For Dick: Days of Fire and Madness

[needsarobin]

"So this is the treehouse. Three of us live here. All except Dairine." Tim led Dick up the stairs that wound around the tree trunk, spiraling up to the landing of the first landing, high above the forest floor. It was dark there and Tim didn't stop, just continued up to the second floor. "This level is mostly storage right now. There aren't

Comments

[cantstopmoving]

Head's spinning still. Wish I could talk this out with Roy and Donna, or Bruce.

Alternate earth? Dimensional shift? None of its new really.

More than a year.

Okay, that's new. Two months would be new. All of us coming from different points in time, that's new too.

I could deal with that. It's the two of them. Tim and Barbara. And Tim having Titans I don't know and a treehouse -

Bruce.

- that have me off-balance.

He leans against the wall, arms crossed loosely over his chest. It probably won't fool Tim, but how he acts impacts how he feels.

"It's well done." Small nod, hint of a smile, approval in his tone. "All of it. Good work, Tim."

Because leading off with you could've warned me isn't going to help.

[needsarobin]

Dick didn't have to say a word for Tim to hear it all in his head. He's watched Dick for years, knows him from every angle in every mood. Two years can't have changed that much. This is still Dick and knowing him, Tim has to struggle to keep his voice steady as he continued the tour. "This is Bob's room--he's Bart's bat. Flying stomach, really. Bart's room is here," It had the feeling of disuse, Bart's almost never in it but he maintained a separate quarters anyway. Most of the day-to-day things are missing though that's hard to tell at a glance.

"My room is here, Jill's is over there. The rest," Tim indicated the two doors that stood open to let in what little sun filtered through, "are open. Upstairs is the meeting room and the sky deck."

If he just kept talking, he wouldn't have to answer the unspoken accusation. He didn't have a good explanation for it. It had just seemed simpler.

[cantstopmoving]

He's not the stalker that Tim is, but he knows him. The way he paces the common room, showing off his home, opening doors and speaking more meaningless words than Dick has ever heard from him - it's wrong. Deep down wrong.

Hair rising on the back of his neck and over his arms, Dick flashes on nights of following him after his dad died. He and Cass staking out Tim to make sure he was okay. He hadn't been.

He isn't now.

Dick's not okay either. He's the farthest thing from okay. But it's the kind of not okay they're used to. Disoriented. Lacking intel. Separated from their teams. Not sure who they're up against or even what to fight.

Keep telling yourself that, Grayson. Maybe you'll even start to believe it.The next time Tim wanders by, Dick shoots out an arm and grabs him by the scruff of the neck. The irony of it - that it's something Bruce would do to him, just like Tim showed his Bat at both he and Babs before - is so thick he almost wants to laugh

[needsarobin]

There was a force of personality to Dick that he didn't remember. It could have been time had dimmed his recollection. Could have been that he just had never faced Dick like this before. But Tim didn't think it was either of those. Things had changed since he left their world. And the man Dick is, isn't the man that Tim remembers. He's changed, grown. Into himself and into his power.

He doesn't have a choice about answering, in the end. "Two years," he made a sound like a laugh interrupted by a punch, "Two years last week. Happy anniversary to me."

It seemed like that should have been a milestone but the day in question had slipped by, unremarkable and unmarked. It was fitting, really. Nothing has changed for him, even though everything has.

[cantstopmoving]

Two years.

It hits like a belly blow. Only their shared training keeps the shock from showing. The wave of grief that follows after is harder to hide. It rolls through him, fear riding it like whitecaps, surfacing in his eyes as a soft flicker and an even softer frown.

His hand stays tight on Tim's neck. He's not done. Not by a long shot. "How long before Bart got here? And what was happening at home when you left?"

He can ache for Tim when he has answers. Until then, his bright blue gaze and firmly set jaw say he's not interested in evasions. When he knows the truth, then he can start fixing it.

[needsarobin]

"Bart has been here for almost a year and a half, it was the following June." There was no emotion in Tim's voice as he replied, "A month after...Jean Loring was taken to Arkham." The pause was almost unnoticeable, would have been if it had been anyone but Dick observing.

He wanted to move, talk, argue. Anything but look backward at that time.

[cantstopmoving]

His heart tears. Flat voice, so like Bruce's when he doesn't talk about Jason and Stephanie. Avoidant pause, to find a formulation that tells Dick what he wants to know without having to say it.

He needs his family, Jill said, and now it makes sense. Two years later, at home, Tim's finally remembered how to smile. But it took two whole years, Dick beating the snot out of him more than once, and traveling together, spending every minute together for almost a year.

Tim's been alone here.

God.

For a long, very long minute, he meshes his gaze with Tim's as much as he can with Tim wanting to look anywhere but at the truth. I'm sorry. Then he curls his arm to draw Tim a few steps closer. "Debrief. From the beginning."

[needsarobin]

Debrief. It was a procedural word, one that stayed away from those dangerous personal events that Dick had been prodding at a moment before. He gestured to the couch that he'd built one slow weekend, bamboo and scraps from the clothing box stuffed into cushions made from terry cloth. It was, for all it's odd appearance, fairly comfortable. Tim gestured to it, "Sit down, there's a lot to tell."

[cantstopmoving]

It's a tactical decision, asking for debrief. Tim's a good soldier. He knows his job. Telling his partner what he needs to know is second nature. Once he relaxes a little, Dick can do his job and take care of Tim.

He glances at the couch. Takes a step toward it, then shakes his head. He's been awake too long. Going on twenty-four. His team's waiting for another strike from Trigon. He just slept with his ex under dubious circumstances.

Again.

He hasn't talked to Bruce in almost a week. And he's just gotten sucked into an alternate dimension where his only back up is Robin minus two years of working as a team, a speedless Flash, his other ex without her computers, and a handful of amateurs. Well-trained amateurs knowing Tim, but not equipped to deal with Superboy-Prime if that's who's responsible for this.

"I think I'd better stand."

[needsarobin]

Not ideal but Tim wouldn't argue. He remained standing as well, his hands clasped behind his back. His voice was clipped, professional. "I was on patrol. It was a fairly normal night, nothing special that I can remember. I encountered you and BG briefly then I started to head back to the manor. I had Calculus to do. I closed my eyes for a minute." He'd covered them, pressing his fingers in like that would make everything that he hated about his life vanish. It hadn't. It had just taken away what was left of his world.

"When I opened them, I was here, on the beach. It wasn't quite as efficient back then, the way new arrivals were dealt with--tomorrow you'll have to register as Dick Grayson with the Council office, by the way--and no one really understood what was going on. The longest anyone had been on the island at that point was barely a year."

[cantstopmoving]

Dick remembers that night. Or ones like it. He and Cass, watching over Tim. Cass had thought it was pointless. That Tim was fine. But she'd tagged along because Dick had insisted he wasn't. That they had to protect him. And then he landed here.

Alone.

God, little brother. I'm sorry.

His expression doesn't even flicker. He's learned that in the two years since Tim's been here. How to be as unreadable as Bruce and Tim when he needs to be. Renegade taught him that. "Register with the Council. Check. What about Nightwing?"

Finger-sign for continue rides beneath the questions. He wants answers but he doesn't want to get into a discussion. Give me the intel and move on.

[needsarobin]

"Up to you. Island being what it is, it's hard to maintain our covers." Harder for Dick, Tim already knew that. So many people assumed Robin was Dick not Tim as it was, "I tried. Tim Drake and Robin arrived different days, different locations, different reactions. It was months before someone--some guy who was a big comics fan--called me Robin while I was in civvies. It was a jolt."

Tim assumed that Barbara had done a complete job briefing Dick but figured it didn't hurt to...check up. "Anything O didn't cover that you're curious about?"

[cantstopmoving]

"Lex already knows who you are." He pauses a beat, Bruce-style. Deliver information. Wait for it to hit. Continue. Lather, rinse, repeat. "Yeah. I met him."

Dick's a world of not happy about their identities. "I'll do triage. Find out who knows. Control the information. It's not worth anyone's life."

His mouth tightens for that, but he keeps on. "Food, water, housing. Clothes," he adds dryly, glancing down at the pants. "Medicine. What you've been doing with yourself for two years." Dick's gaze sharpens on Tim. "Fifteen minutes isn't a lot of time."

[needsarobin]

The censure hit him like a blow but he didn't flinch. Tim had utterly failed in his responsibility to protect their family, their identities. The Mission. He had no explanation for it, no excuse. He just had to take it.

His jaw tightened, "I know it's not. I was...counting on that." Counting on it to control the emotions, counting on it to keep them focused on business. He couldn't say anything about what their relationship was like two years down the road but they were never anything less than...intense.

[cantstopmoving]

Dick's jaw tightens in tandem. Don't Bat me, little brother.

The last thing he wants is to get into a fight. But knowing Tim did it on purpose sets his teeth on edge. "Might've been a good idea to know we're not getting married when you did it."

Or that she'd said yes and for way too few hours, they'd both been happier than they'd ever dreamed of being.

[needsarobin]

Tim went pale. We're not getting married. What had he done?

The truth was he hadn't been thinking. He'd made the decision based on what felt right, just by rote. Who could you trust with Nightwing's arrival? Only Oracle. How did you explain to each what was going on with out it taking too long, risking all of them? You couldn't. Tim had been juggling too many things. He should have thought of a way.

"Dick, I..." He didn't know what to say. Sorry didn't begin to cover it.