Secrets Away, DCU fanfic (Dick/Babs, R)
Title: Secrets Away
Author: modestroad
Fandom: DCU
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance, Jim Gordon
Rating: R/Mature
Warning(s): Miron drug use. Language. Angst. Adult theme.
Summary: Is a secret strong enough to break them apart or bond them forever? Dick and babs are going to find out that sometimes you have to break something to fix it.
Notes: I couldn't do it without my fantastic four, alexiel_neesan, ladyithildiel, reginalibintia and megganblack. I can't thank you enough, ladies. The story take place after The Return of Bruce Wayne.
He knew that something was wrong the minute she asked him not to come home to her.
Dick frowned behind his domino mask. Bruce was back, Tim was back, Dinah was back, Stephanie was studying for the semester and Damian was bothering Alfred with something. Then, what was wrong with Babs and why she had asked him to spend the night (day) away from her?
Not that he minded it…much, but he had got used to spending his days with her. After all those years of playing hide and seek with their feelings, they had finally decided to give their relationship a chance. He had moved in with her soon after and, as long as he didn’t touch her computers, they were doing fine.
As fine as life with a female Bruce could be. Babs had her quirks and so had he. He smiled. He could live without Oracle, but waking up without Babs on his side was something he couldn’t even picture. And that’s how he knew she was the one; he knew her quirks and he could live just fine with them.
So why had she asked him to stay away from their apartment?
It wasn’t his birthday, it wasn’t Babs’s birthday and he was pretty sure it wasn’t Dinah’s birthday. If it had been, Barbara wouldn’t have stopped talking a bout it. She wouldn’t arrange a Surprise Party, considering she hated surprise parties, but she would arrange something nice for Dinah.
So there was no Party. It wasn’t their anniversary either. He wouldn’t forget their anniversary, and he was positive if he had he wouldn’t be told not to come home. She would want to lure him there to implant an escrima stick in his head. So why didn’t Babs want him to come to their apartment? Dick bit his lip. Then it hit him. Maybe she had something in mind. Like that day she had asked him to bring some chocolate and they had ended up spending the better part of the day in the hot tub drinking wine and sharing the delicacy.
He smiled. If that was the case, then he didn’t mind staying out of her way for a few hours. Dick would have enough time to take a quick shower and change clothes. That was a good plan. And maybe on his way to Babs, he could buy some flowers for her. She didn’t go out much and the flowers would brighten up the room.
Yup, that sounded like a plan. He would buy flowers and chocolate and the whole Gotham if he had to, just to find the excuse he was needed. Somehow he doubted that Babs’s plan was to seduce him. He wished it was that simple case of seduction, but something in his gut told him that wouldn’t be.
Two hours later, when he entered the apartment, the feeling had not abated. Usually, by now Babs would have cracked a joke or would be waiting for him with eyes that burned with fire to lecture him about his night’s activities. But now the silence was deafening. There were no jokes, no lectures, no Barbara.
“Babs?”
Dick left the flowers on the coffee table nearby and called her name again. “Babs? Barbara?”
More silence. And then, he paused. There! A cough sounded from the bathroom. Before going there, Dick did a quick search of the place. The door was locked when he came and the alarms were on. He had had to enter the code to let himself in and the place was exactly as he left it last nigh. Last night’s dinner was still on the table; they had got an emergency call and Oracle had been behind her computer all night, giving them Intel when they needed it.
Almost all of the night. Oracle had shut down her system for a few minutes. Dick hadn’t paid much attention at the time, since he was in the middle of a fight and it was usual for Oracle to have more than two teams to guide at the same time, but when she put the comn link back on, she sounded kind of off. Like she needed some time to find the an answer. Again, Dick hadn’t thought much at the time, but he did recall Batman asking them to switch off their comm links at some point.
If Barbara was sick (she had been acting a little weird the last couple of days) and Bruce knew and hadn’t said a thing to him, Dick was going to be really pissed off. The man could drive a saint mad with anger!
With that in his mind, Dick didn’t wait with knocking on the bathroom door and walking inside only to stop dead in his tracks. For a moment he didn’t want to believe it. No way, no. He waited for her to say something to him, but Barbara dropped her head down in defeat.
He walked closer. He took the small, plastic bag from her lap and the cigarette from her hand and smelled it. Then he looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time and, in a way, he was. His hand grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. She didn’t make a move to stop him and a part of him hated her for her passiveness.
She avoided his gaze. “Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
Slowly she looked at him. Bloodshot eyes, dilate pupils. This wasn’t happening to him. This was a joke. She was playing a joke on him. A sick, twisted joke, but it was meant to be a joke. But, if it was a joke, why did she look at him with shame in her eyes?
His mind screamed to him to leave the room before he did something he would regret later, but his body was faster than his mind. His hand moved so fast he didn’t have time to stop it. The blow, which had at first been meant for her face, was diverted and his hand slammed into the sink, hard. She jumped, even though she hadn’t been struck, and he felt the same pain, compounded on the horror of his discovery, that he had hit her. Breathing heavily, and clenching the hurt hand, he watched her.
For a minute no one moved. Then Babs’s body started to shake from with tears and Dick just had to get out of there.
************
“He did what?”
Dinah looked at her best friend for some explanations. The younger woman was behind a computer and typing feverishly. For two weeks this was the only place to go if you wanted to find the redhead. Dinah couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the girl do her exercises.
Without taking her eyes away from the screen, Barbara said with calm voice, “He left his key outside my door.”
“While you were watching him?”
“I’m always watching, Dinah. That’s what I do. I watch. All the time.”
There was a tiny hint of frustration in Babs’s voice. Just a tiny hint, but enough to make Dinah back off. If she pushed Barbara now, the redhead would put up walls around herself so fast and so thick Dinah would never get passed them. Dinah would never understand how Babs’s mind worked. For her it was simple; if you loved someone, you had to try.
“What are you going to do?”
The tip tap on the keyboard stopped and a weird silence fell to the room. Babs looked at her for the first time since Dinah had walked in. The whole break up with Nightwing was tougher than what Babs claimed and Dinah could see how badly had it was affecting affected her friend.
Threads of red capillaries laced the whites of Oracle’s eyes and her eyelids looked bruised by fatigue. Barbara had lost some weight. Her cheekbones were pronounced, giving her a gaunt look. Dinah let out a sigh and shook her head. Why did Bat people do that sort of thing to themselves?
“Listen, girlfriend, I don’t care if you’re hacking Batman’s porn stash and, if you are, please don’t tell me, but go and get dressed. We’re going out.”
Barbara was ready to protest, but Dinah crossed her arms in front of her in a way that meant serious business. No one was foolish enough to go up against the Black Canary when she was in the mood for a fight and Barbara was smart enough to know when she couldn’t win. With delight, Dinah watched her friend grudgingly roll her way to the bedroom. She had won the battle, but she had a long way ahead of her if she wanted to win the war.
Dinah wasn’t so sure she could win the war, but she could try. Based on Babs’s looks, it wouldn’t be such hard work; the younger woman looked about ready to fall apart from exhaustion. All Dinah had to do was be there when that happened. And if she happened to be the one to give the final push, then all the better. Everything to get Gordon Fort to open up and tell her what had happened with Nightwing.
Because something had happened two weeks ago. Dinah didn’t know what exactly, but she knew the results. Nightwing had been MIA for a couple of days and Babs had been especially cranky the last two weeks. So Dinah knew how it had ended, but not how it had started and with a little luck she was going to find out tonight.
“He caught me.”
Dinah jumped. Damn! Despite being in the chair, Barbara still had that creepy, sneaky way of approaching people without getting noticed until she was right next to them. Turning to look at her, Dinah was surprised to see that not only Babs hadn’t changed her clothes, but, if possible, she looked even worst than before.
“He caught you doing what exactly?”
Barbara brought an imaginary joint to her lips and took an imaginary puff.
“Oh!”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
“How’s ‘oh shit’? Better?”
Barbara laughed, but her laugh was a tired one and didn’t last long. She took out her glasses and rubbed her eyes for a long time.
“God, Dinah. I should have said something to him sooner.”
Dinah nodded, but she wasn’t listening to her friend. She knew the next part by heart. Babs would spent the better part of the next hour blaming herself and wouldn’t listen to what Dinah had to say anyway, so why bother to listen in the first place? Instead of listening, Dinah observed.
Again with the rubbing! Whenever Babs was ashamed for a situation she rubbed her eyes.
“Babs? Honey, stop with the rubbing,” Dinah kneeled in front of her and took Babs’s hands into hers; Babs’s fingers were icy cold. “When was the last time you ate something?”
“I had a toast earlier.”
Dinah shook her head. “You had half a toast and that was five hours ago. You think starving yourself will make your problems with Nightwing disappear?”
To her credit, Barbara tried to joke. “They won’t?”
“Not really. He can disappear, but the problems? Nope! They stay behind. Trust me, I know a thing or two about man problems. Let’s make you a little something to eat, okay?”
Two cups of tea and half a sandwich later Dinah felt that it was time to ask for more details. Babs didn’t look like she was going to pass out any second now and the color had returned to her cheeks.
“So he walked in?”
“I had a pretty bad day, remember? I even had to leave you kids alone for a few minutes.”
Putting her cup down Dinah nodded. “Do you think Dick suspected something, then? He didn’t seem to mind at the time, but I can never know with you Bat boys and girls.”
Barbara thought about it for a few minutes then shook her head and took a sip from her tea. “I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“I think that he did. He’s a pretty good detective after all.”
“Dinah, I had dinners with my father high like you wouldn’t believe it and he never suspected a thing until the day I told him.” She picked at some bread and put it in her mouth. “He didn’t want to believe that his daughter could smoke pot. He didn’t want to believe it, so he didn’t see the signs.”
“And you think Dick did the same?”
“You don’t want to believe the worst for the people you love.”
Dinah crooked her head to the right. She could remember the day she saw Babs smoke like it was yesterday. Of course Barbara had the dignity to warn her first before disappearing to the bathroom and staying there for nearly two hours. Needless to say that they were two of the worst hours in Dinah’s life.
The memories of Roy’s addiction were still fresh in her mind. And Babs…She was Oracle for crying out loud! Oracle was always so anal and tight that it didn’t make sense. At first Dinah thought that she had heard wrong. It was the only possibility; she had heard wrong. But Babs had a haunted look in her face when she went to the bathroom and a goofy half grin when she walked out. No pun intended.
Dinah had waited. God, how she had waited for Babs to give her an explanation. And when the explanation came, suddenly everything made sense. Babs’s need for isolation, the sudden changes in her mood, the fact that sometimes she still used that awful computer voice when she was talking to them from the comm link.
“What are you going to do about Nightwing?”
Barbara shrugged, hunching her shoulders.
“Are you going to do something about Nightwing?”
The redhead stayed silent.
“Babs? You know I love you, right? Here’s the phone. Call him. Or I’ll kick your ass and you know I mean it.”
************
Bruce fastened the belt of his dobok and went to the middle of the ring. It had been a while since he had the opportunity to practice the pumsae without Damian’s comments about his flexibility. He wasn’t as flexible as Dick was, and his son, despite his big mouth, had the potential to be even better than him as a martial artist, but he couldn’t understand that the pumsae were important to the confidence of the martial artist.
His son was good, even better than him when he was Damian’s age, but he still had a lot to learn.
With a yell and a nod. Bruce started to perform pumsae after pumsae, taking pleasure in the burning sensation in his muscles. He hit and blocked hard and soon he was covered with sweat. He let his thoughts go and focused on his kicks. If someone saw him from a distance, they would think that he was in grave danger and was fighting for his life. Truth was that he was never more alive.
He was in the air, performing a butterfly kick when he spotted him. Landing gracefully, he took a few seconds to catch his breath. Then he turned his attention to his older son.
“You are still here.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a fact. He didn’t mind having (almost) all of his boys home, but Dick hadn’t really been himself for a while now. Bruce knew what had happened with Oracle, but it wasn’t his place to intervene. If Dick wanted to talk, he would talk. He wasn’t a little kid anymore and Bruce had faith in him. Dick was going to do what was best in the end.
“Yep. Still here. For a little while. You don’t mind, do you?”
Bruce took a couple of steps back. He needed enough force power if he wanted to do a flying back kick. It wasn’t a kick he used often when he was fighting, since he used more hand-to-hand techniques. Flying was more Nightwing’s thing. He was heavier and didn’t have the same flexibility as when he was young.
“This is your home, Dick. You don’t have to ask to stay here. Alfred is delighted to have you here and Damian likes you.”
“He doesn’t show it.”
Bruce nodded and decided that it was for the best to cut his practice short. Dick needed him and although he was the last person on earth to give romantic advice, Dick was waiting; obviously expecting something from him. Taking a clean towel, he wiped the sweat off his face.
“You’re not here to talk about Damian, Dick. Something else is troubling you.”
Dick put his hands inside the front pockets of his jean. “Why do I think you already know what’s bothering me?”
“Because I’m Batman?” Bruce said and when Dick threw his head back with laughter he was glad to see that the younger man hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“Tell me something, Bruce. Did you know?” Dick asked him when he sobered up.
Bruce said nothing.
“You did know! Great. You can’t believe how big a jerk I feel right now. Did everyone know but me?”
“I can’t say that everyone knew.”
Dick was surprisingly calm. “Just so you know, you don’t make me feel any better.”
Bruce looked at him for a while saying nothing. Then he pointed at the ring. With a nod, Dick went to change his clothes to a dobok. Bruce knew that it wasn’t something that Dick preferred to wear since the fabric was too thick and narrowed down the acrobat’s moves.
Good!
Dick needed to blow some steam, not win the gold metal for figure ice skating. And that exactly he did. The blows were coming hard and fast, nothing that Bruce couldn’t block, but he let Dick pass a punch or two. The boy had a mean left uppercut, but he was leaving his right side open far too often. Nightwing’s bigger asset was his speed and flexibility, and wouldn’t face a problem in a fight, but Batman wasn’t one to forgive.
“Watch your right.”
“I am watching my right!” Dick said and tried to catch Bruce of guard only to face the ground. “Okay, I wasn’t watching my right.”
“Your mind is not here,” Bruce offered his hand to him to help him get up. Dick took it and with one graceful move he threw Bruce down.
Dick frowned. “You let me throw you down. Why?”
Rubbing his chin Bruce said to him, “You looked like you needed it.”
Dick sat in butterfly position and soon Bruce followed his lead. His son was in pain, but Bruce was happy that he had him here with him. It had been so long since they had spent time together without ending up in a fight or one of them leaving the room in a hurry.
Observing his older son Bruce saw lines that weren’t there when he ‘left’. The Batman was a hard burden to carry and not one he wished for Dick. It took him a while, but now Bruce understood that Dick was never meant to be Batman. Dick was his own man and would never be happy carrying someone else’s name.
“Thank you.”
Bruce looked at him with something like confusion in his eyes. “For what?”
“For letting me win.”
“It was a draw.”
Dick smiled. “A draw with Batman is as good as a win.”
Sometimes it was hard for Bruce to be around Dick. Dick’s smile reminded him of another lifetime. A simpler, happier lifetime. But his boy had grown to be a man. A man that Bruce was proud to call son.
“Barbara,” he said and watched the smile vanish from Dick’s lips. He cleared his throat. “She’s been through a lot.”
“I’m not mad about her smoking marijuana.”
“You’re mad about her keeping it a secret?”
Dick shrugged, “Well, yeah. We were supposed to be starting a relationship. She asks me to move in; I move in. We go shopping together. I even watch her favorite TV show and I hate vampires. I hate them with a passion. And she always drools over that tall blond guy. I didn’t even know she liked blonds, you know? But anyway that’s not the point. The point is that for her I sit down and watch and try to be a good boyfriend, and she’s keeping secrets from me? Like I’m not good enough for her to tell me?”
“It’s not that.” Bruce replied.
Dick stretched his arms behind his head. Then he ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his neck. Bruce could tell he was uncomfortable. He suddenly realized that he was talking about relationships with Dick. They never had the chance to do that when Dick was a teenager and it felt a little weird.
Of course, the fact that they were talking about Barbara made the whole thing more uncomfortable for both men. Barbara was a good ally and an even better friend, but she was also the daughter of his best friend. If Dick ended up breaking her heart, Bruce would be in a tough situation.
He had to do something.
Alfred was better than him when it came to this kind of things. But he had send Alfred along with Damian to the town. Damian had been home-schooled his entirely life and Alfred thought that maybe it was time to go to a normal school. Usually, Alfred was right, so he and Damian had gone to search for the proper school for the boy.
That meant that he was all alone with Dick. And that meant that he was going to try and do his best to help Dick with his situation. Bruce knew how stubborn Barbara could be and he also knew how stubborn Dick could be and two stubborn people needed all the help they could get. Help that Bruce had no idea how to provide to Dick without choosing one side over the other.
“Do you really think that Barbara would ever think that of you?”
Dick shook his head. “I don’t know. What else can it be? She forgot to tell me? You know how she takes pride in her eidetic memory, so I have a hard time believing that she just didn’t remember.”
“Dick, have you even thought about the possibility that Barbara was ashamed?” Bruce asked, keeping his tone level.
That startled the younger man. “Why should she be? She’s using it for medical reasons. I get that.”
“Maybe she doesn’t get this.”
“What?” Dick was confused.
“You know how Barbara is, Dick. Do you honesty believe that she was going to feel anything but shame? She’s Commissioner’s Gordon little girl. Imagine how she feels knowing that her father is trying so hard to clean the streets of Gotham and his own daughter is buying drugs.”
Dick scowled. “Yeah...I, um, I haven’t thought about that.”
“Now you can,” Bruce got up when he saw that someone was calling the Batcave. He hoped it wasn’t Alfred saying that Damian had been disrespectful to everyone and they had to find a teacher. The kid needed to spend a few hours with kids his age, else he would turn out to be a younger version of his father.
And that was the last thing Bruce wanted for his son. That was the last thing he wanted for all his sons and daughters. He frowned with the thought of Cassandra. He still had no idea of where she was and, if Oracle knew, she didn’t volunteer to tell him and he wasn’t going to ask.
“Batman,” he said and was surprised to see Oracle’s symbol to the screen. She rarely used the green mask when she was talking to him. “Where do you need us, Oracle?”
“Nowhere.”
Bruce looked at Dick. The raven-haired man had stood up and was now next to him. Dick looked back at Bruce. Something was wrong. Why would Barbara hide her face from them?
“Is everything okay, Oracle?” Bruce asked and waited for the answer.
“No, in fact, nothing is okay and I don’t know how to make this stupid thing work,” the voice on the other end of the communication said. “Barbara is probably going to have a fit, if she finds out that I used her precious computers.”
“What can I do for you, Black Canary?”
“Is Nightwing with you?”
Dick waved no to Bruce. “Yes, he is.”
Dick rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in defeat.
“Tell him to meet me outside the library in an hour. And he better show up or else--“
Dinah didn’t have to finish her warning. Bruce closed the communication and watched the blank screen for a couple of seconds. When he turned his head, Dick had already worn his jeans and was fighting to get in his t-shirt.
“You’d better take a shower first, Dick.”
Next Part
Part Three>/a>
Author: modestroad
Fandom: DCU
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance, Jim Gordon
Rating: R/Mature
Warning(s): Miron drug use. Language. Angst. Adult theme.
Summary: Is a secret strong enough to break them apart or bond them forever? Dick and babs are going to find out that sometimes you have to break something to fix it.
Notes: I couldn't do it without my fantastic four, alexiel_neesan, ladyithildiel, reginalibintia and megganblack. I can't thank you enough, ladies. The story take place after The Return of Bruce Wayne.
He knew that something was wrong the minute she asked him not to come home to her.
Dick frowned behind his domino mask. Bruce was back, Tim was back, Dinah was back, Stephanie was studying for the semester and Damian was bothering Alfred with something. Then, what was wrong with Babs and why she had asked him to spend the night (day) away from her?
Not that he minded it…much, but he had got used to spending his days with her. After all those years of playing hide and seek with their feelings, they had finally decided to give their relationship a chance. He had moved in with her soon after and, as long as he didn’t touch her computers, they were doing fine.
As fine as life with a female Bruce could be. Babs had her quirks and so had he. He smiled. He could live without Oracle, but waking up without Babs on his side was something he couldn’t even picture. And that’s how he knew she was the one; he knew her quirks and he could live just fine with them.
So why had she asked him to stay away from their apartment?
It wasn’t his birthday, it wasn’t Babs’s birthday and he was pretty sure it wasn’t Dinah’s birthday. If it had been, Barbara wouldn’t have stopped talking a bout it. She wouldn’t arrange a Surprise Party, considering she hated surprise parties, but she would arrange something nice for Dinah.
So there was no Party. It wasn’t their anniversary either. He wouldn’t forget their anniversary, and he was positive if he had he wouldn’t be told not to come home. She would want to lure him there to implant an escrima stick in his head. So why didn’t Babs want him to come to their apartment? Dick bit his lip. Then it hit him. Maybe she had something in mind. Like that day she had asked him to bring some chocolate and they had ended up spending the better part of the day in the hot tub drinking wine and sharing the delicacy.
He smiled. If that was the case, then he didn’t mind staying out of her way for a few hours. Dick would have enough time to take a quick shower and change clothes. That was a good plan. And maybe on his way to Babs, he could buy some flowers for her. She didn’t go out much and the flowers would brighten up the room.
Yup, that sounded like a plan. He would buy flowers and chocolate and the whole Gotham if he had to, just to find the excuse he was needed. Somehow he doubted that Babs’s plan was to seduce him. He wished it was that simple case of seduction, but something in his gut told him that wouldn’t be.
Two hours later, when he entered the apartment, the feeling had not abated. Usually, by now Babs would have cracked a joke or would be waiting for him with eyes that burned with fire to lecture him about his night’s activities. But now the silence was deafening. There were no jokes, no lectures, no Barbara.
“Babs?”
Dick left the flowers on the coffee table nearby and called her name again. “Babs? Barbara?”
More silence. And then, he paused. There! A cough sounded from the bathroom. Before going there, Dick did a quick search of the place. The door was locked when he came and the alarms were on. He had had to enter the code to let himself in and the place was exactly as he left it last nigh. Last night’s dinner was still on the table; they had got an emergency call and Oracle had been behind her computer all night, giving them Intel when they needed it.
Almost all of the night. Oracle had shut down her system for a few minutes. Dick hadn’t paid much attention at the time, since he was in the middle of a fight and it was usual for Oracle to have more than two teams to guide at the same time, but when she put the comn link back on, she sounded kind of off. Like she needed some time to find the an answer. Again, Dick hadn’t thought much at the time, but he did recall Batman asking them to switch off their comm links at some point.
If Barbara was sick (she had been acting a little weird the last couple of days) and Bruce knew and hadn’t said a thing to him, Dick was going to be really pissed off. The man could drive a saint mad with anger!
With that in his mind, Dick didn’t wait with knocking on the bathroom door and walking inside only to stop dead in his tracks. For a moment he didn’t want to believe it. No way, no. He waited for her to say something to him, but Barbara dropped her head down in defeat.
He walked closer. He took the small, plastic bag from her lap and the cigarette from her hand and smelled it. Then he looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time and, in a way, he was. His hand grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. She didn’t make a move to stop him and a part of him hated her for her passiveness.
She avoided his gaze. “Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
Slowly she looked at him. Bloodshot eyes, dilate pupils. This wasn’t happening to him. This was a joke. She was playing a joke on him. A sick, twisted joke, but it was meant to be a joke. But, if it was a joke, why did she look at him with shame in her eyes?
His mind screamed to him to leave the room before he did something he would regret later, but his body was faster than his mind. His hand moved so fast he didn’t have time to stop it. The blow, which had at first been meant for her face, was diverted and his hand slammed into the sink, hard. She jumped, even though she hadn’t been struck, and he felt the same pain, compounded on the horror of his discovery, that he had hit her. Breathing heavily, and clenching the hurt hand, he watched her.
For a minute no one moved. Then Babs’s body started to shake from with tears and Dick just had to get out of there.
************
“He did what?”
Dinah looked at her best friend for some explanations. The younger woman was behind a computer and typing feverishly. For two weeks this was the only place to go if you wanted to find the redhead. Dinah couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the girl do her exercises.
Without taking her eyes away from the screen, Barbara said with calm voice, “He left his key outside my door.”
“While you were watching him?”
“I’m always watching, Dinah. That’s what I do. I watch. All the time.”
There was a tiny hint of frustration in Babs’s voice. Just a tiny hint, but enough to make Dinah back off. If she pushed Barbara now, the redhead would put up walls around herself so fast and so thick Dinah would never get passed them. Dinah would never understand how Babs’s mind worked. For her it was simple; if you loved someone, you had to try.
“What are you going to do?”
The tip tap on the keyboard stopped and a weird silence fell to the room. Babs looked at her for the first time since Dinah had walked in. The whole break up with Nightwing was tougher than what Babs claimed and Dinah could see how badly had it was affecting affected her friend.
Threads of red capillaries laced the whites of Oracle’s eyes and her eyelids looked bruised by fatigue. Barbara had lost some weight. Her cheekbones were pronounced, giving her a gaunt look. Dinah let out a sigh and shook her head. Why did Bat people do that sort of thing to themselves?
“Listen, girlfriend, I don’t care if you’re hacking Batman’s porn stash and, if you are, please don’t tell me, but go and get dressed. We’re going out.”
Barbara was ready to protest, but Dinah crossed her arms in front of her in a way that meant serious business. No one was foolish enough to go up against the Black Canary when she was in the mood for a fight and Barbara was smart enough to know when she couldn’t win. With delight, Dinah watched her friend grudgingly roll her way to the bedroom. She had won the battle, but she had a long way ahead of her if she wanted to win the war.
Dinah wasn’t so sure she could win the war, but she could try. Based on Babs’s looks, it wouldn’t be such hard work; the younger woman looked about ready to fall apart from exhaustion. All Dinah had to do was be there when that happened. And if she happened to be the one to give the final push, then all the better. Everything to get Gordon Fort to open up and tell her what had happened with Nightwing.
Because something had happened two weeks ago. Dinah didn’t know what exactly, but she knew the results. Nightwing had been MIA for a couple of days and Babs had been especially cranky the last two weeks. So Dinah knew how it had ended, but not how it had started and with a little luck she was going to find out tonight.
“He caught me.”
Dinah jumped. Damn! Despite being in the chair, Barbara still had that creepy, sneaky way of approaching people without getting noticed until she was right next to them. Turning to look at her, Dinah was surprised to see that not only Babs hadn’t changed her clothes, but, if possible, she looked even worst than before.
“He caught you doing what exactly?”
Barbara brought an imaginary joint to her lips and took an imaginary puff.
“Oh!”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
“How’s ‘oh shit’? Better?”
Barbara laughed, but her laugh was a tired one and didn’t last long. She took out her glasses and rubbed her eyes for a long time.
“God, Dinah. I should have said something to him sooner.”
Dinah nodded, but she wasn’t listening to her friend. She knew the next part by heart. Babs would spent the better part of the next hour blaming herself and wouldn’t listen to what Dinah had to say anyway, so why bother to listen in the first place? Instead of listening, Dinah observed.
Again with the rubbing! Whenever Babs was ashamed for a situation she rubbed her eyes.
“Babs? Honey, stop with the rubbing,” Dinah kneeled in front of her and took Babs’s hands into hers; Babs’s fingers were icy cold. “When was the last time you ate something?”
“I had a toast earlier.”
Dinah shook her head. “You had half a toast and that was five hours ago. You think starving yourself will make your problems with Nightwing disappear?”
To her credit, Barbara tried to joke. “They won’t?”
“Not really. He can disappear, but the problems? Nope! They stay behind. Trust me, I know a thing or two about man problems. Let’s make you a little something to eat, okay?”
Two cups of tea and half a sandwich later Dinah felt that it was time to ask for more details. Babs didn’t look like she was going to pass out any second now and the color had returned to her cheeks.
“So he walked in?”
“I had a pretty bad day, remember? I even had to leave you kids alone for a few minutes.”
Putting her cup down Dinah nodded. “Do you think Dick suspected something, then? He didn’t seem to mind at the time, but I can never know with you Bat boys and girls.”
Barbara thought about it for a few minutes then shook her head and took a sip from her tea. “I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“I think that he did. He’s a pretty good detective after all.”
“Dinah, I had dinners with my father high like you wouldn’t believe it and he never suspected a thing until the day I told him.” She picked at some bread and put it in her mouth. “He didn’t want to believe that his daughter could smoke pot. He didn’t want to believe it, so he didn’t see the signs.”
“And you think Dick did the same?”
“You don’t want to believe the worst for the people you love.”
Dinah crooked her head to the right. She could remember the day she saw Babs smoke like it was yesterday. Of course Barbara had the dignity to warn her first before disappearing to the bathroom and staying there for nearly two hours. Needless to say that they were two of the worst hours in Dinah’s life.
The memories of Roy’s addiction were still fresh in her mind. And Babs…She was Oracle for crying out loud! Oracle was always so anal and tight that it didn’t make sense. At first Dinah thought that she had heard wrong. It was the only possibility; she had heard wrong. But Babs had a haunted look in her face when she went to the bathroom and a goofy half grin when she walked out. No pun intended.
Dinah had waited. God, how she had waited for Babs to give her an explanation. And when the explanation came, suddenly everything made sense. Babs’s need for isolation, the sudden changes in her mood, the fact that sometimes she still used that awful computer voice when she was talking to them from the comm link.
“What are you going to do about Nightwing?”
Barbara shrugged, hunching her shoulders.
“Are you going to do something about Nightwing?”
The redhead stayed silent.
“Babs? You know I love you, right? Here’s the phone. Call him. Or I’ll kick your ass and you know I mean it.”
************
Bruce fastened the belt of his dobok and went to the middle of the ring. It had been a while since he had the opportunity to practice the pumsae without Damian’s comments about his flexibility. He wasn’t as flexible as Dick was, and his son, despite his big mouth, had the potential to be even better than him as a martial artist, but he couldn’t understand that the pumsae were important to the confidence of the martial artist.
His son was good, even better than him when he was Damian’s age, but he still had a lot to learn.
With a yell and a nod. Bruce started to perform pumsae after pumsae, taking pleasure in the burning sensation in his muscles. He hit and blocked hard and soon he was covered with sweat. He let his thoughts go and focused on his kicks. If someone saw him from a distance, they would think that he was in grave danger and was fighting for his life. Truth was that he was never more alive.
He was in the air, performing a butterfly kick when he spotted him. Landing gracefully, he took a few seconds to catch his breath. Then he turned his attention to his older son.
“You are still here.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a fact. He didn’t mind having (almost) all of his boys home, but Dick hadn’t really been himself for a while now. Bruce knew what had happened with Oracle, but it wasn’t his place to intervene. If Dick wanted to talk, he would talk. He wasn’t a little kid anymore and Bruce had faith in him. Dick was going to do what was best in the end.
“Yep. Still here. For a little while. You don’t mind, do you?”
Bruce took a couple of steps back. He needed enough force power if he wanted to do a flying back kick. It wasn’t a kick he used often when he was fighting, since he used more hand-to-hand techniques. Flying was more Nightwing’s thing. He was heavier and didn’t have the same flexibility as when he was young.
“This is your home, Dick. You don’t have to ask to stay here. Alfred is delighted to have you here and Damian likes you.”
“He doesn’t show it.”
Bruce nodded and decided that it was for the best to cut his practice short. Dick needed him and although he was the last person on earth to give romantic advice, Dick was waiting; obviously expecting something from him. Taking a clean towel, he wiped the sweat off his face.
“You’re not here to talk about Damian, Dick. Something else is troubling you.”
Dick put his hands inside the front pockets of his jean. “Why do I think you already know what’s bothering me?”
“Because I’m Batman?” Bruce said and when Dick threw his head back with laughter he was glad to see that the younger man hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“Tell me something, Bruce. Did you know?” Dick asked him when he sobered up.
Bruce said nothing.
“You did know! Great. You can’t believe how big a jerk I feel right now. Did everyone know but me?”
“I can’t say that everyone knew.”
Dick was surprisingly calm. “Just so you know, you don’t make me feel any better.”
Bruce looked at him for a while saying nothing. Then he pointed at the ring. With a nod, Dick went to change his clothes to a dobok. Bruce knew that it wasn’t something that Dick preferred to wear since the fabric was too thick and narrowed down the acrobat’s moves.
Good!
Dick needed to blow some steam, not win the gold metal for figure ice skating. And that exactly he did. The blows were coming hard and fast, nothing that Bruce couldn’t block, but he let Dick pass a punch or two. The boy had a mean left uppercut, but he was leaving his right side open far too often. Nightwing’s bigger asset was his speed and flexibility, and wouldn’t face a problem in a fight, but Batman wasn’t one to forgive.
“Watch your right.”
“I am watching my right!” Dick said and tried to catch Bruce of guard only to face the ground. “Okay, I wasn’t watching my right.”
“Your mind is not here,” Bruce offered his hand to him to help him get up. Dick took it and with one graceful move he threw Bruce down.
Dick frowned. “You let me throw you down. Why?”
Rubbing his chin Bruce said to him, “You looked like you needed it.”
Dick sat in butterfly position and soon Bruce followed his lead. His son was in pain, but Bruce was happy that he had him here with him. It had been so long since they had spent time together without ending up in a fight or one of them leaving the room in a hurry.
Observing his older son Bruce saw lines that weren’t there when he ‘left’. The Batman was a hard burden to carry and not one he wished for Dick. It took him a while, but now Bruce understood that Dick was never meant to be Batman. Dick was his own man and would never be happy carrying someone else’s name.
“Thank you.”
Bruce looked at him with something like confusion in his eyes. “For what?”
“For letting me win.”
“It was a draw.”
Dick smiled. “A draw with Batman is as good as a win.”
Sometimes it was hard for Bruce to be around Dick. Dick’s smile reminded him of another lifetime. A simpler, happier lifetime. But his boy had grown to be a man. A man that Bruce was proud to call son.
“Barbara,” he said and watched the smile vanish from Dick’s lips. He cleared his throat. “She’s been through a lot.”
“I’m not mad about her smoking marijuana.”
“You’re mad about her keeping it a secret?”
Dick shrugged, “Well, yeah. We were supposed to be starting a relationship. She asks me to move in; I move in. We go shopping together. I even watch her favorite TV show and I hate vampires. I hate them with a passion. And she always drools over that tall blond guy. I didn’t even know she liked blonds, you know? But anyway that’s not the point. The point is that for her I sit down and watch and try to be a good boyfriend, and she’s keeping secrets from me? Like I’m not good enough for her to tell me?”
“It’s not that.” Bruce replied.
Dick stretched his arms behind his head. Then he ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his neck. Bruce could tell he was uncomfortable. He suddenly realized that he was talking about relationships with Dick. They never had the chance to do that when Dick was a teenager and it felt a little weird.
Of course, the fact that they were talking about Barbara made the whole thing more uncomfortable for both men. Barbara was a good ally and an even better friend, but she was also the daughter of his best friend. If Dick ended up breaking her heart, Bruce would be in a tough situation.
He had to do something.
Alfred was better than him when it came to this kind of things. But he had send Alfred along with Damian to the town. Damian had been home-schooled his entirely life and Alfred thought that maybe it was time to go to a normal school. Usually, Alfred was right, so he and Damian had gone to search for the proper school for the boy.
That meant that he was all alone with Dick. And that meant that he was going to try and do his best to help Dick with his situation. Bruce knew how stubborn Barbara could be and he also knew how stubborn Dick could be and two stubborn people needed all the help they could get. Help that Bruce had no idea how to provide to Dick without choosing one side over the other.
“Do you really think that Barbara would ever think that of you?”
Dick shook his head. “I don’t know. What else can it be? She forgot to tell me? You know how she takes pride in her eidetic memory, so I have a hard time believing that she just didn’t remember.”
“Dick, have you even thought about the possibility that Barbara was ashamed?” Bruce asked, keeping his tone level.
That startled the younger man. “Why should she be? She’s using it for medical reasons. I get that.”
“Maybe she doesn’t get this.”
“What?” Dick was confused.
“You know how Barbara is, Dick. Do you honesty believe that she was going to feel anything but shame? She’s Commissioner’s Gordon little girl. Imagine how she feels knowing that her father is trying so hard to clean the streets of Gotham and his own daughter is buying drugs.”
Dick scowled. “Yeah...I, um, I haven’t thought about that.”
“Now you can,” Bruce got up when he saw that someone was calling the Batcave. He hoped it wasn’t Alfred saying that Damian had been disrespectful to everyone and they had to find a teacher. The kid needed to spend a few hours with kids his age, else he would turn out to be a younger version of his father.
And that was the last thing Bruce wanted for his son. That was the last thing he wanted for all his sons and daughters. He frowned with the thought of Cassandra. He still had no idea of where she was and, if Oracle knew, she didn’t volunteer to tell him and he wasn’t going to ask.
“Batman,” he said and was surprised to see Oracle’s symbol to the screen. She rarely used the green mask when she was talking to him. “Where do you need us, Oracle?”
“Nowhere.”
Bruce looked at Dick. The raven-haired man had stood up and was now next to him. Dick looked back at Bruce. Something was wrong. Why would Barbara hide her face from them?
“Is everything okay, Oracle?” Bruce asked and waited for the answer.
“No, in fact, nothing is okay and I don’t know how to make this stupid thing work,” the voice on the other end of the communication said. “Barbara is probably going to have a fit, if she finds out that I used her precious computers.”
“What can I do for you, Black Canary?”
“Is Nightwing with you?”
Dick waved no to Bruce. “Yes, he is.”
Dick rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in defeat.
“Tell him to meet me outside the library in an hour. And he better show up or else--“
Dinah didn’t have to finish her warning. Bruce closed the communication and watched the blank screen for a couple of seconds. When he turned his head, Dick had already worn his jeans and was fighting to get in his t-shirt.
“You’d better take a shower first, Dick.”
Next Part
Part Three>/a>