Dick goes to the office
Dick is tired by the time he gets home. Just fucking beat and his knuckles are swelling from the fight he'd started with Sean and his stomach is doing that sloshing thing it does when he was a little overzealous with the hydrating.
He likes to keep hydrated so he's never really as drunk as everyone thinks. He gets a little drunken master in fights and he has no problem with that. Plus this way he doesn't get pinched. With Logan on a carrier somewhere, the number of people that would bail him out in the middle of the night is zero.
Veronica might bail him out, but not until the morning and he could really do without her snapping behind bars photos of him for her enjoyment.
Mac.
He pauses at his bedroom door at the thought. She might. She might still... For old times' sake maybe? But god how painful would that be? Having the love of his life drag herself down to the station to see him bloody, behind bars, and bail him out. He didn't think he could stand the idea of pity in her eyes.
He pushes the door open. Something is wrong.
The closet isn't quite closed. He's always really careful about that ever since Logan had found his Mac box in the back of his closet.
Whipping the doors open he expects to find Veronica cowering on the floor, the box in her hands, but she isn't there. Thank god. He's certain that he'd kick her out if that was the case, no matter what Logan would say. That would be the worst kind of invasion, for her to see right into his god damn soul because that's where he kept it. In that box that smells like Mac, with the pieces of herself she had left behind, in between the lines of her writing.
He drops to the ground, the box isn't in the right place and, fuck, the magazines are all over the place.
She's been there. Looking right into him and finding him pathetic, he was sure. Was she going to tell Mac? Tell her that after all these years he still had the ticket stub from their first failed date, that he had mounds of unsent letters and scraps of that dress she had worn on their anniversary. The unused tickets to Portland...
He opens it and something is glaringly missing.
"Fuck."
He gets up quickly ready to toss that nosy bitch out right god damn now. Turning to the door he's frozen because the box is sitting on the nightstand with a set of keys.
Sitting down heavily next to it he picks up the keys and examines them. There are only a couple keys on the ring and a Mars Investigations insignia.
Even he can guess what this is supposed to mean.
He pockets the box and the keys and moves to leave.
He notices that the light is still on in Logan's room and he makes a detour.
"What if she doesn't care..." He asks the door quietly; scared as shit but at least he doesn't have to actually see the way she must be looking at him.
"She cares." Is the response.
"How do you know?"
"Because Mac doesn't surf but keeps surf wax in her closet. Because she has a box with your name on it at the back of her closet too."
The light goes off and he knows that Veronica is done. If this works out maybe he'll let her stay. Then again, if this really works maybe he'll make her leave so Mac could move in.
He sits in the car across from the building for probably too long. The light is still on and he isn't all that surprised that she's still there. He remembers living with her, waking up in the middle of the night to find her no longer in the bed beside him but tapping away on her laptop on the other side of the room.
Grabbing the laptop from her and pulling her up into his arms to toss her onto the bed.
The laughter that would fill the night, god he wanted that back.
He gets out of the car and climbs the stairs to the office.
The door is locked and he uses Veronica's keys to open the door. He doesn't go through right away, everything in his body just hurts at the idea of all the horrible ways this could go.
Surf wax and a box marked for him.
He pushes the door open and crosses the threshold into the office. She doesn't even look up. She's rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and, God, she's a mess, but he wants that mess in his life.
Forever.
Five to ten years I'm going to say yes.
He takes the ring box out of his pocket and tosses it onto her desk.