Prompt Post - Part Nine [CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS]
THIS PART IS NOW CLOSED. YOU CAN CONTINUE POSTING FILLS, BUT PLEASE PROMPT ALL NEW THINGS HERE.
Part one here!
Part two here!
Part three here!
Part four here!
Part five here!
Part six here!
Part seven here!
Part eight here!
Feel free to reprompt posts from previous parts once. If you do so, I'd recommend leaving a link to your fill on the original prompt, ( Read more... )
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Batman scanned the city from up high, staring down upon his domain. The silent protector, the janitor. He took out the trash so the rich kids didn't have to look at it.
He smiled at the thought. The circus freak, glamorizing the job of cleaning up. Ask any of the cops around Gotham if cleaning up was glamorous, they'd think you were off your meds. But he was the circus freak, the acrobat. He could make anything glamorous.
Movement caught the corner of his eye. A couple, and their son, exiting a theater. Judging from the time they had just gotten out of the Mask of Zorro, though it was entirely possible that they'd just gotten hung up inside the theater for some reason or another after getting out of Pretty Princess Adventures.
Somehow, Batman doubted it, though the thought gave him a chuckle. He tried not to when he was in costume; he wouldn't be half as effective if he wasn't pants-wetting terrifying. But it put the criminals for a loop when he rationed it out. He practically considered it a weapon in its own right.
A man came out of the shadows. Batman thought he might be greeting the couple, then looked closer. Damn it. He fired his grappling hook, swinging down. No mugger was going to kill someone else's parents on his watch.
Not on his watch.
At least, not if it weren't for his faulty equipment. The grapple didn't quite take, and Batman landed hard behind the perp, loud enough to announce his presence, far away enough that he couldn't stop what happened next.
The jumpy mugger reacted. A shot rang out. The man fell.
“DAD!”
Batman lunged at the mugger, desperate to stop him. They fought in the alleyway, brawling like common street thugs. In the background, Batman registered the wailing of the wife and child. Batman took an elbow to the face, and felt more than saw the mugger moving away from him.
When he looked up, the mugger had taken the wife hostage. “You are going to stay right there Batman, or I blow her brains out!”
Batman froze. The mugger dragged the wife away, out of sight. Then, he was gone.
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The boy didn't say anything. The family butler stood nearby, face twisted slightly in grief, but his eyes gave Dick permission to continue. He wasn't going to have the common man dragged away from his prince of a charge quite yet.
Dick took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to dispel the images of broken ropes and broken bones, screams of shock and panic as the audience realized this wasn't supposed to happen. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil. He flattened it out on his knee to write. “If you ever need to talk, here's my phone number. You won't want to at first, but after some time has passed it helps a little. If you ever need an ear to listen, I'll be there for you.” He handed the paper to Bruce, who grasped it in his hand mindlessly. Dick gave him a small smile. “It gets better. It doesn't go away, but it gets better. Enough for you to live again.”
Dick made to get up, but was stopped by a small tug on his sleeve. Bruce was still staring ahead blindly, but the paper had made its way to his lap and his hand was now clinging to Dick's sleeve like a lifeline. Dick looked towards the butler, who gave a small nod, and sat back down.
They sat like that for hours, Bruce staring at nothing, holding on to Dick's sleeve, and Dick talking about everything and nothing, his own childhood, an anecdote from last week, whatever he could to make the kid's own private hell a little less hellish.
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So what was odd about this visit was that it wasn't Alfred who had called, but Bruce. Even more surprisingly, Bruce was waiting for him down by the Manor gates. Dick slowed his motorcycle to a halt and turned off the ignition, then pulled off his helmet. “What's the occasion Bruce?”
“I didn't want Alfred to know you were here,” Bruce said with the same sullen expression he regularly wore. Only this time there was something different about it, possibly... hope? Hope of a plan, or an idea?
“Then I take it you don't want to go up to the Manor,” Dick assumed, and Bruce nodded. “Okay then. I'll leave my bike just inside the gate and we can go for a walk around the grounds, how does that sound?”
“Good,” Bruce replied, and they did as Dick suggested. They walked in silence for the first fifteen minutes, then suddenly Bruce interrupted the silence. “Batman tried to save my parents.”
“Oh?” Dick tried not to overreact. They'd talked about all kinds of things, important and trivial, but never the night Bruce's parents had died. He didn't want to spook him off the subject. “I didn't know that.”
“He did, but... he couldn't. I wasn't really paying attention, but I think his equipment malfunctioned. That's why he couldn't save them. That's what it looks like anyway, in my nightmares.”
Bruce had never mentioned nightmares before, but Alfred had. The day was just full of surprise confessions. “Do you think maybe if Batman had had working equipment he would have been able to save your parents?”
“Definitely. He's Batman, he saves everyone, so that had to be the reason.”
“So why do you think Batman didn't have his equipment in prime condition?”
Bruce looked up at Dick. “I don't think he can afford it. Crime fighting can't be cheap, and not everyone's a billionaire. He's probably got some pretty run-down equipment, stuff that's just begging to be replaced.”
Dick ruffled Bruce's hair. “You're lucky in that regard, kid.”
“Yeah, well you grew up in a circus surrounded by other people who loved you, Batman.”
Dick froze. The kid did not just say what he think he just said. Dick adopted a joking smile. “Don't be ridiculous Bruce! Why would I be Batman?”
“Don't lie to me!” Bruce suddenly shouted, angry, backing out of reach of a calming touch from Dick. “You're Batman, I know you are! And I know you tried to save my parents, you tried and you couldn't! They said they'd never leave me, don't lie to me!”
Dick sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I just... yeah, I'm Batman. But you can't tell anyone that you know. It might put you in danger.”
“Why would I tell anyone? You tried to save my parents.”
“And I couldn't, Bruce.” Bruce just folded his arms and continued to stare at him. “Don't you hate me for that?”
Bruce's eyes were hard, stubborn. “That wasn't your fault, it was your equipment's. Right?”
Dick nodded. “Right. Got it in one. Grappling hook didn't hold, joints don't clamp shut like they used to. Some of us aren't billionaires.”
“Some of us are.” There it was, Dick could see it again. That hope of an idea, a plan. Bruce took a few steps forward and grabbed on to Dick's arm, hugging it tight, the largest token of affection he'd ever given Dick. “Batman saves people. I want to help him save more people. Please, let me help. I don't want anyone else's parents to die.”
Dick had argued with him. Oh, he'd argued with Bruce long and hard. To this day he's still not entirely sure how he lost the argument and not only accepted funding, ended up with a partner in crime fighting to boot.
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Though, it does make you wonder how Bruce arrived at "Robin" and what else the age change affects...
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