Alfred has enlisted in Dick's help with Damian's health and human development homework, and to Dick's surprise, it actually looks like something he could do.
It's surprising not because he underestimates himself, but because well, in middle school he certainly remembers feeling like health class was a waste of time, and it's Damian's only grade-level class – aka not high school or college level to accommodate his evidently supergenius brain – so Dick assumed it would be the same.
The reason why Alfred asked for Dick's help in the assignment is because it's about decision making – the online course Alfred's following for Damian is supposed to teach kids how to make good decisions, like evaluate whether it's legal and safe and so on. Alfred couldn't think of any of the example situations on the site that applied to Damian: lots of them include saying 'no' to peer pressure and at the moment, Damian doesn't have any peers – something Alfred didn't want to depressingly remind him of. So he suggested Dick craft his own, actually relevant situations.
Dick's example situations are all going to be about fieldwork, of course. It's what he's most comfortable with, and it's what Damian would actually pay attention to. So Dick's just currently rewriting the flow-chart for his lesson while sitting in Barbara's apartment. He's stretched out on her couch; she's sitting at her table on her laptop, working on her own day job.
"So you're preparing to teach right now," Dick says, "And I'm preparing to teach. Kind of nice to be just sitting down, doing the same thing together."
"My job is easier," Babs says. She quickly types something on her computer.
"How so?"
Barbara looks up and gives him a slight smile. "The students are older. It's always easier with actual adults. And besides," she shrugs, "In college, they don't actually care if you know how to teach – "
"Ouch," Dick says, interrupting her.
Barbara laughs. "Okay, wrong words. They don't care if you have a degreein teaching, you just have to know whatever subject you're doing."
"I don't have a degree," Dick says. "In anything, actually. I dropped out."
"Yeah, I remember."
"But I do have extensive experience in the field," Dick says. "Hero-work field, I mean. Like you do computer science."
Babs rolls over to him, clearly too distracted to work, which, well... oops. She presses her index finger to his chest and says, "And hero-work. I have experience in both fields."
Dick grins. He grabs her hand, and when he does she unbuckles the seat-belt of her wheelchair, so he assumes she's saying she's sitting down with him. So he starts to try to pull her in, but when it comes to moving her weight well... that's a bit too much and his ribs just give him the middle finger.
He tries to hide his grimace, but it must not work, because Babs still looks concerned.
"Doing okay, Grayson?" she asks.
"Still in one piece," Dick says. "Like always."
Barbara smiles slightly, but he can tell she's still worried.
Sheesh. It's just some broken ribs.
But... Dick can admit that it was frustrating, the situation with Riot, Phosphorous, and Roxy. And it easily could have been a lot worse. He really wasn't hoping to have to be rescued by the ten-year-old he's supposed to be teaching and Stephanie –
Well, if he said that to Babs she'd think it's unfair, like he's still judging her protege. Which... maybe he is being unfair: she certainly proved she could hold her own better than expected earlier. And actually worked with Damian, instead of well, freezing him.
But he won't lie and say that he isn't slightly still biased about it due to her freezing Damian, and what happened with the gang war in Gotham.
But Barbara did have a point – if Damian gets a second chance, so should Stephanie. And if Dick has time to help Damian work through his issues, Barbara should probably get the same for Stephanie.
Doesn't mean he'll suggest they hop in the field together anytime soon – he'd prefer it if Robin and Batgirl's next team-up was only after Barbara and Cassandra finished Stephanie's training.
"You're thinking about something, Dick," Barbara says, and she touches his cheek gently.
Dick quickly grabs Barbara's hand while it's still touching his cheek and kisses her wrist – just because it's so freaking nice to be able to just... be here. Be with her. "Just thinking about the kids," he says, even though it seems weird to group Stephanie in as a 'kid' when she's a legal adult. But phrasing it this way keeps it nice and casual.
Barbara grimaces and for a moment, Dick's worried she's going to bring it up again, that they're going to get in another fight, but then she says, "Right, about Damian... I'm sorry."
Dick furrows his eyebrows. It'd be really easy to try to brush off any seriousness and make a joke here – like 'you're sorry about him because you think he's a pain?' but he wants to actually hear what she has to say.
Barbara pinches the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses up. "It wasn't fair for me to be using Damian's past against him. When we were arguing."
Dick nods. He agrees with her – it wasn't fair. "Apology accepted," Dick says. "And I'm sorry about..." well, he's not going to say he's sorry about what he said, because as far as he can remember, he had the extremely reasonable concern of the kid he was supposed to be taking care of getting frozen in front of a super villain. "I'm sorry for coming at you like I was going to try to shut you down," Dick says. Something he's actually sorry for, because he's pretty sure that put her on the defensive right away.
Barbara shrugs, which Dick guesses is her feeling tempted to just brush it off and not deal with the emotions as well. "I understand why you did," she says. "Even if it wasn't something I was going to put up with."
"I know," Dick says. He exhales, trying to collect his thoughts. "I mean, I know you aren't going to put up with me trying to give you orders."
Barbara reaches out and squeezes his hand quickly, and Dick squeezes back.
"I talked to Damian the other night," she says. "When you were getting patched up."
"Oh?" A thousand questions pop to Dick's mind – How'd he seem? Was he okay? What did you talk about? – but Dick avoids asking any of them and waits for her to keep going.
Babs runs her hand through her hair a little, if Dick didn't know better he'd assume she was nervous. But she's well... Babs. "Yeah. About... well, mostly about the potential of getting injured in the field."
Dick shuts his eyes. He shouldn't be surprised. Barbara's Batgirl career got ended with a bullet, her dad has been injured, and her step-mom was killed, all in the field.
He just knows that Damian wouldn't react positively to someone telling him it was dangerous and that he should sit out.
"I wasn't trying to go behind your back or anything. I was... explaining to him why I don't use children as operatives." Barbara grimaces slightly. "After apologizing for dragging him into it when I was mad at you."
"What did he say?" Dick asks, because while he's glad Barbara tried to set things right with Damian, he's really curious about that part.
Barbara shrugs and spreads her hands slightly. "You remember being a kid, Dick, you know they don't really think of themselves as kids, just people. They're not going to say 'you're right, I totally should have more protection or people looking out for me'. They're going to say 'I can handle it myself'."
"More teenagers for that second part," Dick says. "Than kids. But Damian's special."
Barbara smiles slightly, though Dick doesn't know why.
"The team worked pretty well together last night," Dick says. "You, me, Damian, Stephanie. Once we got used to each other."
"Oh, we're still getting used to each other," Barbara says. "But we'll do fine. Especially since Stephanie and Damian will see a lot more of each other, training with Cass."
Dick nods. He's still surprised that Damian wanted to train with Cass, given that he seemed mad at her earlier. But, he guesses Damian's used to having the best of everything – of course he'd want the world's premier martial artist as his teacher.
He also knows that he'll have to ask Cass to take Damian with her again – even though he said he wouldn't. But Damian needs to go on patrol with someone if he's insisting on going, and despite the earlier mishap, he'd trust Cass's ability to keep him safe in the field more than he would Stephanie's, even if he's admitting he was too harsh on Stephanie earlier.
He can't tell if Barbara's going to say anything else, mostly she seems to be watching him, so he grabs the paper he was looking over. "Maybe you can help," he says, intentionally keeping his voice light so she knows its okay if she doesn't. "Since you've got more teaching experience than me."
"Not for mentoring Robins," Barbara says, then adds, "... it's really unclear how much of this is about field work versus school work."
Dick shrugs. "I guess technically it's for school. But I'm going to tie it into field work. Otherwise I'm not sure Damian would care. It's for Damian's health and human development class – "
"Damian has a health and human development class?" Barbara asks. "How'd you get him to agree to that?"
Dick doesn't know how to answer. The truth is, at first Damian didn't even seem to think he'd have a decision over what he learned – he tried to make getting a decision part of a bargain for scoring high, even though Dick and Alfred were going to let him pick most of them anyway. Kind of like a regular kid in that respect, Dick guesses, assuming the adults are going to make more choices.
He's wondering how many 'regular kid' moments Damian's had that Dick ignored due to the kid having been hard to get along with in general. But he was definitely scared, or worried about Dick, or something the other night.
However, Dick has no clue what to say about that so he just keeps summarizing what he was going to and shows Barbara the flow-chart. "It's supposed to be about making good decisions," Dick says. "You know, 'is it safe', 'is it legal', 'is it respectful to myself and others', 'is it allowed by my parents/guardians'... I'm trying to re-write it to be less generic and apply more specifically to the situations Damian's going to find himself in."
Barbara raises an eyebrow. "And how's Damian going to react when you suggest he needs help with his decision making?"
"Hey, Damian's always looking for ways to improve!" Dick says. "Even if he hates needing it. He's like... obsessed with perfection. Doing everything right. You know, like nearly everyone else in our little family."
Barbara chuckles slightly and squeezes Dick's hand but doesn't say anything. She's just still sitting there across from him.
"So, uh," Dick continues, "Like 'is it safe' is still a valid question to ask in the field. I mean someone might argue that there's no way for it to be completely safe – " he internally cringes, because he knows that that was Barbara's argument earlier, that if any risk to Damian was unacceptable he shouldn't have been out in the field – "but as safe as we can make it at least. 'Does it avoid unnecessary risks' maybe?"
"You'll need to clarify what makes a risk unnecessary," Barbara says. "Field agents love taking risks."
Dick nods. He knows that Barbara classified her operatives as somewhat different from her – even though Barbara can fight, she normally doesn't jump into battle and does most of her work from the safety of her computer room.
"Am I a field agent?" Dick asks.
Barbara reaches out a hand and touches his cheek gently. "Technically," she says. "But normally you're pretty reasonable."
Dick grabs her hand and just holds it tight against him. He exhales quickly and then lets go. "So, since you're evidently the expert in risk assessment – "
Barbara rolls her eyes, but she's smiling slightly, so Dick knows she's not really annoyed.
" – what is an example of an unnecessary risk?"
Barbara wheels back a pace and fastens up her lapbelt again – Dick gets the idea he got her in the work zone. Which is fine, they work well together. Only a little disappointing they aren't snuggling on the couch.
She gets complete focus, raises her hands up slightly like she's holding a box or something a little in front of her and stares forward, not at Dick, but at whatever situation is in her head. "So, take Dinah for example. Or Stephanie. Or Cass."
Dick grins slightly, waiting to see where this is going.
"But back after I'd stopped working as much with Task Force X and I was starting the Birds of Prey thing, it was just Dinah and me. And she kind of thought I was just this annoying Jiminy Cricket in her ear I guess – okay, so I was slightly bossy – but we had some instances where I wanted more intel because rushing straight in would essentially result in a suicide mission. We had a human trafficking situation in Santa Prisca – "
"Human trafficking?" Dick asks. "I can see why Dinah wanted to rush straight in and start cracking heads."
"Yes, but no one was going to die instantly. People were miserable and it was awful, but we had time to make a plan. Dinah charged in with no intel, rescued the victims but got herself kidnapped and nearly lobotomized."
"But she rescued people," Dick says. He figures that's what matters most.
Barbara squeezes her eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose, shoving her glasses up her face.
Dick knows he said the wrong thing. But he's not going to lie – working as Nightwing, he'd probably have made the same call that Dinah did. He's a lot more comfortable taking risks when he's alone. He knows what he can do and trusts himself to get out of most situations. Working in a team, he knows generally what people can do but also has to worry about everyone's safety...
This is Barbara's point, isn't it? Everyone's much more willing to jump in front of the bullet than they are to see their friends do it.
"She rescued people and then needed rescuing herself," Barbara says. "And if I'd been slightly slower, she would have died."
"Yeah, I know," Dick says. "It's nothing I haven't done myself. It's easy – "
Well, intellectually it's easy to jump into a situation without thinking. Emotionally, it's appealing. You're going in straight to the fire, helping people. Sitting back and waiting to get more intel before you make a decision is necessary but can be frustrating. Even if it results in better decisions, less casualties, and a shorter down-time healing in the long run.
"I know it's easy," Barbara says. "You're forgetting that I was Batgirl."
Well, Dick didn't bring it up because he thought that she didn't want him to – a lot of their previous conflict had to do with him trying to live in the past.
And... him doing all the stuff that Barbara hates her field agents doing. Not taking care of himself. Not giving himself time to recover. Jumping in without thinking. Anything to take his mind off Donna's death. Pretty much the opposite of what he's trying to do now.
"Yeah, those are boneheaded decisions," Dick says. "I mean, we both know. So, uh, our decision making flow-chart needs to take account whether people are at the risk of dying right now. How many enemies you have. Whether any of them have unknown combat capabilities or meta-powers." Basically, things he's more used to analyzing when he's leading a team and has to keep everyone safe. Things he's been more used to taking into account lately. After Donna got back, after he got his head on straight.
"I should give Stephanie whatever you come up with," Barbara says. "She sure loves to improvise."
"I bet it drives you crazy."
"You have no idea," Barbara says.
Dick finishes taking notes on what he said – good notes, to be honest, things that he usually considers before leaping into combat anyway – and moves onto the next bulletpoint. "Okay, so what do we replace 'is it legal' with? Since what we do normally falls into the ambiguously legal zone."
Barbara shrugs. "Um, 'is it going to make the eventual case harder when we turn it over to the cops'? You know, contaminating evidence and the like."
Dick nods and starts jotting her suggestion down. "We need some specific examples," he says. "Kids work pretty well with specific examples. And I'm not sure how familiar Damian is with – well any criminal justice system, besides the education I gave him in his first couple weeks here... which did include collecting and not contaminating evidence."
"Well, when he just started being Batman, Bruce beat quite a couple people into confessing, didn't he?" Barbara asks.
Dick grimaces. He's pretty sure that Bruce did. And it's just kind of... uncomfortable to think about. Even though he knows Gotham was rougher back then. The corruption was pretty much impossible to escape. He probably felt like it was the only way to deal with things.
"That would never fly now," Barbara continues.
"Damian already knows he's not allowed to beat suspects," Dick says. He sighs and rubs his face. He's pretty sure at least part of this is his fault.
Not like he ever told Damian it was okay. But he did hang Toad over the side of a building – granted, like 4 feet up, the guy was never in real danger – and scare the living daylights out of him. He's not sure how much of a distinction Damian made between terrifying people into thinking they were going to die versus genuinely torturing them. And it didn't even work – they didn't even get any intel out of Toad; the only thing that slipped was unintentional, just his way of talking.
In a way, beating people or terrifying them for intel is another one of those immediately emotionally satisfying – because, well, the people you're messing with aren't normally good, you're normally convinced they deserve it – but strategically less valuable actions. And morally... questionable.
"A lot of this is making me rethink my actions," Dick says. Which kind of makes it sound like he was doing the wrong thing earlier but...
"Good," Barbara says.
"Thanks," Dick says sarcastically.
"We make pretty intense calls in the field, thinking them over is only natural," Barbara says. "Letting yourself make decisions out of panic or... fear or anger... its going to lead to people getting hurt. And you'd have to be a pretty heartless bastard to think 'oh so I did everything I could, I'm fine'."
Dick grabs Barbara's hand. He can't tell if this is about something else – about something besides him and Damian. Because Barbara had said earlier that she felt like she was making the wrong decisions right before the Birds disbanded, that she lost her edge.
Barbara presses her lips together in a thin line, then smiles wryly. "Look at me, I'm distracting you," she says.
"I don't mind."
"Which actions were you re-thinking?" she asks. Probably trying to get her mind off of whatever situation she was thinking about, or get it out of the Barbara zone –
And Dick doesn't blame her. So he just answers the question. "Interrogating Toad. How I handled some calls with the Outsiders. I guess it feels like more of a responsibility, now that I got a tiny person I'm trying to teach morals to."
Barbara smiles again, but this time it seems more genuine.
Dick doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind. He just likes seeing her smile.
"So, uh, yeah," Dick says, trying to get the conversation back to... whatever it was before this. "I've got the proper-field-conduct thing, the fighting skills... the only other thing I've got to do is get Damian to have fun."
"And how much fun do you have?" Barbara asks.
Dick has no clue where she's going with this. "I have fun," he says.
He's pretty sure he does.
Barbara raises an eyebrow skeptically.
"Well, we went dancing. And I watch TV almost every day!"
"You watch nature documentaries after patrol to decompress."
"Decompressing is the new fun!"
Barbara laughs at the same time as touching her hand to her face, like she's giving him an over-exaggerated facepalm of disapproval.
Dick raises his hands up defensively. He's pretty sure he sees where she's going with this.
"I'm pretty sure that whether they want to or not, kids – or heck, just regular people, since I noticed Cass doing this – try to take after the people they're around. It's why you're second guessing your actions more now that Damian's in the picture, right? You don't want him to pick up your bad habits."
Dick nods.
Barbara keeps going: "When she just got here, Cass idolized Bruce. She wanted to be exactly like him, to the point where when she temporarily lost her secret identity, she was completely fine living in a cave 24/7 because he thought it was a good idea, or smart to have a 'use' for her now non-civilian identity."
Dick cringes. That's cold.
"And I'm sure me trying to get her to relax or act like a 'normal girl' didn't work because she still saw me on the computers or training nearly my every waking moment. I was trying to convince her she needed sunlight and to relax, but pretty much the only time I was relaxing was when I was with her or you."
Dick knows. He remembers trying to get Babs to relax. She was – is – on 24/7. Like him, most of the time. When the two of them took just 24 hours off it felt like it all went to hell.
"It took her actually hanging out with Stephanie for her to have fun. Because Stephanie was having fun with her and it clearly wasn't 'I'm relaxing with you because I think it's important for your mental health', it was 'I'm relaxing with you because we're friends and we're both having fun'. Not like she was trying to do Cass a favor."
"So you think I should have fun with Damian?" Dick asks. "But like... because I want to. Not because I think it'd be a good idea for him to relax."
Barbara nods.
Dick grins. The conversation is kind of heavy, so he lightens it by teasing her. "I don't know, I'm not entirely sure that this isn't a ploy on your part to get me to take care of my mental health."
"Will it work if you can justify it as helping someone else, you freaking martyr?"
Dick knows that she's at least somewhat kidding, or at least not mad, because she pulls him in and quickly, chastely kisses him on the lips.
Dick just lets his forehead lean against hers, just taking in her presence. She's right, he knows she is. It's so much easier to try to take care of other people than yourself. He's pretty sure she's saying that at least somewhat from experience.
He was trying for a little. Trying to do little things just for Dick Grayson, not for anyone else, like Barbara suggested. Like he needed. It just got easy to let all of that go to the wayside when he had to step in for Bruce. To be like Well, Bruce wouldn't stop and do things just for his own fun or his own relaxation. So if I do, I'm clearly not living up to it.
And it is easier to consider starting it up again now that he has a justification for it – besides himself. Now that he can think Well Damian needs some healthy habits so it wouldn't be a crime for him to see how it works...
And yeah, it's kind of martyr-y to phrase it that way, but it will get the job done. Maybe he can take a step back and remember how to be Dick Grayson.