Ficlet: You Never Forget a Mascot
So this is a companion piece to my last Fic, Team Mascot .
It's quite a bit angstier I'm afraid. Dick's all grown up now. So here goes nothing!
Yes, the title sucks......
Title: You Never Forget a Mascot
Author: Singer
Characters: Dick, Roy, others mentioned
Pairings: Slight Roy/Dick
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Not my Characters...*grumble grumble*
Warnings: Although the sentiments may carry, it will be much harder to read without reading Team Mascot first, unbeta-ed
Summary: Dick is having a hard time dealing with everything after Bruce's disappearance, but at least he's got a little bat-angel watching out for him.
Dick was tired. Physically, emotionally, completely. He couldn’t remember any other time he had felt quite this drained. There had been times that had come close; the emptiness after Blockbuster’s death, the pain when he heard of Jason’s death, his falling out with Bruce during Nightwing’s early years. At least there had been something fueling him during those times, even the guilt had been better than this.
Now there was nothing. He was just empty.
Patrol had ended two hours ago and there really wasn’t a reason for him to still be awake aside from not being able to fall asleep. Damian, Tim, and Jason were already in bed at this point. It had been an uphill battle over a little mountain called Everest trying to pull his brothers back together. Tim was a big help, but he was more than a little unstable at the moment and Dick was reticent to put him under more stress. Damien was training hard, but dealing with his rebellion for the sake of rebellion, day in and out was just one more battle he had to fight. He never would’ve guessed that dealing with Jason would be easiest.
It had been no simple task, getting Jaybird home, but now he was upstairs, in his own room, recovering from a nasty stab wound in his side. He had finally given up his brutal Batman stint. He had been hurt when Dick ran into him and Dick had forgone any arguing and pleaded with him. Begged him to come home, to let himself get treated… begged him not to let himself just die again. He had flat out told him, that he didn’t think he could survive losing another part of his family.
Jason came back to the manor that very night.
Getting the lost bird back had been one of the only bright points in the past few months. Ironically, everything had seemed darker since Bruce had died.
Dick kept hoping, praying, that Bruce would come back. He could’ve decided to take a trip to Rio and blown half of the Wayne fortune on chicken fights and Dick would still welcome him back as a conquering hero.
He hadn’t wanted to take up the cowl. He really had tried to pull the city back together as Nightwing. But Gotham demanded its hero. She demanded the Bat. So every night, he had taken up the symbol that he believed would always be Bruce’s and attempted to wrest the streets back from the chaos they’d fallen into.
Superman had stopped by the city one week after Dick took up the mantle. There had been no words, just a reassuring hand on his shoulder and a sad smile. Clark knew why he had to do this. Dick didn’t ask him to stay, he couldn’t. He knew that Clark was hurting deeper than he showed.
And so Dick stood in the cave, alone, in his version of the bat suit with his gloves, cowl, and cape already removed, not really awake, but nowhere near sleep. Alfred was with the Outsiders at the moment, and with the boys asleep, he almost felt like a ghost in his own home. The cave was quiet. Nothing but the bats’ white noise. He found himself both grateful for and resentful of the silence.
He sank into the computer’s black leather chair with a grace that had become too ingrained into his person to ever truly shut down. His back slid against the dark silk of his cape, haphazardly draped over the chair back from when he tossed it aside earlier.
For someone who was so used to being airborne, Dick had never felt so tied down. This was wearing him out. Not to sound cliché, but it literally felt like the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders, chained to ankles, and directly attached to his heart, dragging it further into the ground with each passing second.
He honestly didn’t know if he could keep this up. Giving up wasn’t an option, but he was loosing his life to the legacy. He had to do something, anything! Anything to make him feel like a human again. He swiveled the chair to stand and was confronted with a tirade of indignant squeaks.
That was unexpected.
He leaned around the side of the computer chair to investigate his now vocal cape and spied an oddly familiar, mass of gray-brown fur.
“Klah?” he asked, a little bit more than incredulous.
The bat fluttered its wings in seeming response as it settled back into the now stable perch.
Dick couldn’t believe it. The same bat that had stowed away on his first cape had now claimed his newest. A chuckle bubbled past his lips, his first genuine laugh in more than a month. The chuckle grew into a full-bodied laughing fit bordering on hysterics. Several minutes filled the cave with more life and laughter than Dick had imagined possible at that point.
When he was finally capable of breathing again he stood to walk around the chair to get a better look at the now fully-grown Little Brown Bat.
Bare hands rubbed stray tears away from his eyes, a grin plastered on his face.
“What are you doing here?”
Klah took to the air before Dick could approach his cape, flying in two swooping circles around the vigilante before coming to rest on his chest, almost completely on top of the bat shaped insignia. Dick chuckled again as he brought his hand up to stroke the little mascot’s fur.
“Those were good times, weren’t they Klah?”
Fond memories of simpler times surrounded by his team, his friends, meandered through his all too weary mind. Times when they all had time to sit and discuss baby bat care. He hadn’t seen them in a while…a long while.
He glanced at the time display on the oversized computer screen. Morning already? That would work.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
Roy blearily made his way over to the ringing phone. The one day he decides to sleep in, and someone decides to become an early bird. He reached for the offending electronic, fumbling for a second before succeeding in bringing it up o his ear.
“Hello?” he managed through a yawn.
“Hi Roy.”
Ok, he was awake now. Those two soft, somewhat unsure words had him alert far faster than any espresso ever had. There were some things that Roy just didn’t expect to be woken up by, and for the last couple of years, his Robbie’s voice had sadly been one of them.
“Dick?” he didn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice. He was too busy attempting to swallow the hope bleeding through.
“You’ll never guess what happened last night, er…this morning more likely,” Dick still sounded like he was testing the waters, but the same emotion Roy was struggling to choke down was plain as the sunlight poking through his curtains in Dick’s voice. Roy had to be dreaming.
“I found a little hitchhiker on my cape after patrol.”
“Klah?”
“The one and only.”
Roy chuckled lightly, “No shit?”
The next few minutes were surreal. They talked about their Titan days, and all of the little things that had made them great.
Roy leaned back as he finished up his story about one villain who actually thought it was a good idea to wear a suit covered in targets to a robbery in Star City. Dick’s easy chuckles filtering over the telephone wires.
“It’s been way too long, Robbie.” he said with a smile, ”How’ve you been holding up?”
This was the make-or-break moment as Roy held his breath and waited through the silence on the other end of the phone. There was a sigh.
“Honestly? Not so good, actually.”
Roy was stunned. He barely remembered to start breathing again.
“I think I might be in over my head. It’s just… Everything’s happening all at once, you know?”
Roy blinked. Dick was being completely open, in ways he really hadn’t been since his outfits stopped traffic… And there wasn’t even any alcohol involved!
“Well, maybe I could swing by sometime, if you want…” Roy trailed off.
“Yeah. That’d be nice. I think that old burger joint we used to go to is still open, if you want to catch up over a bite?“ Dick answered, “I’d recommend having Lian visit a friend though. Gotham’s not exactly the best place for kids right now, what with most of the criminal element trying to push their limits.”
Roy fully agreed with that sentiment.
“But maybe I could stop by sometime to see her? I, um, I really do miss you guys.”
Roy’s face broke into a grin. This was the Robbie he’d known. The one that had been over his apartment so many times that Lian had pestered him endlessly about when he would move in. The one he had once sparred with without the use of their hands, just to burn off steam and have a new story to tell over Guinness. The one he would still rather spend time with doing practically nothing than almost anything else.
Thank God for clingy little fuzz balls with wings.
“That would be great.”
He pulled back the curtain to watch the tail end of sunrise.
“We missed you too, Robbie.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
END
Klah!muse strikes again, all in the name of warm perches, free milk, and substitute bat-moms!
It's quite a bit angstier I'm afraid. Dick's all grown up now. So here goes nothing!
Yes, the title sucks......
Title: You Never Forget a Mascot
Author: Singer
Characters: Dick, Roy, others mentioned
Pairings: Slight Roy/Dick
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Not my Characters...*grumble grumble*
Warnings: Although the sentiments may carry, it will be much harder to read without reading Team Mascot first, unbeta-ed
Summary: Dick is having a hard time dealing with everything after Bruce's disappearance, but at least he's got a little bat-angel watching out for him.
Dick was tired. Physically, emotionally, completely. He couldn’t remember any other time he had felt quite this drained. There had been times that had come close; the emptiness after Blockbuster’s death, the pain when he heard of Jason’s death, his falling out with Bruce during Nightwing’s early years. At least there had been something fueling him during those times, even the guilt had been better than this.
Now there was nothing. He was just empty.
Patrol had ended two hours ago and there really wasn’t a reason for him to still be awake aside from not being able to fall asleep. Damian, Tim, and Jason were already in bed at this point. It had been an uphill battle over a little mountain called Everest trying to pull his brothers back together. Tim was a big help, but he was more than a little unstable at the moment and Dick was reticent to put him under more stress. Damien was training hard, but dealing with his rebellion for the sake of rebellion, day in and out was just one more battle he had to fight. He never would’ve guessed that dealing with Jason would be easiest.
It had been no simple task, getting Jaybird home, but now he was upstairs, in his own room, recovering from a nasty stab wound in his side. He had finally given up his brutal Batman stint. He had been hurt when Dick ran into him and Dick had forgone any arguing and pleaded with him. Begged him to come home, to let himself get treated… begged him not to let himself just die again. He had flat out told him, that he didn’t think he could survive losing another part of his family.
Jason came back to the manor that very night.
Getting the lost bird back had been one of the only bright points in the past few months. Ironically, everything had seemed darker since Bruce had died.
Dick kept hoping, praying, that Bruce would come back. He could’ve decided to take a trip to Rio and blown half of the Wayne fortune on chicken fights and Dick would still welcome him back as a conquering hero.
He hadn’t wanted to take up the cowl. He really had tried to pull the city back together as Nightwing. But Gotham demanded its hero. She demanded the Bat. So every night, he had taken up the symbol that he believed would always be Bruce’s and attempted to wrest the streets back from the chaos they’d fallen into.
Superman had stopped by the city one week after Dick took up the mantle. There had been no words, just a reassuring hand on his shoulder and a sad smile. Clark knew why he had to do this. Dick didn’t ask him to stay, he couldn’t. He knew that Clark was hurting deeper than he showed.
And so Dick stood in the cave, alone, in his version of the bat suit with his gloves, cowl, and cape already removed, not really awake, but nowhere near sleep. Alfred was with the Outsiders at the moment, and with the boys asleep, he almost felt like a ghost in his own home. The cave was quiet. Nothing but the bats’ white noise. He found himself both grateful for and resentful of the silence.
He sank into the computer’s black leather chair with a grace that had become too ingrained into his person to ever truly shut down. His back slid against the dark silk of his cape, haphazardly draped over the chair back from when he tossed it aside earlier.
For someone who was so used to being airborne, Dick had never felt so tied down. This was wearing him out. Not to sound cliché, but it literally felt like the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders, chained to ankles, and directly attached to his heart, dragging it further into the ground with each passing second.
He honestly didn’t know if he could keep this up. Giving up wasn’t an option, but he was loosing his life to the legacy. He had to do something, anything! Anything to make him feel like a human again. He swiveled the chair to stand and was confronted with a tirade of indignant squeaks.
That was unexpected.
He leaned around the side of the computer chair to investigate his now vocal cape and spied an oddly familiar, mass of gray-brown fur.
“Klah?” he asked, a little bit more than incredulous.
The bat fluttered its wings in seeming response as it settled back into the now stable perch.
Dick couldn’t believe it. The same bat that had stowed away on his first cape had now claimed his newest. A chuckle bubbled past his lips, his first genuine laugh in more than a month. The chuckle grew into a full-bodied laughing fit bordering on hysterics. Several minutes filled the cave with more life and laughter than Dick had imagined possible at that point.
When he was finally capable of breathing again he stood to walk around the chair to get a better look at the now fully-grown Little Brown Bat.
Bare hands rubbed stray tears away from his eyes, a grin plastered on his face.
“What are you doing here?”
Klah took to the air before Dick could approach his cape, flying in two swooping circles around the vigilante before coming to rest on his chest, almost completely on top of the bat shaped insignia. Dick chuckled again as he brought his hand up to stroke the little mascot’s fur.
“Those were good times, weren’t they Klah?”
Fond memories of simpler times surrounded by his team, his friends, meandered through his all too weary mind. Times when they all had time to sit and discuss baby bat care. He hadn’t seen them in a while…a long while.
He glanced at the time display on the oversized computer screen. Morning already? That would work.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
Roy blearily made his way over to the ringing phone. The one day he decides to sleep in, and someone decides to become an early bird. He reached for the offending electronic, fumbling for a second before succeeding in bringing it up o his ear.
“Hello?” he managed through a yawn.
“Hi Roy.”
Ok, he was awake now. Those two soft, somewhat unsure words had him alert far faster than any espresso ever had. There were some things that Roy just didn’t expect to be woken up by, and for the last couple of years, his Robbie’s voice had sadly been one of them.
“Dick?” he didn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice. He was too busy attempting to swallow the hope bleeding through.
“You’ll never guess what happened last night, er…this morning more likely,” Dick still sounded like he was testing the waters, but the same emotion Roy was struggling to choke down was plain as the sunlight poking through his curtains in Dick’s voice. Roy had to be dreaming.
“I found a little hitchhiker on my cape after patrol.”
“Klah?”
“The one and only.”
Roy chuckled lightly, “No shit?”
The next few minutes were surreal. They talked about their Titan days, and all of the little things that had made them great.
Roy leaned back as he finished up his story about one villain who actually thought it was a good idea to wear a suit covered in targets to a robbery in Star City. Dick’s easy chuckles filtering over the telephone wires.
“It’s been way too long, Robbie.” he said with a smile, ”How’ve you been holding up?”
This was the make-or-break moment as Roy held his breath and waited through the silence on the other end of the phone. There was a sigh.
“Honestly? Not so good, actually.”
Roy was stunned. He barely remembered to start breathing again.
“I think I might be in over my head. It’s just… Everything’s happening all at once, you know?”
Roy blinked. Dick was being completely open, in ways he really hadn’t been since his outfits stopped traffic… And there wasn’t even any alcohol involved!
“Well, maybe I could swing by sometime, if you want…” Roy trailed off.
“Yeah. That’d be nice. I think that old burger joint we used to go to is still open, if you want to catch up over a bite?“ Dick answered, “I’d recommend having Lian visit a friend though. Gotham’s not exactly the best place for kids right now, what with most of the criminal element trying to push their limits.”
Roy fully agreed with that sentiment.
“But maybe I could stop by sometime to see her? I, um, I really do miss you guys.”
Roy’s face broke into a grin. This was the Robbie he’d known. The one that had been over his apartment so many times that Lian had pestered him endlessly about when he would move in. The one he had once sparred with without the use of their hands, just to burn off steam and have a new story to tell over Guinness. The one he would still rather spend time with doing practically nothing than almost anything else.
Thank God for clingy little fuzz balls with wings.
“That would be great.”
He pulled back the curtain to watch the tail end of sunrise.
“We missed you too, Robbie.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
END
Klah!muse strikes again, all in the name of warm perches, free milk, and substitute bat-moms!