VIDEO SYMBIOSIS
– She Peeks –

By SKH

©September 2000
Rated PG
Cast: Nightwing/Oracle post-NML-timeline, pre-Officer Grayson.
All characters owned by DC Comics. No profit is realized from creation of stories based on these characters.
First person, POV Dick Grayson.
Comments and feedback are welcome to SKHwrite@aol.com
First part of two (actually, there's 2 versions of part 2: PG13 and NC17). Thanks, and please enjoy.

She peeks. She has been for a while, since before the Gotham quake. At first, I thought I'd just been "caught," sort of by
accident. But the "accidents" began to add up... and it finally dawned on me. She...peeks. And I let her.

I leave access to my computers — and their onboard digital video cameras — available to her all the time. To my desktop system in the living room, to my laptop, which is usually beside my bed.It's a secure comlink, she designed it, and she administers it.It would have been too obvious for me to give her my password, too. It wasn't necessary; she gets around passwords like I move through the night air. There are even a couple of strategically placed surveillance cameras, for "security reasons" of course, in my apartment. And since she wrote the code for my security system, well, she has to have access, right?

We use the digital video cameras in our communications with each other. We all do, all of us in the "family." I can't speakfor the others, but given the lonely nature of this business, I rather like seeing a familiar face when I need to.

Need. Maybe that's it. She keeps herself isolated, sequestered most of the time — the Princess in the Tower. In her towershe's safe from contact except on her own terms. Talks to who she wants, sees who she wants. It would take an army to blast her out of there. Literally. I know, I was there when it happened. But she does have needs, whether she wants to admit it or not. She needs to work, to serve, to give, to fight for the greater good — as much now as she did before The Bullet, maybe more. She needs to be useful — and she is. She provides so much to so many now, almost as quickly as we ask for it. She is Maven, Muse, Mother, Conscience, Inspiration and Partner. For some of us, she's the Voice in the darkness, Fairy Godmother or Jiminy Cricket.

It was an adjustment, and definitely not an easy one, for me to work alone when I had partnered my whole life — with my parents, as "the Flying Graysons," with the Batman, as Robin the Boy Wonder (original edition), as a member of the Titans. Nightwing can fly solo, and quite well, thank you, but it doesn't mean it's not lonely out there on my own. Via the comlink, she checks in, keeps tabs, makes sure I'm still breathing, busts my chops or pats me on the back.

I do love her, love being with her, around her, near enough to touch her, to see her emerald-eyes twinkle, to see the light dance through her flame-colored hair, to watch those slender and nimble fingers conjure miracles out of a keyboard. But she keeps me at arm's-length, for reasons that are her own. When she's ready, she'll share more. She asked me for time.I'm happy to give it to her — I just wanted hope. And after Blackgate, when my barely conscious will had dragged my body — ill, injured and closer to the "Big-Top in the sky" than I care to be for a long, long time — through an open window into her tower; after she cleaned, nursed and nourished me, we talked. Okay, we kissed, too, but we talked more openly about the two of us than we have for years. Face-to-face. She couldn't tap a key or click a mouse or press a button to avoid what needed to be said.

So now I'm hopeful about there being an "us." She doesn'twant to be pushed, but that doesn't mean she can't be coaxed, especially if it's on her terms, in her element and with herhaving complete control.

I could disengage the cameras — terminate the uplink, throw towels over the computers, stick a piece of duct-tape across the lenses — but I haven't, yet. I would if I had "company," butright now I really don't want "company" unless it's her. She can look in at any time and see that's the case. I keep an eyeout to see if the cameras are in active mode. There's a little sensor-light on each of them that flashes when they are sending/receiving. And since we are often in contact while I'm out on patrol, she has a good idea what time I get back to my place at night. She also knows I like to eat Captain Crunch cereal after I get in. She knows I like to take a shower before I go to bed. She knows I prefer boxers to briefs — especially after that "Speedo-Boy" comment.

It's a little different, this symbiosis we have. I'm notsaying she's a voyeur and I'm an exhibitionist. Believe me, I'd much rather have her cruising my ass in-person. But she's not there yet — we're not there yet.

But she *does* peek, and I *do* come from a long and distinguished line of performers. And by the flashing of that little red light, I'd say I'm "on" now — it's "showtime."

- to be continued in "Video Symbiosis - Showtime"