Title: Hello pretty (Hello) Fandom: DC Universe Pairing: Dick/Tim Rating: PG-13 Word count: 2,370+ words Summary: His first and last sight of Dick, the first and last memory – they don’t match. Notes: So, I ended up writing one prompt, and then realized it merged with another one I got, so I hope you won't mind that I put these two together?I really liked the setting for the prompt I have written and thought it would be a shame to lose it. Basically: one prompt gave it the setting, the second the theme. So I hope you won't mind and if yes I will write you another prompt? Anyway, I hope you will like this! Title is a lyric from the song "Drink You Pretty" by Placebo. (Jeez, this song fit so well into my writing mood when I was writing this, especially the last part.) His first and last sight of Dick, the first and last memory – they don’t match. Both were him without Robin, both were with his Dad painted into the background, pressed against the back of Tim’s head but neither were about them, neither were shallow or unimportant or something Tim won’t remember, won’t picture against nights. But they don’t match. Don’t fit into the image, sight, picture perfect of Dick now, hanging upside down behind the smudged glass of Tim’s bedroom’s window, the black scenery seeping into Dick’s Nightwing ink, the blue like a neon sign, reminding Tim of buildings he only met but didn’t visit, recognized the roofs but never the interiors and looking at Dick through his civilian house glass eyes, looking at his winter damp uniform and snow-dyed hair, at the two fingers he used to knock against Tim’s city boy life – Robin feels like a boy that never resided inside of Tim at all. Rubbing at his sore, dry knuckles Tim pulls the latch and the window’s frames cave in, soften inside the warmth and the opened up night behind them sharpens, Dick’s fingers pushing against the sides in six, dry dots. “Hey, handsome.” Dick greets him, doesn’t move like he’s expecting Tim to climb out the window, climb into Dick’s embrace, climb onto the slick, frosty windowsill and sit beside him, like it isn’t too late or too cold for visits that belong to Tim, to the boy he chose to be. The expectation withers and Dick’s mouth moves again. “You didn’t forget, did you?" And Tim tries to remember what there was to forget, what he pretended didn’t exist, didn’t have any place in the Gotham he’s supposed to see now. (Drug dealers rotting kids’ insides on the outskirts of Robinson Park; the slave trade Batman was planning on shutting down last week; his vigilante boyfriend who forgot there are phones too, apart from comlinks and Oracle and signals soaked in rain.) Third time’s the charm and charm is something inherent about Dick, something he doesn’t lose, something tangible, something that's stitched across his skin. (And – out of every option, Tim always picks Dick.) “Tim? You didn’t forget, right?” “You?” Almost. I almost tried. I almost put your picture on the highest shelf. “Our date.” “We haven’t seen each other in weeks.” “I – I know. And – that was shitty of me. Not dropping by, not calling you. I’m sorry.” The freckles of snow caught in Dick’s hair lose their structure, turn soggy and wet; disappear. Tim’s room is chilly, Tim’s mouth bitten and closed when he hides his hands in his pockets, when Dick grips the icy, exposed hinges. “Tim. Timmy. I’m really sorry. I only wanted to give you –” “To give me space?” Tim snaps, fingers curling inside of his hoodie and they creak as loudly, as carelessly as his old room’s door used to, creak all the way up his wrists. (It’s the residue of rust, of bruises, of splitting your skin into threes. It’s the residue of splitting down to your cold, left alone bones.) “Well thank you I have never had so much space in my whole life, not since I was thirteen and had a secret compartment in my closet. Now my closet’s the most ordinary furniture in the world again just as I am the most ordinary guy in Gotham and I guess – I guess that’s just not interesting to you. So yes, thank you, how very generous of you, I have room to put all my ordinary, boring stuff into now.” (He has so much room now, he could put his whole life into it. It would fit into one small, recycled cardboard box.) Dick tenses and it’s a sick, sore consolation: Tim can still hurt him. Can turn Dick’s heartbeat into a single stab, into thumbtacks pinned to your palms, into an ache you won’t breathe through. (But by now; Dick learned how to.) “Don’t be unfair,” he says, tries but it’s just fuel, just something more Tim can scoff at. “Unfair? You think being angry after being dumped without actually being dumped is unfair?” A gust of the quiet, early winter slips past Dick’s shoulders, lands across Tim’s feet and Tim is grateful for something outer, for something as simple as feeling cold, for something he’s not containing, not trying to suppress. It’s a thing they still have in common. Gotham, winter and feeling cold. “Nobody dumped anyone. Or, at the least, I didn’t dump you. I just didn’t know how to –” Shrugging helplessly against the drag of the ground, against the drag of the desert between the two of them, against the drag of his own explanation, Dick repeats, says: “how to –” “Spend time with me,” Tim offers, substitutes, glues over Dick’s mouth, over the contents he had the picture of but couldn’t piece the puzzle of it, couldn’t get the syllables to stand upright. “You didn’t know how to spend with me,” Tim says and it’s wrong; how he’s standing, how he’s dragged down too, how he’s seeing something underneath the floor. Dick presses against the unseen border of the room, of the outside and the inside, presses himself closer to the fading warmth and fresh laundry scent, closer to Tim’s own brand of these two, common things. “I didn’t know how to not rub in that you’re not Robin anymore.” Tim snorts and his shoulders shake with it, the hazy screen behind his eyes disappears. (Dick wonders if what Tim saw was himself, his Dad, Dick or perhaps Bruce. Who’s the person Tim tries not to miss?) “That does sound like you.” Even if Tim himself doesn’t know how he sounds, not anymore. “You just – just assumed that I feel like you did. But I don’t.” He drops into a chair that’s slightly off-center, slightly too far for saying it’s near but Tim sits shallowly, on the tip of the seat, like a machine, a coin operated boy that’s about to break. “Being in that house, in the Manor, under it, having a place there – it’s selfish of me. I already have a family, have a Dad and I still – it wasn’t enough to be just Robin there, you know? I wanted to be a part of the Manor too. Not just a costume in the Batcave. And you not talking to me, not contacting me at all after I quit – no one talking to me – it just. Confirmed what I was afraid of. That all along, all of it was just Robin’s place. Not mine.” Tim’s skin burns, on his ears and around his eyes, burns with separate pains, origins, urges. Dick’s about to unfold, about to slip onto Tim’s floor anyway, about to begin with the miles of things he can, knows how to say now, how Bruce denies his losses and Alfred carries them inside of himself but how they don’t miss Robin but Tim, his quips, his attention, his bare face – when Tim stands up, zipping up his hoodie. He looks winded, pale underneath the raw, red spots crossing his face, like he’s the one that was upside down this whole time, like his blood, his body lost its sense of direction. “Let’s go on that date,” he says, moves to Dick and then back, looks at his door. It’s clearly Tim not wanting to hear about it, not for another fifty minutes and – if Dick’s lucky – a bit of icy, coffee melted kisses, for a bit of the lonely intimacy they met for at nights that were nothing like this, at days they stole right under life’s nose. Pleasant distraction stays pleasant, stays comfortable in the way that it replaces the unwanted situations with aimless actions, with nice company and Dick is not above getting away, isn’t above helping Tim packing his bags. “You sure you don’t want to let me hang here for a while longer? I kind of deserve it,” he grins, bounces in his skin. “Don’t be stupid,” Tim answers and he’s not warm, he’s not cold either but he’s getting Timmish, getting to be the person he wanted on this date, wanted to meet and grow into the truth of Tim being Tim, of him wearing a band shirt under his hoodie and the sneakers he puts on the bottom of his locker in the cave, of Tim’s bare eyes staying blue even after he exposes them to the sun, to the city, to his Dad. Dick feels weightless with the idea of the next few hours, maybe two if Tim says it’s safe enough and he think it’s so obvious, so easy to spot how gravity detaches itself. Despite it, Tim moves to the door, speaks as he walks. “I’m going to get my jacket and shoes. If you want to, you can come inside but you have to be quiet, Dad and Dana are already sleeping.” And with Tim’s subdued voice, with his palm pressed to the metal of the handle and Dick’s fingers holding onto the hinges, the room between them softens. Tim’s shoulders and Dick’s smile and their relationship do; suddenly as soft as the melting snow. --- It’s a foreign feeling, to sit on the back of Nightwing’s bike dressed as if his heart beats faster when his math teacher announces a pop quiz instead of when he’s diving into midnight streets, when he hides his fingers into fists to break not to write or answer but the sight of Nightwing reaches him regardless, when he’s a teenager or a vigilante, dressed or naked and he embraces Dick’s sides, claps his hands together in the middle of his chest, like they’re two parts of a lock, like they’re strong enough not to lose Tim to the wind and Tim remembers seeing people lie their heads onto their partner’s spines, like there’s a needle and thread sewing them together but it’s not – it’s not for the two of them. It’s too intimate, too much of a giveaway, too much of a vulnerable spot. Dick’s insulated suit and its sleepy heat soaking his arms and thighs and hips has to be all Tim gets, all Tim hopes for, Gotham fading block by block they drive through, the lonely, lost shores of Aparo Park sticking out their wooden fingers to wave, to greet them and Tim finds his hand in Dick’s, kevlar on dry skin since he forgot his gloves, doesn’t wear them; the texture, the swallow of them similar to Robin gloves and – he’s just trying not to miss a lot of things at once. They’re quiet, for a minute, for five of them and before Dick can start with the chatter building at the bottom of his throat, Tim speaks himself, follows the puffs of his breath as they dissipate. “I remembered. About this, I mean.” He gestures to the fallen grass and nearly swallowed benches, to the cloudy, black and white trees. “I promised you a walk through Gotham’s first winter snow.” Dick squeezes Tim’s bare fingers and compares the pale reds of Tim’s lips and nose, wonders if it would be alright to kiss him, to sharpen his shapeless memories, to hold Tim’s shoulders like they’re about to fall asleep on their feet, in the middle of the hall, room, park. Locking the want on his mouth for now, he focuses on Tim, on his own, dissipating wishes. “It came early this year.” Tim doesn’t have an answer, doesn’t have any plans but Tim doesn’t have to, Tim can rise on the tips of his toes and have both of Nightwing’s hands, can close his eyes before their mouths open, before he can wonder if Dick closed his, if the lenses lie or if they see. See how much he’s been hoping for a chance, thinking about textures and touches and moments in bed and bathrooms and movie nights, his Dad’s arm a shelter for his shoulder, for the weight of Dick’s memory, his presence that had years to grow and wither and grow, how Tim won’t ever lose it, how Tim wants to and doesn’t want to be Robin when Dick looks at him, wants to be both of them and neither. But the thing Dick sees, the thing he notices is – “Tim, your knuckles!” the cracked, dry skin of his hands. “It’s nothing. My skin just doesn’t like the cold.” “You’re bleeding.” “My skin doesn’t like the cold like it – for example – doesn’t like knives. It bleeds sometimes.” “You should be wearing gloves.” “Forgot them at home.” “In that case – here. Take mine.” Dick pulls at his gauntlets, wriggles his fingers out one by one and then puts them on Tim’s, sloppy and all wrong until Tim huffs and accepts them, finds all the kevlar fingers he’s supposed to be filling, his own too short and thin, the tips of the glove empty, the sides helplessly sagging around his bony, pale forearms. “I look stupid.” “No one looks stupid in these gloves.” “Well, but what about your hands?” “They like the cold.” “Do they?” “Yes. And you know what they like too?” “What?” “Pockets.” “Pockets?” “Yup. ‘Specially my boyfriend’s jacket’s pockets. They like those the most.” “I’m not sure if you don’t want to be subtle, or if you really don’t know how.” “Let’s pretend that I don’t want to be, alright?” Fogging the air around them with a puff of a sigh-laugh, Tim struggles with the buttons on his jacket’s pockets, Dick’s gloves smearing his steady motions, the buttons suddenly slippery, made out of shapeless plastic. Finally opening the small, shallow spaces, Tim looks up at Dick, clumsily grabbing his wrists. “C’mere then.” Tugging at his skin, Tim expects him to come closer, and for Dick, excuses were easy to make since he hid Robin behind himself, since he found it necessary to do so, since he was a kid but this isn’t one at all, it’s opportunity and wishes for more warmth when he steps so close to Tim the tips of their boots overlap, so close their clothes would only need to be an inch thicker to brush, to connect. And inches, inches is something Dick knows how to overcome too.
