In a world where you know each second could be your last, you take a hint from Zombieland and learn to enjoy the little things. Sometimes, these things could be from something as simple as the dew on the grass in the morning to how the sunlight broke the parts in the leaves on the overhead trees, just barely missing where your eyes gazed upward at the gentle blue of the sky. Other times, it could be how you manage to escape the stress of people that depend on you by sneaking out to the forest and just laying in the grass to closing your eyes and letting the chirp of the crickets and the lull of the songbirds take you away from all the bad in the world.
This little thing, to Dick at least, was being alone.
He had nothing against people, loved most of them in fact, but some times he just couldn't deal with them and al their complaints. It was nice, bliss if you would, to escape it all and just find yourself a spot in Wonderland to curl up in where the Cheshire cat has agreed to leave you be and there are no Merry Unbirthdays to be celebrated with a too hot cup of tea with mad men. Just the grass, the wind and the call of a bird soaring above that sounded exactly like his name.
Wait a second. It was calling his name.
Dick opened his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows and looking up to the heavens, untensing when he recognized the jade plumage dropping down fast into the clearing he occupied. Sure, the ebony was a little upset that his leisure was interrupted, but he was glad it wasn't someone out to hurt him.
Scratch that. A scratch to his arm specifically. It wasn't like it stung, but it wasn't particularly pleasant, causing him to shake it off with a breath of a hiss.
"Ouch, Gar… " he muttered, rubbing it sorely and smearing the little blood that surfaced along his pale flesh.
The peregrine falcon stumbled over its talons, eventually tumbling from the failed landing before it became a small green Labrador that gave a whimper before bounding swiftly to the teen's side. Resting its dark paws to the acrobat's thighs, the small dog lapped at the blood until it was gone, earning a scrunch of the ebony's nose.
"I'm fine, BB," he tousled the fur between the two floppy ears with an encouraging smile, the upturned lips becoming a full fledged grin as his pale digits wound up in actual green locks of hair.
"Sorry, Nightwing," the younger boy apologized anyway, rubbing his neck with a bit of a blush and a shy smile. "C-came in a little too fast there."
Dick chuckled at how flustered the greenette was, knocking himself back down to the grass and staring up at the sky again. He groaned as the sun had moved, blaring his eyes, causing him to raise a hand to block it out.
"Don't worry about it," he assured the member of his team, "Kid Flash did stuff worse than that to me on purpose when we were your age. I'm used to it."
Garfield managed a shy laugh at that, sounding relieved before he shakily echoed the leader and laid down in the grass, his emerald eyes sparkling. They met Dick's navy set and the older boy found his heart panging at the reminder of his best friend.
How long had it been since he had looked Wally in the eye? When was the last time they ridiculed each other only to bowl over in laughter? He couldn't remember genuinely laughing in a long time.
He winced as the dark eyebrows furrowed and Dick realized he must've been staring, averting his eyes back to his hand with a slight downward tug to the edge of his lips.
"What'd you need, Gar?" he tried to take their minds off of that, swallowing hard.
The freckle-faced boy was hushed for a second, interlacing his fingers nervously over his stomach.
"Well… um… Dick…"
The ebony winced as if the younger boy had slapped him as soon as the name slipped, quickly prodding an apology from the animorph's lips.
"Just figured… no one's around… I guess uh… I was talking to Tim—" that drew another wince, but he kept going, "and… don't ask how we got on the topic or anything, but he mentioned that you've got gymnastics skills, kind of like trapeze stuff… a-and… He said you're really good at it… so I was hoping you could help me. I'm pretty new at this… 'being an animal' thing. I rely a lot on gymnastics and I don't know anything about that. Think you could… help?"
Garfield watched patiently as the older teen's face tightened, softened, stretched and did all sorts of conformations, unable to pick a certain emotion out. He didn't want to try though. He just turned his gaze to the sky and watched the clouds, tracing their shapes.
"That one kind of looks like the Nyan cat… only… not… maybe a turtle? What's that squiggle supposed to be? Did the ninja turtles hit puberty or something? Poor Michelangelo[1]…" he muttered under his breath, moving to the next cloud and the next before he finally drew out a reaction from the near Man-Wonder.
"I don't really see how being able to work a trapeze could help you do anything but be a monkey, or maybe a squirrel or something. You seem to prefer things that fly or charge, so I think Superboy or Bumblebee would be better to talk about for help."
Garfield couldn't help but notice the slightest of pain on the hero's tone, and the way his eyes grew darker as he said it. He had to bring back the bright that Wally used to talk about when he was around.
'You know the day's going to end well when Rob's brights are on. That's how it goes. The brat has an aster tracker or something implanted up there and if he's bright, then the day is too.'
He had to bring back the brights.
"I don't want their help, Nightwing. I want yours."
Dick looked over, a little more confused than he should've been before he rolled over onto his stomach, laying his head in the crook of his arm.
"Now why would you want that?" he curiously probed, slowly blinking.
For a second, the bright came back, but then it fell silent. It seemed to run on hope, on faith, on the belief others bestowed in him. If it was truth he needed, the boy with a little too much in his pants was willing to share it all. He turned to his side, rolling off of his tail so it would stop with the tedious ache, his own brights on at their max.
"Well that's easy. You're my hero! You were my inspiration when I lived with… mom… back at home! I was a normal kid who worked with animals all day! I had nothing to do, no friends and definitely no life. Then I see you come on the news and… Everything about you was what I needed to wake up. You were a regular kid, just like me, and you could save the world in your sleep!"
"Not necessarily in my sleep…" Dick murmured, but he was obviously well flattered so far.
His eyes were still as dim as ever, his smile a weak and forced one.
"When Megan gave me her blood and gave me powers, I knew I wasn't normal anymore, but you were still my hero. You were normal and you easily beat out anything I tried to do! When they threw a knife at you, you kicked up your leg and flipped over it! When my mom would throw my toys at me to tell me to pick them up, I'd just get in the face and cry for a little bit!"
That ignited it. The sparkle was there, just like Wally said it would be, a glaze to his pupils and a particular white spot just barely made out against the black near the top of his eye. His smile may not have been real, but his aster was to its highest.
"Alright, stop with the flattery, you'll make me blush," Dick pushed himself to his feet, extending a hand to help the greenette to his toes. "Let's go out a bit further and I'll teach you some stuff."
Garfield swallowed nervously, his eyes wide at the height separating him from the ground. Dick on the other hand couldn't possibly be any happier, sliding his jacket and his cover shirt to the grass at the base of the tree. All he had now was a black tank top, his jeans and his utility belt holding his jeans up.
"Lighten up, BB," he chuckled warmly, putting an arm around the tailed boy's shoulders. "I've been doing this since… well, I was a little younger than you when I started. I'm a pro at this. I promise I won't let you fal-…"
His smile faded a second and his face gained a shadow before he shook it off and pasted on a new smile.
"If anything happens, you can just fly back to the top and start again. You have nothing to worry about."
He reached into his utility belt, sixth pocket, fourth fold, and coated his palms in a white substance that outlined every crack and line to his flesh. The greenette eyed it, earning a smile from the acrobat.
"Chalk. Acrobats—a-and heroes use it to better their grip on things to keep from… losing their grip on the bar," he covered himself, avoiding rubbing his neck knowing from past experience how bad it made him squirm. "Now, I'm going to go first so you have the basic idea of what to do."
Just as Dick reached a hand up for a towering branch, Garfield set a hand to his arm.
"Wait… how do you know so much about this stuff? Tim wouldn't say that part… a-and I've never seen Batman doing the kind of stuff you do…" his eyes were innocent, so pure, the dark of the shadow that returned to Dick's features doing nothing to them.
Instead, the ebony reached a hand down and roughly tousled the jade locks, purposely entangling white in it to annoy the little animorph. It only made him giggle though, a grin lighting up his face.
"We call them secrets for a reason, kid," he winked playfully before he lifted himself up on the branch, swinging his body until he had enough momentum to three sixty the branch and barrel launch himself to a nearby stretch, wrapping his legs around it.
It was quick to groan under his weight, sinking fast to level him with another branch, his hands releasing and his body hurtling before his knees hooked over the branch. He somersaulted once, putting his hands on either side of him and kicking his legs off to gain the oomph he needed to go up a few more feet than he regularly could, managing just an arm. That's all it took to Tarzan to another branch where a grasp to the tip circled him to a stronger arm of a tree a good fifty feet away.
"Did you catch all that?" Dick cupped his mouth after a scream of excitement, the brights to his eyes vividly cutting the space better than his own voice did.
Garfield snickered as the white stained around the ebony's mouth, looking a bit suspicious as he nodded. Dick did it as if it was nothing. He had powers so it had to be at least twice more easy than it was for the teen.
That's what he thought at first. One grab to a branch had it snap clean down the center and hurtle him straight for the grass below. He screamed, mostly out of habit, unconsciously calling for help.
"Dick!"
It was as if his name was his trigger word, dropping Dick to his knees, his eyes becoming dinner plates and his lips parting.
"No…" he breathed, his mind numbing him out even as the screech of the hawk assured him that Garfield had caught flight and survived.
He didn't see the bird land beside him and he definitely didn't see Beast Boy take its place. The world was a blur behind his eyes, the worst possible case of déjà vu running him cold.
"Don't worry, I can fly… I'm okay, see?" Garfield moved his fingers fast, pulling on his face and casually ham-boning with the hope that it'd bring even the slightest crack to the traumatized expression.
It didn't come close.
"You could… but they couldn't," he unconsciously breathed, standing to his feet with the worst kind of hurt in his eyes.
Garfield raised an eyebrow, a hand to the older teen's arm.
"Who couldn't?" he asked quietly.
Dick looked down at the freckle-faced boy and suddenly put an arm around him, holding him close, drawing a happy little squeak from his lips.
"You're going to find that… there aren't a lot of us orphans out there… but we can stand up for each other when the rest of the world can't help but fall," he practically preached, earning a sigh of, "Deep" from the greenette.
The emerald eyes watched him for a second, hugging back shyly, when something seemed to kick in.
"Wait… orphans… You… You too?" he asked, honestly surprised.
Dick gave a one-sided smile, looking up at the sky idly. He seemed to catch sight of something, raising an eyebrow carefully as he watched it before pointing up.
"It kinda looks like one of the ninja turtles hit puberty," he cocked his head to the side, earning a giggle from the little boy.
"What about the one behind it? It kind of looks like a turtle with three heads and a…" Garfield squinted.
"Maybe a sphinx body with the coolest afro ever," Dick agreed.
They laughed quietly, scanning the skies and laughing the bad thoughts off, enjoying the little things while they could in the seconds that might be their last.
[1] I don't know if you guys watch the new TMNT, but the voice for Michelangelo is the voice of Beast Boy for Teen Titans. ISN'T IT IRONIC, C.
-F.J. III