Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Summary: Dick gets more than he bargained for when he asks Bruce for help.
Warnings: Slash, References Het
Challenge: Peja's Dark Secrets challenge on 27-4-09
Prompts: "I am more than the person you see"; "No harm, no foul"; and "It seems I love you. Bizarre, don't you think?"
Disclaimer: Bruce "Batman" Wayne, Dick "Robin" Grayson, and Selina "Catwoman" Kyle are & TM DC comics, not the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
"So," the younger man concluded his story of romantic woes, "what would you do?"
"What would I do?" the older one repeated in confusion. "Why would you even ask me?"
"Because you're the man with the answers."
"Who says?"
"Everybody. Ask anybody you know, and they all say that the Batman knows it all. Besides, you know the car gets the chicks, and you drive the car."
"That doesn't mean I have the answers. I have more than enough trouble with my own women!"
"Really?" When Bruce only glared in response, Dick persisted, "Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know," Bruce replied slowly. "For starters, I have a habit of falling for the wrong ones, those who die, those who move, and, just like everybody says, those who are on the wrong side of the law."
"They're still hot, and you're happy -- "
"Who says?"
"You always look happy when you come back from a date."
"Just because I get laid doesn't mean I'm happy."
It was Dick's turn to look at him in surprise. He'd never heard him talk so frankly! And what man wasn't happy when he got laid?
"For Gotham's sake, my top woman is a crazed sociopath who gives her kids drugs!"
Dick's mouth fell open. "What?!"
Bruce sighed, turned, and faced him fully. "Dick, I am far more than the person you see. I thought you would know that by now."
"I -- I do, Bruce, but . . . but," he fumbled for words, " . . . I still thought you had all the ladies right where you want them."
"You thought wrong," Bruce replied coldly while slipping his cowl down over his face. With his mask in place, he felt protected, his secrets safe. He turned and walked away, leaving his best friend standing behind him, mouth still agape, eyes bulging with surprise.
"But . . . But who gives her kids drugs? Come on, Bruce, I have to know!"
He turned halfway back, just enough that he could look at his boy with his eyes still shielded. "Catwoman."
"Oh." Dick visibly relaxed, the tension going out of him as though he was a punching bag some one had just blown away. "Just catnip, right?" Batman nodded. "Cats like catnip; it doesn't harm them. No harm, no foul, right?" he suggested with a hopeful grin.
"Perhaps," he replied in his low voice, and then he was gone, his cape sweeping after him like gigantic wings. Robin was left behind him as Batman left to go on the prowl that night, his mind a jumble of thoughts and that hopeful grin of Dick's that appeared far more innocent than it should be filling his mental vision. Much later that night, watching the city from one of his favorite perches on top of a gargoyle, he finally let his sigh out.
Dick could never know the real him for he would run in the opposite direction if he did and call him more sick and twisted than the Joker, Two Face, or any of the villains they'd battled in the past. Only in his dreams could he face him and say the words he really wanted to say. {It seems I love you,} he admitted in the imagination so few knew he possessed. {Bizarre, don't you think?}
Never in his dreams did Robin turn from him, but he knew just one uttered admission in reality would send his best friend running away from him and he would lose him forever. He would not let that happen, he swore yet again, launching his grappling hook and swinging out into the night in search of some perp to take his frustrations out on.
The End