Chapter Text
I'm in a relationship with amber
Stuck. Frozen. Suspended.
I wonder, does the mosquito question too, will I ever be free?
Dick could feel the weight of Clark’s gaze as he stood over him. But at the moment he didn’t really care. He lay, his arm draped dramatically over his eyes, sprawled across the sofa. The soft sounds of cows mooing and chickens clucking fluttered in from the open window. Dick wondered where Lois had gone. He had heard her swearing at the vacuum cleaner upstairs earlier, but that had been hours ago.
Perhaps it was she who sent Clark in to deal with the depressing mess in the living room that was Dick Grayson. He had done his best to stay out of the way and be useful during his stint at the Kent’s. While she certainly went out of her way to make him feel welcome, he wondered sometimes if Lois was sick of him. She never let him do much-- she was not on her deathbed or so she would declare whenever Dick tried to do anything for her. Then Clark, of course, was constantly assuring him that they loved having him but perhaps Christmas was too far.
The Kents were their own family unit and he was infringing on it. What was Dick to them? At best he was an odd nephew; at worst an obligation that fell into their laps.
Maybe he should've taken Wally’s offer to go with him to the annual West bash, but the idea of having to sit through whispers and nervous looks from people who didn’t know was too much.
Two mouths he had been in this state of uncertainty. It had been two months since his whole world was turned upside-- again. Clark had been more patient than Dick deserved. He’d helped organize his early graduation from Gotham Academy-- Dick had had enough credits to graduate half way through his junior year. Clark told him patiently a half dozen times that he could stay with them forever.
Though Dick liked the farm, there was an ache that made it feel… incomplete. Perhaps it was his lack of direction. He’d always had one. He had been a Flying Grayson from the moment he was born, then he’d been Robin. Now, he was neither.
He wasn’t someone's son, or partner. He wasn’t even a student, he wasn’t an athlete or hero. What was worse he didn’t know what part he missed more.
Both Clark and Wally kept asking him what he wanted to be.
“The World’s your oyster!” Clark would declare at least once a week.
Wally had been slightly more cynical, which Dick somehow took comfort in, the normalcy of it all. While Clark and he had always been close, Dick had Bruce to counterbalance the potency of Superman’s optimism. Wally-- bless him-- was perhaps his only unchanged relationship. Clark was now his caretaker in perhaps an unofficial way, but Wally was still just his best friend.
He had threatened to come out of retirement to beat Bruce senseless at least five times. He took Dick to get his stitches out. He sat with him and let him shout-- Dick tended to only cry around Clark. Wally took him out bowling, to movies, and football games. He took him on college campus tours. He even bought him an exorbitant amount of alcohol-- that Clark didn’t approve of but said nothing about.
But Dick felt restless. He would go whole days not wanting to talk to anyone and others needing to have anyone near him. He would spend his nights staring listless out across the farm straining his ears for the sound of a fight that would never come. Out here there was only wind and cows. There was no mugging to stop, no villain to catch.
No one needed him.
So Dick was going to lay on this coach and wallow. He felt justified.
Dick would be cheery tomorrow. He would smile at everyone and laugh too loudly at jokes when the rest of the Kent clan were there. Today, he was going to be over dramatic mopey and not talk to anyone.
“Dick?” Clark, it seemed, had gathered enough courage to finally address him.
Dick hummed slightly but still didn’t look up.
“What about a quick flight? We could stop in Germany. I can hear a few markets still open there.”
“I'm not really feeling up to it.” Dick mumbled into his arm.
Clark shifted his weight making the floorboards creak and groan under his feet. “Dick I hate to see you--” He paused searching for the right word.
Dick snorted. “Wallow?”
Clark sighed. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“I know. I can go to the barn and hang out there if I’m bothering you and Lois.” Dick pushed himself up. Of course he should have thought of that. Lois didn’t want some random teen laying around her home on Christmas Eve. Clark’s sharp intake of breath caused him to still as he untangled his legs from the quit he had been under.
“No. I just,” Clark sank down next to him on the old sofa. “I don’t like seeing you upset. You know that.”
Dick sniffed. “Yeah, sorry I didn’t mean to bring down the mood. I’ll make myself scarce. Don’t worry.”
A hand caught the back of his shirt, and pulled him back down when he tried to rise from his seat. “That’s not what I mean.”
Dick let the hand pull him further until he was leaning against Clark. “I know. I just don’t really feel like celebrating is all.”
“Yeah. That's okay.”
The arm around him tightened. Dick always liked the way Clark smelled, like sweat and gasoline. Dick wondered what he had been fixing. There were grease stains on his pants.
Dick sat uncrying leaning against the man. He ran out of tears a long time ago. A month and half to be exact.
“You hear from Wally today?” Clark’s thumb rubbed gentle circles into his shoulder, unknotting the damaged muscles in his injured shoulder. Dick held back a slight shudder as Clark’s thumb brushed against the scar from Joker’s bullet.
“Yeah, he’s back home. Said they were going to have a big lunch and then watch movies.”
“That sounds nice.” Clark said evenly as if trying to gauge how Dick felt about his best friend’s plans.
“We used to watch It’s a Wonderful Life.” Dick didn’t know why he said it. He had been doing his best to purge Bruce and Alfred from his mind. Maybe it was just the date. Holidays were hard. Dick knew that. He missed his mom and dad. But that had dulled over time. He hoped this would too.
Clark’s thumb hesitated in it’s pattern. “Do you--”
“No.” Dick winced at his own shout. “Sorry I didn’t--”
Clark pulled him closer. “It’s okay. What about your parents? Did you do anything special with them?”
Dick shook his head. Even his family’s traditions felt tainted.
Clark hummed into his hair, his lips just above his ear. “I want to ask you something, but I think it will upset you.”
Dick pulled away from Clark, his eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“Do you want to call him?”
Dick blinked.
Did he? Want seemed such a complex word all of a sudden. Did he want to call his -- Bruce. Yes. He wanted to hear the man’s voice. He wanted to be told that he was on his way and they would be home by dinner time. He wanted to hear the baritone rumble that was often a low hum. He wanted that familiar comfort, but he didn’t want it to be on the other end of the phone line. He wanted to be home. He wanted to be eight years old and best friends again, partners again.
Dick didn’t want to call him. He didn’t want to admit his weakness, his need for the man who rescued him all those years ago.
He didn’t want to talk to the man who had thrown him aside with no thought or care. He never wanted to see him again, never hear the growling anger filled with disdain. He was still so angry.
Want was too simple a word.
“No.” Dick’s voice shook. He tried to focus on the feeling of Clark’s hand. Better that than the bubbling anger growing in his gut.
“Okay. That’s fine. It’s also fine if you do, or change your mind later.” Clark smiled softly at him.
The tension in his gut eased a bit. Clark was doing his best. Dick needed to try harder. Fixing a small smile on his face, he focused on a lamp beyond Clark’s shoulder. It was harder to lie when he was looking at the man. “I guess I could go to the markets… if you still wanted to go.”
Clark squeezed his shoulder and smiled more brightly at Dick. “Yeah, let me just tell Lois and we’ll head out. Can you get my coat for me?”
Dick nodded and peeled himself off of the sofa, making his way to the coat closet by the door.
Dick didn’t perk up until they were half way across the Atlantic. Clark wasn’t sure if it was the feeling of flying or if it was just getting out of the house and off the farm for a bit.
Dick had gone to stall after stall, pulling Clark with him. He chattered with vendors in German and what sounded like Dutch at times. Clark wasn’t really sure. Dick spoke more languages than even Bruce.
By the time they made it home Clark would say that Dick was in a considerably better mood. But sometimes he felt unsure. Dick had always been a pro at hiding his emotions.
They returned long after the sun had set. Clark could smell slightly burned potatoes and chicken when they reached the Kansas border.
“You still hungry?” Clark shouted over the wind.
Dick tilted his head. “I threw up half of everything after trying that mint thing so yeah.”
Clark rolled his eyes. Dick had been determined to try everything, even mint marshmallows dipped in chocolate, even though he always was sick when he ate them.
They landed softy on the porch and Dick bounded into the house to give Lois the pile of goods they had brought back.
Clark waited outside the door. When Dick was out of sight, Clark pulled his phone from his pocket. He bit his lip looking at the uncleared notification from that morning. The call had been from a blocked and unknown number. But it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. That morning’s mystery caller had left no message. Clark had been in the barn when they called, his hands covered in engine grease. He let it go to voicemail. Not that Bruce had left a message.
He could hear Lois laughing as she thanked Dick for the hot chocolate mixing sticks he had gotten her.
Dick was finally in a better mood, or at least it looked that way. Clark didn’t want to ruin that. Dick hadn’t been lying either when he told him early that he didn’t want to talk to Bruce. Frowning Clark put the phone back in his pocket.
After dinner they put on an old movie-- not It's a Wonderful Life-- some classic that Dick hadn’t ever seen. About half way through the film Dick excused himself and wondered up to his room.
Lois’s eyes followed him all the way up the stairs. Clark loved that women. She hadn’t even batted an eye when Dick showed up bleeding and carrying a duffle bag. She pulled Clark aside and insisted that would do right by Dick, even if it meant Clark left the Justice League. It hadn’t come to that thank goodness. But Clark had indeed pulled back from the personal relationship he had formed with Batman. And if he was cold at meetings then it was nothing short of what Bruce deserved. But Lois had taken it to another level.
Lois, it seemed, had made it her personal mission to give both Bruce Wayne and Batman hell. She had written several articles on the man in and out of the mask. Clark insured Dick never saw them.
“Hey,” Lois nudged him and turned the movie to mute. “He say anything?”
Clark shook his head and pulled her over to him. “Bruce called.”
She shot up. “What? What did he say?” She twisted round to face him.
“Nothing. Well, I didn’t answer.”
Lois swore and leaned back against him. “Did you tell Dick?”
“No. I asked him if he wanted to call and talk to Bruce but he said he didn’t.”
“Clark,” She said exasperatedly. “That’s not the same thing.”
He frowned, twisting his fingers into her long hair. “What do you mean?”
“It just isn’t. He doesn’t want to make the first move. And he shouldn’t have too--” She cut Clark’s half formed response with a wave of her hand. “But if Bruce called him. That’s different.”
“He didn’t though. He called me.”
She shrugged. “That's a start, I guess.”
Dick lay staring unseeingly at the ceiling. Christmas Eve. His first without Bruce in ten years. There was no orange duck, or soft ring of church bells from the city. There was just Dick and the empty room.
He had enjoyed the afternoon with Clark, but he still felt like something was missing. He pretended not to notice when Clark had slipped away at the market. Superman had been seen saving a family from a tower block fire in Germany, or so the news reported. He knew Clark was trying to be sensitive, but this odd dance they were doing was frustrating.
But now laying in the quiet of his borrowed room, he let the feeling of envy wash over him. It hurt too much to not help. He had been contemplating it for months. He couldn’t sit on the sidelines. Rolling over he plucked his phone from the bed stand.
“‘Lo?” Wally mumbled half asleep.
“Hey.” Now that he had decided he didn’t know what to say.
“Dick?” Wally suddenly sounded much more alert. “You okay, Man?”
Dick hummed reassuringly. “I… I don’t want to go back to school.”
Dick bit his lip waiting for Wally’s response. Bruce would have snorted and told him tough luck.
“That’s okay. Do you know what you want to do instead?”
“I want to be…” The name Robin died on his tongue. No. That wasn’t right. Not anymore. He couldn’t be Robin, but something else. A solo act. “I’m not retiring.”
Wally sighed. “Yeah, I figured you’d say that. What about during the day?”
Dick blinked. He was good at a lot of things. He could handle computers, or work at a gym maybe. But did he want that?
No. He had seen Bruce live that way. Hating his day life, and just playing a part. Dick didn’t want to be like that. He wanted to always be trying to make a difference. To help. To bad a full time hero wasn’t an option.
“I’m not sure, I just want to help people...” Dick’s phone buzzed and he glanced down at the text.
Barbara. He hadn’t spoken to her since he left Gotham. Just another bridge the Bruce had burned. Batgirl was still Batgirl. While of course he didn’t blame Babs, it was a struggle to talk to her. He opened the message.
Merry Christmas from the Gordans!
Babs had sent a picture of her and her dad dressed in matching elves hats. Babs’ hair was pulled up into a messy bun and Jim was still half in his uniform.
Uniform.
Jim.
Dick didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Jim was a hero in his own way. The way he was cleaning up Gotham PD, was nothing short of miraculous. Batman and Robin could only do so much. Having Jim on their team had been essential. The inside man of sorts. Dick had no other obligations. He was a lone man now, no school to stop him, no family. The mission was all he had left.
Dick had the chance to do both. He could be on the inside of the system and out. He had the chance to make sweeping changes without relying on a partner. Partner. That word stung. No, Dick didn’t think he would be ready for that ever. Team sure, but partner that would take time. If he did this he wouldn’t have to find someone to rely on. He could find the intel himself.
“Dick?” Wally’s voice sounded far off. Dick’s head was spinning with ideas. It was like his mind had been turned off for months and someone had just flipped the switch.
“Wally, I think I want to be a cop.”