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In the reflection of a picture frame, Dick can see his suit. Black, simple. The one he always wears. The tie is…a little harder to name: maybe purple? Or red. Maroon, yes. The color to make his eyes pop– imagery that’s just a little grotesque, he’s been told.
But he feels happy, soothed in a way he’s never imagined. If he was any less human, he’d be midair, aloft with the clouds, the depth of the world rolled off his shoulders. Why is he so happy? Their shoulders are not the resting place of several metric tons of stress. He's happy. Oh, right: he’s happy because he gets to see Tim! At a gala, sure, but Tim is there, a honey-balm to the sore throat he’ll have after talking to all those people, and that makes it all worth it.
Down the hallways, to the edge of the staircase, he walks with his eyes ahead, focusing on the end until everything else becomes blurs in his peripherals. His hand, being placed on the railing, is a guide as he takes each step down, watching as every foot lands on every stair neatly. He looks up when the flooring changes, and he is in the biggest ballroom of the Wayne Manor.
A girl is in the middle, dancing on her own with ballet shoes and the white prettiest dress. She waves, and her features smudge into Cass. Dick waves back with a smile.
No eyes are on him as he pushes through the people who laugh highly and seem to have the most forgettable faces because he cannot recall any of them. He pushes, and pushes, until he sees Tim, standing there, suited just like the rest of them. He is alone, but that doesn’t make sense. Dick looks closer, and he sees the man Tim’s talking to. There we go.
And then, Tim, so perceptive, feels Dick’s eyes on him and turns. He grins so prettily.
He’s too far away. The thought brushes past Dick feather-light. Too far to touch. Too far to hold. Too far to dance. Dick would like to hold Tim in his arms all night. Tim laughs a fluttery thing, matching the beat in Dick’s chest, and reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. He whispers against his skin: “You don’t have to tell me that twice, Dickie.”
They’re on the dance floor, swaying. Dick has to spin him, and he does with his arms around him; the flare of Tim’s black dress flowing on top of the airy layers they glide on. It reminds him of something–a cape? Full of holes, covered in dust and sticky with blood, the sobs and the building shaking–but Tim is in front of him, bathed in the light by a thousand rays and in his arms, and Dick cannot hold onto that dreary image.
It feels like flying. The two of them.
“Ah,” Tim says, so trusting, back to his chest, arm against arm, sky-bound, “but I can’t fly. It’s you taking me to the stars.”
“It’s still flying, Tim,” Dick laughs. “I’ll lend you my wings, if you want.”
“You can be my wings.” The air holds them up, lets them glide, peacing the ache, and suspends them forever with each other, with the stars at their backs and the ocean beneath their feet and the Sun on the horizon.
Flying.
Dancing.
Just him. Just them.
It feels like a dream and a memory, the golden light and the way they glow, the music. Everywhere they touch seems all the more radiant.
I’ll give you my wings, he thinks, holding Tim’s gloved hands, tasting the ash. I’ll give you anything you want. Anything for this. Something compels him to speak, open his lips and let the words tumble out.
“I need you to wake up, Tim,” he murmurs like a secret to soar into Tim’s ear.
The whole gala slams to a stop.
Every head jerks, every eye locks onto them, every hushed whisper cut off to witness this spectacle. His back burns with it. Their time is short, weighed by the weight of these creeping, crawling stares. He takes in a shaking breath.
“You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”
It feels like falling, the drop in his stomach yanking him down, down, down. They are dancing, the only ones on the floor, but this waltz is mismatched. They step on each other’s feet, and they are not flying because they are flailing, the only ones midair, and Tim, broken nose and pipe through his torso, beautiful in his dress, his suit, his Kevlar, asks: “Weren’t we flying?”
The eyes are indelible craters in Dick's landscaped body. Go away. They don’t. Stop watching. They don’t.
“Past the rooftops,” Dick swears. “I won’t let you fall. I won’t let this end.”
Tim smiles, brave, scared. “You can’t stop it.”
The world is flaming at Dick’s back, the ballroom on fire. He sees his ivory-white wings–the wax melt red, erratic drips against the rubble, echoing. His neck twists, watching as it falls to ruin around them.
He turns his head back to Tim, a marionette without a marionettist. Tim is on the floor. Pinning him in place is a thin, metal pole, the smoke in the air.
He is on his knees, bloody and raw, “You need to wake up,” he begs. “I can’t do this without you.” Tim’s face is scorching through the gloves. “I can’t do this without you.” It’s like the Sun against his fingertips, dissolving their wings. “I can’t do this without you, Tim." He doesn't get a response, and ignores the way he is elbow-deep in Tim's blood and the temperamental stuttering of his heart. "I need you to wake up–”
He wakes up, cold and dark.