Hmm. Nonbinary Dick very, very nervously, and against all recommendations from Wayne Enterprises’ PR team, arriving for a gala in a drapey dark blue evening gown and makeup and tasteful expensive jewelry.
Tim tells him he’s the hottest person there by miles (accurately) and everyone giving him the side-eye is jealous. Cass offers to beat up a transphobic old lady. (Well, not with her words, but her point is clear.) Damian helped him with the eyeshadow and pronounced the result far superior to Talia’s.
Which is all lovely, but the one person that matters most is of course fashionably late. And when Bruce finally arrives, drawing the eyes of every person in the room, of course -
Dick locks eyes with him across the crowd, and Bruce freezes. His face goes dark, and he turns around, and walks out.
The eyeshadow ends up smudged - no tear tracks, because Dick isn’t a crybaby, dammit, he doesn’t care what Bruce thinks, Bruce is an asshole anyway, if he cared what Bruce thought he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere in life, the most important rule of being Robin is not caring what Bruce thinks. And he doesn’t.
But the dress ends up torn when it’s taken off too quickly to change into the Nightwing costume after Dick leaves far too early to go beat people up - to save Gotham, that is. Unrelated to Bruce.
Because he doesn’t care about Bruce, or what Bruce thinks, he doesn’t go to the Manor for several days.
Eventually Alfred shows up at his apartment, and Dick sighs. Because of course Alfred does. If Dick isn’t available to clean up Bruce’s messes, then Alfred does it. And vice versa. But he can’t not let Alfred in, so he opens the door and offers tea and some butternut squash soup.
Alfred politely waits a full ten minutes before getting to the point.
“I thought you should see these.”
He holds out a folder. Dick takes it obediently and suppresses another sigh. There are two photographs, inside.
The first is an evidence photo: a pearl necklace, just like the one Dick had tossed in the back of his locker after the gala, the pearls scattered across an alley, some dipped in blood, and the evidence label, with a date. A date Dick knows almost as well as the date of the last performance of the Flying Graysons.
And the second is a woman Dick knows very well, from paintings, and photographs, but in this photograph she has a drapey dark blue evening gown, and carefully applied eyeshadow, and a pearl necklace. And crystal blue eyes, and black hair, and sharp cheekbones, and…
Oh.
“You looked beautiful, Master Dick. And so did she.”
