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thejusticelounge2013-02-08 10:16 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-02-08 10:16 am
Entry tags:
safe 'haven
It had been a while since Ollie’d visited the ‘Haven (visited it properly, not been dragged there by the Eden Corps, that is). Last time he’d been through here it was with Bruce, the two of them hot on the trail of a white slaver (back when you still said “white slaver” like it made it worse) who’d led them on a not-very-merry chase along the Eastern Seaboard. That Bludhaven had been a growling, snapping, rabid dog of a city that Ollie’d been glad to get away from before it gnawed through his ankle.
The new ‘Haven was more like … a dog that was suspicious of you, but mostly went about its own business. Sniffing hydrants and scratching its ear and burying bones and maaaaaybe this metaphor had taken a wrong turn. Ollie shook it out of his head and went into the little shawarma place he was meeting Dick at, the bell on the door making him more cheery. He ordered a glass of mint tea as he sat down to wait, facing the window.
One good thing about Bludhaven was that his broken nose didn’t get looked at twice.
From Dick's apartment, there were two ways to get anywhere: the safe route or the death route. The safe route went by the police station, went through some of the shiny new built-up areas with their 24-hour security, and had all the bright streetlights after dark. It always added at least fifteen minutes extra to the commute, but it was the “nice” Bludhaven. The second route saved time, but went through some of the worst areas in the ‘Haven, an area no one went through with their wallet and kept it.
So, of course, Dick took the second route.
Three failed muggings, four break-ins, and an assault later, Dick finally made it to the restaurant. He smiled apologetically as he slipped into his seat across from Ollie. ”Sorry I’m a little late. I got caught up.”
“Ohhhh, I can imagine what you got caught on, kiddo.” Ollie glanced at the barked knuckles on Dick’s left hand then up at him, grinning. “At least your day job makes all the gory bodily decorations a little more likely — with my job? I swear, half the company thinks I’m part of some underground fight club exclusive to the uber-wealthy.”
Ollie laughed. “Not that you’re a complete stranger to that particular balancing act, between the business world and our side jobs. But the corporate life never seemed to be your thing, really. Not the way it’s Bruce’s. And hell, even he doesn’t care for it much.” College life hadn’t seemed much of a fit for Dick either, as far as Ollie remembered it; too busy concentrating on Robin, too much time pulled away from getting a foothold in campus life. At least the cop job seemed to settle more easily on his shoulders than anything before had.
“What’re you up to for the holidays, anyhow?” Ollie asked, folding his menu. He already knew what he wanted. “Doing another pan-Bat get together, like at Thanksgiving?”
Dick’s smile thinned at the mention of his job, but he buried his face in the menu to mask it. He brightened a little when the owner came by to take their orders, joking with her to bring himself back up to normal. Once she left, he relaxed back in his seat, smiling as brightly as though nothing had happened.
“I’m not sure. Christmas dinner will be at the Manor, for sure. Alfred would drag me there if I didn’t show. I might try to do Christmas Eve there, too. Keep Damian company while Bruce does his yearly solo ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ thing. Nothing really big this year.”
One of the older boys came by with Dick’s drink and a plate of pickles for them. Dick asked him about school and gave him a five dollar bill as a present. ”Just don’t tell your mom,” he whispered conspiratorially, “or she’ll say I’m spoiling you!” He laughed as the boy scampered away, turning back to Ollie and grabbing a pickle.
“I did have different plans before, but… Well, sorta plans, but….” He looked up at Ollie, his eyes betraying his smile. ”Well, you know.” He munched on his pickle a moment and shook his head. ”But what about yours? What’re you planning with the ol’ Arrow-clan?”
“Kiddo, that Dark Night of the Soul’s been stretched out to months. Years, even.” Ollie snorted fondly, spearing a pickle with his fork and eating half of it in one bite. “To be honest, I’ve never been that much into Christmas. One of those things, right? Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and any observance that has to do with your parents: really, *really* emotionally volatile times for the cape’n’cowl set.”
He trailed off as a teenaged girl — obviously also part of the family, as she and the boy had the same curly smile — came to take their order. Dick chatted with her as well and Ollie watched, amused, as the girl instantly went into eyelash-batting, slightly-swaying mode. It never failed, even when Dick didn’t seem aware of it and certainly wasn’t *trying* to be flirty, not with a bobby-soxer.
After eventually procuring Dick’s order as well, the girl went off to the kitchen and Ollie picked up where he’d left off. “Rose is staying with us permanently now, which is nice — it’s good for Mia to have siblings around, with Connor off travelling and Roy … absent. And Kate’ll be with us, of course, and I think Hal and Kyle for a while? They’ve been cagy. But it’s easier being cheerful about the holidays if you’re all together, so I hope they do come.”
He sipped his tea and didn’t bring up Guy. They hadn’t eaten yet, and it would be a shame to ruin Dick’s appetite and kibosh an otherwise pleasant conversation. Maybe Dick would broach the topic himself; Ollie intended to give him every opportunity to, if he wanted.
Dick nodded, swirling his chocolate tea in thought. ”That’ll be nice though,” he said to his tea. ”Having the family around. I actually don’t know who all will show up for ours. I mean, Bruce didn’t come to the Thanksgiving dinner because he was ‘warned’ about it, even though I was only asking him if Guy could come since he’s part—”
He broke off and played with the flowers at the back of the table, rearranging them as he collected his thoughts. That was still too raw, too heart-shattering to talk about right now. Maybe later. Maybe sometime.
“I, uh… I’m not working anymore,” he blurted out, still playing with the flowers. ”I’m on suspension for, uh, ‘health reasons’.”
That was startling news. Ollie considered it as Dick plucked at the dried hydrangeas, spinning them in their little glass vases until they looked slightly more frazzled but also more artistic. Sitting back, Ollie clasped his hands casually on the table.
“Makes sense,” he said. “With everything you’ve been through this year, it’s bound to take a toll. Not to mention the fact that you do double- and almost triple-duty when it comes to crimefighting, given your particular, ah, family work ethic.” The hydrangeas were all bobbling forward now, and Dick was concentrating on them in that way where his face was almost totally blank; Ollie couldn’t get much of a bead on what he was feeling at the moment. Maybe just trying *not* to feel anything.
“You could use the rest,” Ollie said, a little more forcefully. “No shame in admitting when you’re too wrung-out to do your job effectively. Happens to all of us.”
“Not to me. I should be better than this.” Dick briefly considered that this might be coming from some eternal drive Bruce instilled in him during their ten years together, but ignored it. It didn’t matter where thoughts like that came from, they were still true. He should be better. He’d let himself take things too easy.
“Maybe it will be for the best,” he said, still shifting the hydrangeas. ”I can refocus on being Nightwing again. I won’t have any distractions this time. It’s not like I need to work anyway.”
Their food arrived at that moment with an extra dish of hummus and pita bread, courtesy of the eyelash-batting waitress, and Ollie put liberal amounts of hot sauce all over his chicken shawarma before adorning it with tabbouleh. “I forgot,” he said dryly. “You grew up in a household that’s never heard of a little thing called ‘work/life balance’. No, it’s all ‘vigilance at every moment’ for you lot.” Ollie tilted his head and smiled a bit to take any sting out of the comment. It wasn’t that he didn’t admire that work ethic and dedication sometimes, but he’d seen how it could deplete the Bats as much as it drove and bolstered them.
“I’m not saying you should let yourself go and wallow in misery,” Ollie clarified. “Far from it. And it’s true that you don’t need the money. But you know, Dick, *you* know that it’s the, uh, ‘distractions’ that make what we do worth it. Being a cop and working on shutting down crime from both sides makes you feel like you’re really *doing* something, getting results, and from what I’ve seen of the ‘Haven today, I’d say you’re making headway nobody thought possible.”
Ollie paused for a moment to dab at his nose with his handkerchief. The pepper was good, but he didn’t want to start his nose bleeding again or anything. Slowing down his chewing, he added, “I do think you’re at your best when you’ve got room to move and you take responsibility for yourself. But at the same time, I know you’re …” Ollie dithered for a moment. “Well, this situation with Guy. It’s thrown you for a helluva loop. What I’m saying is I would rather see you focus on work as a way to re-centre *yourself*, remind yourself how strong and capable you are. You Dick Grayson, not you ‘Guy’s boyfriend’.”
He held his breath then, a worried pucker between his eyebrows as he waited to see how Dick would take that. At least he knew Dick wasn’t gonna punch him right here in the restaurant.
Dick stared at his food, his whole body tensing. He knew what he had to say, but god, he didn’t wan to say it. If he said it, it would really be true. Even though his appetite was almost completely gone, he forced himself to take a few bites. If nothing else, it gave him something to do.
“I’m not, anymore,” he said, barely above a whisper. ”We’re not. Guy and I… He doesn’t… He’s not attracted to me, he doesn’t feel what—” Dick broke off and covered his face, trying not to cry again. He’d been doing a lot of holding back tears lately, and it was starting to affect him more than he’d thought it would.
He looked out the window, staring at the greying Bludhaven sky. The weather was turning again. If this was a cheesy romantic movie, there should be an adorable couple walking by all huddled together from the cold, warm in each other’s love. Movie-couple didn’t walk by, so Dick looked back at his food, sniffing hard. ”We’re not together anymore.”
Christ.
Ollie put down his fork. “This is temporary, you know,” he said. “The amnesia, the personality shift — none of it is gonna last. It might take a few months, but this isn’t going to be Guy forever.” He tapped the table to get Dick’s attention again, pull him away from the all-too-prosaic dove grey doldrums outside.
“I know it’s shitty for you right now. You got every reason to feel terrible, and robbed, and miserable, and angry, and whatever else is going on inside there. But you gotta power through it, Dick.” Ollie nudged Dick’s shoe with his own. “Whatever it is that caused Guy to fall in love with you, it’s still *there* inside him. You of all people should know this kinda thing isn’t some switch that gets flipped on at some point! Even *if* — and that’s a big if — even if Guy doesn’t get his memories back per se, there’s still the very strong chance that getting to know you again will spark those feelings inside him. He had them once, he can have them again.”
Dick just looked at Ollie, his face twitching as he tried to keep his expression neutral. Of course it was temporary. Of course everything would be fine. He’d been telling himself that since Guy woke up, but none of it was any comfort now. Ollie hadn’t seen it. Ollie hadn’t been there. Ollie hadn’t had his heart all but ripped out of him.
“He’s not going to try. He has no reason to. All of us… it’s not there anymore. He doesn’t want me and hearing about us or seeing things about us isn’t going to change the fact that he doesn’t feel anything toward me.” He leaned heavily on the table, resting his head in his hands. His head hurt—everything hurt—and he just wanted it all to stop.
“Even if he does,” he said, not looking up, “who’s to say he won’t have found somebody else? He might not even want me anymore. He’ll find someone better for him, someone who can give him what he wants.” He shook his head slightly. ”It won’t be me….”
“Dick.” Ollie rubbed his eye, considering what he was about to say. Had he been this dramatic when he’d been at the century midpoint of his years? Probably. More cussing, though.
Leaning forward to lightly smooth one of Dick’s curls before deciding the kid probably wasn’t in the mood to be touched, Ollie folded his hands together on the table. “You can’t project what’s gonna happen. None of us have any *idea* what’s gonna happen. He could remember everything tomorrow. He could bump his head under a table three weeks from now and it’ll all come flooding back. He could get some kind of Green Lantern jolt that fixes it all. You can’t start inventing perfect prospective lovers for him! What is this? You were never the kind to give up so completely!”
Ollie drained off the rest of his tea to fortify himself, then turned his attention back to Dick’s drooping form. He felt bad for Dick, of course he did, but the things he was saying — so hopeless, so wretched! It was sad but also alarming. And since he was certain that Dick had enough people who would give him the soothing and coddling that he deserved, maybe it was Ollie’s task to push him a bit. Just a bit.
“I’m not saying try to jog his memory by showing him photos or telling him about things that happened,” he said. “All that — you’re right, it’s as if it never existed and it won’t make him feel anything. What I’m saying is that you, Dick Grayson, *you* are a force to be reckoned with if you put your mind to having a relationship with somebody. No matter what the parameters of that relationship are. If you want him, all you have to do is *get* him. Sure, it’ll take some time and some doing, but it’s not impossible, not by a long shot.”
Dick took some measured breaths, pushing down the feelings that were threatening to boil up. It was strange. For as second-nature as telling people he was fine when he wasn’t was, keeping back strong emotions like this was almost overwhelming. He tried to focus on what Ollie was saying, the meaning of his words, not just the sounds that all blurred together.
He knew what Ollie was trying to do; he was trying to help in the way he thought best. Dick was falling, and no amount of comfort and advice shouted to him was going to catch him. Without a tether, he was lost.
He forced himself to look at Ollie, giving him a small smile. ”You’re right. It’ll be all right. It’ll all be fine. Everything will work out, right?”
“Oh. Oh, come on, birdling — I haven’t done anything to deserve *that*, have I? The ol’ smile-and-pretend-you-agree-so-they’ll-leave-you-alone routine?” Ollie couldn’t help himself by this point; he reached across and took Dick’s hands, holding them by the wrist so they were palm-up on the tabletop. “I know you feel rootless right now. Unmoored. I know the feeling. Not the exact situation, of course, but believe me, I know the feeling.” He pressed his thumbs into the insides of Dick’s wrists, rubbing along the tendons, feeling his disconsolate pulse.
“But you need to get yourself together, Dick. You can’t just float off wherever the winds are gonna buffet you. There’s more to you than that, come onnnnn.” Ollie could hear himself wheedling, ducking his head to try and get Dick to look directly at him. “You’re walking wounded, we can all see it, even when you remember to put up the pretense. You haven’t been doing as good a job of that as you might think, honey.”
Sighing, Ollie moved the pressure from his thumbs up onto the fleshy parts of Dick’s palms. “I know what I’m saying doesn’t sound like it’s much different from the little show you just gave me, the ‘it’ll all turn out for the best’. The principle difference is that I *mean* it. I mean that if you find some way to focus, aim towards a goal, throw yourself into that, *then* it’ll turn out. I don’t mean that you should sink into depression and vainly wish for it to happen. That’s not —” Ollie shook his head, suddenly frustrated on top of everything else, “—that’s no way to get anything accomplished or improved, don’t you see?”
Okay, so maybe his current frustrations in his *own* relationship with Hal were colouring that particular piece of advice. But it was good advice, dammit, for *anyone*.
Hide it better. That’s how Ollie’s words rang in his head. You’re not doing good enough, they said, a little rougher and deeper than Ollie usually sounded. You should be better than this.
Dick shook his head slightly and squeezed Ollie’s hands. ”I need to get away from it. There’s nowhere I can go where I don’t think of it, not around familiar places.”
He rubbed Ollie’s hands, humming in thought. ”Do you remember when we’d talked about what would happen if I just let go? Didn’t worry about anything, just went out and did whatever I wanted, acted the brainless playboy, whatever? Maybe I should do that now. Get away from it all. It’s not like I have someone to disappoint right now.”
“If I thought that was what you *really* wanted, I’d say yeah, go for it, go wild. Spend shitloads of money and fill hot tubs with champagne and be attended by a carousel of attractive playmates. But the only way that lifestyle is worth anything is if you have fun doing it, Dick.” Ollie narrowed his eyes a fraction, taking in the suddenly drawn expression on the young man’s face. “And don’t you dare think of running off somewhere. That never works, you know it doesn’t. We learned that from Roy enough times.”
At least Dick was accepting his touch, though — that could be a positive sign? Ollie decided to take it as one, skritching the inside of Dick’s forearm gently. “Doing the playboy act can be great if you’re in the mood for it, if it’s things you enjoy,” Ollie said. “I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t fun, even in the midst of my being the most useless person on the planet. But if you’re contemplating it because you don’t know what else to do? Because you feel you might as well make yourself feel even more terrible and you think nobody cares enough to be disappointed in you? Well, I know a little island in the South Pacific where I might as well shipwreck you immediately, save you the trouble of all the preliminaries.”
Ollie took Dick’s hands in his, squeezing them. “If you truly think blowing off some steam by dropping into the wild playboy mode will do you good, then do it, Dick,” he said earnestly. “Don’t do it as a way to punish yourself even more. And DON’T run away, for fucksake, because it’ll just get everybody annoyed. Me especially.”
“I won’t run away,” Dick promised, wiggling his hands in Ollie’s. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. ”Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just focus on other work. If I can’t do anything else, I might as well make myself useful. Besides, I haven’t been focused enough on it. I’ve been distracted with—”
He caught a glimpse of red hair and a large build out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away from Ollie sharply to look out the window. There was no one, no one who could have been mistaken for Guy at any rate. It was hysterical, really, thinking that Guy would have suddenly remembered him and rushed to find him, tracking him down where he was instead of just calling his place or something normal.
He turned back to Ollie, shaking his head. ”Or maybe I just need to sleep for a few days. Just shut myself up and sleep.”
“Ordinarily I would say yes to sleep, since you nocturnal Batlings don’t do enough of it,” Ollie said. “But in this case, no. You’re depressed and withdrawing from everything and everyone. Sleep’ll only act as a soporific, make your body at rest tend to stay at rest. You need to find something to do that’ll really keep you occupied and active.”
He considered for a moment. Dick was so scattered, jumping at figments of his scrabbling imagination. “I’m hesitant to start making concrete suggestions about how to use your time, Dick, what exactly might be good to focus on,” Ollie ventured, “but if you think you’re gonna have a hard time settling on something, I can find work for you. I can find it easy. Anything you want. Testing the limits of a high-security system, teaching corporate officeworkers how to skydive, performing in a charity high-wire act, hell — if you want something hard enough to keep you from moping but mindless enough that you don’t have to expend too much brainpower, I can fix you up something like that too. Just let me know what you need, kiddo.”
Ollie had no idea if Dick would actually take him up on this, but even if he didn’t, maybe it would help Dick figure out what he *didn’t* want to do. Already just in the course of this conversation he’d burned through the ideas of focusing totally on vigilante work, on running away, on doing the playboy thing, on losing himself in sleep — if one thing was clear, it was how much at the mercy of his emotional tides Dick was at the moment. “Let me help you,” Ollie blurted suddenly, urgently, unable to keep it back anymore. His broken nose throbbed and he realized just how tightly he’d been clenching his jaw, holding it in.
Dick twitched slightly, actually taken aback at how forceful that came out. He looked around, not quite sure how to respond. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how much help he really wanted. That might just make it all worse.
“There’s nothing to help,” he said. ”I just need to figure it out for myself. That’s what you said, isn’t it? I need to recenter myself. I’m the only person who can do that.” He looked up at Ollie, smiling sadly. ”Thank you, though. It means a lot to me that you offer, really it does.”
“Okay,” Ollie said, as neutrally as he could. He smiled back at Dick, adding, “It’s true that you need to get back to you, as they say, and no matter how much I would like to, I can’t do it for you. But at the same time — no shame in asking for help if you need it, all right? You’re not alone without Guy. You’re … you’re not nothing without him.”
Their remaining food had been packed up a while ago, and the teenaged girl approached cautiously with a plate of delicate nougat in edible rice paper. “Those look great,” Ollie said encouragingly, and she smiled and dipped forward far enough to deposit the plate on their table, refill their drinks, and retreat behind the counter again.
“There, let’s end this on a nice note,” Ollie said, picking up a piece of candy and pushing the plate towards Dick. “Can’t stay sad about much if you’re eating nougat, I always say.” He bit into it and hummed in appreciation, noting, “Of course, I always used to make a spectacle of myself trying to peel off this rice paper before eating ‘em, but that’s what embarrassed friends are there to stop you from doing, right?”
Dick chuckled, the first genuine smile of the day spreading across his face. ”Or they’re there to film you and never let you live it down. One of the two.” He nibbled on the candy, finally feeling a certain level of calm again. It wasn’t the calm he was used to, but it was a welcome, if temporary, respite.
“Thanks for asking me to lunch, Ollie. I’ll be all right, I promise. As soon as I think I need help, I’ll call for it, don’t worry.” He smiled again, a little brighter. ”Thank you.”
The mask was firmly in place.
The new ‘Haven was more like … a dog that was suspicious of you, but mostly went about its own business. Sniffing hydrants and scratching its ear and burying bones and maaaaaybe this metaphor had taken a wrong turn. Ollie shook it out of his head and went into the little shawarma place he was meeting Dick at, the bell on the door making him more cheery. He ordered a glass of mint tea as he sat down to wait, facing the window.
One good thing about Bludhaven was that his broken nose didn’t get looked at twice.
From Dick's apartment, there were two ways to get anywhere: the safe route or the death route. The safe route went by the police station, went through some of the shiny new built-up areas with their 24-hour security, and had all the bright streetlights after dark. It always added at least fifteen minutes extra to the commute, but it was the “nice” Bludhaven. The second route saved time, but went through some of the worst areas in the ‘Haven, an area no one went through with their wallet and kept it.
So, of course, Dick took the second route.
Three failed muggings, four break-ins, and an assault later, Dick finally made it to the restaurant. He smiled apologetically as he slipped into his seat across from Ollie. ”Sorry I’m a little late. I got caught up.”
“Ohhhh, I can imagine what you got caught on, kiddo.” Ollie glanced at the barked knuckles on Dick’s left hand then up at him, grinning. “At least your day job makes all the gory bodily decorations a little more likely — with my job? I swear, half the company thinks I’m part of some underground fight club exclusive to the uber-wealthy.”
Ollie laughed. “Not that you’re a complete stranger to that particular balancing act, between the business world and our side jobs. But the corporate life never seemed to be your thing, really. Not the way it’s Bruce’s. And hell, even he doesn’t care for it much.” College life hadn’t seemed much of a fit for Dick either, as far as Ollie remembered it; too busy concentrating on Robin, too much time pulled away from getting a foothold in campus life. At least the cop job seemed to settle more easily on his shoulders than anything before had.
“What’re you up to for the holidays, anyhow?” Ollie asked, folding his menu. He already knew what he wanted. “Doing another pan-Bat get together, like at Thanksgiving?”
Dick’s smile thinned at the mention of his job, but he buried his face in the menu to mask it. He brightened a little when the owner came by to take their orders, joking with her to bring himself back up to normal. Once she left, he relaxed back in his seat, smiling as brightly as though nothing had happened.
“I’m not sure. Christmas dinner will be at the Manor, for sure. Alfred would drag me there if I didn’t show. I might try to do Christmas Eve there, too. Keep Damian company while Bruce does his yearly solo ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ thing. Nothing really big this year.”
One of the older boys came by with Dick’s drink and a plate of pickles for them. Dick asked him about school and gave him a five dollar bill as a present. ”Just don’t tell your mom,” he whispered conspiratorially, “or she’ll say I’m spoiling you!” He laughed as the boy scampered away, turning back to Ollie and grabbing a pickle.
“I did have different plans before, but… Well, sorta plans, but….” He looked up at Ollie, his eyes betraying his smile. ”Well, you know.” He munched on his pickle a moment and shook his head. ”But what about yours? What’re you planning with the ol’ Arrow-clan?”
“Kiddo, that Dark Night of the Soul’s been stretched out to months. Years, even.” Ollie snorted fondly, spearing a pickle with his fork and eating half of it in one bite. “To be honest, I’ve never been that much into Christmas. One of those things, right? Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and any observance that has to do with your parents: really, *really* emotionally volatile times for the cape’n’cowl set.”
He trailed off as a teenaged girl — obviously also part of the family, as she and the boy had the same curly smile — came to take their order. Dick chatted with her as well and Ollie watched, amused, as the girl instantly went into eyelash-batting, slightly-swaying mode. It never failed, even when Dick didn’t seem aware of it and certainly wasn’t *trying* to be flirty, not with a bobby-soxer.
After eventually procuring Dick’s order as well, the girl went off to the kitchen and Ollie picked up where he’d left off. “Rose is staying with us permanently now, which is nice — it’s good for Mia to have siblings around, with Connor off travelling and Roy … absent. And Kate’ll be with us, of course, and I think Hal and Kyle for a while? They’ve been cagy. But it’s easier being cheerful about the holidays if you’re all together, so I hope they do come.”
He sipped his tea and didn’t bring up Guy. They hadn’t eaten yet, and it would be a shame to ruin Dick’s appetite and kibosh an otherwise pleasant conversation. Maybe Dick would broach the topic himself; Ollie intended to give him every opportunity to, if he wanted.
Dick nodded, swirling his chocolate tea in thought. ”That’ll be nice though,” he said to his tea. ”Having the family around. I actually don’t know who all will show up for ours. I mean, Bruce didn’t come to the Thanksgiving dinner because he was ‘warned’ about it, even though I was only asking him if Guy could come since he’s part—”
He broke off and played with the flowers at the back of the table, rearranging them as he collected his thoughts. That was still too raw, too heart-shattering to talk about right now. Maybe later. Maybe sometime.
“I, uh… I’m not working anymore,” he blurted out, still playing with the flowers. ”I’m on suspension for, uh, ‘health reasons’.”
That was startling news. Ollie considered it as Dick plucked at the dried hydrangeas, spinning them in their little glass vases until they looked slightly more frazzled but also more artistic. Sitting back, Ollie clasped his hands casually on the table.
“Makes sense,” he said. “With everything you’ve been through this year, it’s bound to take a toll. Not to mention the fact that you do double- and almost triple-duty when it comes to crimefighting, given your particular, ah, family work ethic.” The hydrangeas were all bobbling forward now, and Dick was concentrating on them in that way where his face was almost totally blank; Ollie couldn’t get much of a bead on what he was feeling at the moment. Maybe just trying *not* to feel anything.
“You could use the rest,” Ollie said, a little more forcefully. “No shame in admitting when you’re too wrung-out to do your job effectively. Happens to all of us.”
“Not to me. I should be better than this.” Dick briefly considered that this might be coming from some eternal drive Bruce instilled in him during their ten years together, but ignored it. It didn’t matter where thoughts like that came from, they were still true. He should be better. He’d let himself take things too easy.
“Maybe it will be for the best,” he said, still shifting the hydrangeas. ”I can refocus on being Nightwing again. I won’t have any distractions this time. It’s not like I need to work anyway.”
Their food arrived at that moment with an extra dish of hummus and pita bread, courtesy of the eyelash-batting waitress, and Ollie put liberal amounts of hot sauce all over his chicken shawarma before adorning it with tabbouleh. “I forgot,” he said dryly. “You grew up in a household that’s never heard of a little thing called ‘work/life balance’. No, it’s all ‘vigilance at every moment’ for you lot.” Ollie tilted his head and smiled a bit to take any sting out of the comment. It wasn’t that he didn’t admire that work ethic and dedication sometimes, but he’d seen how it could deplete the Bats as much as it drove and bolstered them.
“I’m not saying you should let yourself go and wallow in misery,” Ollie clarified. “Far from it. And it’s true that you don’t need the money. But you know, Dick, *you* know that it’s the, uh, ‘distractions’ that make what we do worth it. Being a cop and working on shutting down crime from both sides makes you feel like you’re really *doing* something, getting results, and from what I’ve seen of the ‘Haven today, I’d say you’re making headway nobody thought possible.”
Ollie paused for a moment to dab at his nose with his handkerchief. The pepper was good, but he didn’t want to start his nose bleeding again or anything. Slowing down his chewing, he added, “I do think you’re at your best when you’ve got room to move and you take responsibility for yourself. But at the same time, I know you’re …” Ollie dithered for a moment. “Well, this situation with Guy. It’s thrown you for a helluva loop. What I’m saying is I would rather see you focus on work as a way to re-centre *yourself*, remind yourself how strong and capable you are. You Dick Grayson, not you ‘Guy’s boyfriend’.”
He held his breath then, a worried pucker between his eyebrows as he waited to see how Dick would take that. At least he knew Dick wasn’t gonna punch him right here in the restaurant.
Dick stared at his food, his whole body tensing. He knew what he had to say, but god, he didn’t wan to say it. If he said it, it would really be true. Even though his appetite was almost completely gone, he forced himself to take a few bites. If nothing else, it gave him something to do.
“I’m not, anymore,” he said, barely above a whisper. ”We’re not. Guy and I… He doesn’t… He’s not attracted to me, he doesn’t feel what—” Dick broke off and covered his face, trying not to cry again. He’d been doing a lot of holding back tears lately, and it was starting to affect him more than he’d thought it would.
He looked out the window, staring at the greying Bludhaven sky. The weather was turning again. If this was a cheesy romantic movie, there should be an adorable couple walking by all huddled together from the cold, warm in each other’s love. Movie-couple didn’t walk by, so Dick looked back at his food, sniffing hard. ”We’re not together anymore.”
Christ.
Ollie put down his fork. “This is temporary, you know,” he said. “The amnesia, the personality shift — none of it is gonna last. It might take a few months, but this isn’t going to be Guy forever.” He tapped the table to get Dick’s attention again, pull him away from the all-too-prosaic dove grey doldrums outside.
“I know it’s shitty for you right now. You got every reason to feel terrible, and robbed, and miserable, and angry, and whatever else is going on inside there. But you gotta power through it, Dick.” Ollie nudged Dick’s shoe with his own. “Whatever it is that caused Guy to fall in love with you, it’s still *there* inside him. You of all people should know this kinda thing isn’t some switch that gets flipped on at some point! Even *if* — and that’s a big if — even if Guy doesn’t get his memories back per se, there’s still the very strong chance that getting to know you again will spark those feelings inside him. He had them once, he can have them again.”
Dick just looked at Ollie, his face twitching as he tried to keep his expression neutral. Of course it was temporary. Of course everything would be fine. He’d been telling himself that since Guy woke up, but none of it was any comfort now. Ollie hadn’t seen it. Ollie hadn’t been there. Ollie hadn’t had his heart all but ripped out of him.
“He’s not going to try. He has no reason to. All of us… it’s not there anymore. He doesn’t want me and hearing about us or seeing things about us isn’t going to change the fact that he doesn’t feel anything toward me.” He leaned heavily on the table, resting his head in his hands. His head hurt—everything hurt—and he just wanted it all to stop.
“Even if he does,” he said, not looking up, “who’s to say he won’t have found somebody else? He might not even want me anymore. He’ll find someone better for him, someone who can give him what he wants.” He shook his head slightly. ”It won’t be me….”
“Dick.” Ollie rubbed his eye, considering what he was about to say. Had he been this dramatic when he’d been at the century midpoint of his years? Probably. More cussing, though.
Leaning forward to lightly smooth one of Dick’s curls before deciding the kid probably wasn’t in the mood to be touched, Ollie folded his hands together on the table. “You can’t project what’s gonna happen. None of us have any *idea* what’s gonna happen. He could remember everything tomorrow. He could bump his head under a table three weeks from now and it’ll all come flooding back. He could get some kind of Green Lantern jolt that fixes it all. You can’t start inventing perfect prospective lovers for him! What is this? You were never the kind to give up so completely!”
Ollie drained off the rest of his tea to fortify himself, then turned his attention back to Dick’s drooping form. He felt bad for Dick, of course he did, but the things he was saying — so hopeless, so wretched! It was sad but also alarming. And since he was certain that Dick had enough people who would give him the soothing and coddling that he deserved, maybe it was Ollie’s task to push him a bit. Just a bit.
“I’m not saying try to jog his memory by showing him photos or telling him about things that happened,” he said. “All that — you’re right, it’s as if it never existed and it won’t make him feel anything. What I’m saying is that you, Dick Grayson, *you* are a force to be reckoned with if you put your mind to having a relationship with somebody. No matter what the parameters of that relationship are. If you want him, all you have to do is *get* him. Sure, it’ll take some time and some doing, but it’s not impossible, not by a long shot.”
Dick took some measured breaths, pushing down the feelings that were threatening to boil up. It was strange. For as second-nature as telling people he was fine when he wasn’t was, keeping back strong emotions like this was almost overwhelming. He tried to focus on what Ollie was saying, the meaning of his words, not just the sounds that all blurred together.
He knew what Ollie was trying to do; he was trying to help in the way he thought best. Dick was falling, and no amount of comfort and advice shouted to him was going to catch him. Without a tether, he was lost.
He forced himself to look at Ollie, giving him a small smile. ”You’re right. It’ll be all right. It’ll all be fine. Everything will work out, right?”
“Oh. Oh, come on, birdling — I haven’t done anything to deserve *that*, have I? The ol’ smile-and-pretend-you-agree-so-they’ll-leave-you-alone routine?” Ollie couldn’t help himself by this point; he reached across and took Dick’s hands, holding them by the wrist so they were palm-up on the tabletop. “I know you feel rootless right now. Unmoored. I know the feeling. Not the exact situation, of course, but believe me, I know the feeling.” He pressed his thumbs into the insides of Dick’s wrists, rubbing along the tendons, feeling his disconsolate pulse.
“But you need to get yourself together, Dick. You can’t just float off wherever the winds are gonna buffet you. There’s more to you than that, come onnnnn.” Ollie could hear himself wheedling, ducking his head to try and get Dick to look directly at him. “You’re walking wounded, we can all see it, even when you remember to put up the pretense. You haven’t been doing as good a job of that as you might think, honey.”
Sighing, Ollie moved the pressure from his thumbs up onto the fleshy parts of Dick’s palms. “I know what I’m saying doesn’t sound like it’s much different from the little show you just gave me, the ‘it’ll all turn out for the best’. The principle difference is that I *mean* it. I mean that if you find some way to focus, aim towards a goal, throw yourself into that, *then* it’ll turn out. I don’t mean that you should sink into depression and vainly wish for it to happen. That’s not —” Ollie shook his head, suddenly frustrated on top of everything else, “—that’s no way to get anything accomplished or improved, don’t you see?”
Okay, so maybe his current frustrations in his *own* relationship with Hal were colouring that particular piece of advice. But it was good advice, dammit, for *anyone*.
Hide it better. That’s how Ollie’s words rang in his head. You’re not doing good enough, they said, a little rougher and deeper than Ollie usually sounded. You should be better than this.
Dick shook his head slightly and squeezed Ollie’s hands. ”I need to get away from it. There’s nowhere I can go where I don’t think of it, not around familiar places.”
He rubbed Ollie’s hands, humming in thought. ”Do you remember when we’d talked about what would happen if I just let go? Didn’t worry about anything, just went out and did whatever I wanted, acted the brainless playboy, whatever? Maybe I should do that now. Get away from it all. It’s not like I have someone to disappoint right now.”
“If I thought that was what you *really* wanted, I’d say yeah, go for it, go wild. Spend shitloads of money and fill hot tubs with champagne and be attended by a carousel of attractive playmates. But the only way that lifestyle is worth anything is if you have fun doing it, Dick.” Ollie narrowed his eyes a fraction, taking in the suddenly drawn expression on the young man’s face. “And don’t you dare think of running off somewhere. That never works, you know it doesn’t. We learned that from Roy enough times.”
At least Dick was accepting his touch, though — that could be a positive sign? Ollie decided to take it as one, skritching the inside of Dick’s forearm gently. “Doing the playboy act can be great if you’re in the mood for it, if it’s things you enjoy,” Ollie said. “I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t fun, even in the midst of my being the most useless person on the planet. But if you’re contemplating it because you don’t know what else to do? Because you feel you might as well make yourself feel even more terrible and you think nobody cares enough to be disappointed in you? Well, I know a little island in the South Pacific where I might as well shipwreck you immediately, save you the trouble of all the preliminaries.”
Ollie took Dick’s hands in his, squeezing them. “If you truly think blowing off some steam by dropping into the wild playboy mode will do you good, then do it, Dick,” he said earnestly. “Don’t do it as a way to punish yourself even more. And DON’T run away, for fucksake, because it’ll just get everybody annoyed. Me especially.”
“I won’t run away,” Dick promised, wiggling his hands in Ollie’s. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. ”Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just focus on other work. If I can’t do anything else, I might as well make myself useful. Besides, I haven’t been focused enough on it. I’ve been distracted with—”
He caught a glimpse of red hair and a large build out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away from Ollie sharply to look out the window. There was no one, no one who could have been mistaken for Guy at any rate. It was hysterical, really, thinking that Guy would have suddenly remembered him and rushed to find him, tracking him down where he was instead of just calling his place or something normal.
He turned back to Ollie, shaking his head. ”Or maybe I just need to sleep for a few days. Just shut myself up and sleep.”
“Ordinarily I would say yes to sleep, since you nocturnal Batlings don’t do enough of it,” Ollie said. “But in this case, no. You’re depressed and withdrawing from everything and everyone. Sleep’ll only act as a soporific, make your body at rest tend to stay at rest. You need to find something to do that’ll really keep you occupied and active.”
He considered for a moment. Dick was so scattered, jumping at figments of his scrabbling imagination. “I’m hesitant to start making concrete suggestions about how to use your time, Dick, what exactly might be good to focus on,” Ollie ventured, “but if you think you’re gonna have a hard time settling on something, I can find work for you. I can find it easy. Anything you want. Testing the limits of a high-security system, teaching corporate officeworkers how to skydive, performing in a charity high-wire act, hell — if you want something hard enough to keep you from moping but mindless enough that you don’t have to expend too much brainpower, I can fix you up something like that too. Just let me know what you need, kiddo.”
Ollie had no idea if Dick would actually take him up on this, but even if he didn’t, maybe it would help Dick figure out what he *didn’t* want to do. Already just in the course of this conversation he’d burned through the ideas of focusing totally on vigilante work, on running away, on doing the playboy thing, on losing himself in sleep — if one thing was clear, it was how much at the mercy of his emotional tides Dick was at the moment. “Let me help you,” Ollie blurted suddenly, urgently, unable to keep it back anymore. His broken nose throbbed and he realized just how tightly he’d been clenching his jaw, holding it in.
Dick twitched slightly, actually taken aback at how forceful that came out. He looked around, not quite sure how to respond. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how much help he really wanted. That might just make it all worse.
“There’s nothing to help,” he said. ”I just need to figure it out for myself. That’s what you said, isn’t it? I need to recenter myself. I’m the only person who can do that.” He looked up at Ollie, smiling sadly. ”Thank you, though. It means a lot to me that you offer, really it does.”
“Okay,” Ollie said, as neutrally as he could. He smiled back at Dick, adding, “It’s true that you need to get back to you, as they say, and no matter how much I would like to, I can’t do it for you. But at the same time — no shame in asking for help if you need it, all right? You’re not alone without Guy. You’re … you’re not nothing without him.”
Their remaining food had been packed up a while ago, and the teenaged girl approached cautiously with a plate of delicate nougat in edible rice paper. “Those look great,” Ollie said encouragingly, and she smiled and dipped forward far enough to deposit the plate on their table, refill their drinks, and retreat behind the counter again.
“There, let’s end this on a nice note,” Ollie said, picking up a piece of candy and pushing the plate towards Dick. “Can’t stay sad about much if you’re eating nougat, I always say.” He bit into it and hummed in appreciation, noting, “Of course, I always used to make a spectacle of myself trying to peel off this rice paper before eating ‘em, but that’s what embarrassed friends are there to stop you from doing, right?”
Dick chuckled, the first genuine smile of the day spreading across his face. ”Or they’re there to film you and never let you live it down. One of the two.” He nibbled on the candy, finally feeling a certain level of calm again. It wasn’t the calm he was used to, but it was a welcome, if temporary, respite.
“Thanks for asking me to lunch, Ollie. I’ll be all right, I promise. As soon as I think I need help, I’ll call for it, don’t worry.” He smiled again, a little brighter. ”Thank you.”
The mask was firmly in place.