Batfic: When One Door Closes (1/1) PG-13
Jun. 12th, 2010 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saoneTitle: When One Door Closes (1/1)
Author: Saone77
Summary: Tim and Dick have a long overdue conversation. pre-slash.
Fandom: Comics
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2050
Spoilers: Red Robin 12-13
A/N: I've been sort of off most of the Batbooks for a while, so I imagine there's some cannon and continuity issues. Not beta'd, so Grammarians beware. Slight Damian bashing, 'cause I may love the kid, but Tim has issues.
It's weird, being back in Gotham, but Tim is nothing if not adaptable. It might take a bit longer this time, but he knows that, eventually, he'll get over that shock of cold anger he feels every time he sees Bruce's demon spawn in Robin colors. Tim's older, and definitely wiser, and he knows to hold his tongue because he's missed Dick, and Alfred, and Steph, and Babs, and he's not going to do anything to ruin the tentative peace he's found with them.
No matter how much he wants to bash the brat's face in.
And sometimes he really, really, really wants to bash his face in.
Like now.
Damian and Dick are going at it. Again. Tim's not sure what precipitated it this time--Damian's so touchy Dick could have simply breathed wrong--but what had been a simple argument quickly devolved into barely controlled shouting, most of which was coming from Damian. They both still have their suits on, having just come in from patrol, and Tim can't quite wrap his head around the wrongness of seeing 'Robin' telling 'Batman' to do highly illegal things to a camel.
Raised voices echo around the bunker, and Tim knows he could slip out without drawing fire, but he can't seem to move from his place by the computer.
Damian hurls some truly creative insult at Dick before spinning on his heel and storming out of the room towards the showers. He's ten, so it looks absolutely ridiculous, but the tension in Dick's frame keeps Tim from laughing.
Tim has never hated Dick, but he had spent a good portion of his European tour pissed as hell at the former Nightwing. Angry that Dick hadn't believed him about Bruce being alive, angry that he had picked Talia's horrible little experiment over Tim, just... angry. He stopped being mad a while ago. Now he just wants back what he lost.
"Hey," Tim says, "kid does like his dramatic exits, huh?" He watches as Dick relaxes for just a moment, before he tenses again.
"And having the last word. He's gotten better, if you can believe that," Dick says with a wan smile as he peels off the cowl. Tim notices new lines on his face, mainly around his eyes. He looks tired.
"Actually, I can," Tim says. "He hasn't tried to kill me once since I got back."
Dick laughs, and his face immediately lightens and looses about ten years. "Yeah, curbing those homicidal tendencies was the first thing on my list."
"A list, huh? How to Turn the Batman's Genetically Engineered, Assassin Raised, Offspring into a Real Boy? Do you use gold stars for each section he completes." The bitterness just kind of slips out, and Tim watches Dick's expression go from tentative happiness to wary and shuttered. He kind of wants to kick himself. "That's not... I didn't mean that."
Dick snorts at that. "Of course you meant it. You can't stand Damien, and you probably have little love left for me. It's understandable. I was a shit."
Tim shakes his head. No matter how true that might have been, he never, never wanted to hear those words come out of Dick's mouth, especially not in such a defeatist tone. "No, you were-"
"A shit." Dick says firmly. "I not only took you for granted, I refused to believe you. To trust you. I should have. I mean, you're Tim."
Tim feels his throat tighten at the amount of love Dick infuses into his name. Tim. Like he hung the stars or something. He went so long without hearing any kind of endearments that the sheer amount of affection that Dick can so easily bestow on him is almost staggering. And suddenly he's back to being thirteen, blushing and stammering at the attentions of his boyhood hero. "Yeah," Tim clears his throat, "well, I wasn't exactly innocent. I acted like a major jerk to people I really cared about." He had mostly cleared the air with Steph, but he was still working up the courage to call Cassie.
Dick nods. "Do you think," he ducks his head, almost bashfully, "do you think we could put all that behind us, and just move on?"
"I want to," Tim says, "but I'm not gonna promise that I won't occasionally slip up. Especially where Demon Seed is involved."
Dick smiles ruefully. "I guess that's all I can ask," he says. He starts to extract himself from the suit. "Can't wait to hang this thing up. I still sometimes have trouble with the cape."
Tim doesn't know if Dick means 'hang it up' for the night, or for good when they get Bruce back. He doesn't ask. "You didn't have to keep it. There's no law that said Batman had to have a cape."
"No written law," Dick says, "but Gothamites are set in their ways. In order to convince everybody that the real Batman was back, I had to look like the real Batman, heavy, restricting cape and all." Dick steps out of the mess of armour, Kevlar, and spandex that had just a moment ago helped to make him one of the most feared men on the planet.
Tim averts his eyes. It's not like Dick's completely bare--he still has on boxer-briefs and an undershirt--but there's enough skin showing that Tim can feel that old, persistent feeling of 'want' rearing it's head again. Before the mess with Bruce's 'death' he had actually gotten used to this crush-thing. He'd had time, after all it had been around in some form or another since he was four. For some reason, though, due to animosity or distance, Tim's carefully built up defences towards Dick are offline.
"Right." Tim curses the fact that, even after all the crap he's been through in his life, blushing still came incredibly easy to him. "Batman needs a cape. Just like he needs a Robin."
"Hmm. Not always," Dick says.
Tim looks back at him sharply. Those two words were loaded with... something. Dick looks calm, though, if not the tiniest bit calculating.
"Do you know why I let Damian be my Robin?" Dick asks.
"No." And Tim doesn't know if he wants to.
Dick smiles. "Because he's Batman's genetically engineered, assassin raised, offspring. He was like a condensed, sociopathic version of Bruce at his worst, and he needed me." He pauses for a moment. "Just like his dad used to."
Oh. Tim's not stupid. He gets where Dick is going--he was Bruce's Robin too. He's just not sure if he's up to dealing with it at the moment.
"It's not that Batman needs a Robin," Dick says, "it's that Bruce needed one. He needed some kind of good, light influence in his life. And so does his son. Damian needed me."
"I needed you." Tim blinks. That was not supposed to slip out.
Dick laughs. It's far from mean, though. "When? In Europe, following up on your leads, or when you were infiltrating the League of Assassins, or when you were out-maneuvering Ra's al Ghul?"
"I needed you to catch me," Tim says quickly.
"Yeah, and I did. After you finished a con on one of the most dangerous men in the world. You're your own man, Tim. You have been for a while."
Tim feels something dangerous start to unfurl in his chest. The last thing he wants is to break down in tears in the freaking Batbunker, but he has to get this out. "I needed you to believe in me." He's surprised at the strength in his voice.
Dick drops his head, his eyes focusing somewhere around Tim's feet. "No, you didn't," Dick says. He lifts his eyes again and the intensity of that shocking blue gaze stops any and all of Tim's protests. "You wanted me."
Tim's throat dries up, and his heart clenches.
"You wanted me to believe in you," Dick continues, "but when I didn't, and you will never know how sorry I am about that, you struck out on your own, without me. Without anyone. That's another reason against you being Robin, you know?" He smiles to take any lingering sting out of the words. "You're strong, and determined, and right, ninety-nine percent of the time." Dick reaches out and hooks a hand behind Tim's neck. It's warm, and solid, and Tim valiantly resists the urge to arch into it. "You're not a sidekick anymore, Tim. You're my equal."
Tim's breath hitches. He's had rather nice dreams that start like this. Only... "You didn't want me to be Red Robin."
"Yeah, about that..." It's Dick's turn to blush. Tim watches, entranced, as his cheeks go rosy. "I was going to ask if you wanted to be Nightwing."
Tim opens his mouth, but for the life of him he can't think how to respond to that. Nightwing was Dick's legacy, and he was going to hand it over?
"It's okay, though," Dick says softly, pulling Tim closer, like he's getting ready to impart some great secret, "not everyone has the ass for that costume."
"Hey!" Tim shoves at Dick. They're both laughing, and Dick's eyes are bright and sparking. Something settles inside of Tim and slots back into place. He's home. No matter what happened, or what he's wearing, or what he's calling himself, he's home.
There's an annoyed snort from their right, and both Tim and Dick look over. Damian's standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and his customary smug expression on his face. "I'm only going to say this once," he says, "and it pains me that this needs to be addressed at all. There will, under no circumstances, be any sexual activities in the communal rooms."
Tim somehow finds himself standing five feet away from Dick and he's not sure how it happened. Dick's still got the hand that had rested so comfortably on Tim's neck raised and curled, but there's a bemused look on his face.
Damian makes a scoffing sound. "Don't tell me you two are still dancing around each other. Grow a pair, why don't you."
Dick claps his hands together. "New rule! You can only say 'grow a pair' if yours have already dropped."
Tim tenses, expecting another war of words, but Damian simply tips his head in Tim's direction and says, "Your taste in all things is appalling, but I wish you luck, Drake. Perhaps if you keep him occupied I'll no longer be subjected to his inane drivel." He stalks off towards the elevator.
"Love you too, pipsqueak!" Dick calls out only to receive a very rude hand gesture in response. He chuckles, and says to Tim, "see, I told you he'd gotten better."
Tim's more than a little bit horrified at what just happened. "I-I didn't... I mean I never... I mean--"
"Tim." Dick's back in his space, and his hand is back on Tim's neck. "Chill." Dick considers him carefully while his thumb makes maddeningly soft brushes over Tim's carotid. "I know you can be kind of a complete control freak, but you weren't always careful, and just 'cause I'm pretty, doesn't mean I'm stupid, or unobservant."
Tim thinks his heart's going to beat right out of his skin because Dick couldn't possibly mean what he thinks he-- Tim inhales sharply as Dick angles his head and there's the softest brush of lips against his own.
"I meant what I said," Dick murmurs, "about us being equals now." He gives Tim's neck one final squeeze before releasing him and stepping away. "I know things have changed. Just... think about it, okay?" He still looks tired, but now there's something suspiciously like hope there too.
Tim's pretty sure that Dick's hips are swaying a little more than normal as he walks to the showers, not that he's looking, or anything... For one glorious second Tim thinks about joining Dick, about warm, soapy, wet skin. Instead he retreats back to the computer to close out the programs he was working on. He needs time to process things, and think about stuff, and make lists of the pros and cons, and generally freak out in a completely anal retentive way.
Or he could just bypass all that and wait for Dick in his bedroom.
Yeah, Tim thinks as exits the computer and does a few sniff tests on himself, he's glad to be home.
end.
Author: Saone77
Summary: Tim and Dick have a long overdue conversation. pre-slash.
Fandom: Comics
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2050
Spoilers: Red Robin 12-13
A/N: I've been sort of off most of the Batbooks for a while, so I imagine there's some cannon and continuity issues. Not beta'd, so Grammarians beware. Slight Damian bashing, 'cause I may love the kid, but Tim has issues.
It's weird, being back in Gotham, but Tim is nothing if not adaptable. It might take a bit longer this time, but he knows that, eventually, he'll get over that shock of cold anger he feels every time he sees Bruce's demon spawn in Robin colors. Tim's older, and definitely wiser, and he knows to hold his tongue because he's missed Dick, and Alfred, and Steph, and Babs, and he's not going to do anything to ruin the tentative peace he's found with them.
No matter how much he wants to bash the brat's face in.
And sometimes he really, really, really wants to bash his face in.
Like now.
Damian and Dick are going at it. Again. Tim's not sure what precipitated it this time--Damian's so touchy Dick could have simply breathed wrong--but what had been a simple argument quickly devolved into barely controlled shouting, most of which was coming from Damian. They both still have their suits on, having just come in from patrol, and Tim can't quite wrap his head around the wrongness of seeing 'Robin' telling 'Batman' to do highly illegal things to a camel.
Raised voices echo around the bunker, and Tim knows he could slip out without drawing fire, but he can't seem to move from his place by the computer.
Damian hurls some truly creative insult at Dick before spinning on his heel and storming out of the room towards the showers. He's ten, so it looks absolutely ridiculous, but the tension in Dick's frame keeps Tim from laughing.
Tim has never hated Dick, but he had spent a good portion of his European tour pissed as hell at the former Nightwing. Angry that Dick hadn't believed him about Bruce being alive, angry that he had picked Talia's horrible little experiment over Tim, just... angry. He stopped being mad a while ago. Now he just wants back what he lost.
"Hey," Tim says, "kid does like his dramatic exits, huh?" He watches as Dick relaxes for just a moment, before he tenses again.
"And having the last word. He's gotten better, if you can believe that," Dick says with a wan smile as he peels off the cowl. Tim notices new lines on his face, mainly around his eyes. He looks tired.
"Actually, I can," Tim says. "He hasn't tried to kill me once since I got back."
Dick laughs, and his face immediately lightens and looses about ten years. "Yeah, curbing those homicidal tendencies was the first thing on my list."
"A list, huh? How to Turn the Batman's Genetically Engineered, Assassin Raised, Offspring into a Real Boy? Do you use gold stars for each section he completes." The bitterness just kind of slips out, and Tim watches Dick's expression go from tentative happiness to wary and shuttered. He kind of wants to kick himself. "That's not... I didn't mean that."
Dick snorts at that. "Of course you meant it. You can't stand Damien, and you probably have little love left for me. It's understandable. I was a shit."
Tim shakes his head. No matter how true that might have been, he never, never wanted to hear those words come out of Dick's mouth, especially not in such a defeatist tone. "No, you were-"
"A shit." Dick says firmly. "I not only took you for granted, I refused to believe you. To trust you. I should have. I mean, you're Tim."
Tim feels his throat tighten at the amount of love Dick infuses into his name. Tim. Like he hung the stars or something. He went so long without hearing any kind of endearments that the sheer amount of affection that Dick can so easily bestow on him is almost staggering. And suddenly he's back to being thirteen, blushing and stammering at the attentions of his boyhood hero. "Yeah," Tim clears his throat, "well, I wasn't exactly innocent. I acted like a major jerk to people I really cared about." He had mostly cleared the air with Steph, but he was still working up the courage to call Cassie.
Dick nods. "Do you think," he ducks his head, almost bashfully, "do you think we could put all that behind us, and just move on?"
"I want to," Tim says, "but I'm not gonna promise that I won't occasionally slip up. Especially where Demon Seed is involved."
Dick smiles ruefully. "I guess that's all I can ask," he says. He starts to extract himself from the suit. "Can't wait to hang this thing up. I still sometimes have trouble with the cape."
Tim doesn't know if Dick means 'hang it up' for the night, or for good when they get Bruce back. He doesn't ask. "You didn't have to keep it. There's no law that said Batman had to have a cape."
"No written law," Dick says, "but Gothamites are set in their ways. In order to convince everybody that the real Batman was back, I had to look like the real Batman, heavy, restricting cape and all." Dick steps out of the mess of armour, Kevlar, and spandex that had just a moment ago helped to make him one of the most feared men on the planet.
Tim averts his eyes. It's not like Dick's completely bare--he still has on boxer-briefs and an undershirt--but there's enough skin showing that Tim can feel that old, persistent feeling of 'want' rearing it's head again. Before the mess with Bruce's 'death' he had actually gotten used to this crush-thing. He'd had time, after all it had been around in some form or another since he was four. For some reason, though, due to animosity or distance, Tim's carefully built up defences towards Dick are offline.
"Right." Tim curses the fact that, even after all the crap he's been through in his life, blushing still came incredibly easy to him. "Batman needs a cape. Just like he needs a Robin."
"Hmm. Not always," Dick says.
Tim looks back at him sharply. Those two words were loaded with... something. Dick looks calm, though, if not the tiniest bit calculating.
"Do you know why I let Damian be my Robin?" Dick asks.
"No." And Tim doesn't know if he wants to.
Dick smiles. "Because he's Batman's genetically engineered, assassin raised, offspring. He was like a condensed, sociopathic version of Bruce at his worst, and he needed me." He pauses for a moment. "Just like his dad used to."
Oh. Tim's not stupid. He gets where Dick is going--he was Bruce's Robin too. He's just not sure if he's up to dealing with it at the moment.
"It's not that Batman needs a Robin," Dick says, "it's that Bruce needed one. He needed some kind of good, light influence in his life. And so does his son. Damian needed me."
"I needed you." Tim blinks. That was not supposed to slip out.
Dick laughs. It's far from mean, though. "When? In Europe, following up on your leads, or when you were infiltrating the League of Assassins, or when you were out-maneuvering Ra's al Ghul?"
"I needed you to catch me," Tim says quickly.
"Yeah, and I did. After you finished a con on one of the most dangerous men in the world. You're your own man, Tim. You have been for a while."
Tim feels something dangerous start to unfurl in his chest. The last thing he wants is to break down in tears in the freaking Batbunker, but he has to get this out. "I needed you to believe in me." He's surprised at the strength in his voice.
Dick drops his head, his eyes focusing somewhere around Tim's feet. "No, you didn't," Dick says. He lifts his eyes again and the intensity of that shocking blue gaze stops any and all of Tim's protests. "You wanted me."
Tim's throat dries up, and his heart clenches.
"You wanted me to believe in you," Dick continues, "but when I didn't, and you will never know how sorry I am about that, you struck out on your own, without me. Without anyone. That's another reason against you being Robin, you know?" He smiles to take any lingering sting out of the words. "You're strong, and determined, and right, ninety-nine percent of the time." Dick reaches out and hooks a hand behind Tim's neck. It's warm, and solid, and Tim valiantly resists the urge to arch into it. "You're not a sidekick anymore, Tim. You're my equal."
Tim's breath hitches. He's had rather nice dreams that start like this. Only... "You didn't want me to be Red Robin."
"Yeah, about that..." It's Dick's turn to blush. Tim watches, entranced, as his cheeks go rosy. "I was going to ask if you wanted to be Nightwing."
Tim opens his mouth, but for the life of him he can't think how to respond to that. Nightwing was Dick's legacy, and he was going to hand it over?
"It's okay, though," Dick says softly, pulling Tim closer, like he's getting ready to impart some great secret, "not everyone has the ass for that costume."
"Hey!" Tim shoves at Dick. They're both laughing, and Dick's eyes are bright and sparking. Something settles inside of Tim and slots back into place. He's home. No matter what happened, or what he's wearing, or what he's calling himself, he's home.
There's an annoyed snort from their right, and both Tim and Dick look over. Damian's standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and his customary smug expression on his face. "I'm only going to say this once," he says, "and it pains me that this needs to be addressed at all. There will, under no circumstances, be any sexual activities in the communal rooms."
Tim somehow finds himself standing five feet away from Dick and he's not sure how it happened. Dick's still got the hand that had rested so comfortably on Tim's neck raised and curled, but there's a bemused look on his face.
Damian makes a scoffing sound. "Don't tell me you two are still dancing around each other. Grow a pair, why don't you."
Dick claps his hands together. "New rule! You can only say 'grow a pair' if yours have already dropped."
Tim tenses, expecting another war of words, but Damian simply tips his head in Tim's direction and says, "Your taste in all things is appalling, but I wish you luck, Drake. Perhaps if you keep him occupied I'll no longer be subjected to his inane drivel." He stalks off towards the elevator.
"Love you too, pipsqueak!" Dick calls out only to receive a very rude hand gesture in response. He chuckles, and says to Tim, "see, I told you he'd gotten better."
Tim's more than a little bit horrified at what just happened. "I-I didn't... I mean I never... I mean--"
"Tim." Dick's back in his space, and his hand is back on Tim's neck. "Chill." Dick considers him carefully while his thumb makes maddeningly soft brushes over Tim's carotid. "I know you can be kind of a complete control freak, but you weren't always careful, and just 'cause I'm pretty, doesn't mean I'm stupid, or unobservant."
Tim thinks his heart's going to beat right out of his skin because Dick couldn't possibly mean what he thinks he-- Tim inhales sharply as Dick angles his head and there's the softest brush of lips against his own.
"I meant what I said," Dick murmurs, "about us being equals now." He gives Tim's neck one final squeeze before releasing him and stepping away. "I know things have changed. Just... think about it, okay?" He still looks tired, but now there's something suspiciously like hope there too.
Tim's pretty sure that Dick's hips are swaying a little more than normal as he walks to the showers, not that he's looking, or anything... For one glorious second Tim thinks about joining Dick, about warm, soapy, wet skin. Instead he retreats back to the computer to close out the programs he was working on. He needs time to process things, and think about stuff, and make lists of the pros and cons, and generally freak out in a completely anal retentive way.
Or he could just bypass all that and wait for Dick in his bedroom.
Yeah, Tim thinks as exits the computer and does a few sniff tests on himself, he's glad to be home.
end.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-13 04:45 am (UTC)"Because he's Batman's genetically engineered, assassin raised, offspring. He was like a condensed, sociopathic version of Bruce at his worst, and he needed me." He pauses for a moment. "Just like his dad used to."
The fact that Dick realizes just how much Damien needs him. Actually Damien needs his mouth washed out w/ soap and a firm tanning of his neither hide...but that's just my old fashioned-old world take on child-rearing speaking here LOL.
Thank you for sharing this fic, it leaves one imagining what Tim has planned for their evening (loved the sniff test of himself ;P)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-13 08:39 pm (UTC)The fact that Dick realizes just how much Damien needs him.
If there's one person in the Batfamily that could get through to Damian, it would be Dick. I think even Alfred would have had trouble cracking that nut alone. But, Dick, helping Damian realize his humanity, the same way he helped Bruce regain his, is kind of fitting, you know?
it leaves one imagining what Tim has planned for their evening (loved the sniff test of himself ;P
Hee. As long as Timmy doesn't bring out any graphs or flow charts I think it'll be all good. ;D