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Yeah, He Is
"Hey, what are you still doing here?"
Robin, in his regular Dick Grayson jeans and tee-shirt, looked up from the carburetor he was doing God knew what to, nodded at it and said, "This."
"I meant, why aren't you working on it over at your place? Doesn't Bruce have a state of the art machine shop on the property?"
Rob nodded. "I like working here."
Roy sat down with a deli sandwich and soda he'd picked up on the way in to the Tower. "And you don't like working there?"
"I didn't say that."
"Sure you did, you always do, you just don't say it out loud."
Robin didn't answer, just kept doing whatever he was doing to greasy part in his hands.
"You and Bruce on the outs again?"
"'Same old. 'You know how it is, just like you and Ollie."
"No it in't." Roy mumbled around a half-chewed mouthful of ham and cheese. "We have our ups and downs but we know we love one another in a screwed up way. He ignores me, I fuck up to get his attention—it works for us. You pretend you're just like one of Bruce's employees, or rather you're one of Batman's employees."
"No I don't."
"Of course you do, you've been doing that for a couple of years now, ever since you started pulling this mopey-dopey hang-dog crap. You used to look at him like he was the font of all that was good and wise in the world and now you're like he's a jackass you can barely stand to be in the same room with."
"I do not."
Indignation much?
Roy laughed as well as he could without doing a spit-take of his lunch. "It's no skin off my ass but you're acting like you're going through some cliché teen-aged rebellion against your parents—your father, anyway. Not to worry, Rob; it's just a phase, you'll out grow it."
"Go to hell."
"Temper, temper." He picked up his soda bottle, took a long pull, stood up, "Whatever, your problem. He's your daddy, not mine."
"He's not my father."
Roy dropped his smirk and slid into one of his rare serious moments. "Yeah, he is. He's as close as you've got to a parent since yours were killed. You can float down d'Nile all you want, but dem's the facts, take 'em or leave 'em. I gotta go. 'Later."
"You're full of it."
"Sure, whatever." Unfazed, Roy wandered out of the room, probably looking for Donna.
Robin turned back to his carburetor but his concentration was broken. Roy was wrong, he wasn't going through some stupid teenaged phase and he didn't feel like one of Bruce's employees—not too often, anyway. Bruce was…Bruce. He wasn't easy to live with and Batman was even harder to work with, everyone knew that; just ask anyone in the JLA; they all knew what he was like.
Demanding, perfectionist, unbending, obsessed, rigid, inflexible, unyielding, uncompromising; take your pick, they all fit. Impossible, that was another popular one.
No matter what else was going on or what reasons might exist, it was his way or the highway. He was never wrong, never accepted any criticism, never heard a suggestion he couldn't find fault with.
Roy had no idea what it was like working with him, didn't have any idea how it was to see him everyday at the breakfast table dissecting the previous night's work with a fine tooth comb and picking everything apart.
Criticisms? A dime a dozen. Compliments? Yeah, right.
"Screw this." Frustrated, he stood up, leaving the car parts on the greasy newspaper. He headed down the gym to work out some of the tension but turned left when he heard splashing in the pool. Garth, of course. Garth stayed here whenever he'd had enough of Arthur, which was a pretty common thing. Robin knew things were dicey between him and Bruce but they were a walk in the park compared with Garth and Arthur.
"Hey Garth, how's it going?"
"Fine, thank you."
That was all, no 'how are you doing?' No 'good to see you', no 'you look like you want to kill someone'. Okay, he'd bite. "'Everything all right?"
"'As well as ever, yes."
All right, something was really bugging him, that was clear. "C'mon, what's going on? 'Arthur doing something again?"
Garth exhaled in what seemed to be frustration, an unusual display of emotion for him; he was pretty tightly wrapped most of the time. Then he exploded. "Arthur! He's always—he's just so—he never—he—he's—he's—so difficult."
Whoa. "What happened?"
"He…" Garth stopped for a moment, either through irritation or because he didn't have the English words. "He—I realize, I know that as far as he's concerned I'm merely a tool to be used when needed and then ignored until next time but he…"
Pulling teeth. "He what? What does he do?"
"He—takes pleasure from taking every chance to tell me how my father was a king, how I've run from my obligations, how I reject the responsibility I was born to but which I'm completely unsuited for. And I do so because I'm afraid, I'm a coward and so am better, as he puts it, 'hiding under whatever rock is most convenient' since if I ever did accept the throne, I'd fail or end up murdered like my father. Arthur refers to that inevitability as 'my birthright'."
Robin was taken aback; he knew Arthur was rough, but this was out of hand. "Maybe he's trying to motivate you or something."
Garth shook his head then, his eyes fixed on some private middle distance, his mouth a tense line, "I loath him."
"Garth…"
"I wish he were dead. I swear I do."
"But, Garth…"
He shifted his eyes to Robin and softly spit out "You have no idea how lucky you are to have landed with Bruce after you were orphaned, no idea. None. You at least had the privilege of knowing your parents, knowing you were loved then and are now by Bruce." His anger was making his breathing sound as though he'd just run, or swum a race. His face was flushed and his hands were balled into fists. "I hate him, his arrogance, his casual cruelty, his oblivion to…I hate him."
"Then leave if it's that bad. Stay here. You have options, you don't have to be at his beck and call."
"You don't understand; I do. He's my king; I remain his subject so long as I reject my own throne. And…" He paused. "And he saved my life when he first found me, though I've no idea why anymore." His anger spent, his mental mask was slid firmly back into place and he lapsed into his usual self-contained silence, the transformation was as complete as Batman becoming Bruce Wayne. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't speak about him."
"It's okay, I mean, everyone needs to vent sometimes." Robin knew he needed to anyway, even if he almost never did it.
"No, I was wrong, I apologize, it won't happen again." Subject closed, probably forever. "Did you want to swim?"
"…Oh, no. I was just passing by and, y'know. I'm okay. You sure you're all right?"
"Of course." Garth pushed off from the edge of the pool, lazily floating on his back with his eyes closed. The exchange was over and Robin started to the gym when he heard Garth's soft voice. "You're lucky to have Bruce, Dick. Sometimes I think you don't know how much."
Dick, not Robin, walked through to the empty gym, flicked on the lights and chalked up his bare hands. At the pommel horse he stood, hands on the pommels.
Sure, both Roy and Garth thought he had it good but neither of them had ever really worked with Batman, not one-on-one. They had no idea what the reality was like. They saw the partnership, the tight control and communication—almost telepathic sometimes. They saw the cases solved, the public acceptance and the way Bruce's money helped ease problems. They were around the Tower when Batman called for Robin to work and how he dropped whatever he was doing to haul his ass to wherever it was needed without complaint.
He knew what others saw:
They were The Dynamic Duo.
Batman and Robin.
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.
Guardian and Ward.
Teacher and student.
Mentor and apprentice.
Father and Son.
Dick mentally stopped, his hands still on the pommels, unmoving, the proverbial ice-pick in his brain.
No. That's just what outsiders saw. His father was John Grayson, no one else. Even Bruce admitted as much when he refused to formally, legally adopt Dick; he only had one father and no one would take his place.
John Grayson helped give him life, taught him, nurtured him, cared for him when he was sick or injured, worried about him, gave him a career and a sense of belonging and accomplishment.
But what was it Roy said about Bruce? 'He might not have had anything to do with your being born but he's as close as you've got to a parent since yours were killed. You can deny it all you want.'
Yeah well, it might look like that.
The part of his brain that was really him, the part he kept hidden from everyone, his inner self thought he knew better. 'Talk about your inner conflict.
He was wrong; Roy was right and if Roy could see it then everyone did except himself.
Hell, it was like that. As much as he'd been fighting it, it was true. Like it or not, Bruce was as close to a parent as he was ever going to have from here on.
Dick knew it, he'd known it for years, he'd almost never thought about it, not really and when he did he made excuses to dismiss it.
He'd convinced himself that Bruce was a lot of things, mostly good and some bad, but he was just, well—he was just Bruce. He wasn't 'Dad'. He'd never be Dad, not to Dick.
But just as John Grayson was Dick Grayson's father, Batman was Robin's.
And Dick Grayson was Robin.
Yeah, well he was trained to think logically even though this was starting to sound a little Monty Python ('If she's made out of wood then she's a duck', or whatever that rift was). If he's Robin then Batman is his father so therefore Bruce Wayne was Dick Grayson's…
But the kicker was that it made sense. No, they didn't share any DNA but they seemed to have just about everything else in common with the exception of their attitudes towards money. Without Batman there would be no Robin. Without Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson would be a different person and living a different life than he was now.
Bruce had made him what he was now. Wasn't that what a parent was supposed to do, mold a child, teach him enough to stand on his own and become their own person?
John and Mary Grayson formed the child; maybe Bruce was responsible for making the man.
Okay, he'd never be 'Dad'. He probably never even wanted to ever be called that, at least not by Dick. Truth be known, they'd probably never even acknowledge the fact but fact it was. It killed him to admit this since it was sort of a repudiation of his real father, but it was true.
Dick hoisted himself up on the pommels, moving in slow, graceful circles as his mind raced. He could see how this would play out. He knew himself and, just as importantly, he knew Bruce well enough to be able to write the scene.
Easy; there was nothing to write. With Bruce there'd be not sappy ending, no warm and fuzzy revelation, no restrained but heartfelt manly hug with fade to black.
Of course things were getting strained between them now and Dick put that down to his getting older, more mature and confident. He wasn't as willing to blindly obey orders, he had his own ideas and he wanted to spread his wings a little, go out on his own and begin to establish his own identity separate from Batman. The arguments were happening more often, tempers flared easier than they should and that probably wasn't going to end just because he understood something in their relationship they wouldn't ever talk about.
He stopped, his feet back on the floor, his hands still holding the pommels.
John Grayson would always be dad but Bruce Wayne was his father. Sort of. 'No reason to announce it or shout it from the rooftops. Bruce probably knew it anyway.
He was surprised by how easily he accepted this but then it was something he'd known for years, even if he didn't really know it. He mentally shrugged; Bruce wouldn't make a big deal out it, either.
Nothing would change, it just was what it was.
8/5/09
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