Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ah, now I don't hardly know her

But I think I could love her

Crimson and clover

        Dick returned to Gotham the afternoon after the museum dance with Carmen's number saved on his phone and an internal vow not to let his family know about her (and investigate or scare her off) until he felt ready.

        He also thinks that it will take a while for him to feel ready to talk about Carmen to the absolute chaos that is his family since he doesn't even know if he's ready to text or call the number she left with him.

      So, the first thing Dick does when he gets to the apartment he rents in Gotham (for when he needs some privacy but doesn't want to be far from the mansion) is call Wally and tell him everything.

    "Wow, man, you're down BAD for her" - His best friend seems strictly amused by the situation and something in Dick relaxes.

     He and Wally worked best as friends and anything beyond that was just the need for a romantic partner who understood them as well as they both did, but a mistake in the end. He'll always cherish the time they spent together, but he knows they work better as friends than lovers, just like he and Kori or he and Roy.

     Still, Dick is happy to know that things won't get weird now that he's thinking about getting into a new relationship.

      Not that he and Carmen would become a real thing now, but the possibility was there.

        "It's nothing serious yet. I haven't even texted her yet." Dick explained. - "Mostly because she disappeared after our kiss and I don't know..."

    Wally seemed to sense what was coming.

     "Ah, the old bat paranoia. I've been missing her for a while now." - The current flash laughed. - "I'd like to remind you that she's been working with the museum curator for the past two years, right? If she's secretly a villain, that's a really long game plan"

    Okay, it sounded stupid when he put it like that.

      "But she disappeared and I couldn't find her at all. “ - he defended himself - “I've been a trained vigilante since I was 8, I'm supposed to be able to find a civilian even if I'm on cloud nine because of a kiss.”

    Dick had to pull the phone away from his ear when Wally laughed. He definitely didn't pout at his friend's reaction to his dilemma.

    “Dick, you weren't even a confirmed guest for this ball.” - Wally reminded him anyway. - “She wasn't interested in you either or your family planning something sinister. Didn't Tim ask them not to tell who had donated the artifacts? She wouldn't have any way of knowing.”

     Dick didn't point out that if Daniel trusted her he could have told Carmen in advance or asked for help to attest some of them because that would be another point in her direction of being trustworthy.

    Okay, maybe he had to give in here.

     “And, I would also like to point out that for every 3 sentences you said the whole call at least one was a compliment to this girl,” Wally continued. “Which makes me like her at least a little bit because you definitely didn’t want to go to this dance and now it seems like you’re sad that it lasted so little.”

        He was. Dick thought he could listen to or dance with Carmen for several more hours. He didn’t say it out loud either but Wally seemed to hear it anyway. Damn, having a best friend who knows you as well as you know yourself sucks sometimes.

      “Yeah, yeah, you’re in denial or something right now but I'll pass. ” Wally said in an amused tone. “Anyway, let’s pretend you won’t change your mind on your own in an hour or less and send her a flirty text soon. After all, you have to answer me one super important detail to determine where this is going.”

      Dick regretted calling Wally. Babs was a much better ex-girlfriend and friend for this kind of thing, she wouldn't make so many jokes at his expense at least.
     Well, she wouldn't make so many openly. Maybe a few indirect ones.

     "Okay, Wally, what do you want to know?"
      A laugh then a deep breath before his best friend started talking in a falsely serious tone of voice.
      "Is Carmen a  redhead?"

      Dick groaned while Wally took this as confirmation and started laughing again.
     "Oh my God, I have to call Roy. He owes me 50 dollars."

     "Hey!! Did you guys bet on my love life?" Dick complained before stopping - "Wait. Did you guys bet on whether or not it would be someone with red hair?"

       "Of course not, Dick." - The redhead answered over the phone - "We bet on how long it would take for you to have a crush on another redhead. Your type is obvious, so there would be no point in betting on it."

    Dick wondered why they were still friends, honestly. Despite the bullying Dick feels he is a victim of, he keeps the conversation with Wally fresh in his mind.

     His relationships haven't been working out lately. The ones with other heroes end up succumbing to the routine and pressure that this kind of life brings or something like that and the relationships with civilians end because his life is very different from that of a normal civilian. The lies necessary to keep his secret and that of his family destroy the trust between him and his partners.

       He doesn't know if he wants to get into a relationship just for it to end again. But on the other hand, Carmen is interesting and beautiful and laughs at his silly puns. She likes to talk about her travels (and she knows what she's talking about), but she also likes to hear what his opinions are.

      Maybe it's not the right thought, but he thinks that even if their relationship is doomed to end as well, he would be more than happy to have Carmen as just a friend.

    He decides to postpone this decision for a while.

-----

After leaving his things at the apartment and ending the call with Walls, Dick rides his motorcycle to the mansion and goes straight to Tim's room to pass on Mrs. Warner and Daniel's thanks. (No, he's not putting off sending a message to Carmen.)

    His younger brother was looking more exhausted than usual, probably because of the reason he couldn't go to the charity ball himself, but he seemed pleased to know that everything had gone well.

        "It's not like it's a ball in Gotham, anyway. Ours are always bound to be interrupted by some rogue." Tim comments nonchalantly. Dick laughed. Unfortunately, he and any Gotham resident were used to most of the important events in their lives being interrupted by one of the countless villains that lived and terrorized the city. A graduation, a lecture at college, a picnic in the park, a wedding, a charity ball... Honestly, it wasn't a surprise that there were so few event-planning agencies in this city.

 “Well, Metropolis can be boring when it wants to be, but don’t tell Clark or Kon I said that.” He commented although he was pleased to have had a “boring” charity ball.

  After all, it was what allowed him to get to know Carmen a little better.

    “But it was a fun ball.” - Dick points out before he can stop himself. 

    Tim didn’t seem interested in investigating the meaning behind the second sentence, which was undoubtedly proof of how tired the little stalker of the Wayne family was. Not that Dick minded the lack of interrogation, although the love language of most of the Batfamily was investigating and ignoring personal privacy boundaries, he liked the idea of ​​keeping Carmen something just for himself.

Chapter Text

Ah when she comes walking over
Now I've been waitin' to show her
Crimson and clover over and over

    Despite what Wally had said about being less paranoid, Dick still honestly considered researching Carmen on the Batcomputer.

    The Thing about it was that Dick considered himself a good decision maker in general.

    He decided to become Robin and didn't give Bruce much choice about it.

    He decided to become Nightwing after he was fired from being Robin (and yes, that was still a box he refused to open. How dare Bruce think he had the right to fire him from something that was his family's legacy in the first place???!!)

    He decided to form the Teen Titans.

    He decided to befriend the Titans.

    He carefully considered whether it was worth telling his secret identity to his teammates. And he told them his ID when he felt it was the right time. 

  He decided not to get close to Jason after Bruce adopted him without even telling Dick (shortly after the Grayson left/had been fired)

  He decided to enter into each of his subsequent relationships and also decided to never cheat on a partner of his.

   He decided to leave the Titans when everyone except Wally believed he had cheated on Kori with Mirage, when, in fact, he was a victim and felt used/abused/invaded. (Rape by deception was a thing that existed, they were heroes and should have known that! Dick fought against his paranoia all the time so of course he wouldn't suspect his girlfriend wanting to be with him.)

   He decided to become a police detective to change the Bludhaven department like he saw Gordon trying to do in Gotham.

   He decided to be a good brother to Tim after he decided not to go back to being Robin even though he knew how Jason's death was affecting Bruce. 

    He decided to cautiously approach the Titans again after they apologized for thinking he was a cheater and kept trying to get over all the things they had called him that day and for a period after. ( Sometimes he still felt like it was his fault, that they were right and he was the playboy who couldn't keep his pants on... He felt like it was his fault that he was so violated and still had to defend himself against the people who should have been his support system after he was raped. )

    He decided to quit his job as a detective when Bruce "died". And He decided to become Batman in his father's place and deal with all the baggage that came with it (Dick never wanted to be Batman, he tried everything to be different and not be like him, not to take the same risks... He tried to escape this life where the mission was all that mattered and even his family was secondary, but here he was, wearing the cape and making the same mistake of firing a Robin who just needed support.)

     He chose to give Robin to Damian (And honestly, this was the first time he could CHOOSE who Robin would be, the first time he was given control over what was the legacy of his DEAD family).

   Yes, he also chose to ignore the hope that Tim offered. (He was scared and full of worries, a burden he never wanted was on his shoulders and everyone seemed to treat him like the villain of the situation for trying to keep things under control.)

    He decided not to go back to being a cop when Bruce came back from his time travel/Death Time. He was also happy to abandon Batman.

     He decided to apologize to Tim and tried to communicate everything that had led him to ignore his little brother and everything. Which made them cry and decide to try being brothers again, even though they knew it wouldn't be the same.(Dick was no longer Tim's golden boy who could do no wrong, and Tim was no longer the brother Dick didn't have to worry about whether or not he was doing well. Tim had always been too independent for his own good.)

    He decided to open the Flying Graysons GymCenter with Bruce's help and felt fulfilled by it.

    He decided to spend more time in Gotham than in Blud. Blud had become his territory to protect but Gotham was his home again.
He decided to make an effort to get his family into therapy…

    He had made a lot of decisions in life, and these weren't all. Life required a lot of decisions, and life as a vigilante required even more, a split-second decision that saved a life or a decision in the investigation that made you lose the trail you were following.

     Dick Grayson had made a lot of decisions in life. Some good. Some bad.
     But none were as easy as sending that first message to Carmen Valdez.

-----

           One message after another and several conversations formed in a few days and Dick made another crucial decision: Not to search Carmen on the Batcomputer.

      He discovered that, whatever he was going to find out about him, he would rather hear it from her.
      And he listened.

    Carmen spoke about her life with a passion that was hard to find in most people, in Dick's opinion.
    It was clear that she loved the places he visited, loved meeting new people and treasured every bit of history she got from each one. Dick also discovered that she had a soft spot for children and that she was raised with minimal access to the internet until her teens (which was hard to imagine, Dick was hacking complex systems at 9 after all) but always had several tutors from different places around the world.

     When he asked how her mother hired the tutors, about 2 months after they started talking, Carmen hesitated before telling him that in fact she only met her real mother when she was already an adult. Her father's family raised her from childhood, and despite knowing she had a mother, Carmen didn't feel like straying from the path her father's family had set for her until she was in her late teens, when she so eloquently says she ran away to find herself. 

         (Something told Dick that she didn't just mean it figuratively, especially the way she avoided talking too much about her paternal family and her relationship with them. )

    Dick finds one of the most interesting things about Carmen is that she is a genuinely good person, passionate about the world. Carmen appreciates every culture she encounters and treats them with all the dignity they deserve, even if they are different from what she is used to.
       It is that trait of hers that leads him to talk about her Romani heritage.
    They are on the phone and Dick is ready for respectful questions and well-meaning but completely wrong assumptions, because that is what he has received from people like Bruce, Alfred and Clark, but her answer surprises him and leaves him even more enchanted.

    "Oh! It's an ethnic group that originated in northwest India, right?" - She asks and his brain stops. It’s so different from the reaction he’s used to that Dick takes a moment to respond, but Carmen continues. “I think I read somewhere about how Romani culture is characterized by a strong sense of family, a rich musical heritage, and a nomadic lifestyle. And I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a sense of family as strong as yours, even if you’re lacking in the musical part.”

        Okay, Dick was in love with this woman. Far too gone.

      “Yes to both, I’m surprised that was your first response.” Dick joked to mask the positive shock and warm feeling he was feeling. “I prepared myself for the worst. But I still feel offended in a way. Was the comment about the musical part a criticism of my singing or my musical taste?”

      He heard Carmen give a weak laugh over the phone.

     “20-year-old Carmen would probably live up to your expectations.” She explained, “When I was in Bulgaria during that time, I ended up staying for a while in Plovdiv where there is the Stolipinovo district. I ended up meeting a Romani woman who took me in for my three days there. I kept asking a lot of questions. “

Dick smiles as he imagines a younger, more impressionable Carmen following this woman around and peppering her with questions.

          “It broke a lot of paradigms and conceptions that I didn’t even know were negative for you guys.” - Dick appreciates that she didn’t stop including him among her people just because she knows that his lifestyle is no longer like that of most Romani - “She explained that The word Gypsy is often associated with stereotypes and discrimination and can carry negative connotations and that it has a long history of being used to marginalize and dehumanize Romani communities. But that she, personally, didn’t mind the use of the word as long as it wasn’t actively derogatory. The infrastructure of the district is decaying, but despite all these hardships and discrimination, the community there is strong and holds on to many of their traditions. ”

       Carmen takes a deep breath.

   “I decided to research more about the cultures I had previously visited after that,” - She comments. - “The best way to show respect is to try to get to know the people you want to respect, in my opinion, and also avoid falling into stereotypes that are common around the world but do not reflect the commonalities they talk about.”

       Then Carmen starts talking about how, unlike what most people think based on movies and the media, most of the residents of the Brazilian "Favelas" are honest workers who end up being vulnerable to the command of the criminals who take control of these places, and end up suffering prejudice for something that is beyond their control and is not resolved by the local police or minimized by the government itself.

        As Carmen continues her passionate speech, Dick can't help but think about how amazing she is. She doesn't even realize the importance of what she just said to him before changing the subject because for her it's the least she can do. He can't find the words to explain that only his family and a few friends have done this least for him.

        They've been talking for almost 4 months now, and Dick wonders if it's too soon to love her.