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Dick had been feeling sick for weeks now. It had started with just a lingering headache that no amount of terrible FBI coffee could tackle. Then the ache had spread down his neck, his arms, until he was moving sluggishly to even pick up a pen. He spent minutes at a time staring at his own hands, wishing them to move the way he wanted them to.
The whole city was so damn bright and alive that he couldn’t think. The noise of people chattering in the street, yelling and laughing and gossiping. The bright prints on stranger’s sundresses, and the vibrant smash of colours across the painting he was meant to be working on. The smell of June’s guava juice in the morning, which was so sweet it made him feel almost nauseous.
Gods, he was so damn homesick for Gotham.
Her cool streets. The dark colours on the stone facades, and the way the mist rose from the river and softened all the footfalls. The air that brushed his face when he was standing on a rooftop, and all he could hear was the city, and Gotham’s breath as people moved within her.
To Sleepy: baby bird, howd you deal with overtimulation heaadcahes?
From Sleepy: coffee?
To Sleepy: :(
The little gremlin was going to die of a caffeine overdose.
A few minutes later, in a wave of morose self-pity, Dick texted,
To Sleepy: tell Gotham i miss her.
Dick looked out over New York with its high-rises in the distance, and the mid-rises closer where the bedrock foundations weren’t the stability of granite.
“You’re a beautiful city,” Dick told the skyline, “but you’re not home.”
A wind picked up, and knocked his hat askew.
“Oi. I have no idea why everyone calls you the best city on the East Coast.”
A noise came to him, echoing from street level.
“Yeah, okay, you’ve got excellent food, but street food doesn’t really help with my nausea.”
Dick listened to the whistle through the buildings.
“Well, my headache is probably not your fault, either, since I’d probably be miserable stuck within your boundaries anyway. I bet Gothamites are really annoying to you.”
One of June’s heavy shade umbrellas knocked to the floor, almost landing on his foot. Dick laughed, jumping out of the way.
“Yeah, I should go back to Gotham. I miss her too. The humans have me trapped, is all.”
Dick rested his elbows on the wall, and let his eyes unfocus so it was all a blur of buildings and people and distance. It didn’t get him far enough.
“Two miles in New York is a hundred in most cities. You’re amazing. It’s just that my people and my city is further afield.”
Dick sighed, stretching, and rubbing at the tight knots of pain at the base of his spine. The wind sounded a little worried, a curl of concern around his face.
“It’s a human thing, I expect. Our bodies have lots of little ways they can go wrong just slightly, and it throws the whole balance off. We’re very complex machines, with a lot of very small parts. Like tiny cities ourselves, with hidden infrastructure we don’t notice until it starts to go wrong. With a bunch of microbes as citizens.”
Dick turned his back on the city, and let himself sink down to sit on the tiles, his head tilted back against the wall. He could see the sky, and weird angles of skyscrapers, and flocks of pigeons. Noisy and bright, but not so overwhelming as the rest of the city.
“Thank you. You’ve been an excellent host. You are a lovely home, but you’re not my home, and I’ll always miss Gotham when I have to leave her.”
Dick held out a hand, palm up, and caressed the wind as it passed over his fingers.
“I appreciate you listening though. You are extremely fabulous.”
DC + WC + DC
The migraine had reached epic proportions the next day.
The moment Dick opened his eyes he had to close them against the light. It was so bright it hurt. No Gothamite (except maybe Ivy) should sleep in what amounts to a greenhouse, with the high windows and constant light he can’t shut off. It had seemed very romantic at first, like he was living in the clouds, but all he wanted now was to be in a cupboard, cool and dim and soothing, and smell Gotham River in all her nasty and sour magnificence.
“Peter, I need a sick day,” Dick said, when Peter picked up his call.
“Hmm, no, I—” Dick breathed out, pulling a pillow over his face to block out the light. “—that migraine. I told you. It’s been building for days. I can’t—No, seriously, Peter, I can’t come in.—Why? Because I’ll vomit all over the files, if I don’t pass out—don’t look at crime scene pics? Do we have something from violent crimes?—Modern art would make me vomit today, and not just because it offends my sensibilities—”
Dick groaned, and wondered if he could build a blanket fort to keep the light out. Or maybe he could crawl under the bed.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter. Or at least call you—No, I’ll be fine—You don’t need to check on me—I’ll ask June if she’s got any soup. Bye, Peter.”
Dick flopped back onto his bed, exhausted. He was only in his boxer-briefs, but too hot to wear anything more. He was shivering a little with something like fever, and something like a chill, and something a lot like the vibrating pain of a dentist drill against an open nerve.
“Neal?” June called from the doorway, a few minutes or hours later, jolting Dick from an uneasy sleep. “Your friend arrived, with matzah ball soup.”
“Thanks, June,” Dick said, hoping it was Cass, because he didn’t think he could stand anyone who wanted him to talk right now.
He rolled over, opening one eye under the shade of his hand.
It wasn’t Cass.
Gotham came in, and brought home with her.
The feeling of her, of Gotham City, slunk into the apartment like a smog, like the cool fog that rolls off her river and sinks into her streets.
Cool and comfortable and so familiar he wants to cry with relief. The shadows of her expand to fill all the corners and spaces Dick left. Tendrils curling under furniture, around books, and seeping into all the hiding spaces in the walls and floors.
Nothing was secret from Gotham. She always knew how and what and why people hide.
Dick couldn’t hide from her, even if he wanted to.
He’d been hers since he was a boy.
Huh, weird dream, thinking of Gotham coming to him in New York. But it was so nice to dream of home that he rolled back over, hunkering down in a curl of limbs and sweat, face away from the door to feel the lie of Gotham even better.
Gods, it felt so good to smell Gotham in the air. It seemed like the sun dimmed, even through all those glass panes. This was a dream, a hallucination because he’d been such a mess the last few days that he can’t keep his head on straight.
Wishing for the deep greys and mists of Gotham to feel whole again.
Oh. The mirror frosted over, reflecting back the shifting shadows and a deep well of brilliance in the centre.
Maybe—Was Gotham here?
Dick’s mouth dropped open, and he tasted her on the air.
She was beautiful and magnificent and too good for him. She was so welcome he couldn’t properly look at her, for fear that she’d disappear.
He didn’t dare turn around.
She reached out a hand, and touched his shoulder.
Her hand was so cool she froze all the aching bits inside of him which were toobrighttooloudtoomuchtoohot and let them all settle down, with her at the centre of the chaos that was falling down into logic and love.
The ache she filled was so overwhelming he started to cry.
“Gotham? You came?” Dick asked, in wonder, looking down at that beautiful hand with skin the same colour as the rich clay of her riverbanks, warm brown and copper-toned, and so familiar, even if he has only seen her like this a few times.
“You had some friends who worried. Loudly.”
She crowded up behind him, her knees lodged behind his, and her body cradling his within her arms. He breathed in the smell of her, the sound of the wind through her buildings, the wet cobbles beneath his feet, the rust flaking onto his fingers from the old iron work bridges.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re mine, Dick Grayson. You’ve been gone so long I thought maybe you had forgotten that.”
Dick laughed, which was something more like a relieved hiccup, and relaxed into her hold. She smelt of home, and her hair fell across his face in a wave of darkness and smoke.
He slept so well in her arms. Safe and warm, her scent like burnt sugar.