Disneyworld Vacation
Part Two, Chapter Four
DISCLAIMER: One word--NO.
Note: Sorry, my divider line isn't working, so I have to use these stupid, rotten-looking dashes :P Ah, well. It shouldn't hurt the story much.
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"Oh, come on! Will you just forgive the guy so we can continue having fun already?"
"No!"
Wally threw his hand up into the air and stormed off a few feet. He was getting very frustrated with Dick's stubbornness. After they had figured out who'd been chasing them around Disneyworld for the past two days, Dick had stalked out of the theme park and hopped a bus to the hotel without even bothering to turn around and check if someone was following him (which they weren't, at least not right away).
By the time Dick had returned to his hotel room, the mess Roy had made that morning was cleaned up. Ollie was on the phone, busy trying to locate the missing boys after a hard day of fruitless searching. The man was relieved to see Dick, but was stunned by how flushed and angry the young man was.
But Dick didn't bother to explain what had gone wrong. He'd just stormed to his room and slammed the door shut.
Now, the others had returned from the Disney-MGM Studios. Bruce was explaining the whole thing to Ollie. Roy was confessing for the paparazzi incident, although he had yet to own up to the stunt involving the cheese and crackers. Wally was in Dick's room, trying to convince the guy to make up with his guardian.
"But Dick—"
"'But Dick' nothing! If you found out that your uncle Barry didn't trust you to go somewhere by yourself, and that he'd wasted two days just following you around to make sure you didn't do anything he didn't want you to, would YOU forgive him?"
"Um… no?"
"There ya go."
"Aw, come on, Dick!"
And the whole thing started all over again—Wally, begging his friend to talk with Bruce. And Dick, too obstinate to give in.
Truth was, he was very hurt by Bruce's actions. They were partners, for crying out loud! He'd been working with Bruce and with Batman for the past—what?—five years? He had tangled with some of the most dangerous villains on the face of the earth, and he hung out with the Justice League on a regular basis. He'd even SAVED the Justice League on one occasion!
So why didn't Bruce trust him on one week-long vacation to Florida?
Dick could have screamed. It was so frustrating to know that Dick could trust Bruce with his life, but Bruce couldn't even trust him on one stinking vacation.
The Gotham teen slouched lower in his seat, trying not to listen to Wally's so-called arguments of why he should go into Ollie's room to speak with his mentor. They weren't very convincing arguments as far as Dick was concerned, and he eventually tossed Wally out on his ear (figuratively), turned out the light, and went to bed.
Wally sighed dejectedly and knocked lightly on Ollie's door before entering.
"I certainly hope you're in a better mood than Mister Grouchy in Room Seventy-Two Forty."
"What's Dick got to be sore about? He ain't the one getting his head bitten off about cheese and crackers," Roy grumbled (yes, he finally admitted doing that).
"He's ticked at you, mostly," Wally continued, pointing at Bruce and shoving the other hand into his jeans pocket.
"I should have known," Bruce said to himself. "What did he say, exactly?"
"He says he never wants to talk to you again for as long as he lives."
Bruce gave him a skeptical look. Wally had become somewhat infamous throughout the superhero community for his juvenile pranks and practical jokes.
"For real!" insisted Wally.
Ollie sighed, looking almost as upset as Dick had. Of course, he had a reason to be. He had just found out that Batman didn't trust him with his ward.
…Then again, Ollie reconsidered, would he whole-heartedly trust Bruce—or anybody—with Roy for a week? Probably not. And it wasn't like Green Arrow and Batman were on the best of terms or anything.
But really, coming all the way to Florida just to watch the kid! And not just to watch him, but to stalk him! That was going a little too far, even for him.
"Looks like I made a mistake, didn't I?" Bruce admitted, very quietly.
"I've waited to hear you say those words for years," grinned Roy. Ollie shot him a warning look. Bruce just ignored the teen's outburst.
"I should have known Dick would find out eventually. But now what to do about it?" Bruce wondered aloud. He stood up and began pacing the room.
Wally just grinned from ear to ear.
He didn't need to pace.
He already had a plan.
-
"I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me!" Roy yelled early the next morning on a bus headed for the Magic Kingdom. "I've been waiting for two whole days to ride Splash Mountain, and now you're ruining my chance again!"
"Alright, alright! I'm disappointed too, but we can ride the thing any time from now until next Saturday," Wally reasoned. "We have to get Dick to forgive Mr. Wayne right now or else our whole vacation will be ruined!"
"Oh, alright," sighed Roy. There was a short pause before he asked, "Do you really think this is gonna work, Wally? I mean, Ollie's still steamed about what I did to him with the cheese. If he finds out that you tried to get him out of the picture a third time by sticking tomato sauce in his—"
"SSSSHHHHHH!" Wally hissed frantically. "There are minors and respectable people onboard this bus!"
"Don't shush me! Anyway, when he founds out what you did, he'll think it was me, and then I'll probably never see anything again, let alone Splash Mountain."
"Don't worry, I left him a note explaining everything. He'll forgive you."
"Forgive ME!"
"SSSSHHHHHH!"
Wally glanced around to make sure nobody was listening in, and then whispered to his companion, "You remember what to do, right? You take Bruce and I'll take Dick. Make sure he doesn't chicken out."
"Yeah, yeah. Doesn't matter what we have to do, just get 'em back together."
"Yeah."
-
Both Bruce and Dick woke up that morning at around the same time. Bruce had taken the spare bed in Ollie's room, but Ollie wasn't there anymore, as you probably guessed.
When they awoke, each found a little note on his nightstand. Dick's was from Wally, telling him to go to Splash Mountain at ten and buy a Fast Pass; he should be on the ride by eleven-thirty.
Bruce's note was from Roy, but was otherwise identical to the one Dick had.
Both were suspicious.
But both cautiously did as they were told.
Wally met Dick at the Fast Pass kiosk.
"Hey, pal!" he greeted enthusiastically. "Ready to ride Splash Mountain?"
Dick shrugged gloomily. "I don't know, Wally, I'm not really in the mood for rides. Why don't you take Roy instead? He's been dying to go on this thing."
"I would, but I don't know where he is. I think Ollie's still chasing him around the park for what he did yesterday. Here."
Wally handed Dick the Fast Pass that had just popped out of the machine. He had suddenly spotted Bruce and Roy approaching and knew they needed to get out of there before Dick saw them and their plans were destroyed.
"Hey, you want a milkshake or something while we're waiting?"
"Before going on a roller coaster? No thanks."
"Well, a different ride, then. Like the Philharmagic show, maybe?"
"We did that already, Wally," Dick observed, beginning to look suspicious. But Wally didn't let that deter him. He just grabbed Dick by the hand and dragged him off towards the building where the 3-D show was housed.
Just in time, too, as Bruce and Roy were coming dangerously close. Roy was yapping incessantly to keep the man distracted, while Bruce was just pretending to go along with it (c'mon, he's the World's Greatest Detective—of course he'd figured it out).
The time crept by for Dick, who was still brooding about Bruce's sudden appearance in Disneyworld. But eleven-thirty finally arrived, and Wally and Dick got into line.
Bruce and Roy were right behind. All four kept silent.
Even though they'd gotten a Fast Pass, the line was still agonizingly slow at times, although there were points in the line where they were able to walk fairly quickly and pass by the people next to them in the regular line.
That was when Roy made a big mistake.
He snickered at the people in the normal line.
Dick's eyes widened at the sound as Wally rolled his eyes.
Game's up, he thought with a sigh.
He didn't even bother to stop Dick from turning around and staring at Roy…
…and then Dick spotted his mentor looking back at him.
After seeing the annoyed looks Wally was sending Roy, Dick was instantly able to figure out what was going on.
"Holy treachery! Oh, no you don't!" he cried. They had reached the front of the line by this time, but Dick still tried to race back down the cavernous tunnel they had just exited. All Wally and Roy had to do was grab the struggling boy by his arms and shove him into the nearest empty seat.
Once Dick was 'settled', Roy gave Bruce an extremely bold look which plainly said 'don't make us do the same to you'.
Ignoring the stares of everyone else in the line and giving Roy an intimidating look, Bruce sat down next to his ward, who was sitting as far away from the man as he possibly could. He wasn't even looking at Bruce—Dick was glaring in the other direction with his arms crossed.
Bruce almost missed all of this as he was too busy trying to find a comfortable position in the too-small seat. The leg room was ridiculously limited.
The two red-heads simply stood to the side and grinned, satisfied, as the ride jerked to life, taking its reluctant passengers along with it.
Things were surprisingly quiet for the first minute or so. Both refused to say anything or even enjoy the story of Brer Rabbit as it was played out on either side of them with audio animatronics (giant robots, basically).
Finally, Bruce opted to break the silence, but was beaten to the punch by Dick.
"Why did you come here? Why?" Dick demanded to know, breathing hard. "You couldn't leave me alone, could you? You just couldn't trust me, not even for a week!"
"Dick, you know I trust you," Bruce replied tiredly.
"No you don't. If you trusted me, you wouldn't be here!"
Silence fell again. Several other people laughed and shrieked as they bounced up once and then plunged a few feet with a splash before proceeding down the dark passageway.
"I mean it's only for a week, it's not like we were headed for the moon or anything," Dick grumbled, mostly to himself. "It's only Florida, for heaven's sake, we're only about a thousand miles from home—"
"Richard, if you would just let me explain…"
"Explain what? How you lied when you said you were okay with me coming here without you? How you didn't trust me to—"
"Again with the trust…"
"Well maybe it doesn't bug you that you don't trust anybody, but after five years of having to put up with it, it's kind of beginning to get to me, you know? And that's another thing," Dick continued his quiet rant as Bruce sighed to himself, "why must you always interrupt me in the middle of my sentences? Can't you just let me finish one lousy little sentence every once in a while?"
"Alright, alright!" Bruce hissed. "If you want to talk, go ahead and talk. I'm listening."
But Dick said nothing.
"Well, talk. That's what you were just complaining about, wasn't it?"
"Oh, forget it! You wouldn't understand anyway!"
"No, you're the one who doesn't understand."
"I understand perfectly, thank you!"
"Do you? Just think about it for a minute—a thousand miles from home—alone—in a crowded theme park. Anything could have happened, anything!"
Still Dick said nothing; Bruce let out his breath.
"Look, Dick, I do trust you. It's just that…"
As Bruce paused, Dick finally relented and chose to sneak a peek at the man sitting next to him. It was fairly dark in the tunnel, but Dick was used to the dark and his eyes had already adjusted to the dim light.
"Just that what?" he said in as hard a voice as he could muster.
"It's the rest of the world I don't trust, Dick."
"But… Bruce…" Dick stammered, "I'm fine. I can take of myself, you know that!"
"Of course I know that."
"Then… why!"
Bruce just looked at the inquisitive expression on Dick's small face—so small, so young. He couldn't explain this to the kid. As bright as Dick was, he could never comprehend this. Heck, Bruce barely understood this 'parental worrying' thing himself. It was completely illogical, but still it was there—uncontrollable and sometimes annoying, but there nonetheless.
He couldn't explain this, not even to himself.
"Someday, Dick," he said instead. "You'll understand someday. Someday, if you ever have a son of your own… then you'll understand."
Dick gave him a curious look and then turned away again, but there was no longer any anger in his expression. It was as if, in his own unique, inexperienced way, he did understand.
In a way.
"There's one thing I still don't get," said Dick at last.
"What's that?"
"When you wrote that list of rides that Wally and Roy and I were planning to go on… why'd you skip the Tower of Terror?"
Bruce smirked at this.
"You didn't really think I was going to let you ride that, did you?"
The End
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Me: Ta-da! The end! Although if enough people review, I may post a couple of 'lost scenes' that I wasn't able to fit into the story.
Dick: Oh great. More torture for me.
Me: Not really.
Dick (incredulous): Are you SERIOUS?
Me: Yeah. One of the scenes includes Roy and Wally riding Splash Mountain AND Ollie getting revenge. (evil laughter) Hee hee hee...
Dick: So... I'm not in it?
Me: You're in the other three scenes, but I don't really torture you much.
Dick (jumping up and down like a grasshopper): Yippee!
Reviewer Replies
Yourperfectdisaster-Yes, you most certainly did! Congratulations! I hope Panamint wasn't actually thinking she could fool everybody with that...
caltha-Okay, okay, I hear you. I'll go work on my detective skills, but don't expect me to be perfect! And now that I think about it, Roy did look pretty funny in that outfit... hehe... the word 'blackmail' comes to mind...
Crazy 4 A Reason-Thank you! Panamint is always glad to hear that someone actually thinks she's funny. I know I don't.
Lil' Kanny-Bruce? Apologize? I've never even tried using those words in the same sentence before. That's just... not Bruce. Which can get annoying, but that's okay, I guess. I mean, he sort of apologized... anyway, thanks for reviewing!
Robin Knight-Yay, I've got a fan! And a hug... thanks, I think I could use it. And as for TAP being nicer to me... I don't think so.
CrazyInsomaniac-Since Wally's standing right behind me, I'm not going to mention whether he actually screamed like a girl. But... gee, we're getting a lot of people who think I'm cute... I think I like that... thanks!