Feedback: Hell, yes.
You know how sometimes you have an idea you know you should strangle at birth? Well—this is one of those.
Neat and Tidy
It was embarrassing—really embarrassing and he had no idea who to ask for advice. He'd secretly taken a couple of Donna's magazines that seemed to have articles about his problem, but they hadn't really answered his questions. They'd given him some ideas, but nothing enough to base a workable solution on.
Next he'd thought about asking Garth, thinking he might have the same problem. When he'd obliquely hinted around it one day a month or so ago down at the pool, Garth had looked at him like he was speaking in code and a code no one had ever heard of. Dick had changed the subject and neither of them brought it up again.
He couldn't ask Roy or Wally and Bruce was completely out of the question.
Alfred? Well, yes, he'd probably know what to do, but Dick would die before he brought something like this up. He simply couldn't.
Giving Dr. Leslie a call crossed him mind, too, and he even picked up the phone a couple of times but chickened out before completing her number.
Barbara would know; of course Barbara would know. Barbara knew everything, for God's sake.
He couldn't ask her. He simply couldn't, knowing she'd think about it every time he saw her or talked to her or anything. He couldn't ask her.
Damnit—he couldn't ask anyone. Nada, no one. He even considered going through the phone book and consulting a professional but if Robin walked in some doctor's office it was a sure bet the tabloids would have the story in like thirty seconds and if Dick Grayson was the one who made the appointment it would be headlined on Page Six in nanoseconds.
He'd even gone on line looking for the answer but for some reason—and he didn't want to think about the reason all that much, thanks—every time he googled the key words he ended up with a list of kinky porn sites. Great.
Ah, c'mon—it wasn't like he was the only guy in the world with this problem, was he? Well, was he? Lot's of men must have to deal with stuff like this, it couldn't just be him; it just couldn't.
Okay, time to suck it up and just figure this out. He wasn't just some kid fresh off the boat, for God's sake—he was Robin. He was the back half of Batman and… He'd been arresting bad guys twice his size since he was nine years old and he could handle this. He could do this; he was smart and he'd been trained not just by Batman, but by Superman, Wonder Woman and you name it—he had the intelligence and experience of the entire Justice League behind him. He wasn't a little kid anymore, either. He was eighteen years old, he was a man legally and physically—he could do this.
Or not.
Well, wait, maybe there was a whole 'nuther way around this. Maybe if he approached the problem sideways instead of head on he might have something, right? Okay, so what other angle could he come up with? There had to be something, there simply had to be.
Puberty. That was the basic problem. He hadn't even thought about this before he'd gone through the big change, as it were. When he was a kid, when he was like ten or twelve or even fifteen it wasn't an issue but then he'd seen that shot in the paper and he'd about died. He hadn't known, he'd never thought about it and he had no idea until then.
Cripes, why hadn't anyone said anything to him? You'd have thought that maybe one of the guys would have take him aside and mentioned it—like when you have a booger or a piece of food caught in your teeth you don't know bout. This wasn't so different, was it? They were friends, right? They could have said something; someone could have taken him aside and mentioned it. They really could have. And it wasn't like it was his fault or anything, was it? He was half Rom, his father was dark haired and pretty hairy and that was part of his gene pool—it wasn't like he had a choice, did he? But then, it hadn't been a problem for his father, not like this, anyway.
"Robbie? You're still here?"
"Hey, Donna, yeah, just finishing up a couple of things before I head back."
She nodded, smiling and getting ready to take off, herself. "Oh, before I forget, I left something for you down in your room."
"You got me a present?" Why would she do that?
"Sort of. I was doing some shopping this afternoon and saw something I thought you could use—no big deal." She opened the door, "See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, get home safe." That was strange but then Donna was always thinking about the rest of the Titans, always finding little things to make them laugh or let them know she cared. And, now that he thought about it, since she wasn't seeing Roy now, maybe she'd consider a movie this weekend. Hey, it could happen. Curious, he went down to his Tower quarters to see what she'd found this time—another Robin action figure? A tee shirt with a Wonder Woman logo o it? A box of chocolate covered cherries?
No. None of the above.
Nothing on his dresser. Nothing on the bed or the couch. Odd. He checked in the bathroom—ah, there it was in a plain brown paper bag. He took it out and sat the box on the counter by the sink, all alone, waiting to be opened and used.
Oh jeez—she'd noticed. Probably everyone had noticed and…. cripes. There it was, speaking volumes just by being.
Bikini Area Nair.
God—it was seriously past time to get a costume with long pants.
4/27/06
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