"Why won't this door open?" Dick's voice was tight, tense, the way it always was these days – sharp with anger and quick to wound, nearly as quick to shift from anger to blame, particularly when it came to anything involving Roy.
"What? Let me try it." If Dick said the door wouldn't open, it wouldn't, but that didn't keep Roy from trying, pounding on the button that should open it if it didn't sense their presence and slide open automatically. Then he tried to force it open, struggling to fit his fingers into a crack far too small for even the nail. Finally, exasperated, he leaned against the wall next to the door and slid down it, ending in what he imagined to be a graceful heap at the base of it. "We're stuck. It must be a security system glitch."
True to his recent form, Dick turned the full force of the Bat Glare he wore almost constantly – at least since Donna had died – on him. "There's no way to override it from this room, is there?" He already knew the answer, but it was an accusation, not a real question, and Roy treated it as such.
"If there were, you'd be yelling at me for how insecure it was." And he'd be right – inconvenient as this was, having a security override for the door locks in every room would be just asking for someone to take over their base. Dick knew that as well as Roy did; he was just blaming him because he blamed everything he didn't like about the Outsiders on the man who had founded this latest iteration.
They both knew it, but Dick's expression didn't change, didn't soften in the way it used to when he looked at Roy. He looked more and more like his mentor, especially in the mask. Where that once might have bothered him, lately, he didn't seem to care. "So you're just going to sit there?" Dick's blue eyes were as sharp as his voice, trying to drill holes in him from across the room.
Roy shrugged, resigned to both the situation and Dick's continual bad mood. "What else is there to do? If you knew of a way out, you'd be working on it, and I'd do the same."
In another time, in what sometimes seemed like another life, Dick would have given in, recognized that he was right, and relaxed. He probably would have even gone along with whatever Roy came up with to pass the time until someone noticed and let them out. Now his glare only became more accusing, mixing active suspicion with the anger. "Did you have something to do with this?"
"No!" The protest was automatic and now Roy was finally beginning to feel anger as well. Damn it, couldn't Dick ever let up, even for an hour or two? "Take a seat and wait, Nightwing. The others will notice and let us out soon." Assuming they hadn't done this in the first place – Roy could easily imagine Grace and Anissa laughing their asses off at the two of them stuck in here for a few hours.
"Aren't you worried about them? If someone locked us in here, the only reason would be to have a better chance to get at the rest of the team."
Roy answered that one with a pointed look of his own. It wasn't even close to the only reason and Dick should have known that, wouldhave known that if he'd ever bothered to pay any attention to the rest of the team. He would have known that if he'd let himself care about them at all. Roy had told him it would be just work, not a family, but statements like that only added to the mounting evidence that Dick had taken that stipulation way too far.
The JLA might not be much for potlucks, but they cared about each other more than this. "You might not have noticed, but the others can take care of themselves." They might still be new at this, but Roy had faith in them. He wouldn't have chosen them if he hadn't thought they could hack it. Dick could get over that lack of faith in them any time, too. This team would never work if he couldn't let himself trust the other members, at least enough to not feel he had to always go charging off to their rescue rather than letting them handle it.
"Did they have something to do with this?" Dick demanded, ignoring his statement and pouncing instead on the implications of his expression with that killer instinct that had been trained into him. Or maybe he'd always had it and had just used to keep it in check, buried under the friendliness and good humor that seemed to have died with Donna.
"If they did, they didn't tell me about it." Roy shrugged. "Sit down. You're going to drive the both of us crazy if you keep standing over there and glaring like that."
Dick didn't sit; he was practically quivering with suppressed energy, enough that Roy could see it from the other side of the room. Any minute now, he was going to start pacing and a few hours of that really would drive Roy nuts. "How can you be so calm?" he finally demanded.
Roy sighed. "What choice do we have?" he asked again.
Dick was still glaring, but he finally sat, though the costume made the tension in every muscle obvious even at this distance. They sat in angry, uneasy silence, until Roy finally spoke up again. "I don't like it any better than you do. It's Christmas Eve and I have a little girl. And instead of spending it with her, I'm locked up here with the Bitchiest Boy Wonder."
Despite the insult, Dick sighed, his anger and tension visibly draining away, leaving him nearly limp. "You're right. I'm sorry."
That was unexpected. Roy said nothing and the silence continued, but this time, it had a different quality to it. This quiet was more like the companionship between old friends who, while they hadn't seen one another in some time and felt awkward about it, still cared about one another. It wasn't ideal, nothing like the old days, but far better than the months of anger and accusation.
He was reluctant to say anything, to take the risk of spoiling the momentary peace, but Roy never had been good at sitting in silence for long. "I guess you're missing some big thing back at the Manor?" He was surprised by how tired his voice sounded, cautious and almost resigned.
Dick shook his head, shifting his position so he could tilt his head back against the wall in a pose that spoke of waiting, but not impatience. "Not really. He's not much for holidays."
Roy snorted; he should have known better. "Guess he wouldn't be." It was hard to imagine Batman being jolly, hard to even imagine him smiling, but he must do it sometimes, right? He was way too much of a hard ass most of the time, at least in Roy's opinion, but Dick hadn't seemed actively unhappy when they were in the Teen Titans. He had to have another side to him, even if Roy had never seen it.
He glanced at Dick again, wishing he'd take off the mask. It seemed like forever since he'd seen him without it. They never spent time together when they weren't working anymore, never hung out just as friends. He missed it. Maybe Dick could tell what he was thinking, because he sighed and lifted a hand to his face. He carefully detached the mask, setting it aside. Roy stared at his face in something almost like shock – it had been so long since he'd seen it, it almost felt as though he'd suddenly stripped naked.
Dick laughed. That was another sound that Roy couldn't remember the last time he'd heard. It felt good to hear it, better than he'd expected. How long had it really been since Dick had let himself relax, since he'd been anything even approaching himself? He must have been thinking the same thing because he said, "Quit staring. Has it been so long that you've forgotten what I look like?"
Roy smiled back and it felt strange enough that he wondered what expression he'd been wearing all this time. Maybe he needed to remember to relax, too. "Almost. Maybe you'd better come over here so I can get a better look."
Dick returned the smile as he stood, striding over to sit next to Roy with the easy grace that seemed so familiar, far more so than the angry stiffness that had been all he'd seen for far too long. He knew it wouldn't last, that as soon as the door opened, the mask would go back on and all the resentment would return. But for now, he was almost grateful to whatever glitch had left them here alone together. Dick was here with him, close enough to touch, and for once, he was Dick, not Nightwing, and especially not the version of him that seemed far too much like Batman minus the cowl. This was the man he remembered, the one he'd wanted on the team in the first place.
He saw him reach out, then he felt Dick's hand on his, warm even through both their gloves, though that was probably his imagination. He was still smiling as he said, "I can think of worse ways to spend Christmas Eve."
Roy nodded and turned his hand over so he could squeeze Dick's. This was the closest he could remember them being in he didn't know how long and the first time they'd touched each other in anything other than anger or pure business in even longer. "Yeah, me too."