Who will love a little sparrow, and who will speak a kindly word? ~ Simon and Garfunkel
Technically, it's called the Gotham City Zoo Duck Pond, but that doesn't mean that ducks are the only creatures living there. Geese hang out there all time, with the little sandpipers and wading birds. Silver fish dart back and forth through the water, swallows zip and dive overhead, and large green frogs breathe rapidly and glare out from wide staring eyes.
Dick comes for the swans.
Elegant, graceful, pure, a marvelous pair of nesting swans has lived in the pond since Dick can remember coming to the zoo. He loves to stand on the bottom of the railing, arms braced against the top, and lean over, watching the white birds glide serenely across the water.
He's never heard a swan call, and he's pretty sure he never will. Although he knows that the tale of a swan song is a myth, he also knows that the big birds are notoriously silent. They don't sing for just anybody, especially not little human boys with dead parents and an obsession with flying.
Still. It's nice to sit and watch them go by. Dick isn't the kind of person who dwells on sadness or the past, and sometimes visiting the pond is his way to think forward, to look to the future and the good times ahead.
It's been a long time since he's visited the pond, and today he can't think up a way to feel positive or optimistic.
He screwed up. Badly. And now he's lost a friend, lost Bruce's trust, and he knows nothing will ever be the same again.
Dick was supposed to be the one in charge, who should have foreseen the problems and the consequences. He knew that he had failed, and there was no one to blame but himself.
The swans looked cold and distant as they swam along the far edge of the pond; silent and beautiful and disapproving.
Dick doesn't want to be lied to, doesn't want to be told he did the right thing when he knew he screwed up, but he needs someone to reassure him, to tell him that someone approves of him and thinks he did the best he could. That's not going to happen; nobody he knows would placate him. No one knows that he needs the words of praise the same way a junkie needs his next hit.
Bruce comes to stand beside him and watch the swans swimming at the far side of the lake. There's a dull silence between the two of them. Dick knows he failed Bruce; there's nothing he can say to change that.
But he still has to say something. "I'm sorry," Dick whispers.
Bruce sighs, shifts, and looks at Dick. Dick can't hold his gaze for long and stares, ashamed, out at the swans.
"No, I'm sorry, Dick," says Bruce. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there. And even sorrier that you feel the need to apologize to me."
Bruce's hand rests on his shoulder, which surprises Dick, because Bruce generally doesn't initiate physical contact.
"I'm proud of you, Dick," Bruce says, "I always will be."
Dick throws his arms around Bruce and sobs into his chest.
A/N: Dick's feeling of failure here aren't related to any particular story; I just figure he can't always be the perfect leader, and in his line of work, things have to have gone badly wrong at some point or another. Feel free to connect this with any story you'd like!
