Part Eleven
Conclusion
"Let me guess; you're Batman and I know about Clark because you know each other from the Justice League. Oh, and that would have made me the ass end of Batman and Robin when I was a kid and now—I'm going to go out on a limb here—I'm Nightwing, right?"
"Yes on all counts." He pushed back the cowl. "Does this also mean that you have your memory back?"
"No, but as I've mentioned before, amnesia doesn't mean stupid and I suspect that things may start coming back to me pretty soon. And Donna is probably Wonder Girl, which would make her sister Wonder Woman, right again?"
"Are you angry because I waited to tell you or is there some other reason?"
Dick stood up and turned towards the stairs. "No, this is it." He started up but stopped and turned when he was maybe on the tenth step. "And all the scars on my body, these are all from crime fighting, 'being a vigilante?"
"Most of them, yes."
He nodded and left, his footsteps echoing in the cave and finally fading away into silence.
* * *
The next morning Alfred became concerned when the young master didn't appear for breakfast and a search proved him to be neither in his suite or anywhere in the house. Concerned, he called the on property security people who informed him that Mr. Grayson was walking on the far path along the cliff with Master Tim. They were just heading back to the main grounds and should be back at the house in about twenty minutes.
By the time they came through the door almost forty minutes had gone by but Alfred's relief overrode anything else, assuming that the two young men had been getting reacquainted.
"I was wondering when the cat might drag you two in for some substanance, if you'll be so kind as to make yourselves presentable I shall have your meals ready when you're finished."
Soon enough the two were seated in the kitchen and talking quietly between themselves.
"You know how he is, he was trying to make it easier for you."
"That wasn't his call to make. I'm an adult, injured or not. I can make my own decisions regarding my own life."
"Well, yeah, but he's still Bruce and you're not going to change that. Besides, without your memory you don't have the pieces you'd need to make an informed decision. 'Suck it up."
Dick didn't respond but his demeanor made it clear he wasn't impressed by Tim's logic and the rest of the meal was largely eaten in silence until, "Is Bruce here?"
"I'm afraid that he was called to a Board meeting at the office, however I expect him back this afternoon."
Dick nodded an acknowledgment. "I'm going for another walk." Tim started to get up to go along but was stopped. "Alone."
He spent the next four hours walking the grounds, stopping by the stables to pat the horse's noses, sit by the tennis court for a while and finally study the waves breaking against the cliffs. Alfred watched when he could, when the security cameras could get him in view and wondered if he was remembering or not.
It was a lot to deal with and it would be a long road back, made more difficult by the many complications in his life. His existence wasn't an easy one, nor simple and it could be a long time before all the details made sense to him again. "I can only hope he handles this as easily as he seemed to handle the other hardships life has handed him over the years."
* * *
When he came back into the house Dick made a couple of calls. Within the hour both Roy Harper and Wally West were at the front door and shown up to his room by Alfred, the door firmly closing behind him as he left, leaving the three young men with their privacy.
"I want to ask you two a question and I want you to answer honestly."
"Of course."
"You got it."
"Okay, my memory isn't completely back but it's getting there; I want to know why you do this."
Wally looked confused. "Dick?"
"We're not adolescents anymore, this isn't a 'gee-whiz' kind of thing now. We get hurt, some of us have been killed. There are other ways we could help, other avenues we could use to stop criminals."
Wally spoke up with the obvious. "Because we're good at it and we make a difference." He exchanged a look with Roy, this wasn't the Grayson they'd known for a decade.
"No, why do the whole costumed, superhero thing? It's not for the money, I get that, is it for the ego? If we want to stop bad guys, why not just be cops?"
Roy, for once, was serious, no snark, no sarcasm. "Well sure, part of it's ego, yeah. Why else would we dress up and use code names? It's cops and robbers taken to the highest possible degree but there's more to it than that. It's knowing that we, all of us, have certain abilities, gifts if you want to call them that, we can do stuff no one else can and we can do it better; we make a difference and, okay, this may be ego, but we act as role models and inspiration."
"Yeah, 'sounds like ego to me, Harper. And we all have personal reasons to do this, I get that, too. Some of us were crime victims, some have relatives in the business, some use it as a hobby or a career. Fine." Dick paused while he marshaled his words.
"What's the 'but' here? You're not convinced."
"...I don't think I want to die for this. Maybe it's selfish but in a real way I just got my life back; I don't want to lose it. There's a lot of things I want to do, years, decades of things I still want to do."
All three friends knew Dick was serious, baring his soul and telling the truth and Roy broke the lull that had descended.
"Then you have some choices to make."
* * *
Things remained fairly status quo for the next few days. Dick would take long walks through the grounds, usually alone but occasionally with Tim and, once with Alfred. There would be a little small talk about the views or to remark on a deer in the woods but mostly they would walk or hike in silence. The other members of the household realized that Dick was slowly coming to a decision and allowed him the luxury of taking his time to be sure that, whatever it was, would be right for him, not made in haste or superficially.
He spent time alone in his room. He saw his old friends behind closed doors, made calls and would be on his computer for hours.
Wayne Manor seemed to be holding it's breath until finally, late one night down in the cave;
"I've been thinking, 'made a decision."
Batman just waited, immobile.
"I don't want this. I don't want to be shot at, threatened, I want a life on my own terms, not someone else's. I don't want to die before I'm thirty."
Not a muscle moved.
"I've been in contact with some old friends, from before, old family friends."
Batman didn't seem to be breathing, he was a statue.
"I'm going back there. I've been offered a headliner spot with Barnum and Bailey, I'm taking it. It's what I want to do."
The living statue registered what he'd just heard but the reaction was almost imperceptible.
"I'm grateful for what you've done for me and everything you've allowed me to do and see—for letting me find closure when my parents died but now I want a normal life. I was raised to perform and it's what I want to do, it's what I was born for and it's in my blood—literally and figuratively."
"You're running away to join the circus?" The comment was sarcastic, dripped disdain.
Dick didn't bother answering, he'd said what he wanted.
"You're throwing away everything you've built, years of training and hard work, the good will of the public, the hundreds of collars and arrests you've made, all the good you would do that's still ahead of you? This is unacceptable."
"You have the Justice League and you have Tim; Batman still has a Robin. You'll all be fine."
"No. You're an integral member of the community, you have obligations to the rest of us working. You have an obligation to me." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.
"It's not your decision."
"You haven't recovered your full memory yet, at least wait until you have a full grasp of what your life was before..."
"I have enough of a grasp, Bruce. I'm not going to change my mind."
The cowl was pushed back, the anger and disappointment obvious. "This isn't like you, this is the injury."
"No, this is me, Bruce. This (he gestured around the to the dark recesses of the cave) isn't me, not now." Ha had a sad smile on his face, one Bruce rarely saw. "I want to fly, I don't want to live in a cave." His smile changed a bit a little at his own overblown hyperbole. "I was going to leave earlier but I wanted to tell you in person and I wanted to tell you how grateful I am for..."
"Don't bother."
"...And how much I want to still be able to consider the Manor my home and the people in it my family."
No reaction other than Batman replacing his cowl and getting back in the car. The engine started, the tires squealed as he left.
Upstairs Dick loaded the single bag onto the back of his bike, the custom Ninja which had been his last birthday present. Alfred was asleep but he'd read the letter he'd left, thanking him, asking if he could come by for dinner in two weeks when everyone had a chance to calm down. Much as he loved the old man and remembered the endless kindnesses he'd received at his hands, he now saw him as an enabler and believed it best for himself to limit the man's influence.
He'd make his peace with Tim as well, knowing the boy would see his leaving as a betrayal but would, with any luck, understand as time went by.
At the end of the three mile driveway he went through the gates, waiting a moment to listen to the solid clank as they closed behind him then turned left onto the main road, smiling and feeling free.
He was contracted to join the circus in three days for their dates in Chicago.
3/30/10
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