Title: So sweet a changeling (Reference) Fandom: DCU AU (Pre-Teen Titans Dick, Tim as Batman: Titans Tomorrow/Room of Robins AU) Summary: "Show me how to use the Oracle," Dick says, when Batman's concussion is gone and he's not so snippy. Pairing: Barbara/Dick, Dick/Tim Rating: Adult. Content some readers may find disturbing. Notes: For Katarik, in honor of her birthday. Thanks to Jack and Betty for listening, and Gloss for beta reading. Reading the Room of Robins is highly recommended for its own merits, but not necessary for comprehension of this story. Illustration: Deconcentrate drew an illustration that captures the soul of this story perfectly. (Nudity, not sex; all content warnings for the story apply) The prequel, True as steel, is also suggested but not required for comprehension. Someday, Dick will figure out how to ask if Bruce is somewhere around without making Batman angry. He knows Batman's name is really "Tim Drake," but the one time he tried to call him that, Batman stopped talking to him for an hour, so he let it go. He's getting used to how touchy Batman gets about that kind of thing. After living with Bruce for a couple of years, he understands how people can have things they'd really rather not talk about. Batman taught him how to use the portal that got him here in the first place on the first day, so when he wants to go home, he can do that. He's sticking around for a while, though, because Batman's a lot lonelier than Bruce. At least Bruce has Alfred to keep him company while Dick's away -- Batman here hasn't got anybody. There are a lot of cool things in this Gotham that make up for how mad Batman gets. The tracers Batman uses here are nothing like the radios Bruce has back home -- everything's so much smaller and more powerful that Dick hasn't even started to ask how they work. Batman has given him files on the different technology available here -- and now, because that's different too -- but mostly he just tries not to look too surprised when he learns something new. The little music players are one of his favorite things, but he doesn't get to use them when he's out as Robin. Then there's the database -- Oracle. It has a clearer voice than the radio -- a woman's voice. For the first couple of months, Batman doesn't let Dick use it. "Later," he says. But there's the gangfight where Batman gets knocked unconscious, and if Dick wasn't there, Superman wouldn't have heard in time, and Batman would've died. "Show me how to use the Oracle," Dick says, when Batman's concussion is gone and he's not so snippy. "It's not a matter of being shown." Batman frowns. "You'd need surgery." Dick blinks at him. "Where?" Batman takes his cowl off and taps the sweaty place behind his ear. "Here." "I don't see any scars." Sometimes Batman's smile reminds him of Bruce more than anything. "Mine healed cleanly. And yet." Dick shrugs. "What kind of surgery is it?" "You'd need an implant." Batman takes out a little silver thing -- about the size of a pill -- from one of his belt compartments. "One of these." "Huh. It doesn't look that bad." Batman raises an eyebrow at Dick. "It's not the implant itself that's -- problematic. It's the permanent interface with Oracle." Dick grins. "It's not permanent if you need an implant for it. When I go home, you can just take it out again, right?" Batman winces -- maybe he's remembering the surgery. "True." He starts for the clinic part of the cave. "All right." * Dick wakes up from the anaesthesia with an itch behind his ear and a headache. A woman's voice laughs, and he sits up fast enough to make himself dizzy. "Who's there?" he asks -- there shouldn't be any girls in the cave, at all. "Oracle," the woman says, and he turns around in bed, trying to spot her, before he realizes she's not a person at all and blushes. "Oh. Huh." He touches his ear and winces at the pain. "You're -- not real, are you?" He can see the most gorgeous red-haired girl ever, all of a sudden, like she's in front of him -- but he can see the cave, too, and he knows she's not real. "Of course I am, Dick." She grins at him. "I just don't have a body anymore." Dick rubs his eyes, but she's still there. "Wow." Oracle gives him a look like his mom used to when he broke something. "You -- hm." He frowns and then tries to figure out if the voice in his head has any idea what he looks like. "What? What's wrong?" "You're much younger than the Dick I know. That's all." Well, if Oracle was -- is -- a person, and worked with Batman, then -- but Batman, this Batman, never mentions Dick as a grownup at all. "You know him? You mean he's -- I'm still around? And not in Gotham?" Oracle takes off her glasses and looks younger. Not just like librarians in movies, but really younger. Like she's Dick's age, instead of Batman's. "He's on another planet, these days." "Gosh." Dick's ear is starting to hurt enough to distract him. He lies down again to see if that helps. "But you knew him before he left." The red-haired girl who's sort of Oracle grins so much her eyes crinkle up. She has freckles on her nose. "Yes, though Batman and I have agreed we shouldn't tell you much about him past a couple of years older than you are. You're not him, after all." Oracle's smile is awful cute. Dick wishes she was a real person. If she was, maybe she'd still smile at him like that, and talk to him, and they could train together and everything. "Okay. And --" He bites his lip. He doesn't want her to think he's a baby, but -- "I want to know about him, but -- there's stuff I already know, and -- you can skip that part." Either Oracle has a picture of a Haly's Circus poster, or he thinks of one so clearly he can count the sequins on his father's leotard for a second. It makes him clench his fists. "Of course." Oracle picks up a file folder like a cartoon character grabbing dynamite out of nowhere. "We don't have to start at the beginning at all. Maybe a year after he started being Robin." * "Do you know anybody who wants to be Batgirl?" Dick asks Batman over dinner, a couple of weeks later. Batman sets his fork down. "Not presently. You've been accessing files again." Oracle overlays on the real world and sticks her tongue out at Batman behind Dick's eyes. Sometimes she's the pretty lady she was when he first saw her, but most of the time, she sticks with looking like she's Dick's age. "Sure I have," Dick says, and he pokes his lima beans instead of saying he's been dreaming about her, too. Red hair and sunshine and yellow boots, and he's never kissed a real girl, but he's kissed Oracle in his dreams a hundred times now. She always tastes so sweet. Batman makes an angry little noise. "Studying the past will only give you a rough overview of what may happen in the future." Dick stabs a lima bean. Batman always gets grouchy when Dick mentions other people who do their kind of work, but Dick's lonely. "I know. It's just Oracle said there were three Batgirls already, but not for a long time, and I wanted to know -- maybe -- if there'd be another." Batman's doing that thing where he presses his mouth into a tight line and looks like he'll never smile again. "It's possible." Maybe she'll have red hair and a smile like a sunrise. Oracle winks at Dick where Batman can't see. "Okay." Dick grins at Batman. "I think we can handle the work whether or not she ever shows up." It doesn't make Batman smile, but he looks less like he should be wearing the cowl at the dinner table. "I'm sure we can." * Dick is dreaming -- he's almost sure -- of Oracle, and kissing her on a roof. He's Robin, and she's Batgirl, and they're dancing a little together to no music at all. Her breasts are soft when she leans on him, and then they're -- he's -- He opens his eyes, breathing hard, and winces. Ick. "Oracle --" She looks like she's Batman's age right now. "It's a normal part of growing up." She picks up a folder and pushes her glasses up her nose. "Go clean up while I explain." He doesn't get through the explanation without turning beet red and trying to hide his face from her, which isn't ever going to work. "Eew!" She gives him a patient look. Like his mom would, if she'd ever had to talk to him about this. "Puberty is never fun, but it'll be over sooner or later." He wants her to smile and stop being old, and to stop talking about it. He wants her to dance with him more -- and then he remembers all of the dream, and blushes again. "Oracle --" She raises her eyebrows at him. "Yes?" "I think I -- kind of -- love you." She frowns, just a little, like a teacher who doesn't understand the question. "I'm fond of you, too, Dick, but -- remember, I don't have a body anymore." "So?" Dick frowns at her. "You're still you. You're still really Barbara Gordon." He's never called her that before, and she never talks about being Batgirl like it was her, or being Barbara Gordon like she was, she obviously was. All the pictures of Batgirl look just like her, and all the pictures of Barbara Gordon look like her too. If she didn't want Dick to know it, she should've done a much better job of hiding the information. He's not as good a detective as Batman is, but he's no slouch. Oracle takes her glasses off and cleans them on her shirt, even though she doesn't have eyes, so she doesn't need glasses, and it doesn't matter if they're clean. "In certain ways, yes, but -- I'm not anywhere at all, except in your mind." "I don't care," Dick says. "You're as real as anybody else here -- and you talk to me more than Batman does, and --" He bites his lip. No way is he going to impress her if he starts bawling like a kid. "You like me, don't you?" "More than anyone I get to talk to," Oracle says, and she looks like she's going to cry. Which is stupid, because she says she's a computer, and computers don't cry. Dick puts on his bathrobe and slippers. There's no way he's going to be able to sleep more right now, so he might as well go train. "Well, if you like me, and I like you, then it doesn't matter where you are. Or what you look like, or anything, because I know you." Oracle's image in his head wavers -- she's old as Batman, and her hair is all grey, and she's his age, all at once. When she comes back into focus, she's still Batman's age. She's pressing her lips together like he's said something wrong. "You can't make me Barbara again with any magic I'm currently aware of," she says, and her voice is meaner than it ever is when she talks to him. "Lazarus pits require a body. The only thing that would work would be an android, and I have no desire to 'live' like that. None." Dick sits down on the stairs underneath the study clock. "I don't want you to be better. You can't be better." He puts his head in his hands -- she always knows what he's doing, but if he hides his face, maybe she'll pretend she doesn't know he's crying. Just a little. "You know everything and you're so pretty and you're Oracle and you're -- you're you." He bites his lip and tries to swallow the prickly feeling in his throat away. "I don't want you to be Batgirl again. Or Barbara Gordon again. I just want you to be you." She frowns and wavers and is his age again. "I'm sorry, Dick." "I'm sorry too." He wipes his eyes on his bathrobe sleeve and sniffs. "I'm sorry I told you and you got mad. I'm sorry I --" He wipes his eyes again, harder, because they're threatening to keep crying. "I'm not sorry I love you, Oracle. I'm just not." "I'm not surprised you do." She sighs and pulls out a photo album. "I didn't tell you -- Batman ordered me not to -- but --" She opens it and shows him a picture of herself, a little younger than Batman, kissing a dark-haired -- kissing Dick. Grown-up. Dick wants to be that other Dick so bad he tightens his hand into a fist. It doesn't make the feeling go away, but it gives him something else to think about. "Oh. I didn't know." "You weren't supposed to." She closes the photo album and it disappears. "Don't let him know you know, or he'll be angry." "Of course I won't tell." Dick takes a few deep breaths and gets up again. "Did you love him?" Oracle's not his age anymore. She's back to being Batman's age, and she's smiling one of those smiles only grown-ups have. The smile that, from anybody else, goes with "You'll understand when you're older." "Yes." Dick frowns. "Did you marry him?" It's not fair that he already knew her once, already kissed her, and he doesn't remember it, and she does. "Almost, once." She shows him another picture -- herself in a wheelchair, and the guy who's Dick with his hand on her shoulder, smiling at her. "It didn't work." Dick tapes his hands. "I'm not him." He jumps for the rings and hangs, letting the stretch in his shoulders spread. "I'm not." "I know." Oracle shows him another picture -- Dick yesterday, over the breakfast table, grinning at Batman and talking with his hands to explain Brittney's science fair project and how cool it was. "But he wanted you to be Batgirl instead of Oracle, didn't he?" A quick twist, and he throws himself into it. It doesn't block her answer. Nothing he can do would stop her. "He never gave up on helping me 'get better.'" Dick tightens his hands on the rings and does a good handstand. "That doesn't make any sense. You're as good as anybody could be." She smiles at him until he stops hating himself for making her sad. "And you wonder whether I love you." His chest feels like it's melting, and it's not just the pull in his muscles. "So you're not mad at me?" "I couldn't stay mad at you if I wanted to." Oracle goes back to being his age. "You should study for that history test." Dick does a split. "I still don't see why you won't help me. It's not like it really matters what happened in the Revolutionary War." Oracle shakes her head and her hair flies. "I'm never going to help you cheat. Come on, Lexington and Concord." * The more he works with Oracle, the better he gets at using the information she gives him without getting overwhelmed by it. Sometimes, especially on the street, he forgets to thank her for the pictures or the files she has because he's too busy using the data to unlock a door or take down a guy twice his size, or to figure out exactly who killed this guy, and with what. Sometimes, he forgets he's not home, but then Batman will call him on the comm and he'll answer it without having to use a radio, and he remembers. Talking to Oracle gets easier all the time -- he doesn't form the words with his lips anymore, and now he can't imagine talking to her out loud. It would be like reading by sounding out every letter. Duella Dent is causing trouble all over the city in May, and it's exhausting. Batman calls him while he's staking out the roof of Wayne Enterprises and says, "Eat something and rest your legs." Dick sits down on the edge of the building. "You got it." Batman's in the garment district, keeping an eye on the new Too Too De Trop factory. A question Dick only ever thinks of on patrol sticks in his mind. He asks Oracle, "Where's Bruce?" It's not a good answer -- she winces and flickers -- and he's almost braced enough to hear her say, "He's dead." It makes sense -- otherwise he'd be Batman, or Batman would talk to him, or something. Besides that, Dick would never leave the planet while Bruce needed him -- but he hasn't gone home yet, either. He bites his lip and wishes he hadn't asked. "Oh." Oracle's probably got a lot of data about who, and how, and when. He gets up and says, "I have to go home." "Are you injured?" Batman asks, his voice urgent in Dick's ear. "No -- I --" He should find out everything about what happened so that when it happens again, he can stop it. Save Bruce. Make this never be real. He sits down again -- falling off a building because he's talking to Oracle makes him look stupid, and once was enough. "Sorry -- I'm okay." Batman says, "Acknowledged." Oracle is frowning. "What data do you need?" "Where was I?" Dick asks. "Offplanet." Oracle shows him a set of pictures of a planet where all of the plants are shades of purple. "He had -- somewhat retired." Dick eats his energy bar automatically, hardly feeling it in his mouth. "Who?" "The Joker." It's not that cold, even though it's night, but he shivers. He's always been more afraid of the Joker than most of the criminals they face. Now he knows why. "Where's he now?" Oracle smiles, and even though she's Dick's age right now, it's a scary smile. "Dead." "Good." Dick takes a deep breath. "Tell me how it happened -- Bruce, I mean." There's a huge amount of information. It takes the rest of the night for Oracle to give it to him, and he's only got the time to think about it because they don't find Dent. It seems wrong to have crime-scene photos just like Bruce was one of the people they try to help, and worse to have the police reports. Even landing on a mugger from four stories up doesn't make Dick less angry about what happened. He's not tired when he gets home, either, and he takes it out on the punching bag while Oracle shows him how Batman figured out all of what had happened -- the tests, the reenactments, the searches, the lab stuff. Batman gets in half an hour later and comes up behind Dick. He wasn't in any of the pictures from before the Joker attacked. "Where were you?" Dick asks, and before Batman answers, Dick punches him. He wasn't doing his job, wherever he was. He wasn't being Batman right, because Batman would never let somebody die. Batman catches his fist before he can break his fingers with another punch. "Busy," he says, and Oracle must have told him what Dick was asking about, because he gets Dick in a pin. "You weren't supposed to have access to all of that information." It makes perfect sense that Batman's holding him flat against the mat because if he wasn't, Dick would find a way to make him hurt for saying that. "I needed it. Bruce needed it, and you --" He twists and Batman -- Tim Drake -- puts weight on a pressure point until he stops. "You couldn't help him. Why didn't you tell me this before?" Tim's voice isn't really Batman's. "It wasn't relevant." Oracle's voice is soft in his head. "It won't happen that way in your universe." Dick closes his eyes and tries not to think about the autopsy photos. "No, because I left and he could already be dead by now, and it would be my fault instead of yours." Tim lets him go and gets out of reach before Dick can get to his feet. "It wasn't my fault." Dick takes off his mask and wipes his eyes on his arm. "You let it happen. It's your job to stop it. And you didn't." "There were reasons for that," Oracle says. She looks like she wants to hug him. "I don't care. I'm going home." Dick glares at Tim and tries not to hear Oracle. "Bruce doesn't not-tell me important things." Tim almost never smiles in any way that looks like a smile. He's laughing, now, in a way that makes Dick look around for the Joker even though he saw those autopsy photos, too. "Were you ever this naïve? Really? He withheld information as often as he breathed." Dick shakes his head. "Not from me -- not something like that." He swallows hard and backs away from Tim. "I'm going home." "You've been missing for six months," Tim says. "Bruce is used to working without you." It wouldn't help to kick him, but Dick wants to. "How do you know?" "I've been checking on him daily," Tim says, and -- he sounds a little like Batman, now. Like he's actually responsible, sometimes, maybe. "Oracle," Dick says, out loud so Tim can hear him, too, "do you have access to the portal?" "In a limited sense, yes. I can't monitor any more than its analogous location in the other universe, but -- yes." She shows him a video -- Bruce is working on a piece of a uniform. A dark red uniform -- not Robin-red, but -- A blond boy comes up next to him and Bruce stops adjusting it and hands it to the kid, who grins and puts it on. "Oh," Dick says, and he kind of wishes Batman still had him pinned so he'd have an excuse to sit down. "Is that really the universe I came from?" "Yes," Tim says. "You can see it's already significantly diverged from this one." Dick knows a lot about the different people who've been Robin here, and none of the boys were blond. "Yes, but -- he could still need me." "He's not the only one," Oracle says, and shows him Bruce training with the blond kid, just like they used to work together. "More to the point, your information regarding what happened in this universe will be useless in that one." If he'd thought Bruce really, truly needed him, he would never have stayed as long as he has -- but Bruce does -- did need him. Apparently not anymore, or he would've figured out where Dick was instead of finding somebody else to be Robin. "Yeah," he says, because there were lots of things in the files about Bruce's death that had to do with Jason Todd, and it doesn't make any sense that Jason would get to be Robin in the same way if Dick's not there. So Bruce doesn't need him, or any of the stuff he just learned. And Tim's not very good at being Batman. Dick folds his arms and tries to think about something that doesn't hurt. Even Oracle doesn't make him feel better right now. "You can set the portal for any year, right?" Tim says, "Any year and any day, if it's interdimensional travel." "So you could go back in time and save him." Oracle whistles. "Yes, and no --" and she shows him a bunch of math that he's too distracted to follow. "Thereby eliminating my knowledge of how he died, and eliminating that version of myself, leaving no one who had the knowledge necessary to make the changes." Tim puts his hand on Dick's shoulder. "This is the one timestream I can't alter." "But I'm not from this timestream. I could go and --" He stops himself. "No, that won't work either, because if -- if Bruce hadn't died, you wouldn't have needed everybody, so I wouldn't be here." "I've considered it extensively," Tim says. "I bet." Dick sighs, and goes back to his other point. "But you can change other timestreams, 'cause I'm here and it's not the same year it is at home. So if something happens to Bruce, back home, all you have to do is set the clock back on the portal to before it does, and I can stop it, and everything will be okay." Oracle claps her hands. "Yes." Tim nods. "The only drawback is that if you stay there, you won't know what's coming next." Dick winces. "Right -- right. So I can stay here, and work with you, and just keep an eye on the portal in case anything goes wrong." "That sounds like a great idea," Oracle says. Tim smiles. He looks more like Batman when he smiles. "Yes, that would be acceptable." Dick yawns and rubs his eyes. The adrenaline from being that ticked off is dropping out of his system like Batman drops off a building, except it doesn't have a jumpline. "I just hope his new Robin's good at the job so I don't have to do it much." "You should get to bed," Oracle says. "I know. I wasn't tired when I got back, but now I sure am." Dick yawns again. "Sorry I got mad, Batman." Tim hugs him. He's never done that before. It doesn't feel like hugging Bruce -- Tim's armor's a lot heavier -- but it feels good, just the same. "It'll be all right. Get to bed." "You should, too," Dick says, but he knows Batman won't listen to that advice. "'night." * "Bruce sure gets himself in a lot of trouble," Dick says to Oracle. He's heading out for a burger with a couple of friends from school, but really he's watching Alfred sewing Bruce up again. "He always did." Oracle gives him a diagram of where the bullets probably went, and the likely damage. "He's about eighty percent likely to survive this one." Dick grimaces -- at her, not at his friends. "Yeah." If he tried to stop Bruce from getting hurt at all, he'd have to move back there, and then he wouldn't be able to do it because he wouldn't have the time travel capabilities. It's terrible for Dick to watch him wince and know he could make it all better, even so. "If he hadn't had Robin there, he probably would've been much more seriously injured." Oracle shows him a slightly different angle on the feed, where Robin's a lot less panicky than he was the first six times Bruce died. At least he's learning something. It means Bruce needs Dick less, but that hurts less than it used to. Dick had to drag Batman into the car last Friday and get him bandaged up. He's got his own worries. "Well -- that's something." Fred says, "Earth to Dick, come in, Dick," and everybody laughs. Dick winks at Oracle and grins at Fred. "I bet I can beat you to the diner." Tim gets a lot less mad than Bruce used to about Dick using his athletic skills for the heck of it unless he does something gymnastic. This is just a good run, with good milkshakes at the end, and Oracle's laughing and dancing in his mind. Bruce will be fine, whether or not Dick has to go fix things. He can have a little fun now. * To celebrate Halloween, a series of lightning strikes -- they have to be aimed, somehow -- takes out power to all of Gotham, Blüdhaven, New York, Washington, Boston, and way out into the country, too. The cave's generators kick in a second later. Oracle doesn't flicker for a second, through all the hours Dick is running through pitch-black streets, stopping looters and three groups of morons who figured now was a good time to knock over a bank. The banks have generators, too, and the alarms go off, and Robin's there even though Batman -- Oracle says -- is with the JLA, hunting down the guy who did this so it doesn't happen again. At least most of the kids out on the streets had flashlights, but Dick finds a few whose batteries have run out and leads them back home, too. The full lights come back on at four in the morning. Dick sighs in relief and heads home. "Where do you live, Oracle?" he asks -- voice-only for nonurgent communication. It's the rule for the bike. "I don't live anywhere," she says. She sounds like she thinks he's asking a dumb question. "Yeah, I know, but -- you have to have -- files or -- whatever. On a computer, somewhere." "Lots of computers," she says, and the flicker at the corner of his eye is her not showing him the diagrams she wants to, right now. "All over the world -- and past it, too." "Huh." Dick never forgets she's not really a kid, even though she looks like one most of the time, but that's even farther out there than he'd imagined. "So you're everywhere, pretty much." Oracle chuckles. "More or less, yes." "It's just -- when the computer in the cave lost power, you didn't. I thought you were in there somewhere." "Yes, but I have enough other -- copies, you could call them -- that it wasn't relevant." "Okay, that makes sense." Dick stops himself from yawning and focuses on the road for while before he thinks of another question. "Does everybody know you're there?" Oracle giggles like Tiffany did right before she kissed him. "If they did, they'd want me to leave -- to erase me, really. I'm on a lot of government computers where they don't think anyone should have access." "Oh." She needs the information on them to help them do their jobs better, so -- "Huh." "Sometime when you're not falling asleep on the road, I'll tell you about how I got there." She plays him a loud noise and shakes him up a little. "Keep your eyes open, R." It's easier to not be too tired. If he slips again she'll know it, and he doesn't want her to think he's weak. "You got it, O." He starts falling asleep again in the shower and she sends him bright lights and says, "Open your eyes, come on, this is a bad place to sleep." He rubs his eyes harder. "How far did I run today?" "Five and a half miles. It's nothing for you, come on." She glares at him. It makes him smile right back. "You're so pretty." She shifts in his head and looks a little older -- fifteen, maybe, still lean and cute, but more --"Get to bed, Dick." The first time she looked like that, he got so embarrassed he didn't talk to her for ten minutes. He wasn't sure what to say, or if she could tell how much he was looking at her breasts and her hips instead of at her face. He's more used to it now, but he can still feel himself blushing when he grabs a towel. The way she smiles at him says she knows exactly what the biofeedback stuff means. He really is tired, though, enough that he falls asleep as soon as he gets into bed, still wearing his bathrobe. He wakes up looking for a kiss, trying to find -- someone -- and thrusting into his own fist. In his dream it was -- Dick makes himself stop and pulls the pillow over his head. It's not polite to make up dirty things about people who don't have to hear your thoughts, but when somebody can --"Oh god, Oracle, I'm sorry." "You have nothing to apologize for." She's -- naked. He's never seen her naked -- she's not naked, she's not -- there, she has no body to be naked with -- She's naked in his head like she was in his dream, and closing his eyes tighter doesn't make her go away or get any less beautiful. His dream got a lot of the details wrong -- he was making her up then, not seeing her. "Please, I --" She has freckles on her shoulders and her hands on her hips. "Why did you stop?" "I didn't want to --" He bites his lip, but she's right there and as real as she ever is with her thumbs on her nipples, teasing them. "It's not -- gentlemanly. To think about you. Like that. Like -- this." When she moves her hands, he can see her breasts. He can't see anything else. "You don't have to stop. It's all right." If she needed him to, he could stop. He's sure he could, but she obviously doesn't want him to at all. It feels so good to touch himself -- and there's a voice in his head laughing, saying of course it does, but that's not Oracle's voice. "You can think of me however you want," she says, and he can see her smile with his eyes closed. "Think of me kissing you." "Like in my dream," Dick says, inside his head. Really he's biting his lip hard so he doesn't make a lot of noise -- it's embarrassing to hear himself. "In -- a lot of my dreams." "Did I squeeze you like that in your dream?" "Yes --" and that was out loud, and he's blushing. "Just like that." Oracle's voice is soft like she's whispering in his ear. "And then just a little harder." Dick covers his mouth with his free hand, choking back a moan. "Yes --" "I can hear you perfectly. Keep -- yes." He's coming in his hand -- on his bathrobe, and at least the sheets are okay. "Oh," he says out loud. "I -- wow." Oracle picks a dark blue bathrobe out of nothing and slips it on. "Was that anything like your dream?" There was definitely kissing in his dream, and Oracle's hands, but the details are slipping away. "I think so." "As good as it, I hope?" Oracle gives him the look that means she's scanning him. "Better." Dick rubs his eyes. "Much better, because -- you wanted me to do that." "Mmm." She smiles at him. "Yes, I did." The bathrobe is a dead loss. He wipes himself off and takes it off, bundling it up for the laundry. "Why?" "It felt good, didn't it?" He can't even try to lie to her. She knows he's smiling before he even does it. "Better than anything." Oracle's laugh isn't a giggle, now -- she's laughing with him, not at him, and it makes him smile even more. "I'm glad." "But --" Dick bites his lip. "I don't know what I can do for you." "What you just did was quite enough." She grins at him. "I don't need anything else." Dick frowns. "But it wasn't for you at all. I mean -- it --" He shrugs. "I don't get it." She pulls her robe open. "Do you like looking at me?" He's not -- not at all -- going to get another erection right now, but part of him thinks he probably should. "You know I do." "Well, then." She belts it again. "It's the same thing." "I guess." He starts getting dressed, back in the real world. "I -- um." Oracle's smile is the one she always uses when he gets embarrassed over something. "What's on your mind?" Dick shakes his head and pulls his socks on. "It wouldn't actually be exciting for you to -- to do that. Would it?" "Not in the way you're thinking of." Oracle picks up a file. "But if you wanted to see --" Dick can feel himself blushing. "Oh gosh. I -- yeah, but -- I have to go to school." Oracle sets the folder down. "Maybe later." "Is it really pictures of you?" Dick bites his lip hard. "From when you had a body, and everything?" "Pictures and some video, yes." "Wow." Dick shakes his head. "I -- later -- please?" Oracle makes the folder visible again and sets it by her feet. "Sure. Did you go over your trig homework enough?" "Yes," Dick says, but at least sines and cosines have nothing to do with sex. "But it wouldn't hurt to study it again." * "Wow," Dick says, stepping through the portal and tugging at his gunshot cape, "that was harder than I thought it was --" "Get to McKone and Thirty-Fourth ten minutes ago," Oracle yells at him. She's too angry to even send him a picture. He's exhausted -- this time, the Robin who's been working with Bruce got himself in a heck of a bind with Two-Face, and Bruce was just not paying enough attention and got blown up. It took a last-second dive-and-yank at the explosives to stop them from going off, and that was after Dick figured out where they were. Bruce's files are getting less and less helpful. He doesn't have an Oracle to help him and it shows. The bike is as fast as ever, but even at 120 Dick wishes the portal was more help when Batman needed it to be. If he could just cheat time here like he does messing around back home, nobody important would ever get hurt. He might even figure out how to go back far enough to convince Oracle she doesn't need to be -- No, he doesn't want to do that, either. Dick can tell she's too busy because she doesn't even sniff at him for thinking like that. The engine could give him another twenty miles per hour, but the traffic won't. He bites his lip hard and ducks lower, trying to stay as safe as he can. He's too late when he gets there -- Superman's out cold in the alley where he dumps the bike, but Oracle says, "Leave him," and there's no time to argue. "Sixth floor, keep going -- straight up now." A grapple up the side of the building, a swing, and Dick kicks his way through the window and into Robespierre's chest. It's not really Robespierre -- Batman did a DNA test, and he's not even related to the real guy -- but he's at least as wacko. Dick's only just fast enough to catch the guillotine blade when it starts to fall. It's a foot above Batman's neck, and Batman's hands and feet are sealed in two different concrete blocks. Dick holds it up as high as he can and kicks Robespierre in the nose hard enough -- and that sound, and the way it feels -- noses shouldn't be that smashed. He might not be breathing. There'll be enough time to deal with him when Batman's safe, though. "Are you okay?" Dick asks. Batman doesn't answer him and he has to remind himself not to panic, that they've been worse off than this -- at some point or other -- and they were okay. He really wishes there was some Robin from some other universe coming to help him, but nobody's shown up yet, so he's not holding out a lot of hope. "I'll get you home," he says, and surely Oracle's telling Batman that, too, if he can even hear her. He slices the guillotine into its different pieces with the belt laser and cuts the blade into slivers. As soon as he gets that done, though, the Jacobins show up. It's a new crop -- they all look uncomfortable in breeches -- but a few of them know a thing or two. It's enough to keep Dick busy for about three minutes. "Oracle," he asks, when he can think again and all the Jacobins are groaning on the floor, "how's Superman?" She doesn't answer, and he has to bite his lip to not yell her name out loud. There's got to be something wrong -- something really, really wrong -- but he doesn't have time to figure out what it is. The concrete isn't quite dry, but Dick's chisel isn't doing anything to it. He checks his belt, holds his breath to listen for any more Jacobins, and swings out the window again. Superman is still unconscious when Dick lands next to him. Oracle's back, though. "Batman?" "He's breathing." Dick frowns at Superman. Back home, he'd need Kryptonite to do anything to affect Superman, and he's not used to how easily this one gets hurt. The perfectly normal syringe of adrenaline gets him awake so fast he singes Dick's armor with his heat vision. "What -- ow -- sorry, man, that stings." He shakes his head and frowns at Dick like it's his fault Batman's in trouble. "Sixth floor window," Dick points, and grabs Superman's arm when he takes off. "Be careful," he says, as urgently as he can, when Superman sees the concrete and makes a fist. "He probably isn't wearing his gauntlets." Superman glares at the blocks. "How'd you know?" "Robespierre's very good at making things worse." That reminds him to check the guy's breathing. Which he's not, but all the Jacobins are. Dick swallows hard and gets them tied up while Superman switches back and forth between X-rays and heat vision to get Batman's hands and feet free. If Batman wants to make him stop being Robin -- Bruce probably would, if he killed somebody -- he's not sure where he'd go, or what he'd do, but he'd deserve it. "Con -- Conner," Batman says, and Dick winces and moves back behind Superman. Maybe if Batman thinks he did it -- no, that's not fair either. "You're not looking so hot," Superman says, and Batman hisses between his teeth. Dick shoves the inflatable splints into Superman's hands. They're designed for joints, but they can cover as much as somebody's leg if they have to. "Careful," he says. "You could make it worse." "There are several broken bones." Batman even sounds like he's in pain. "Not just in my fingers, either." Superman gets both his hands immobilized first. "How are your feet doing?" Batman shakes his head. "Nothing broken. My right arm --" Superman glances at Dick. "Got any more of these?" "On the bike --" he's out the window before he finishes saying it, and back up as soon as he can. It only takes a heartbeat for Oracle to get everything she needs to know what's going on, and he doesn't have any words for any of it. Especially not her face when she sees Robespierre go down, bleeding like that. As soon as Batman gets away from whatever's blocking the building, she'll tell him, and he'll do whatever he has to. Dick ducks through the window again as fast as he can, even though it's probably the last window he'll ever get to duck through as Robin. He's got to do the job right. Batman doesn't move while Dick gets his arm frozen, but when it's all set he sits up. "That's the worst of it." Dick frowns. "Your ribs?" "One is cracked, but nothing worse than that." Batman stands up and almost falls. Superman and Dick catch him and he catches his breath -- maybe it's more than just one rib after all. Superman picks Batman up with one hand on his shoulder. "You'd better get home." "Yes." Batman winces. "Robin --" "Right here." Dick tries to look as responsible as he can when part of him just wants to run away before it gets worse. "Get Doctor Brown. Tell her -- tell her everything you need to." She's an angry old lady who really hates Robin. Or maybe she really hates Batman. Dick's never been sure which it is. But when they need her, she never says no. "You got it." Maybe Oracle won't tell Batman until he's better. Maybe pigs will grow wings and start flying. "Doctor Brown is at home," Oracle says, and Dick hops the right train to get there. "Do you think he'll fire me?" Dick asks, leaning with its turn. "For --" Oracle shakes her head. She's not smiling -- not at all -- but she's not angry, either. "You did what was necessary at the time." "I should've found another way." Dick shakes his head. "Bruce would've." Oracle gives him one of those looks that makes him feel young, even though she looks like she's his age. "He might have. But he might not have. Batman won't be happy -- but he won't fire you." Dick bites his lip. "If you say so." "It's never come up in quite this way before," Oracle admits, and Dick winces. "I messed up big time. I know." The train slows and he leaps off at the stop, using the momentum to get him halfway up the next building, and then down the block to Dr. Brown's. "It would only make sense." She's watching television in her living room when Dick knocks on her window. "Damn kid," she says, and opens it for him. "What happened now?" Dick puts on his best Robin voice. "It was Robespierre, ma'am. His hands are pretty beaten up -- and his arm." Dr. Brown rolls her eyes and grabs a big knapsack. "Back at the old stomping grounds this time?" "Yes," Oracle says, and Dick repeats it. If Dr. Brown listened to Oracle, they wouldn't have to go find her, but Batman says she's denied wanting to every time he's offered. She presses her mouth into an angry line and stomps out the door, slamming it and locking it behind herself. Dick closes her window and clamps it shut from the outside with one of Batman's thingamabobs, then heads back toward the bike. He gets back to the cave about two minutes before Dr. Brown comes down the stairs, and by then Superman's already gone. "How'd you get him back?" she asks Dick. The immobilizing foam in the splints dissolves under the counteragent and stinks like burnt plastic. "We have to have a few secrets," he says, but she just looks more angry at that. "You want secrets, or you want this guy's hands to look like hands?" She picks up Batman's left hand and he whimpers. Dick takes a step toward her. "Don't -- don't. Superman helped." Dr. Brown snorts. "Doesn't look like he was super enough to help when it counted." "I don't know." Dick looks at the floor -- anywhere but at Batman, who knows he killed Robespierre. "I was -- busy." She frowns at Batman's hand. "Get me the x-ray and the lead and stop sniffling." It takes two hours -- Dick makes coffee, then more coffee -- before she and Oracle are both happy with how all the pieces fit back together. "Thank you," Batman says, while she straps the last finger cast into place. "Tim Drake's on vacation for at least three weeks." She gives him a look that Dick's never seen on anybody but Alfred. "And Batman's on vacation for six." Batman says, "Impossible." She pokes the back of his hand and he makes a hurt, horrible sound. "Six weeks. Unless you like not being able to hold a fork." "If it's necessary." Batman pulls his hands away. Dr. Brown says, "It damn well is," and gives Dick the look she borrowed from Alfred. "You keep him out of trouble. I'm not going to break and reset his hands if he pulls some damn fool stunt." "Yes, ma'am," Dick says. "I'll do my best." She gets up and stretches her back out. "Your best had better be good enough. I don't want to see you boys again for at least another two months." "Six weeks," Batman says. He sounds like Tim. She narrows her eyes at him. "I know what I said. Keep your nose clean." She packs her things away and says, "And you owe me for my time." Batman says, "Has that ever been a problem?" "No." She closes the bag so quickly it sounds like the zipper rips the air. "But it'd better not start now just because you're mad at me." "Never." Dr. Brown nods once, then heads for the stairs. Dick tries to hide in the shadows once she's gone. The local anaesthesia she gave Batman won't wear off for a while, but maybe its effects are variable enough that he'll forget for a few days that he has to tell Dick to turn in his uniform. "Dick," Batman says, and that little shred of hope goes away. But it's Tim's voice, so -- he takes a step forward, back into the light. "I don't mind discussions with people in the shadows, but this might be easier otherwise." "I'm sorry," Dick says, staring at his boots. "I didn't mean to -- I just knew he was going to, to kill you, and I couldn't just let him." He bites his lip hard. "I could've done something else. I didn't have to kill him." "I appreciate your motivation," Tim says. "Your method was, Oracle informs me, inimitable, and your opportunity -- you could have done something else, but I've only come up with two alternatives, given that you were solo in there and had no background data from Oracle." "I'm sorry," she says in his head. "There wasn't anything I could share." "I know," Dick says to Oracle. Out loud, he says, "But there were alternatives." "Yes." Tim clears his throat. "You need to think about what they were and be able to give me detailed explanations of at least three before you go back on the street." Dick looks up, startled by the lack of yelling. He deserves to be yelled at. "You said you could only come up with two." "Thus far, yes." Tim smiles one of his tight Batman smiles. "You're resourceful, and you're the primary source for information. There must be angles that I haven't seen yet." "I don't think I can see things better than you can." Dick looks away from him again. He can't be better than Batman, there's just no way. "You wouldn't have killed him." "I would have done my best to formulate an alternate method, yes." Dick folds his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry." "You did the best you could given your skillset at the time." Tim gets up. "Your next task is to improve those skills." Dick looks up at him -- not as far up as it was when he first met Tim, either. "You're not going to use your hands." "No. We'll have to concentrate on things that you can do with Oracle's help, and without my physical assistance." "Right." Dick takes a deep breath and lets it out. "So I'm not fired?" Tim's smile looks sad for a second, and then it hurts less to look at. "You saved my life. And Superman's, most probably. You did what we needed you to do." "Still --" "Robin." That's Batman's voice, and it shuts him up quicker than anything else could. "You did a good job." He doesn't really believe it, but he doesn't know how to argue the point, either. He smiles instead. "Thanks." "Next time, you'll do a better one." That makes the weight in his chest go away completely. "I promise." He reaches toward Batman, then puts his hands behind his back. "Sorry." Tim tilts his head to one side. "What for?" Dick shrugs. "I -- kind of wanted to hug you. But your rib --" Tim raises an eyebrow at him. "If you're gentler with me than you were with Robespierre, I'm sure I'll survive the experience." "Of course." Dick hugs him as lightly as he knows how. "You're going to need help getting the armor off, aren't you." "Yes." Tim spreads his bandaged hands. "I'm not going upstairs until Tim Drake is back from his sudden vacation, but -- yes. If you'd lend me a hand --" "Always." Dick hugs him again because he never gets to, and it's been a long time since he hugged anybody. "Any time you need me." * After two solid months of Batman critiquing Dick's work on his stealth, Dick sneaks from the gymnastics equipment to the place where the car is parked, and then over to the computer. He keeps his eyes on the floor so he can keep focusing on the shadowed parts. It would be awful to get most of the way over and then trip over something, and Batman knows he's working on stealth. There are a lot of new pebbles on the floor. Dick manages to get behind Batman's chair without Oracle telling him he's messed up or Batman saying, "Go back and start again." He reaches out to tap Batman's shoulder and glances up at the monitor. It's a video of him -- really him, not the guy who's old -- stark naked and gasping. "What --" He backs away and kicks pebbles up as he goes. Stealth has nothing to do with this -- he just wants to get away, when he figures out where away is. Batman closes the window and turns around -- Dick can hear the rustle of his cape. "Robin --" "Dick," Oracle says in his head while he's pelting up the stairs, "hang on a minute." "You didn't tell me you were giving anybody else pictures of me." Dick slams the door behind himself. "You didn't even ask if it was okay." Oracle sighs. "Batman has seen you naked any number of times without my help." Dick dodges around the bust in the hallway and heads for the front door. "But I wasn't -- I wasn't doing anything then. You know that's not the same." "Where are you going?" Oracle asks, and when he looks at her, she's older than Batman. Maybe she's too mad at him to pretend for him. "Away." Dick slams the front door, too, and starts down the path. There aren't a lot of places he can walk to from here that are any better than being in the manor, but at least he's not sitting there like a chump while Batman's looking at him. He gets to the end of the driveway and climbs the fence on the force of being too angry to even think about it. When he gets to the top, he looks back. Batman -- dressed as Tim -- is coming down the path, just walking. Dick balances on the wrought iron and makes a face at him when he gets there. "I could run away," he says, even though he knows it's not very true. Oracle sighs in his ear. "Please don't." "There's a tracer in your implant," Tim says, and folds his arms. "I'll disable it." There are any number of ways -- Oracle explained them all as things to avoid, but if he needs to get her out of his head, he can do it. "I'll get an electromagnetic pulse thing. I'll cut it out myself if I have to." "Don't -- please don't say that." Oracle is his age again, and she's crying. Or pretending to cry. Computers don't cry. "That would be difficult to do without causing yourself nerve damage." Tim frowns at him. "I wouldn't enjoy helping you recover from that." Dick kicks the gate and makes it ring. "I don't get why you even wanted to see those pictures." Another kick. "You don't even like me. You'd be just as happy if I went home and stayed there next time. If I got hit by a truck." He kicks the gate again. "None of that is true," Tim says. "Are you going to come down from there?" Dick balances well enough to fold his arms. "Not yet." Tim backs up a few yards, then scales the gate and finds a balancing place. "All right." Oracle's being very quiet in the back of Dick's head, but he knows she's listening. He can hear her. "Why did you have that picture?" Dick asks, because he doesn't want to have to think about it after he stops being angry, and pretty soon he's just going to feel silly up here. "I find you aesthetically pleasing." He meets Dick's eyes. "I had no interest in interfering with your friendships." "You mean with Oracle." Oracle's eyes are red and puffy now, but she's not crying anymore. Tim shakes his head. "With anyone. Especially civilians -- though you haven't shown much interest in them lately." Dick bites his lip and looks at the ground. "I've been busy. Training." He glares at Tim. "It's not like you give me a lot of free time." Tim uses a voice that's more like Batman's than his own. "You know we don't have that luxury." "I know." Dick sighs and loses the rest of his anger. "It's not fair, though." "What isn't?" Tim asks. "I never got to see you -- like that." Dick shifts into a handstand to give himself a second to stretch his legs, then starts climbing off the gate. "You never asked," Oracle says, when he's only a couple of feet up. Tim comes down right behind him and gives him a look like he's doing something crazy and new, and Tim hasn't decided whether it's good or bad yet. "If you'd expressed an interest --" "I'm not really interested." Dick shrugs. "It's just -- would you stop if I asked you to?" "Yes," Tim says, right away, firm as Batman. Dick looks at his face really closely and wonders whether he can tell if Tim's lying. He asks Oracle, "Is he telling the truth?" "If he's not, I'll delete his access to the files," she says. Dick nods. "Well -- stop, then. Please." Someday, maybe he'll manage to say something that makes Tim respond with more than just a frown or a nod. "Of course." "I --" Dick studies his face some more. "Why didn't you ask if you could in the first place?" "Were you aware Oracle was making recordings?" Tim asks. "Well -- yeah, sort of, because otherwise she wouldn't --" Dick blushes. "But that's not an answer." "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable." Dick stares at him. "You --" He starts laughing. "Well, that sure didn't work." The laughter feels like all the miserable stuff he's been feeling since he saw the video, all bubbling out of him in giggles. "Jeez, Batman, it's a good thing you're not that clumsy on the street." Tim raises his eyebrow and waits for Dick to stop laughing, and hiccuping, and laughing. "Your stealth work was impressive." "Thanks." Dick wipes his eyes on his hand, looks at Tim, who's still got his eyebrow raised, and starts snickering again. "I kind of want to yell now, just -- in case, you know?" Tim looks paler, which is how he gets when he's getting angry but won't admit it. "I told you, that won't happen again." Dick says, "I know, just --" and makes himself relax with a couple of deep breaths. "I'm sorry." "As am I. Let's get back to training." Training sounds safer than trying to make jokes around Batman. "You got it." * Dick doesn't let himself think about the naked pictures thing very much. What's done is done, and getting mad over it again won't make anything better. He does pretty well at putting it out of his mind every time he thinks of it until he has a dream of watching Batman naked, doing what Dick was doing in that video clip. When he wakes up, he's still thinking about it. But Batman didn't feel guilty about asking, so Dick grins at Oracle. "Do you have --" Trying to put words to it makes him realize with the more awake parts of his brain what he's asking for, and he blushes. "Um." Oracle's naked in his head and it's enough to make him shiver, but not enough to distract him. "What are you in the mood for?" "You showed Batman pictures of me -- um -- masturbating." Dick clears his throat -- physically, and then he feels dumb for doing it. "You kind of owe me pictures of him." Oracle raises her eyebrows at him. "Do you want to make him uncomfortable?" "No, but -- I had this dream, and --" It seems like the easy way out, to get pictures of him instead of actually talking to him about it. Kind of cowardly, once Dick starts thinking about it, but Batman did it. Maybe it's not so wimpy as all of that. Maybe Batman was trying to get up the nerve to ask Dick for a kiss. Or -- or something. Oracle sniffs. "You seemed to think he should have asked you first, if I recall correctly." Dick winces. When Oracle makes that kind of joke, it hurts more than she thinks it does. "Yes, but you didn't think so." "Are you going to live by a code of ethics or not?" "I --" Dick makes a face because he wants her to be less correct than she is right now. It's really not fair to ask for this kind of thing, but it wasn't fair when Batman did it. Two wrongs don't make a right. It would just be so much easier than admitting he maybe has a crush on Batman. "I do. Do you?" "When it's necessary, and I have no interest in corrupting your standards. If you want analogous pictures, you should ask him." Oracle smiles. "I doubt he'd refuse." It's hard enough to say what he wants to Oracle, who probably guessed before he ever did. Thinking about asking Batman for something like that, and the way his face would look if the answer was no, is like ice water down the spine. Or maybe like ice water and a feather, because maybe he'd say yes. Maybe he wouldn't mind. "You could ask him for me." "True, but I won't." She crosses her arms under her breasts. "This is one mission you have to fly alone." He sighs. "You mean you wouldn't help?" "Not by interfering directly. If you needed moral support, I could help in that respect." Dick pulls the covers up to his chin. "I don't want to ask him." If he said no, everything would just be miserable. "Well, then." Oracle picks up a folder. "I'm not going to give you access to any of those files without his direct permission. You're just lucky I have a few others." "A few million others," Dick says, chuckling. If he can just use his imagination enough, he can pretend anybody else is Batman. Or that he wants those other people, instead. "As a ballpark figure, yes." Oracle gives him a look like she's scanning him. "Are you going back to sleep?" Dick stretches a little. "No." Oracle grins at him. "Then we can start making a dent in the millions, shall we?" In the end, though, it doesn't help that there are millions of pictures. None of them are Batman -- at least, none of the ones Dick gets to see. Oracle's sets of pictures that look almost like him are worse than ones that are of people who don't look familiar at all. Sometimes they're close enough to be almost right, but far enough to be entirely wrong. Dick tries to figure out what Batman would say if he said no, and where Dick would even look afterward -- away from him, and away from everybody. Everything. Sometimes he's kind of afraid he's in love, but it's not scary enough -- yet -- to make him ask Batman anything. He spends about a month trying to ignore the concept that maybe what he wants isn't pictures at all, and distracting himself on a more immediate basis with Oracle's photo library. Eventually, Dick figures out how to explain how annoying having pictures that aren't quite like Batman is to Oracle. While he's on the balance beam, he says, "It's like wanting salt and vinegar potato chips, and knowing they're not good for you, and wanting them anyway. And then you have corn chips or something, but they're not what you want, so the craving's still there." Oracle chuckles and throws an imaginary bag of chips at him. "I'm familiar with the sensation." "And you still won't show me." "I'd be more than happy to -- with permission." She shrugs. "The standards haven't changed." She tosses him a picture of Batman, fully clothed. "You should ask him, you know. The worst thing he'll say is no." She's right, and she's said it before, but mostly when Batman was more than ten yards away. Dick takes a deep breath and flips down to the mats. Batman is doing benchpresses in a sleeveless shirt and shorts. He sets the weights down and sits up when Dick comes over. "Did you injure yourself?" "Nope." Dick can feel himself blushing already. "I -- well, it's still not fair you've seen dirty movies of me and I haven't seen any of you." Batman raises an eyebrow at him. "I can't renounce that knowledge." "No, but -- Oracle says she won't show me any naked pictures of you without your permission." "Ah." Batman nods. Dick wants another way into -- or out of -- this conversation other than straight ahead. "Would you mind?" "No." Batman pauses and Dick kicks himself for waiting. That was too easy. Batman glances back at his weights and Dick's sure he's done, over, end of conversation and let's never bring it up again, when Batman says, "It seems inefficient, though." "I --" Dick blushes and looks back toward the monitor. He can only handle one scary question at a time. "Kind of, I guess." Batman asks, "Have you done your work on the rings, tonight?" and the conversation slips back toward normal. * "It's not very -- huh." Dick squints -- metaphorically, anyway -- at the movie in his head. He can mostly see Batman's face, grimacing, and it's much more uncomfortable to watch than erotic. "That particular instance isn't a deliberate performance, no," Oracle agrees. "Well, neither was mine." Dick fidgets with the sheets under his fingers. "You adjusted the camera angles for me." "But --" Dick blushes. "I moved them for you, not for him." "We have similar -- though not identical -- tastes." Oracle pauses the video and raises her eyebrows at Dick. "You're really not enjoying it." Dick shrugs. "It doesn't look like something anyone's supposed to see." "So it was the performative nature of the commercial pornography that appealed to you." Oracle opens up a file cabinet and rummages around. Dick laughs at the image. "Why are you pretending you ever have trouble finding anything?" "Decisions, decisions. I made a poor first choice, but this should be -- different. Better, maybe." Batman -- maybe, or maybe Tim -- gets into a wide bed in the next one she shows him. He's wearing a silk robe, and then he lets it fall open and starts teasing himself, lightly at first, then with firmer strokes. He lets his head fall back and gasps, then laughs. Dick bites his lip. "What did you say to him?" "I asked, 'Do you want me to turn the cameras off?'" "Would you have? If he'd said yes?" Oracle smiles and turns up the volume. "And make myself a little blind? Never. He knew that." Dick doesn't ask if she'd turn them off for him. If he ever needs to know they're gone, he can take them out. He knows where they are. In the video, Batman hesitates, and Dick doesn't have to ask if that was Oracle's idea. She asks him to do it often enough. "Do you love him?" "Of course." Oracle pauses the playback. Dick looks from Batman with his tongue between his teeth, holding back a whimper, to Oracle's inquiring smile. "More than me?" "Never." She closes the file. "Just differently." Dick shrugs and tries to figure out what he thinks of that. "Not that differently, it looks like. You can keep it going if you want." Oracle shrugs back. "I don't need to watch it again to know what's in it. This was for you." "You could have told me you loved him, before." Dick sits up in bed and reaches for the lamp. "I would've --" "Stop it right now." She glares at him. "You're being ridiculous." "Yes, but --" "Dick, dammit --" Oracle scrubs her hand over her face. "I love you. I love Tim. These two things are not equivalent, and they're not mutually exclusive, so don't get upset. They're also not news." Dick sniffs. "I didn't know. That's all." "Only because you didn't think about it." Dick winces, but she's right. "It didn't occur to me. He's not really a romantic kind of guy." Oracle laughs. And laughs. And keeps laughing. "Not in any way you'd recognize, I'm sure. Get out of bed and go kiss him already." "I --" Dick shakes his head. "Why?" "Trust me -- and my millions of files, not a small fraction of which have to do with the two of you -- when I say you'll enjoy it." He's thought about it, sure. Dreamed about it sometimes, but not daydreamed exactly. There haven't been any guys he's particularly wanted to kiss, even though there have been a bunch of girls in his class that were fun to flirt with and make out with. None of the guys have the right muscles, and some of them are still sopranos. None of them would feel or sound like kissing Batman, so there was no point in trying it. "How do you know he wants to?" Dick asks. Oracle snorts. "Get up, find your slippers, and I'll explain." He can find his slippers without leaving the room. "Fine," he says, and puts them on. "Tell me." "In the first place, I've known him a long time. I know what he was like around the Dick from this timestream." Dick frowns. "They didn't --" "No, they didn't." Oracle pulls out a tractor trailer full of files. "But mostly because there was never a right time." "I'm not that guy," he says, and gets his bathrobe out. "I'm never going to be him." She smiles. "I know, and Tim knows it, too. No one expects you to be anyone but yourself." "Then why?" She shrugs. "Do you want to, or not?" "Well --" Dick takes a deep breath. He's thought about kissing Batman a lot, and in the parts where it didn't sound like it would make everything more complicated, it seemed like a good idea. He doesn't wait for Oracle to tell him that the worst thing Batman can say to an offer like this is no. He's heard that lecture enough times. "Yeah, I -- I guess so." He pulls the bathrobe on. "But -- is this the right time?" She looks away from him -- checking on Batman, or just making him wait for the answer she already knows. "It's a better time than most. He's not asleep yet, but he's not suited up, either." Dick ties the robe and doesn't let himself think about kissing Batman out on the street. Much. "Okay. So you think I should?" Oracle laughs. "Honey, if you'd asked me that six months ago, I'd have said yes then, too. If you want to, do it. If you don't, don't." "Promise it won't make things worse." She shakes her head and points toward the door. "I wouldn't let you make that kind of mistake." Dick shivers and rechecks the knot in the tie on his robe. "No, I know." He leaves his room as quietly as he can manage in slippers and sneaks down the hallway. When he gets to Batman's door, there's a light on. It's also one of the doors that has to be deliberately misaligned. No well-maintained door would ever creak that much. Dick taps instead of trying to keep it quiet. "Come in, Dick," Batman says. "Did you tell him?" Dick asks Oracle. "I didn't have to," she says, and she's grinning at him. "Don't stand there all night." Dick opens the door and winces at the creak. Batman is sitting up in bed reading, looking warm and cozy in pajamas and golden lamplight. He puts a bookmark in and sets the book aside when Dick comes into the doorway. "Yes?" he says, like he doesn't know. Maybe Oracle really didn't say anything. Dick scrubs his hand through his hair. "I got lonely," he says, and stares at his slippers. If he looks at them long enough, he might be able to count all the little pieces of fuzz on them. "I -- um." Batman waits. Oracle says, "It's okay, honey. Go on." It's at least two minutes before Dick manages to get the words in order to say -- blurt out -- "I kind of wanted to kiss you, if that would be okay, but if it would bother you I don't want to bother you and I won't bring it up again." "It would be --" Batman lets his breath out and it shakes a little. Dick looks up at him. He's pink, for Batman. "More than all right. If you're sure you want to." Dick kneels on the edge of the bed. "Sure I want to." Batman raises his eyebrow. "You just said you 'kind of' wanted to." "I was just --" Dick wrinkles his nose. "Do you make everybody tell you what they want before you'll give it to them?" "It rarely comes up." Batman moves down the bed toward him. "But -- generally, yes." "Not fair. Just because Oracle can tell you without blushing --" Dick shrugs. "It's not easy saying that stuff." Batman touches his cheek lightly. "If you can't ask for it, you don't want it enough." Dick snorts. "Can I -- may I kiss you, then? Please?" "You are fearless," Batman says, very quietly, and then more loudly, "Yes." Dick's stomach is tied in a lot of knots and he doesn't feel fearless at all, but he doesn't want to argue the point when he can kiss Batman instead. It's warmer than he expects, and softer. Batman makes a noise in his chest and sucks on Dick's tongue in a way that makes his spine tingle. He sighs and squeezes Batman's shoulder. Batman lets him go. "Did that --" "Don't stop." Dick kisses him again, harder this time, and wraps his arm around Batman's neck. It feels like they're too far apart, even though Dick can feel his chest rise when he breathes. "God, Batman." He runs his fingers through Batman's hair and  laughs into the next kiss. "Shift your weight onto your right side," Oracle says, and Dick does it without thinking. There are too many times when he has to follow her orders instantly to stay alive. Batman stops again -- maybe he needs the air as much as Dick does -- and looks at him with the best impression of Oracle scanning somebody that a human can possibly do. "Dick." Dick kneels up and gets his weight on Batman's shoulders, pushing him back toward the pillows. "Right here." He ends up half on Batman's chest, just in the right place to kiss him some more. "How far were you thinking of taking this?" Oracle asks. If he wriggles over half an inch, he'll be rubbing his erection against Batman, which sounds like the best, filthiest idea he's had in a long time. "Um." Batman squeezes his hip without pulling him any closer. "Was that what you wanted?" Dick edges away a little so he won't get fresh by mistake. "Um," he says out loud. "Yes." Batman's even pinker now. "Part of it, anyway." "Tell me," Batman says. "Inquiring minds want to know." Oracle's grinning at him, and she's naked. A lot more naked than Dick is, come to think of it. "I don't know what you want either." Batman's hand shakes on his waist. "To make love to you." Dick laughs and sits up to grin at him. "Sounds like a romance novel." Batman isn't grinning back. "That doesn't make it less true." "Sorry." Dick looks away. Five minutes in and he's already said something wrong. "Oracle, I'm not very good at this." "Practice makes perfect," she says. "Kiss him again." Dick has enough time to decide whether to follow this order or not, but it sounds like good enough advice to him. This kiss feels like it lasts a lot longer -- maybe Batman doesn't want to have to talk either. "Dick," he says after another couple of kisses, and it sounds like he has to make himself talk. "Yeah?" Batman sighs against his neck. "I'm having trouble believing you're here." Dick leans back enough to look at him. "It's a lot better than my dreams end up being. Already, I mean." Batman hugs him hard enough that he can't take a deep breath. "Yes. Half of the problem is that I keep expecting you to turn into a nightmare." "Jeez, Batman --" Dick hugs him back. "It's okay." On the street, Batman never looks that amused -- but he doesn't look happy now, either. "How do you do that?" And when Dick's about to say, "Do what?" because he's not doing anything, Batman shakes his head and really does smile at him. "You say 'Batman' as if it isn't a weapon. As if it's my name." "It sort of is." Dick shrugs. "Do you want me to call you 'Tim'? I probably wouldn't forget --" Oracle's laughing in his head. "You are a terror, Grayson." "You don't need to." Batman kisses him again. "I'm not used to it in this context, that's all." "In this --" Dick loses the train of his thought in another kiss and gets it back again. "I didn't know you even dated anybody much." Batman unties Dick's robe. "'Dating' would be an overstatement. Conner, on occasion." Superman -- who's not the Superman Dick knows, and it never stops feeling weird. "And Oracle." He laughs at Oracle. "You call him 'Tim'? Seriously?" "When I call him 'Batman,' it means something different." Oracle waves her hand at him. "Go on, you were doing fine." "Yes," Batman says, and he runs his fingers down Dick's neck. "Oracle is extremely good at knowing what I need." Dick shivers and touches Batman's pajama top. "Like me, I guess." Batman smiles, leans in, and sucks his earlobe until he fists his hand in the fabric. "You're very good at knowing what I need, yes." Oracle clucks her tongue. "Now he's just being deliberately obtuse." "I -- not what I meant." Dick takes a deep breath, then another one, before he can talk. "I meant it was her idea for me to, um. Kiss you." "Not only her idea, to hear her tell it." Batman licks his ear. He sounds like he's smiling -- he sounds like Tim, but if Dick starts thinking of him that way, he's going to be too distracted to stop. "You seem enthusiastic." He rubs his thumb over Dick's nipple. There should be a better answer for that than, "Nnngh," but that's all Dick's got. "You didn't make me do anything," he says to Oracle. "I know you didn't." "Of course not." She shrugs. "I'd say you should tell him that, but you'd be better off showing him." Dick opens his eyes and tries to stop gasping for a couple of seconds. He's done more than this to himself, and it never made him ache this badly. "I just --" Words are definitely not the way to go. He tucks his hand down Batman's pants instead. Batman looks at him like he's figured out how to fly. "You just --" There's something else there, too, but Dick's not sure what it is. He looks like he does when they've been sparring for half an hour and they're both tired, but not so tired they have to stop yet. "She didn't make me do anything." Dick kisses him and grabs him -- so clumsy, and Batman's going to think he doesn't know what he's doing. Which -- mostly he doesn't, but it still stinks to let it show so much. "Please, just --" The angle is weird, but in a couple of strokes he feels like he can maybe do this without embarrassing himself. "Relax," Oracle says. "You don't have to rush this." "I don't know how to --" Dick frowns at her. "How do I slow it down? I can't think." "Never mind," she says, and she's snickering when Batman shoves his pants down around his thighs with one hand and pulls Dick into a better hug with the other while he gets his pants off the rest of the way. "The angle --" Dick feels dumb for complaining. This has nothing on benchpresses, and benchpresses are a lot less fun than making out. But -- "It's not as easy like this." Batman kisses him hard and covers Dick's hand with his own. Dick can feel him shiver. "Slow down," Batman says. "What did I tell you." Oracle shakes her head. "But --" Dick frowns at both of them. "I -- why?" Batman laughs -- one of those laughs that's hardly more than a smile -- and pulls Dick's hand away. "First impressions are the most important." Oracle says, "Take a deep breath." Dick's too busy doing that to argue, and while he's following orders, Batman pushes him over backward by his shoulders and kisses his nipple. Licks -- and then sucks, and Dick takes another deep breath in a much louder gasp. "You've known me for years," he protests, when he can. "And yet I've never had the opportunity to do this." Batman licks his other nipple, bites -- just exactly as hard as Dick usually dares to pinch it -- and runs his hands down Dick's thighs. "This is another first impression." "I -- oh -- I guess." Dick bites his lip and gives Oracle a desperate look. "Does he push everybody's hands away?" "He'll let you -- soon." Oracle shows him the time, 03:34:25. "Ten minutes, max." "Ten minutes?" Dick asks, and manages to get it to be out loud. Batman laughs and moves down the bed to kiss his thigh, just hard enough not to tickle. "Sooner than that, perhaps, but no later." "Promise?" Dick shivers and spreads his legs wider. "Barring catastrophe, yes." Batman kisses his hip and then licks his dick, wet and warm. Dick's already saying, "Oh, god," when Batman sucks him, and he screams. He's seen enough pictures and movies to know it's probably not that comfortable when somebody's hips jerk, but he can't stop them from moving. "Tell him I'm sorry," he says to Oracle. "Why? He's not." Batman squeezes Dick's ass and sucks him harder for so long that he can't breathe without moaning. Then he lets up enough to start moving, and if he needed Dick to stay still for that, he'd have to find some way to immobilize him. Dick arches off the bed and says, "God, please," and his throat hurts from screaming. "But Oracle --" and it's only in his head that he has enough breath for a sentence, "I didn't do anything for him." "He doesn't agree with you at all." Oracle spreads her hands. "If you wanted to pretend to be patient, there's always that breathing pattern." "How can I --" It's supposed to help, supposed to make this last and there's no way it's going to last as long as Dick wants it to. He can't breathe in any kind of pattern. "Oracle, I just --" She grins at him. "Next time is soon enough. Let it go." Dick covers his mouth and groans. "I -- Batman -- I can't --" "You don't have to be quiet," Oracle says, and he moves his hand away from his mouth. Batman squeezes him and swallows him and there's no way to be quiet at all. He's up on his toes at the top of every thrust and the rhythm is perfect, the speed and the heat and he's coming and shouting, weightless for a few wonderful moments. Batman's there to catch him when he comes back down. "Oh," Dick says, and his toes are cramped like crazy, but they're the only thing he can really feel. "Thanks," he says, and he'd hug Batman if he could find his arms to move them. "My pleasure." Batman lies down next to him and pets his chest lightly. "Has it been ten minutes?" Dick asks Oracle. The time she shows him is 03:40:15. "Not bad for a first lap." He blushes and kisses Batman before he thinks about how wet and salty he'll taste. It makes him blush more. "I didn't mean to rush so much," he says out loud. Batman hums and kisses him again. "In this instance, you can reasonably blame me." Dick sighs. "Yeah, I guess, but still." "I take it as a compliment," Batman says, chuckling. Dick wrinkles his nose and sits up. "If you want to." Oracle laughs. "I think I've done you a disservice." "Not everyone requires the same fortitude that Oracle does," Batman says, propping himself on one elbow. Dick smiles at him. "Good thing, huh?" "Mm. She'd be rather hard on the average civilian." "I can hear you, you know," she says, but she's giggling at them. "She sure would." Dick puts his hand on Batman's stomach. "It hasn't quite been ten minutes yet." Batman stops breathing for a second before he says, "No, it hasn't." Dick traces his muscles with his thumb. "Did you want me to wait?" "Tease," Oracle says. "Now -- would be acceptable." Batman smiles at him like Tim would. He's pretty sure Batman expects him to use his hands, and maybe Oracle does too. Batman's eyebrows go way up when he scoots down the bed, and Oracle just starts laughing. "It's official," she says, "he's a terrible influence on you." "Stop laughing at me and tell me what to do." Dick makes a face at her. "Dick --" Batman says. For once, it doesn't sound like a full sentence. Dick grins at him. "What, do you want me not to?" Batman strokes his hair. "I wasn't expecting you to want this yet." "Well -- good." Dick pats his hip. "If you knew everything about me, I'd probably be boring." "Never that," Batman says, and his voice shifts low again. "I'll make sure it's not a problem," Dick says, and starts with the obvious -- dry little kisses all over Batman's dick, up one side and down the other -- though by the time he gets there, his mouth's not so dry anymore. "Not a bad start," Oracle says. "Look up." He glances up at Batman and licks his lips nervously. Batman shivers and squeezes his shoulder. "You're --" Dick laughs. "Really not done yet." He glances at Oracle. "Unless I have to be?" "Keep going," she says. Batman sighs when Dick licks him and shakes like he's tensing his legs on purpose. "You don't have to hold still," Dick says, wrinkling his nose. Oracle whistles softly. "Next time -- maybe." Batman pets his hair. "It's all right." The stroking motion isn't soothing at all. Dick sits up a little more and gives him an irritated look that he just can't keep -- Batman's all red in the face and breathing Oracle-carefully. He looks too familiar for Dick to be mad at him. "You really don't have to." "For now, it's the best option." Batman lets Dick go. Dick folds his arms and makes a concerted attempt at a glare. "You didn't need me to." "Dick --" Batman bites his lip. Hard. "Use your hands." "Was I doing it that wrong?" Dick frowns. "I'm sorry." "No -- not just your hands." Oracle laughs and Dick gets it, and feels like an idiot, but not enough to make him not start again with one hand wrapped around Batman and keeping a steady rhythm. When Dick licks him this time, his hips thrust up about an inch. It's a compromise, but he grunts, too. It's better this way. "You're going to ruin him for me," Oracle accuses him. "Get him used to giving in this easily and he'll be boring." "Mm," Dick says out loud. For Oracle, he says, "He could never be boring." Batman squeezes Dick's shoulder hard and his breathing is shuddering. Oracle says, "The two of you make quite the picture." Dick chokes a little and backs off enough to catch his breath. "I want to see that sometime." "Now?" Oracle asks. She sounds breathless, too, even though she doesn't have any breath to lose. "Later. I can't focus." Dick squeezes Batman a little on every stroke and gets him to make a strangled noise. Two shuddering breaths later, Batman says, "You should --" "He's going to come in about ten seconds," Oracle says, about as soon as Dick figures out that's what Batman means. "Tell him not to worry," Dick says, and sucks him harder and deeper, kissing his own fist. He coughs more than he was expecting to -- definitely something to work on -- and it takes Oracle saying, "It's okay," to remind him to not gag when Batman shakes in his mouth. He's pretty sure most of the slick stuff on his chin -- and mouth -- and hand -- is saliva, anyway. Batman pulls him off by his shoulder. "Dick --" Dick raises his hand to wipe his mouth. Oracle says, "Don't," fast enough to stop him. He grins at Batman instead. "Yeah?" He's not expecting Batman to pin him and roll onto him and kiss him, but it feels wonderful. He laughs into the kiss. "You have no idea what you're doing to me," Batman says in his ear, gruff enough to be really Batman. Oracle says, "You're a caution. But he's never had much use for that." "I got you to have an orgasm. That has to count for something." "Less than you might think." Batman kisses his neck. "Sleep here tonight." Dick puts his arms around Batman's shoulders. "What do you mean, it doesn't count for much?" Batman rolls onto his side and hugs Dick again. "It changes very little." "Except where you want me to sleep?" Dick shrugs. "If you say so." Batman kisses his forehead. "I'm ninety-six percent certain I won't have any nightmares tonight." "Oh, that. I have nightmares all the time." Dick grins up at him. "I'm not afraid of your nightmares." Batman strokes his cheek. "If I could make myself love you less fervently --" Dick blinks. "Then what?" "We'd both be sleeping alone." "Well." Dick kisses him again. "I've done that. It's not so bad, but you feel really good." Batman squeezes his shoulder. "As do you." He lets go long enough to turn the lights out. "I hope I won't wake you." "It's okay if you do." Dick hugs him again. "Good night." "Yes," Batman says. "It has been." "No kidding," Oracle says, and she's dressed now, but she's got a bunch of files around her feet. "Are you glad you took my advice?" Dick beams at her. "I wish I could hug you so much." "Hug him," she says, and her smile looks a little too old for her face. "It'll be good for both of you." "Well, if you want to make your orders easy, okay." Dick squeezes Batman gently. "I love you, too," Batman says quietly. Dick grins in the dark. "Yeah, that's what I meant." * "It suits you," Batman says. Dick gets the full 360 view of his birthday present thanks to Oracle. "Huh. It really does." He grins at Batman. "I should've started wearing black years ago." He knew what he was getting -- Superman told him a clunky version of Kryptonian myths a couple of months ago, and Oracle showed him video of the real Superman, back in the day, telling the same stories a lot better. Nobody complained when he applied to Gotham City College for next year, although Batman got a little quieter for a while. He's seen the other Dick's transcripts. He's not that guy, even if he's wearing a version of his Nightwing suit. When it comes right down to it, Tim's not Bruce, either. Maybe Selina managed to be in love with Bruce for six years, but Dick can't figure out how she managed it. Sure, Bruce was a good guy -- still is, thanks to forty-three saves from certain death -- but there's not enough warmth there. Tim hugs him, and just when Dick's going to kiss him, he pulls away, smiling like Batman. "Spar with me. Get used to the armor." It's different enough that Dick misses his first three kicks. "Too much stretch," Oracle says. "Stop showing off your ass." "Stop staring at it." Dick ducks under a punch, then vaults over Batman's shoulders. Oracle laughs. "Not on your life. Come on, use your arms --" Dick gets a punch to connect and it feels like he's settling into the uniform, but Batman catches him with a kick in the side and it hurts like hell, way more than it would in the Robin uniform. "Damn." Batman holds back. They're both breathing hard. "We can change the armoring if you need it." "I don't see how the benefits outweigh the vulnerabilities." Batman shakes his head. "You fight too much like me." Oracle hums. "If Gotham could do without you, you could go do some study abroad. Journeyman training." Batman says, "No," at the same time Dick does. "It might make you more effective, that's all," Oracle says. "I don't fancy the thought of keeping B occupied and happy without you." Dick grins at her. "You could do it." "I've done it." She sniffs. "It wasn't fun, and it wasn't easy, but it was possible." "You don't need to leave." Batman lets his guard down. "There are enough people who would come to Gotham for money or technology in trade." Dick tackles him and gets him into a pin in just the right position to kiss him. "I'm not going anywhere."
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