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This was weird. Dick was using the front door. He was also without his mask. He was Dick Grayson, walking to Grace's front door.
Two people knew his identity. Grace and her mom. They knew his identity. This whole month was turning out to be really weird.
He climbed out of the car, saying goodbye to Alfred who had driven him. He walked to the building, went in and started up the stairs. So weird.
He reached her floor and went to the front door. Getting really weird. He rang the doorbell and patiently waited outside.
And waited.
And waited.
And the door opened revealing Grace's mom.
"Why hey there Dick, I was just off to work," she said smiling at him as she grabbed her bag.
"I was wondering if Grace was in?" he asked her politely. She tilted her head, obviously not used to Dick Grayson and not Robin.
"Sure. She is in her lab of doom as far as I know. Just go on through." She slid past him, out of the apartment and he strolled in, closing the door behind him.
He had been coming here so much over the past few months that it was like another home and now he could come as both Dick Grayson and Robin. It was great! And weird.
He kept trying to get her to tell him what she meant by 'no metas in Gotham'. She would just change the subject or just go quiet. He knew she was only doing it to annoy him though.
He had been trying for a month now. It was getting exhausting.
On top of that, at some point this month, Batman had found out about Grace. It wasn't just Barman but the whole league had found out at the same time. What's more, they also know about her mum and for some strange reason, they all loved her. He kept coming over to find Graces mum having a cup of tea and a chat with one of the league members. It was just weird.
Batman had gone silent for over a week when he found out that other people knew their secret identities. He got over it eventually though. Shame. Dick had been enjoying the silence. But then Bruce had to tell him to stop putting post-it notes everywhere eventually.
Dick strolled through her hallway and headed to the kitchen. He put the kettle on and grabbed some food. Finishing making two cups of tea, he carried them and the snacks to Grace's lab of doom. Her lab of doom was the fourth door in her room. It was the one in between the bed and bookshelf.
Walking in, he dodged around the complete organised, neat, mess, bombshell like ordered room. It was crazy but it was organized and suited her perfectly.
Three walls had tables along them with bits, pieces, tools, and computers on. There was a circular table in the middle with her spinny chair in the middle of it. She had her current project taking up one half and her drawing/designing area and main computer on the other half. There was a designated space for the tea tray near the computer.
The last wall had these massive box shelf drawer things. In each compartment, was the blueprints, details, prototypes and finished product of her projects. Each compartment had better security than the Batcave.
The room itself was simply designed with the outside facing wall bare brick and the other three walls just a pale blue colour. She obviously liked blue.
Grace herself was sat cross-legged in her chair fiddling with a little piece of the massive thing on her desk.
The thing was about the size of Dick's torso and was shaped like a cone. The bottom was flat to stop it from rolling and it was quite cool looking. The large end looked like it gave out some form of wave.
The outside was a smooth, shiny looking metal and there was just a square missing from it showing the wires and circuits inside.
Grace looked up from her fiddling and looked at Dick and then to the drinks and then back to Dick.
"He's not wearing the mask." She always did this. "Shame." she went back to her fiddling.
"Wonderful to see you too," he said as he put down the tray and started looking at her blueprints to figure out what it was that she was making.
Grace looked up to see Dick looking at the blueprints.
"Nope," she said pulling him into her lap, trapping him with her arms as she kept fiddling.
"So…" he started, "you a meta?" he was full of hope.
"Maybe." he perked up at the answer. "Maybe not."
"Come on!" he cried throwing his head back so that he was looking up at her chin.
"Birdie," she started. "I may or may not be a meta. You will learn the answer once I have finished with this stupid thing that won't work."
"But I want to know now!" he cried dramatically. Why is he always so dramatic? Grace thought to herself.
They sat there, Grace fiddling and Dick pouting, when they heard a little beep. Dick jumped at it and looked at Grace to see her grinning. He moved off her lap and sat on the edge of her table as she put the piece back into the thing on her table.
Dick patiently watched as she put the thing on the floor. He noticed three small lights on it. Grace picked up a holo tablet as she called it. The screen popped up and she typed a few things into it. The lights on the thing flashed and another little beep came out of it.
After typing a few more things, she sighed and put down the tablet. Walking past, she smacked Dicks hand as it discreetly moved towards the blueprints.
Dick clutched his hand dramatically to his chest as she began to rummage around one of the cable filled boxes. Lifting out a relatively chunky wire, she connected one end to the thing and the other into the wall.
She went back to the tablet and once again slapped his hand away from the blueprints. He only wanted to know what she was making.
She tapped the holo tablet, lights flashed and thingy majigs beeped.
After a few minutes of tapping, six ping pong ball sized spheres rose up from around the room and formed a hexagon roughly the size of a full grown fat man and a puppy. Little, barely visible lasers connected each sphere and the floating pentagon moved forwards and backwards, as if trying to find the best distance from the thingy on the table.
After another beep, it started continually buzzing. Grace once again put down the tablet. She strolled over to Dick and sat on the table next to him, grabbing her tea and sipping it.
"So," Dick looked at her innocently enough and she prepared for the worst. "What's it doing?" he was starting off simple.
"Charging." She answered, taking another sip of her tea, looking at him over the brim of the mug.
"What does it do?" he asked her trying to get more details.
"Charge." She was really not making this easy.
"Besides charging?" he was determined as he drank his tea.
"Well," she was actually going to explain. Finally, "the lights flash, the thing beeps and the thingy buzzes."
"Is that all?" he asked drinking his tea more. She took another sip and then motioned for him to come closer. He leaned in and she whispered into his ear.
"It can…" she was dragging this out way too much. "Connect…" seriously, what was with all the pauses. "To any device using Bluetooth." she whispered it as if it was the greatest secret known to man.
"I hate you." Dick declared, sitting back and pouting with a cookie half in his mouth.
"Ah well," she sighed dramatically. "I am sure that my thingy maboo will get me new friends." she said, motioning towards the 'thingy maboo'.
"Sure," was the sarcastic reply. "They will all be flocking to see your beeping, flashing, buzzing thingy maboo."
"Don't forget, it can also connect using Bluetooth," she reminded him, waving a cookie at him.
"Oh how could i have possibly forgotten that!" he cried dramatically.
Grace just laughed at him as she watched the thingy maboo. They sat there, drinking, sipping and eating as Dick attempted to read the blueprints, Grace swatted his hand and they both watched the thingy maboo.
Rubbing his now red and sore hand, Dick looked at the thingy maboo just as it buzzed, beeped and flashed at the same time. It kept flashing.
"Why exactly does it keep flashing?" He asked her, slightly mesmerized by the pattern of the flashing.
"Because it has absolutely no dignity or morals and is a disgusting thing." She replied calmly, soon joining Dick in laughter.
Once the giggling stopped, she replied seriously.
"It is flashing, my dear, because it has completed stage one of charging. It will stop flashing in a minute."
"So why is there a stage one?" he asked as it stopped flashing and only one of the lights stayed on.
"The stage one shows that it has enough charge for a small event," she gave away no clues. "Stage two is enough for one normal or two small events, and stage three is enough for four small, two normal or one big event."
"Okay," he wasn't finished. Not by far. "So what exactly is an event?"
She looked at him and sipped tea. And looked. And sipped. And looked. He tried the bat glare. It worked on The Flash. She just laughed and turned away.
He continued to pout with cookies and she kept watching the thingy maboo. Dick gave up with the blueprints if only to save his hand.
It buzzed, beeped and flashed again. They continued to wait. After half an hour, it buzzed, beeped and flashed again.
Grace took one last bite of a cookie, stretched and stood, walking over to the thingy maboo.
She tapped it and it beeped. She tapped it again and it beeped again. She did it again, turning her tapping into a rhythm and it beeped along to the rhythm. Pleased, she walked back to the tablet and turned it on again.
Tapping away, she completely ignored Dicks questions. After a few more taps, it beeped and she pressed one more thing before sitting back next to Dick.
Dick watched, slightly amazed as it shot an almost invisible cone of light towards the hexagon and then the space inside the shape was filled with a glowing swirling pale thing that gently changed colour.
Grace casually picked up a paper aeroplane. Dick noticed there was something written on it but before he could read it, she threw it into the thing and it disappeared.
They sat there, watching the thing, Dick didn't know what for, and they waited, once again, Dick didn't know what for.
After two bathroom and one tea/snack break, something happened. It started swirling and warping until it shot out the same paper aeroplane, but now it looked more crumpled and it had some dirt on the bottom of it.
Grace easily caught it and opened it up, holding it at an angle as she read it, stopping Dick from being able to read it.
"So what is it?" He only wanted to know.
"This is a paper aeroplane that has a little message on it."
"Yes, but where did it come from?" He asked exasperated.
"Well the paper came from a tree and I don't know where the ink came from." She gave him a look of 'are you stupid?'
"I hate you." He crossed his arms and pouted.
"Oh we are such good and close friends, are we not?" she asked mocking him.
"No." he snapped. "We are not."
"Oh the pain!" she cried dramatically, clutching her chest and actually giving off a good act of being in pain. She dropped to the floor and started crying. She could cry on will! She wailed and rolled around on the floor actually looking like he had broken her heart.
"Please stop." he meekly begged her.
"How can I?" she cried oh so dramatically. "My heart! It hath been broken, destroyed! Beyond all repair! I think I shall never recover!" her movements slowed until she lay on her back, legs on the chair, one hand on her chest and the other reaching towards Dick, a look of brokenness in her eyes.
"I'm going to go make tea," Dick said slowly and cautiously.
"Can I have a cuppa please," she asked without changing her expression or position and yet her face still looked like her heart had been ripped out and burned in front of her eyes.
"Sure." he walked out leaving her to look dramatically broken and upset.
Once he was gone, Grace stood up and looked around her. She packed up her current experiment, deciding to finish it tomorrow and walked out her laboratory of doom.
She tapped her fingers against her leg. It wouldn't be that bad to tell him about her powers. But then again, everyone knew that the bats didn't like metas in Gotham. She knew he wouldn't be like the others but, old habits die hard.
She walked down the corridor, bringing up a holo-screen in front of her as she walked. Looking where he was, she set off.
Grace watched Dick make the tea from the landing. She knew that he didn't know she was here.
She closed her eyes for a few minutes, and when she opened them, everything was grey except a blurry colour that resembled the shape of Dick. Grace never knew if she saw peoples auras or their souls. She also didn't think that there was a difference.
Robins aura/soul was mostly the same red as his costume with black in a bubble in the middle. The darkness was held back by swirling colours of yellow and blue. The red was who he was. It was his main essence.
Everybody had a different colour and they all had little details. She assumed that the extra colours were colours given to them by others. Babies had purely their own colour but she noticed that children had a bit of their parents. Adults were swirling colours with their own as the most prominent colour and about ten other colours representing the people closest to them. It was a sad sight to see an adult with very few colours.
The blue and yellow weren't from Batman and Alfred (yes she had met Alfred) though because Batman was a navy blue that was surrounded by darkness with exactly ten swirling colours and a small but bright lightness in his heart and Alfred was a prominent silver that outshone the darkness in his heart. Alfred had the most colours that Grace had ever seen on a person and it was the most heartwarming sight.
Every person had some form of darkness and Grace could always tell from looking, where the darkness had come from. It was unique on every person though.
The two colours that swirled around Dick must have been from his parents. He had told her about his past, and from what she had heard, the colours seemed to match the descriptions of his parents. She knew that no matter what other colours came and went, he would always have a blue like his eyes and a yellow as bright as his smile swirling around him, protecting him from the darkness within.
Grace sighed and looked down to her own hands. They rested on the grey banister and blended in. She had never seen her own aura/soul. She sometimes wondered if that meant that she didn't have one.
She turned her hand over, still nothing. Just a grey hand. She was just a grey person in a grey world. The only thing she ever saw on herself, was a tiny tiny little fleck of gold that rested just above her heart. She knew that colour, it was her dads.
A single tear fell and she hastily wiped it away and as she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a normal, colourful scene.
Dick still hadn't seen her so she turned away to head back to her room. She would tell him. Even if only about that one power. He needed to know that his parents were still with him.
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Hope you enjoyed!
Sheep Queen
