Title: The Suit (pt 12)
Genre: fanfic (Batman Beyond)
Setting: sometime early on in the series
Rating: a bit of language, nothing serious
Notes: Batman Beyond and related characters still aren't mine, but I'm still playing with them whenever I get the chance.
Bruce doesn't like hospitals. He is perfectly happy to donate money to them on occasion, and he even pretends to appreciate it when they name wings after him at expansive galas commemorating his donation (even though said wings are invariably called the Wayne Wing, which is entirely too much alliteration to be taken seriously). But when it comes to the actual practice of medicine in these halls that smell like antiseptic and fear, Bruce thinks he could more than do without. He longs for the days when there were no sissy pills to take or nurses to answer to; just Alfred with a needle and thread and a cutting quip or two to which Bruce always pretended not to be paying any attention.
Waiting in a hospital waiting room with an impatient, nervous sixteen-year-old boy is not Bruce's idea of a good time. McGinnis has been pacing ever since they got here, and Bruce is torn between the need to reassure him and the need to strangle him. Terry has not actually said a word, but Bruce knows a thing or two about compulsive pacing and the feeling of responsibility when someone is injured during a case.
The doctor, a slim Indian woman who walks with an air of calm self-assurance, enters the waiting room from the bowels of the sterile inner hospital. Bruce looks up and watches her approach, trying to gauge the severity of the news by her gait; but she's done this too many times to be so easily read. Or maybe he's just getting soft.
Terry stops his pacing and comes to sit awkwardly next to Bruce. He doesn't say anything, but his agitation is apparent.
The doctor addresses Bruce. "That was a nasty business, Mr. Wayne," she says. "A quarter of an inch closer to the heart, and…." She shrugs, then smiles slightly. "He'll be all right now. He's a tough one."
"That he is," says Bruce, surprised by the pride in his own voice. He looks over at Terry, who is very purposefully not looking back, although Bruce can see he's relaxes his shoulders ever so slightly and doesn't seem quite as inclined to pace about futilely anymore.
"You can see him if you'd like," says the doctor to Bruce. She quirks an eyebrow. "I'd suggest you encourage him to retire while he still can."
"With all due respect for this establishment, I'd rather not be spending the night in the ICU myself," says Bruce dryly. He uses his cane to help himself to his feet. "Coming, Terry?" he asks mildly when the boy doesn't move.
Terry shakes himself. "What? Oh, no. You go have a moment or whatever."
Bruce leaves Terry sitting in the waiting room and follows a nurse down the hall. Through the open doorway Bruce can see Dick lying in the bed, hooked up to all manner of machines but, for all that, looking as though he could very easily get up and take a walk in the park.
"Hey, old man," Dick calls. His voice is thick and tired, but he's making a real effort to sound much perkier than a man who just took a gunshot to the chest should sound.
The nurse leaves, and Bruce sits down on a chair next to Dick's bed, giving him a quick once-over and determining that, while he may not still have the resilience of an adolescent boy, Dick still mends quickly – at least on the outside.
For a few moments they sit in what could not, in any stretch of the imagination, be called comfortable silence.
"Looks like you're still in one piece," Bruce says at last. It's not at all what he wanted to say.
"The kid, too," says Dick. "Though I notice you didn't drag him in here with you."
"He's waiting outside," Bruce says. "Been pacing for the last two hours."
Dick laughs, then winces at the pain in his chest. "I know a guy who can out-pace him in a heartbeat," he says.
They fall silent again. Bruce can hear a lone bird somewhere outside the window, chirping away in the sunlight, which falls in bars of light and shadow on the bed.
"Ryerstad and Stan have been booked," Bruce tells Dick. "I doubt they'll be causing any more trouble for awhile."
"But not long a while." Dick looks over at him and smiles in a charmingly lopsided manner. "It's never a long while, is it?"
"No," Bruce agrees. "The job's never quite done."
"Even after you are."
Bruce looks sternly at Dick, who waves a hand feebly. "It was only a matter of time, Bruce. You were the only one who thought you'd be doing it forever."
Bruce smirks. "The doctor told me to tell you to retire while you still can."
Dick snorts. "Doesn't look like it's been doing much for you." Then his face grows serious. "Bruce, listen, I know why –"
"You don't," says Bruce curtly. "I don't even know why I took him in."
"Really? After all these years? After me and Jason and Tim and Barbara, you still don't know?" Dick half-smiles at Bruce's scowl. "We all know why you did it, and you do, too. It's not because it's a war, even though it is. It's not because you got old, although you did. Think about it, old man: a guy out for revenge, a real loner, who takes in a bunch of kids and makes them into some sort of family? A guy doesn't do that for no reason at all."
Bruce knows what he's supposed to say – that he was lonely, that he needed someone outside himself to think about, to care about, to love. It's one thing to dress up like a bat and fight crime because you're pissed off at the miscreant who killed your parents; it's another to actively seek out others who have had similar experiences and give them suits to wear, Kevlar to protect against bullets, masks to protect against acknowledging the wrong identity, a duty to protect against a feeling of helplessness. The world isn't any different now than it was all those years ago when he saw something terrifying in the window and knew that terror was what would ultimately bring him peace.
Bruce looks at Dick and Dick looks at him, and it's a testament to the whole thing that even now, as out of practice as they are, neither of them has to say a thing.
Dick, of course, always had a way of saying what doesn't need to be said, and lying shot up in a hospital bed just this side of the morgue isn't about to deter him. "I'm sorry," he says quietly.
Bruce shakes his head and shuffles to his feet with more trouble than he'd care to admit. "It's not necessary," he says stiffly.
"No," Dick agrees, "it isn't. But I am. Sorry, that is. About a lot of things."
Bruce smirks. "But not everything."
Dick laughs a little despite the pain. "No, not everything," he says, grinning or grimacing, Bruce isn't really sure which.
Bruce walks over to the door, puts his hand on it, then pauses. He finds himself wanting to say something, nearly thirty years' worth of something, but it gets stuck in his throat, and he remembers that he was never any good at this kind of thing, anyway. "I'm glad you're all right," he says, though it's not enough, not at all what he wanted to say, but it will have to do for now.
"You, too," Dick says. He doesn't add anything trite about doing dinner sometime or trying to visit more often, but all the same Bruce finds himself feeling better about things than he has in a long time.
Bruce turns, pushes open the door, and steps aside just in time to let Terry fall into the room flat on his face.
"Amateur," Bruce snorts, stepping over him and walking away down the hall.