Work Text:
Dick wished he could understand why the mirror changed randomly.
Well, no, that was the wrong wording for it. Dick wasn’t really great with nice, flowing sentences that felt like smooth butter on a page, like they were straight out of a novel Dick didn’t have the attention span to fully read. Spoken words, spoken languages, though- they came as easy as breathing to Dick, like he was meant to verbalize what those pages in the novels were supposed to say, but when he had to sit down and write or type them out? It suddenly became a messy mix until he finally forced himself to fall back onto very precise and literal wording. Metaphors didn’t always translate right between languages and it already didn’t help that English was nowhere near his first one. Being literal had been easy when you wrote next to nothing besides reports for Batman, or reports for the Titans, or needed to type up a very un-flowery description of the state of a corpse. Dick thanks all the beings out there trying to look out for him that texting didn’t need to include really cool detailed descriptions, or else Dick would have abandoned his phone eons ago.
Maybe Dick should try to be more literal with his wording, right now, if only to try and grasp and explain what was really going on.
So,
What he really meant was- why did looking at himself in the mirror feel much more wrong some days than others?
(Nailed it.)
Dick didn’t have much time to really think about it, not with the array of problems that were thrown at him every which way, but today was slow, and today Dick was stuck in his apartment due to the icy roads, so he let himself stand in his bathroom and stare without consequence.
He says without consequence, but the real consequence was that whatever stared back at him was wrong.
And it was horrible, really fucking horrible, because this wasn’t the same kind of wrong that had plagued him just a few night when he had caught sudden sight of himself in the mirror after stepping out of the shower. That kind of wrong- it had made Dick wish his shoulders weren’t so broad, that his hair was a little longer, that his jawline wasn’t nearly as sharp as it was. Now, though? Now was the kind of wrong that made him wish that he was right back in the circus, running and jumping around and getting this absolutely wild grin on his face when an old married couple in the stands couldn’t figure out if he was a girl or boy.
It was stupid, too, because it wasn’t really like Jason or Tim who were just born with the wrong body parts. Dick liked being a guy, he liked the way he looked in the mirror most days, but fuck if he didn’t wish that sometimes, someone would call him pretty instead of handsome.
It was stupid.
Dick felt really, really stupid.
He reaches a hand up to his face, fingers pressed somewhat roughly against his cheek, and Dick tries to smoosh it around while staring in the mirror to see if it made anything better. All it did was make him feel stupider, and this little whine makes its way out of his mouth before he’s able to catch himself. Why does he feel like this? Why did everything have to feel wrong and dirty and like it wasn’t supposed to be like this? Why did the guy looking back at him in the mirror have to feel so awfully disconnected from the person that bashed against the inside of his chest, squealing and crying to be let out and free from its container? Dick wasn’t normal, a guy who ran around in a glorified onesie at night to beat up bad guys could never be normal, but Dick really wished sometimes that he could just reflect whatever societal norms were floating around at this point and just be. Why couldn’t he just be like other people for a change and not be himself.
Obviously, he mused darkly, that didn’t work either.
The circus, and wasn’t it horrible that he couldn’t get himself to call it Haly’s Circus anymore, not after what had happened, was something Dick had refused to let himself think about these last few months. Dick didn’t have time to even unravel all the horrific implications of what he had learned, and he really didn’t want to start to unravel it right now either, but he did need to think of the circus on the bare level because that’s where this started, didn’t it?
The other circus performers, his parents, Haly- they had never cared. One day Dick would come barreling out of his room wearing a skirt simply because it felt good, and the knife thrower would simply give him a sweet smile and say nothing of it as Dick rambled endlessly about whatever it was for the day, and the next day he would throw the skirt across the room because the idea of wearing it felt downright insulting because no, Mr.Haly, today the skirt felt itchy and no good against his legs. That’s how it was, with the circus, because nothing was too weird for them, because all of them had likely seen it all before, and because as long as you weren’t hurting someone or yourself no one cared. That’s what Dick missed, truly- that no one would care because he was already part of the freaking circus so wearing a skirt was nothing to even blink at.
. . . And then his parents died, and then Bruce took him in.
High society, hell, even regular society, wasn’t ready for that. It still wasn’t even now, even with the rise of acceptance in people, but especially not when Bruce had taken him in. People already whispered about him in galas, about that little charity case or that stupid little circus freak, so when Bruce had found him wearing a skirt in his room, he had to explain in soft words why Dick couldn’t go out wearing one like he yearned to.
It’s not Bruce’s fault, he knows that. Dick had never blamed him in the first place, but he especially couldn’t blame him now because if it wasn’t for Bruce, Dick would, he would be . . .
(The Gray Son Of Gotham. Gray Son of Gotham. Wasn’t that just peachy.)
Letting out a shutter, Dick shoves himself away from the mirror and out of the bathroom, leaning from one foot to the other as he tries to decide what to do, before shaking his head and pushing the door open to his bedroom. He really should eat something, he hasn’t eaten anything since waking up, but the idea of food going down and digesting in a body that wasn’t right it ISN’T RIGHT- just made that pit in his chest deeper, and so- bed it was.
Crawling on top of the comforter, he rummages around until he manages to find his phone, and for a brief, brief moment, he debates calling Jason, or Tim, or someone, but it still feels too stupid for that, so instead Dick opens his music app, scrolling until he finds the right playlist, and clicks play. Tossing his phone onto the bed beside him, he curls up and into himself and maybe if he makes himself small, he could get this feeling out of his chest finally, too.
“Do you ever see someone and think, “Wow, God must hate me”?”
And yeah, if he’s out there, he has to. God has to be laughing at his misfortune and how stupid he is.
Dick kinda agrees, too. God obviously made some big mistakes with one Richard Grayson, huh?