Work Text:
His father told him once that his first steps were towards a glass screen door. He toddled up to it, curious, then confused and banged on the glass to get out. And before that, he tried crawling out, and before that he tried rolling. And before that if he cried, the easiest way to make him happy was to walk him out the door. He’s always loved being outside.
The crisp clean air, golden warmth of the sun, the sweet symphony of birds and bugs, the bustle of the people out and about. It blends together seamlessly in a harmony of blurred colors and noises; the world turns, the people step in time. It makes sense instinctively without anyone saying anything at all.
He feels like a gear that slipped out of that great machine. Like he lost the sheet music everyone has memorized. For a long time, he hated being outdoors, the way he clashed with that rhythm he used to be so tuned into.
And again, things changed. Some days, he hates it, and other days he sings a new tune with the Titans, their teamwork blending together, creating a great machine in their own. Other days, he works with Sarah, and he feels himself slipping into that ancient rhythm. The world turns, and sometimes he steps in time. Both force him to step outside.
He spends a lot more time indoors than he ever thought he’d be willing to. He’s had to make do. The workshop doesn’t have windows, but it’s got a hum and a whine, and lights mimic a golden sun. It’s not the same, but it’s familiar enough. He’s got different work to do now, more important in scope and scale.
The bustle’s replaced by Dick and Gar, talking in the other room. Dick’s running some experiments and Gar’s trying to liberate his lab mice. It’s nice, quiet enough to work, but with enough background noise to tune out his thoughts.
Well.
Most of his thoughts.
“They’re after me, Victor. P-please help me.”
An Allen wrench slips through his fingers, clattering as Marcy’s pained whispers rips through his mind with the ferocity of an assassin using a dull knife. The light glistens and for a moment flames flicker in the steel body of the weight machine he’s working on.
“Shit.”
And then it’s gone. Replaced with Dick’s concerned reflection, glancing over his shoulder. He gives a thumbs up back and Dick reluctantly turns back to his work. It’s not the first time they’ve had this interaction by a long shot.
He really should be over this. He didn’t talk to Marcy all that much, hadn’t spoken to her more than twice after his accident. He didn’t keep up with her, didn’t even know she’d turned to Brother Blood, wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t called him just before she died. He doesn’t have a right to grieve her when he’s responsible for her death. Responsible for Sarah’s kidnapping. He’s had distance. They’ve been to space and back. He should be over this. Over them.
He's messing up his rhythm before his feet touch steady ground.
“Vic?”
Donna pokes her head through the doorway, looking both ways before settling her sights on him. He wonders if he’s almost camouflaged working on a machine like this. She smiles, face lighting up, and strolls in. He doesn’t turn away from his work but watches through reflections.
“Whaddya want?”
Smiles seem in short supply, though he manages not to grimace as her eyes find his through the makeshift mirror.
“I’m going out with Kory later and I need someone to paint my nails.”
He whirls around, despite himself.
“Are you kiddin’ me? I got work to do. I don’ got time this!”
He gestures widely at the stupid rubble left over from the weight machine (that he broke). Letting it sit there isn’t going to fix things, and no one else is going to put it back together for him.
“But you’re so good at it, and Dick’s busy testing stuff he collected at Brother Blood’s and I don’t want Kory to do it before our date because it’s a surprise. I found the most lovely shade that matches her eyes perfectly. Besides you said you’d do it again, and that was like ages ago. Who else am I going to ask? Wally? I don’t even think Raven knows what nail polish is.”
Her eyes widen, and she puffs her lower lip out slightly, leaning into one of her hips. He should have never painted her nails the first time. He used to do Marcy’s, Donna knows that why would she-
They make awkward eye contact, he squints, she stares back, her smile faltering and ultimately setting into a determined line. He cocks his head and she crosses her arms, planting her feet firmly on the ground. What’s really minutes but feels like hours pass.
“Fine.”
She grins, smaller but more genuinely than before half skipping into Dick’s lab, yanking a glowing bottle of green polish off the counter. She’s right, it does match Kory’s eyes.
He’s silent while he works but she’s not, constantly chatting as if she can’t stand two seconds of silence. He’d complain, but it’s nice, listening to her fill the void, distracting from anything too serious for too long. They dance around the elephant in the room, making pretend it’s not there and it’s almost easy to forget. Almost.
She waves her hands letting the second layer dry so he can start working on a pattern. She sighs, looking hesitant for a moment. But a hesitation is all it is, and she carries on.
“I know things have been chaotic lately and we don’t really talk about it. But really, how are you holding up? No one says it but everyone’s worried about you.”
He wished he could put it into words. Bad. Guilty. Like he shouldn’t complain because at least he doesn’t have an other-dimensional being as a father or been exiled from his solar system. But… that’s not fair, neither does Donna. Looking over her shoulder, she must have closed the door of Dick’s lab when she came in.
“Don’ worry ‘bout it.”
“Okay, but I am worried about it already and you telling me that just makes me feel more worried. Because you can’t just bottle up your feelings, you’ll end up like Dick or something and that would be awful. I can only deal with one of him.”
He stares and she stares back, smiling like they’re in on some secret together. He sighs. He can’t avoid this. Why does Donna have to be so damn hard to shake off?
“I know it’s not my fault. Hell, it’s not even my business anymore, I don’ got the right ta be this upset over it.”
Her eyes flash angrily.
“Of course it’s your business, you loved her you had every right to be there, her dad’s an asshole for saying otherwise and if he ever says anything…”
She pauses seeing his face.
“Sorry, I’m listening.”
“You memorize a script or somethin’?”
“No, but I thought about it. You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.”
“I’m tryin’ not to.”
“But?”
He takes her hand again, starting to add some white flower patterns on each of her nails.
“How can I not when it’s on the blasted news every hour on the hour? Titans brutally attack the Church of Brother Blood, it’s bullshit Donna.”
He feels heat rise to the flesh side of his face.
“I know it’s bullshit. You did what was right. The media will die down eventually.”
“But Marcy died and do they even care? No! No one even cares ‘bout her!”
He almost messes up her thumbnail’s design, but recovers his grip, not letting the flower drip too far down.
“I care. And you care too. We’ll never forget her.”
“You don’ even know her.”
Donna’s other hand is on his shoulder.
“Maybe not, but we know the truth. And we care about you and we’re here if you need to talk. Or if you want someone to visit her with.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing feels like enough. He should have been strong enough – fast enough to have done something. Realized she was gone sooner. The flower blurs despite his best intentions.
“Oh, honey.”
Donna removes his hand, and leans over, wrapping him in a warm embrace.
Donna’s gone on her date (fingernails looking spectacular he might add) and he’s soldering something, feeling less worthless than before. It’s a small thing, but for some reason, helping another Titan in a small way makes him feel a bit more like he belongs. Even if it was just Donna making an excuse to check in on him, it’s nice to know someone cares.
It strikes him, as he sets down his heat gun. Abruptly, he stops humming and his father’s favorite album plays on without him. He glances over his shoulder. He hasn’t heard a peep out from behind the door. Wouldn’t be odd for Dick, but for Gar? They couldn’t pay him to shut his mouth for this long. He hasn’t seen him try to smuggle a mouse out of the lab since Donna came down. Not a crash or a scream or anything. The doors are heavy, but he should have heard something.
He picks up the electrical tape. He really ought to finish his work. Dick’s in there so nothing bad could be happening, right? Dick knows what he’s doing, right? He starts wrapping it around the heat shrink, reinforcing the wires he’s bound together.
Still…
It’s a bit odd, there’s some strong chemicals in there and there’s not been a systems alert, but something could have gone wrong. He swivels around, brushing his hands on his pants before he hits pause on his music.
A faint scratching meets his ears rather than silence. That can’t be good.
It’s coming from the door, getting louder as he quickly approaches. He hesitates looking at the silver handle, a streak of light mimicking flames. Open the door dumbass!
A brief wave of shame washes over him as he turns the handle – slowing down like that could be the difference between life or death! The door cracks open, and-
Something rushes past his ankle, he spins, watching a rat(?) scurry up the- rats do not jump like that what the fuck?
Something else yawns from inside the room and he’s torn between chase the critter and seeing who’s sleeping in here. He swings open the door before he can think anymore.
There’s a little kid in here. And he’s green.
“Logan?”
He can barely utter the name – that kid can’t be more than ten.
Vic’s fought interdimensional demon lords but that doesn’t stop his eyes from popping out of his head.
“Cliff?”
And it’s Gar’s green eyes staring back at him, that much is for sure. A million thoughts whizz through Vic’s mind, too fast to begin to comprehend – Gar’s ten, does he even remember you, where’s Dick, what was that not-rat, and-
“Oh, sorry Vic, must’ve fell asleep. Dick was working on some stuff and I was getting bored and… huh.”
Gar pauses mid-sentence as he finishes rubbing his eyes. He looks confused.
“You get taller chrome dome?”
Vic just stares back because what the fuck are you supposed to say to someone in this situation. Gar looks down at his hands.
“Huh. Guess I shrunk.”
“I guess so.”
He mutters. You know what, he’ll give Gar one thing, he’s life’s been fucked up for a while. So this shouldn’t be surprising. He really shouldn’t be surprised at this point – they regressed into monkeys not all that long ago so this… yeah this is fine… yep, normal day.
“Where’s Dick? Vic, where’d Robby go? Oi! Earth to Vic. Rusty- ey tinhead- glitter-brain-”
Gar kicks him in the shins.
“Where’d Dick go?”
He feels his lips press into a thin line, almost on their own. Dick’s not in the room. But something came out of the room.
God fucking dammit.
It takes him less than ten minutes to accept this is his life now and he both is impressed by himself and strangely melancholic about it. He decides on the way up the stairs – whatever issues he was having earlier are going to have to wait – and maybe that’s a good thing. Gar’s swinging on his back like a monkey, he’s just trying to get up the stairs keeping his balance.
“Hold still squirt!”
“You can’t make me! ‘Sides it’s helping you go faster!”
“It’s really not, you could walk by yerself, yah know.”
“It’s funner this way!”
Stupid spiral staircase. Stupid floors and floors of areas to look. He finished the first sub-basement and he’s onto the main floor. And Gar keeps getting more and more childish along the way.
“Gar, Dick needs our help, remember?”
“He’s probably fine, and we can go to the arcade.”
Promising the arcade as a reward for helping was a dumb move in retrospect because Gar will not shut the fuck up about it.
“I told you, yah gotta help first.”
He nearly topples over the stupid staircase. Note to self: install higher guard rails on that later, his life just flashed before his eyes.
This tower is not child proof. Oh god. This tower is NOT child proof at all and there is a ten-year-old on his back who he just woke up in a lab full of dangerous chemicals. And Gar normally lacks survival instincts as it. Yeah, this kid is not allowed out of his sight.
There’s movement at the top of the stairs. Gar launches himself off his shoulders, Vic stumbles catching the bar just before tumbling back down the stairs. He’s going to kill Gar when things are back to normal.
“PUPPY!”
Gar’s pitch is ear shatteringly high as he scrambles up the rest of the steps. There’s a crunch under his hand as the railing crumples like tinfoil.
“What the --”
A whine comes from above as he straightens himself – it doesn’t sound like a puppy or a rat – but the railing’s bent to hell and there’s no way he gripped it that hard – he spent five months learning his strength he does not reduce things to shreds anymore.
Panic edges its way up his chest as he finds himself easily bending and snapping the rail. It’s not three seconds later that the alarm in the tower blares – what the fuck is going on? Raven appears in a cloud of smoke at the top of the staircase, posed like the Y in YMCA. She quickly makes eye contact, her face dark.
“I sense something is amiss.”
Well. Duh! It takes all his willpower not to yell.
“Garfield is a child, and I sense Richard’s energy in that form.”
He can’t see where she’s looking but he’ll take the witches word for it, she’s not been wrong yet.
“You are confused, Victor, is something the matter?”
“What isn’t the matter is the shorter question.”
She nods regarding him carefully, closing her eyes and brushing a hand through her hair, seemingly reflecting on his words.
“A little help?”
“I am not sure how to help you Victor, are you in pain?”
Another shriek from the dog-Dick.
“Could you mebbe, separate those two?”
“Richard, come here.”
She strides away and Vic focuses on trying to hold the railing without crushing it. He takes a step up the stairs and starts floating.
“GOD-”
And cuts himself off because there is a child up there.
“NOOOO! I WANNA PET HIM!”
“Hey-Vic-what’s-up-geez-what-happened-to-the-railing-I-saw-the-alert-and”
“EVERYONE SHUT UP FOR A SEC!”
The dog-Dick, stops whining, and Gar finally shuts the fuck up. Wally stares at him blankly.
“Dick’s a dog, an’ Gar’s a kid. Now what’s the alarm for?”
Wally hesitates, then reports.
“There’s a fire in the city, Wonder Girl and Starfire are on the scene.”
“Right, can we leave it to them?”
“Uhhh. It looks like Donna is causing the fire.”
Great. Just great. As if this day – month – lousy freakin year could get any worse.
When Wally’s not busy quitting the team or crying or Raven, he’s actually surprisingly useful, it takes him about five seconds to put out the fires and rush Donna back home… and throw her in the swimming pool.
“Wal-agh!”
The waves have got to reach at least four feet. He’s just glad he made in downstairs in time to see her face. And that he managed to stop breaking the staircase. Donna fails in the pool, bubbles steaming up around her as a pillar of steam bursts through to the surface.
“Gotta go.”
Wally flies past him catching him off balance, he resists the urge to stumble, wildly swinging his arms in attempt to steady his weight. Donna rises to the surface, her face beet red.
“WALLY I-Vic uh…”
He regains his balance and carefully creeps forward, gently sitting in one of their pool side chairs. He lets out a sigh of relief as gingerly his back touches the chair and it doesn’t give way. Success.
“What’s going on?”
She keeps her hands underwater, spread out from herself, water boiling above them. He wonders if she could make good tea like this.
“Magic.”
At least, that’s his only explanation for it. Dick the rat-dog barks from the top of the stairs. Donna cringes.
“Do I want to know?”
Vic groans.
“You got Kory’s powers, I got yours, Dick’s a dog, an’ Gar’s ten.”
“Wait so Dick and Gar swapped too?”
He resists the urge to shrug. Damn, this sucks.
“Nah. Gar’s still got ‘is powers.”
“Any idea what caused it?”
“Nope.”
There’s some scattering on the stairs, Donna’s eyes flick to the spot.
“Oh my god HE’S A CHIHUAHUA, this is the best day of my life.”
Her face lights up, unable to resist the urge she lets out a squeal, and glances back at him.
“Vic, Vic, look- look at him he’s so tinnnny oh my god Vic look he’s a little-”
Dick the rat-dog growls, and Donna continues unabashed.
“-baby he’s just a little guy oh my god, I love this, I need a picture.”
She looks at her hands, understanding dawns on her.
“Vic you need to take a picture.”
“I’m not sure I can without breakin’ my phone.”
“Oh come on, it’s not that hard to control Amazon strength.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I will buy you a new phone. Pleeeease. Oh my gosh, Dick are you okay?”
She giggles as he hears a little thump. Turning he sees the little dog picking himself up, it looks like he fell on his face. He’s unsure of himself, pacing back and forth on each step, and looking up and down before finally deciding to hop down. Turning back around he fails to hide his laughs as coughs and Dick honest to god whines at the step, and Vic laughs harder.
It's so ridiculous so out-of-this-world, bizarre and inexplicable. His life has been one series of upendings, it’s cults and aliens and metal bodies and robots and it’s funny but he’s tired and he misses his mom and Marcy, and every day he gets further and further from that rhythm he used to know. He misses his dad and things making sense, even if they weren’t perfect he misses having some semblance of control.
“Vic, I’m sorry.”
“Jus’ pretend I’m not here.”
And she does, pretending not to watch him laugh till he cries, instead making a show of cheering Dick on through his harrowing journey down the stairs. Offering him encouragement when he slips and falls face first down a couple more steps before figuring the rhythm of it out. Vic watches the scene through blurred eyes.
Finally, the rat-dog makes it down the last steps, jumping up and down, celebrating his victory before he bolts straight towards him.
“Dick, no-”
Dick the stupid-ass-rat-dog ignores him, eyes flashing in dumb determination, possessed by the heart of the lion with the mind of a turkey, in a great flying leap of faith-
And he manages to land right on Vic’s chest. Vic stares at him in horror.
“The hell are you thinking! I could crush you-”
“What’s that in his mouth?”
It’s a jar of familiar looking, neon green nail polish.
“-I see it but yah coulda just dropped it on the floor dumbass. It’s the nail polish.”
Dick growls, shaking his head.
“It’s not nail polish?”
Dick does a little dance, spinning around in a circle on his chest. It tickles. Something clicks. He resists the urge to shake the dog in front of him.
“Dick. What experiments were you doing?”
Dick stops his little tap dance routine, his tail drooping between his legs, and shaking violently. Vic forces his face to remain stern and it’s a hard-fought battle of willpower to maintain his stony gaze against those puppy dog eyes. And then some drool hits his chest. He sighs at the anxious little pupper, who’s tail wags in response.
“No more magic, kay buddy?”
Dick nods and yawns, tired from his adventure down the stairs, but still a bit jittery. Vic cautiously picks up a hand, and pats his little hand, carefully making sure to apply as little force as possible. The shaking lessens but doesn’t stop. If this goes on, they should get him one of those anxious doggie coats. Maybe he should make normal Dick a doggie coat. Maybe he should make himself a- maybe he should make them all doggie coats.
“Do not fall asleep on me.”
Donna giggles from the pool as Dick sits down, then lies down, snuggling against his chest.
“Dick – do not… oh whatever.”
And he accepts that this is a day in the life of Victor Stone.