I have a little bit more prompted, but not as much as I'd like. School's finally out. I might try to start a schedule with updating this, but I'm also very lazy. My apologies in advance.
Dick's POV:
Clark walked us as far as the hallway before trusting us to make it to Bruce's office on our own- "Don't make me regret it, now."- and Tim wheeled me across the linoleum in a silence that I didn't like. I leaned back to look up at him, but he only pressed his jaw and stared forward as we made our way to the office I had visited so many times before.
"Are you okay?"
He gave no indication that he heard the question, gaze unwavering from the nothingness he was fixated on. For a moment, I wondered if I had even asked it. I hadn't noticed it before, probably because I never had to look much farther than the name tags on the sides of the doors, but the hallway was large and seemed to loom in every corner of my peripheral. It was anywhere I was and everywhere else I couldn't be, and that thought made me think that maybe the hallway was consuming everything my brother wasn't saying and everything I could've been saying.
"Tim," I sighed, feeling a little better when I heard the squeak of his grip tightening on the handles behind me.
The toes to my issued hospital slippers touched to the wood of the door before Tim had the mind to stop me. When he leaned forward to push open the door, his fingers trembled. It didn't seem like he'd be able to get his fingers around the handle, let alone open it, but he somehow managed and I encouraged the door open further with a little kick. Bruce was sitting at his desk, marking a newspaper with a highlighter and a heavy frown.
"Hey, Bruce," I said a little stiffly as Tim let us idle in the doorway.
I gestured to the couch and he gave a little nod, wheeling me over without taking his eyes from Bruce. He still didn't look up from his paper as he lifted his head in a little nod, fumbling in a drawer beside him.
"I picked you up some bandages from the nurse's office."
He stood up and made his way around the desk before he noticed that it wasn't just me. It was interesting to watch his heart lunge up to his throat.
"Can you help me?" I looked up to Tim after it was clear that the two of them weren't going to do anything more than stare at each other.
He gave an absent nod and idled again before tearing his gaze away and helping me to my feet. The pain shot straight to my teeth. I knew better than to voice this though and forced the best smile I could, gently lowering myself onto the couch. Something so simple had my head spinning fast enough that I felt gravity ebb away, especially in my temples. A chill rose up on the back of my neck and lit itself along the sides of my spine, and I could only squeeze my eyes to try and stay grounded.
"Think you can get your shirt off?" Bruce's voice sounded after a set of slow and meticulous footsteps.
I raised one fist to the hem of my shirt, but I couldn't unclench my fingers long enough to get a hold of it. I kept trying, as desperately as I could, but this new side effect wasn't working in my favor. The pain was decreasing, probably the nerves giving up on me, but this wasn't any more pleasant.
"Move your-," he insisted, but I shook my head and gestured to where I remembered seeing Tim last.
"I'll get it," I put on a little smile, managing to get the hem between my thumb and index on my left hand. "You two... talk."
The longer I laid there, the better the world stabilized and the easier it became to edge my shirt up along my chest. I could only get it to my arm pits. As easy it would've been to up and lose it, I didn't want to risk the world taking a spill on me again.
"So, Bruce," Tim was the first to initiate conversation, and I could practically feel his hands knotting together nervously. "Do you... remember me?"
I folded the edge of my shirt up to make sure it would stay out of the way, shutting my eyes again when the lines seemed even. Bruce was silent on all vocal accounts, but I heard him fish around in his pocket for a long moment until he pulled out some kind of paper. It crinkled under his grip, and once again when Tim took it.
"This... how did...?" my brother's voice faded to a breath.
The paper crinkled again, once more, and then the couch dipped beside my feet. The person's thighs easily fit in the curve of my soles, so I figured it was safe to assume it was Tim. He didn't flinch when I curled my toes against his leg, quite nearly confirming the idea.
"Megan," Bruce's voice was frail and a lot farther away, so I imagined him sitting on the edge of his desk. "She said Wally had found it in Dick's sweatpants."
The paper was a photo, then. What picture had I... oh. A while ago, I remembered now. It was a picture I had found here with Jason, Tim, and I all in costume. It looked more like a Halloween photo, and Megan had told me something along the lines of the photo not being able to have happened yet.
"You didn't... answer my question."
I could hear Bruce shift as he pushed something father back along his desk. It gave a dull screech and I assumed it was the name plate.
"No," he said after a moment, "I don't. I know that it's you, Jason, and Dick. I don't remember you before this, though. Are you my... sons?"
I couldn't help but smile at the idea, bringing my hands up to the side of the old bandages.
"No," I answered when Tim didn't make a move to answer.
"Did I adopt you?"
I drew my lips in tight and decided against nodding, because technically, he hadn't.
Tim must've seen this, or maybe thought the same thing, because he added a hesitant, "Not quite."
When Bruce stood, I found the end of the bandages and slowly began to unwrap my stomach. It hurt to get my hips up enough to slide out the presumably bloodied bandages, but when they were off, I felt so much better. Bruce came up beside us and reclaimed the photo from Tim. I expected him to go back to his desk, but I heard the protest of the wheels of my wheelchair as it was moved over. The lock must've been on. A little groan of the chair and a little peek on my part assured me that Bruce sat in front of us on the wheelchair now, hands clasped and his elbows on the arms.
"Right, enough of that. How about catching me up on my life?"
He said it in a jaunting manner, but I could hear the frustration behind his words. I didn't blame him. We were all frustrated. I couldn't imagine the anger that came with being entirely in the dark. Opening my eyes entirely, I looked around for the new bandages, but decided against asking for them. It wouldn't hurt to let my skin breathe. I looked over to Tim, but he had his brow knotted too tight for thoughts to pass through. Looks like I had to be the narrator for this one.
"I don't know how reliable my memories are," I reminded him.
He cracked a smile that seemed to hurt him. "At least you have some."
I looked away. A part of me tried digging up any possible memory on the right way to reintroduce someone to their memories, but I had a second heartbeat thrumming just above my hip and it wasn't helping me in the slightest. It'd be best to just let it all out. Let it hit him all at once. If it's too much, maybe that would help him remember on his own. I put my hands behind my head to get them out of the way and closed my eyes.
Little by little, nudging Tim when I couldn't find the detail or name I was looking for, we read Bruce his own life story.
No once upon a times in this version though. There wasn't a ball he had to attend, or a princess he was looking for. This story started sad and it progressed without lightening in the same fashion.
Never looking at his face, I told him that he had watched his parents get murdered. I told him about how the mob the murderer led took his only chance of avenging his parents by shooting the man before the trial. He learned about the money he inherited, the manor, and Alfred. We described how he created the role of Batman and his painful pursuit of justice, up until he joined the Justice League.
"A little bit after that, you found me. You went to Haly's Circus on the night that Tony Zucco and his men sabotaged the trapeze wires. My parents fell and you offered me a home. I didn't... well, where else was I supposed to go? I overheard you and Alfred one night, talking about you being Batman. You said you were going after Zucco, so I followed, and saved you," my fingers tangled tightly in my hair, letting a small breath go. "You fixed me a proper costume and we fought crime together. Batman and Robin- The Dynamic Duo."
I tilted my head and looked at him for the first time in a long enough recount that my throat had a dull ache. His brow was tight and his interlaced fingers rested beneath his nose, eyes set tight on us. There wasn't any sign of recognition in his features. It was like a blow to the face. I looked over to Tim and saw he was a trembling fist away from breaking stoicism. I swallowed hard.
"And we... we did our thing for a while. But when I got to-..." my mind halted as the memories contradicted, but I had the sense to get it out before anything happened, "... college... we... had a... falling out. I left to do... my... own thing."
Tim's brow creased tightly and I found it harder to look at them. My head gave a protesting screech as my train of thought ran over the workers laying the tracks. I could feel their bones break and their limbs scatter across the wasteland and it felt like every inch of my head had a needle hammered into it. I brought my palms down over my eyes and pressed, trying to make sense of it.
"I'm fifteen," I whispered, pressing my nails against my forehead. "This..."
I felt Tim shift faintly and his hand briefly grabbed my calf to assure attention.
"Dick, that's not possible. If you were fifteen, I'd be... ten? You have to be at least eighteen," he pointed out, fingers tightening until I met his eyes.
My chest felt too heavy and I needed to be anywhere else but where I was. His point hit hard, enough to flip my train of thought to its side, snapping the necks of every living passenger on board. Their screams and the babies' crying stopped effectively.
"I saw my face when I first woke up here," I muttered, bringing my hand down to feel absently at my jaw for any proof that I wasn't crazy. "I know the difference between fifteen and eighteen."
I didn't know what I was feeling for, but the action was comforting in the slightest. Bruce rose from his chair and wandered back to his desk without a word and we both watched him rummage through his desk distantly until he ended up returning with his name plate.
"This is the only reflective thing I've got in here," he said apologetically as he offered it over to me.
I sat up to reach it and fell back with what I'm sure was a pitiful noise, laying with pride in the same grip I had on the nameplate. While the pain hammered at my head, I forgot about the confusion for a long moment, and it was kind of nice. As it took its time wearing off, Tim went on.
"Well, after Dick left, you went solo for a while. Then..." my head gave a surge, "well, from what I remember... I think you caught some street kid stealing the tires off the Batmobile. You thought he was ballsy and pretty soon, Jason Todd was your next Robin. And ah... he was... he was good. A little cocky, but... and then... well... he died."
I heard Bruce shift forward. "If he died, why am I treating him as a regular patient?"
I remembered this part. I'm not sure how, seeing that I was having a hard time accepting the fact that I was supposed to be a college student, but I knew that Tim hadn't been told. If he had, I figured Jason had told him, and I didn't see that stubborn asshole admitting to losing anything.
"The Joker- same asshole running this place- beat him with a crowbar to death. Ah- near death. You thought the warehouse exploding was what killed him," I said more for Tim's sake, and then cracked an eye open Bruce's way. "Ra's al Ghul... He ah... He's not a good guy, but his daughter... she... From what I understand, she took Jason's body from the grave and put him in the Lazarus Pit. It's this... it's this revitalizing sort of... pool... and Ra's was using it for a... makeshift immortality. [1] Jay never really talked about it and Talia wasn't going to explain herself."
The man gave a little breath of a laugh and Tim took the incentive to pull out the little Bat-Look that asked what it was over. Seeing that he remembered the language we had all built up eased my head.
"They called the place he got the fire damage from the same thing: The Lazarus Pit."
His fingers threaded back through his hair and he shook his head, giving an exhausted exhale. I echoed it and finally raised the name plate, looking my face over. The reflection was skewed of course, but when I squinted, I noticed it. My jaw was tighter and I actually had scruff going. I looked like a laying sack of shit, but I was definitely a lot older than when I had first looked in the mirror here, and that terrified me.
"Is there... Is there a chance they enchanted the mirrors?" I asked on a breath, desperate to think that we hadn't been here for that long.
It occurred to me that what we had been telling Bruce couldn't have happened if we were in an asylum after I asked, but it didn't help right my train of thought. It still lay shattered and in ruin. Other trains were coming along the track now, full of workers determined to help finish laying the tracks. They were slow coming, but I could feel them. Did Babs look older? I hadn't even thought about it. I had more so focused on the fact that she was alive. What about Wally? I didn't notice him looking older. Maybe the wards were... well... warded. Nothing's better to throw off memories than to shave away the years that they happened in.
I mentioned this, too, before I could sound crazy, and I drew them to silence for a long moment.
"That would make Wally at least 20 and I guarantee you, I don't remember him looking old enough to drink," I awkwardly patted my jaw, surprised when a hand touched the jaw in the reflection, too.
Looking between the two of them, I was relieved to see that they both paused to think about it. Whether they were flattering me or genuinely wondering I'm still not quite sure of. Either way, Bruce dismissed the idea.
"I don't know how long I'll be able to keep you guys in here without them getting suspicious that it's the both of you. If they know who we are to each other, they're probably already suspecting... and..." his eyes flickered to my stomach and I watched a deep crease press itself into brow, not needing to say anything more for us to understand.
"This isn't your fault," I held his gaze firmly, as I had done with Wally. "Look, I don't know why everyone's feeling the need to blame themselves for what's done to me. I'm apparently 18; I can take care of myself."
Bruce's eyes narrowed, and I still understood.
"We needed an eye in Solitary and I didn't know the situation with Bart. You used to tell me... the mission comes first."
His face lost all strength for a moment, almost as if the reminder was a spell that extracted his very soul. Fingers interlacing and pressing beneath his nose, I watched as he took a long time to sober up. He wasn't Batman yet, but he was getting the hang of it. It was when he looked away that I knew he really didn't remember himself.
"I don't feel like I was a very good person if that's what I told my kids," he finally said.
My heart gave a little surge at the title. "We weren't your kids."
He lowered his hands and looked between the two of us, lips giving a painful tug. "Yeah, you were."
I looked over to Tim and his chin was knotted tighter than the fist he had hiding behind my calf. We had always wanted to hear something like this, but... it wasn't the same. This may have been Bruce, but it wasn't our Bruce. He was the outline to the painting, the base coat still waiting on palette. We were holding the paint brushes, but we were both too sheepish to put them to the canvas.
"Well... right. When did I... When did I take you in?" he glanced to Tim before going back to watching the floor.
Tim's jaw was pressing and seemed to be a few of the only screws holding him together. I was feeling it, too. Between the two of us, I figured I had the most screws still semi-attached, so I figured he expected me to tell the rest of it. When I went to though, he gripped my leg a bit tighter than I would've liked and shook his head.
"I've got this one, Dick," he assured me, lips pressing together into a thin line. "Just... give me.. a second."
I wanted to point out what Bruce had just said about us probably having to leave soon, but I knew Tim. I remembered him, and I knew that if I felt like this, he felt twice it and then some. The fact that he was here, dry-faced and holding on, was a wonder to me. I looked over to Bruce and he nodded, taking back the nameplate and making his way back to his desk for the bandages. I wasn't going to wrap up quite yet, but I figured it'd feel better to hold them than the couch cushion. I didn't want to tear a hole in it.
"Any pills back there?" I asked, partially joking.
The ache in my head had died down to a dull throb, probably just my pulse at this point, but it still wasn't very comfortable. I didn't get how a third degree burn was still hurting me if my nerves were fried. Maybe I was being dramatic and it was just a second degree. Maybe I had burnt through to the fourth degree and the nerves had been reborn. At this point, anything was plausible. I was done trying to make sense of it. I made a mental note to share this with Megan the next time she hooked us up. It was definitely something to investigate.
When Tim's grip lessened on my sweatpants, I rolled my head back towards him, turning back for a second to make sure I caught the bandages.
"Well... Jason was dead. Dick was starring as Nightwing at this point... He uh... He wasn't your sidekick, but you guys teamed up sometimes. You ah... That's when you found..."
We all froze when the door was shoved open and I noticed immediately as Tim lunged forward and put an arm out to protect me. Bruce had dropped his stance, too. I was unable to do much more than flinch until I recognized the figure in the doorway.
In a baggy white shirt and sweatpants that sagged a little too low, Jason Todd smirked at us from the doorway, a tuft of white staining his otherwise black locks. When he noticed Tim and I on the couch, he rolled his eyes with a grin he tried to mask.
"Told you, Wayne- I don't do group sessions."
[1] There were a lot of explanations about Jason coming back from the dead. Some people say it was Superman punching reality (?) or a barrier or something and reversing it, but I think there should be a limit to Superman's powers. If that's the case, why did he have to circle the world backwards to bring back Lois? I just decided to go with the Talia theory. It seemed easier.
-F.J. III