Title: And you are sane, demur (Reference) Series: Three red words (Story #4) Fandom: DCU (AU, no new spoilers) Summary: Gotham was home. Rating: All ages Notes: I am not Te's sockpuppet. They know Bruce is coming from twenty miles off, and all it does is give them time to get nervous. It's the Beemer, which means no Alfred -- and that hurts, more than it helps, even though Dick's pretty sure that a well placed "Master Richard, stop this foolishness and come home" would get under the defenses he's almost positive will hold against anything Bruce says. It's Bruce on their doorstep, carrying a bouquet of dawn-shaded roses, not Batman with weaponry. Tim scans him before he rings the doorbell and says, "Bugs, and weapons, but nothing we can't handle." Jason grabs Tim by the hair and shakes him. "That weaponry's not going to show on your scan." "Not the hard stuff, no," Dick says. "Stay sharp." He opens the door. Bruce offers him the roses and says, "I thought perhaps you'd like something to brighten up the place." He's not smiling, not even gently. The way his eyes move, scanning everything, reaffirm that they're letting Batman into their headquarters, and that he's the most dangerous opponent they'll ever have. "Thanks," Dick says, taking them. Tim can scan him for tracers or whatever later; if Bruce drugs him, it will eventually wear off, and he's had all the arguments he knows how to have in his own head a hundred times already. He takes a step back to let Bruce in. It's standard procedure for Jason to pin a perp while Tim frisks him efficiently, and Bruce knows -- has to know -- that it's coming, scans or no scans. He doesn't fight it, and he could. Maybe easily, maybe not, with all of Jason's training. Tim hands Dick two folded pieces of paper and a tazer. "That seems gratuitous," he says, glancing at Bruce again. "I was traveling in Blüdhaven," Bruce says, still facing the wall. "It seemed like a reasonable precaution, considering the recent turmoil --" Jason sweeps his legs out from under him and gets him pinned on the floor with something that has a lot more to do with aikido than Jason's normal streetfighting. "Don't even start with the bullshit. What do you want?" Dick has seen Bruce upset on any number of occasions. He's also seen him repress every emotion there is. At the moment, he's not absolutely positive what he's seeing, but it's not pretty. "It's almost Christmas," Bruce says. "I wanted --" "Stop," Tim says, and Bruce does. "Dick --" Dick opens the papers in his hands, feeling the raised texture of an official seal. "Are you revoking these, or what?" If the answer's yes, he's not going to be surprised, and it'll be easier to throw Bruce out if that's all he wants to say. Jason looks up from the lock just long enough that Bruce gets out of it and flips him over. "What the -- dammit --" Jason glowers. "Let me up or they'll --" Bruce lets him go. "I wanted you to know I hadn't burned them. Or revoked them. And that -- I won't." There's really nothing to say to that, because "Why not?" isn't something he wants answered. Also he's more choked up than he's willing to admit to any of them, and the last thing he wants to do is look weak in front of Bruce. The man who hadn't even managed to say anything -- anything real, just stammering -- when they'd signed the damn thing. Like he needs another glaringly obvious vulnerability around Bruce, who knows every signal he gives. Jason's just staring from the official adoption papers to Bruce. "Jason's are a farce in any case," Tim says crisply, and at least Tim has some detachment. This is why they're a team, covering each other's backs, and Dick's more grateful than anything that he's there. "He's legally dead." "I rarely hold with the saying, 'It's the thought that counts,' but in this case --" Bruce gives Jason a look that has to hurt. Dick runs a hand through his hair and looks at the paper with his name on it and the date again until the lettering blurs a little. There were a lot of years when this was the only thing he could ever have wanted, and he hasn't forgotten the force of that -- that need. He shakes it off as much as he can, pushes away all the times he'd felt hollow because he didn't have the assurance Bruce is giving him now, and looks at Jason's. Another sheet of paper falls, and he grabs it. Bruce says, "That's --" Dick clears his vision with another blink, reads "Tim" in loopy handwriting, and holds it out to him. "For you, little brother." Tim puts on a glove before he takes it -- sensible, against contact poisons or anything else -- and reads it. He looks up at Bruce with his eyes narrowed. "Thank you," he says, and hands it back to Dick. It's written in purple ink and says: "I used to believe in you. I'm glad I'm learning to believe in myself instead. It doesn't take three of you bastards to look after a city. Straighten up and fly right. - Robin" Stephanie's handwriting is dangerously recognizable. She needs to work on that or type her personal correspondence. But that kind of security isn't Dick's problem now. "She asked me to deliver it," Bruce says, and he gets Tim to meet his gaze through some mixture of willpower and pathos. Dick hands the adoption papers back to Bruce, avoiding looking at him, and gives the note to Jason. "You might as well hang on to these if you want them." He doesn't have to clear his throat to get rid of the hoarseness. All he has to do is use Nightwing voice and say something he doesn't believe. "They're not going to do us any good." "I'm prepared to forgive you," Bruce says, so softly that it could be just for Dick, if he didn't know the other two's capabilities as well as he does. It takes everything he's got to say, "We don't need that, either." He wants to say he's sorry, but he's not sorry. He wants to be a kid again and beg Bruce to say everything's okay, but Bruce never told that kind of lie. It's his own fault he's not paying attention, that he leaves himself completely open. He could block an attack, even from Bruce, at this range, in this place, but the sudden movement isn't an attack. Except on the simplest level, where it is, and the part of Dick that's proud of where he is now thinks sardonically that only Bruce would use a hug offensively. He thinks it again, more loudly, because it's the only defense he's got against all of the ways in which he needs this and wants this and has missed this for however damn long it's been. Just being in the same room as Bruce changes how he thinks, or he wouldn't be bearhugged right now. Wouldn't for god's sake be hugging him back like a little kid, desperate for the kind of unconditional love he's never had from Bruce, half a choked breath from apologizing for everything and letting himself get swept up in the way things always used to be. Until he hears Flamebird shift on his feet, and can be Nightwing, the way things have to be now, and he lets go and pushes Bruce away and doesn't ache anywhere where it shows. Except to his family, and there are too many members of his family in the damn room. "I --" he doesn't bother to finish the excuse, doesn't above all meet anybody's eyes, and he's out of the room in a second. He can still hear perfectly when Tim says, "That was completely out of line." Bruce's sigh comes across clearly, too. "I didn't ask you to leave, Tim. You're always welcome to come back." Dick is briefly and guiltily glad he left the room; he might, maybe, say something unforgivably sympathetic to that and leave himself vulnerable.   He's pretty sure his expression is on the wrong side of the Force right now, and he's in charge, sort of -- no. He's Nightwing, maybe more than he's ever been, and he doesn't want to set a bad example by looking any more homesick for the loyal opposition than he has to. "I have a team here," Tim says, and his voice is cold. "We watch each other's backs," Jason says, "and we sure as fuck didn't ask you to drop by." Dick knows what Bruce looks like right now, and that he doesn't have to glance at all their computer equipment to remind them that they could've kept him away. It's not like he'd brought a Justice League strikeforce. He takes five deep breaths and goes back into the room where he has backs to guard. Tim gives him a quick handsignal -- not one they'd learned from Bruce, but one of the new batch -- and he signals back that he's at twenty-five percent of normal but increasing. "We already have plans for Christmas," Dick says, and now he does meet Bruce's eyes. It's a pang he's been expecting, and he knows he's not wavering this time even though he wants to apologize almost as badly as he needs to keep saying what he's got to say. "Thanks for dropping by, but you'd better go. The 'haven's dangerous after dinner." Bruce leans a little like he's going to take a step and Jason pins him again. "No more snuggling, or you get your Christmas present early." There's an expression of hope on Bruce's face for such a fleeting moment that -- that Tim saw it and memorized it, and that Jason knew it and had time to wince before Dick recognized it. They're going to have to keep their distance from him even more than Dick had originally thought. "You're welcome at any time," Bruce says, as calmly as if he were on the couch instead of the floor. Jason lets him up. "You're not." Bruce brushes himself off. "I'll keep that in mind." "If that's all you had to say," Tim says, and he's frowning at Bruce. Dick wishes he had their detachment, or their ability to fake it. He's still hyperaware of Bruce due to one badly-timed, poorly motivated hug. "The rest you already know." Bruce's posture shifts until it's as if he's wearing the cape and cowl. "Stay out of my city unless you change your methods." "Don't forget to write," Jason says, laughing. "Jesus, Bruce, you couldn't have done this over the phone?" It's been months since Dick's seen Batman in action, and while he remembers the man's skills in theory, the practical speed and agility he uses to cup Tim's chin -- wasn't he halfway across the room, a blink ago -- and kiss him -- Tim? -- is staggering. Which is why they're all staying out of Gotham. It takes Tim two thumping heartbeats to get Bruce in a wristlock. "That didn't work the first time." The -- "You're always welcome to come home," Bruce says, and only the corners of his eyes betray the wince. "But --" "That was never my home," Tim says. "Jay --" Jason glances at Dick for a second, and he gets the look of smug panic. Bruce has rarely seemed so fallible. His miscalculations, his groping for anything that might possibly work -- but maybe he's not groping, just aiming wrong, because Gotham is home, in most of the memories Dick's willing to think about. No amount of IKEA can make Blüdhaven home. But family can. Gotham was home, but -- Tim's here, Jason's here, and it's going to be all right. "Got it." Jason opens the door and Tim pulls Bruce over to it and pushes him out. "Don't waste our time," Tim says, his voice sharp, but not Robin. "We have a city to protect." "You're not alone in that." It's Batman's voice. Dick shakes his head. "We're not coming over to visit. We said so. Good night." He closes the door in Bruce's face. When he turns around again, Jason's staring at Tim. "The first time?" he says. Tim raises an eyebrow at him. "It was similarly ineffectual." Dick locks the door while Jason says, "Yeah, but the first time? He did that before?" "I know your English grades were poor, but your lack of comprehension of simple induction --" Jason rolls his eyes and throws his knife at Tim's head. If Tim wasn't so fast, it would hit him in the forehead, but he's out of the way with time to spare and it sticks into the wall with a dull thud. "Good thing I know the landlord," Dick says, frowning at Jason. "Yes," Tim agrees. "It's very convenient." "And Bruce -- he kissed you," Dick says, wanting to kick himself for sounding just as Captain Obvious as Jason does, but not having any other words. "Those muggers aren't going to incapacitate themselves," Tim says wearily, and heads for the uniform storage. Jason tweaks his knife out of the wall and follows him, saying, "But -- wait, is this why you're so damn flaming? I mean, Bruce isn't the straightest guy on the block, and the Flamebird thing doesn't fit the Bat-mojo, but --" "That's not why," Tim says, at his driest. "Are you sure?" It's not the kind of argument Nightwing has any reason to break up, which is just as well. He's more than slightly distracted tonight. And I remain unmoved, and yet
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