Heroes of the Squared Circle Side Ficlet: The Unseen Treasure
Title: The Unseen Treasure
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 880
Summary: Shortly after the deaths of the Graysons, while Bruce and Dick are wrestling together in Japan, Bruce takes Dick out to see a shrine.
Note: A little birthday present for the lovely bradygirl_12! There wasn't enough about Dick and Bruce's time in Japan, so I thought I'd show a little smidge. Happy birthday and may your whole year be lovely!
“I was beginning to think there wasn’t anywhere in Japan that wasn’t pretty much paved over,” Dick Grayson said as he and Bruce Wayne walked along the pathway lined with ancient, spreading cedars. The path was crowded with people: office workers in identical black suits, traveling in groups; kids in uniforms on school trips; older men and women making their way up the path with deliberate steps. Now and then one of the kids goggled at Dick, but he couldn’t tell if they recognized him or were just staring at a foreigner.
“There’s more to Japan than the cities,” said Bruce, “But there isn’t much call for wrestling matches in the countryside.”
Dick wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing here now, to be honest. Bruce had suddenly gotten it into his head that they were going to go visit some shrine, and then the next thing Dick knew here they were. So far most of their time in Japan had consisted of training, wrestling, eating big bowls of ramen noodles at little dives near the subway stations, sleeping, and repeating again the next day. Everything here was strange and different--the vending machines that chirped in Japanese, the hotel rooms only a few inches bigger than the beds, even the smell of laundry was somehow unfamiliar. But that was okay with Dick. He wasn’t sure he could have stood another day in the familiar world of the DCW, where everything was the same as it used to be, except--
Dick grimaced, pulling his mind away from that night, that moment, again. It was funny, half of the time he didn’t ever want to think about it again, like he couldn’t bear to remember how it felt. The other half of the time he felt almost like if he didn’t think about it all the time it would be like forgetting his parents, letting them go completely. It made wrestling tough sometimes, too. Like if he enjoyed himself in the ring he was betraying their memory, but if he didn’t enjoy himself in the ring he was letting them down. It slowed him down during matches, threw off his reflexes. He was pretty sure Bruce had noticed it.
Dick missed a step on the broad stone stairs they were climbing. Was that why Bruce had dragged him out here, to find a quiet place to lecture him about his screw-ups in the ring? He wasn’t sure he could explain the problem to Bruce--he wasn’t sure he understood it fully himself, so how could Bruce understand how he felt?
He felt his shoulders slump and suppressed a sigh. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a wrestler anyway. Maybe he should--
“Here we are,” said Bruce, and Dick dragged his eyes up from the ground to realize they stood at last in front of a set of buildings, simple wood picked out with gold accents, with a heavy purple curtain cutting off the view of the interior. “Inside that shrine is the mirror of the Imperial Regalia, the symbol of wisdom,” he said. “It’s supposedly the mirror that the gods used to tempt the sun goddess into coming out of the cave she retreated into when she was angry at the world.”
“Cool,” said Dick. “What does it look like?”
Bruce grinned. “We’re not allowed to see it,” he said. “No one but the royal family has seen it for thousands of years.”
“Oh.” That was something of a let-down, but Dick tried not to show his disappointment. “So how old is this building?” he asked, trying to seem interested.
“About a year old,” said Bruce.
“Oh, come on,” said Dick. “We came all this way to see a brand new building with a treasure inside that we can’t see and might not even be there?” A lot of the crowd of people were staring at him, but he didn’t care.
Bruce was unfazed by his outburst. “A year old...or two thousand, depending on how you define it.” He went on as Dick glared, “This shrine was established about two thousand years ago. And from that time, every twenty years, they tear the shrine down and build a new, identical shrine. You see?” His eyes were alight as if he were sharing some wonderful secret with Dick, something special that only the two of them shared.
“I don’t understand,” said Dick, miserable at dashing his hope, but Bruce’s enthusiasm didn’t dim.
He put a hand on Dick’s shoulder, turning him back to the shining new wood. “Look at it,” he said. “Every twenty years, they build it so it’s completely new. And yet it’s still the exact same building, the same one that’s been here for thousands of years. It never lets go of the past, but it’s always starting new. It can do both. And inside it, in its heart…” He tapped Dick’s chest, “Is a secret treasure that no one can see: the wisdom to bring back the sunlight.”
Dick was pretty sure the rest of the sight-seers would probably be scandalized by the sight of two foreign men hugging in front of a sacred shrine.
But I guess they’ll just have to deal with it.
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 880
Summary: Shortly after the deaths of the Graysons, while Bruce and Dick are wrestling together in Japan, Bruce takes Dick out to see a shrine.
Note: A little birthday present for the lovely bradygirl_12! There wasn't enough about Dick and Bruce's time in Japan, so I thought I'd show a little smidge. Happy birthday and may your whole year be lovely!
“I was beginning to think there wasn’t anywhere in Japan that wasn’t pretty much paved over,” Dick Grayson said as he and Bruce Wayne walked along the pathway lined with ancient, spreading cedars. The path was crowded with people: office workers in identical black suits, traveling in groups; kids in uniforms on school trips; older men and women making their way up the path with deliberate steps. Now and then one of the kids goggled at Dick, but he couldn’t tell if they recognized him or were just staring at a foreigner.
“There’s more to Japan than the cities,” said Bruce, “But there isn’t much call for wrestling matches in the countryside.”
Dick wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing here now, to be honest. Bruce had suddenly gotten it into his head that they were going to go visit some shrine, and then the next thing Dick knew here they were. So far most of their time in Japan had consisted of training, wrestling, eating big bowls of ramen noodles at little dives near the subway stations, sleeping, and repeating again the next day. Everything here was strange and different--the vending machines that chirped in Japanese, the hotel rooms only a few inches bigger than the beds, even the smell of laundry was somehow unfamiliar. But that was okay with Dick. He wasn’t sure he could have stood another day in the familiar world of the DCW, where everything was the same as it used to be, except--
Dick grimaced, pulling his mind away from that night, that moment, again. It was funny, half of the time he didn’t ever want to think about it again, like he couldn’t bear to remember how it felt. The other half of the time he felt almost like if he didn’t think about it all the time it would be like forgetting his parents, letting them go completely. It made wrestling tough sometimes, too. Like if he enjoyed himself in the ring he was betraying their memory, but if he didn’t enjoy himself in the ring he was letting them down. It slowed him down during matches, threw off his reflexes. He was pretty sure Bruce had noticed it.
Dick missed a step on the broad stone stairs they were climbing. Was that why Bruce had dragged him out here, to find a quiet place to lecture him about his screw-ups in the ring? He wasn’t sure he could explain the problem to Bruce--he wasn’t sure he understood it fully himself, so how could Bruce understand how he felt?
He felt his shoulders slump and suppressed a sigh. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a wrestler anyway. Maybe he should--
“Here we are,” said Bruce, and Dick dragged his eyes up from the ground to realize they stood at last in front of a set of buildings, simple wood picked out with gold accents, with a heavy purple curtain cutting off the view of the interior. “Inside that shrine is the mirror of the Imperial Regalia, the symbol of wisdom,” he said. “It’s supposedly the mirror that the gods used to tempt the sun goddess into coming out of the cave she retreated into when she was angry at the world.”
“Cool,” said Dick. “What does it look like?”
Bruce grinned. “We’re not allowed to see it,” he said. “No one but the royal family has seen it for thousands of years.”
“Oh.” That was something of a let-down, but Dick tried not to show his disappointment. “So how old is this building?” he asked, trying to seem interested.
“About a year old,” said Bruce.
“Oh, come on,” said Dick. “We came all this way to see a brand new building with a treasure inside that we can’t see and might not even be there?” A lot of the crowd of people were staring at him, but he didn’t care.
Bruce was unfazed by his outburst. “A year old...or two thousand, depending on how you define it.” He went on as Dick glared, “This shrine was established about two thousand years ago. And from that time, every twenty years, they tear the shrine down and build a new, identical shrine. You see?” His eyes were alight as if he were sharing some wonderful secret with Dick, something special that only the two of them shared.
“I don’t understand,” said Dick, miserable at dashing his hope, but Bruce’s enthusiasm didn’t dim.
He put a hand on Dick’s shoulder, turning him back to the shining new wood. “Look at it,” he said. “Every twenty years, they build it so it’s completely new. And yet it’s still the exact same building, the same one that’s been here for thousands of years. It never lets go of the past, but it’s always starting new. It can do both. And inside it, in its heart…” He tapped Dick’s chest, “Is a secret treasure that no one can see: the wisdom to bring back the sunlight.”
Dick was pretty sure the rest of the sight-seers would probably be scandalized by the sight of two foreign men hugging in front of a sacred shrine.
But I guess they’ll just have to deal with it.