.