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“You’re the best we have Bruce, but I am not letting you back out there solo. It will kill you. The radiation shielding, the strain on your brain.”
“I can do it,” Batman said. Lucius glared at him angrily.
“I’m not saying you can’t do it, I’m saying doing it will kill you. You need a partner.”
“No.”
“Bruce—”
“It has to be solo.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I’m not compatible with anyone.”
-
So he went back to the skyscrapers and villains and thugs and watched as Kaiju fell and remembered Gotham is by the ocean.
-
He was fearless. He was effusive. And he was full of grace.
Maybe it was greed that made him reach out and take Dick Grayson by the shoulder. The boy turned, looked in his eyes and there was that flash of recognition, understanding. For the briefest of moments true and pure understanding. The boy knew him in his totality and Bruce knew him. He could see everything through the tears and pain.
He knew that this child would change him.
He also knew that they would hurt each other terribly. There would be no way around it, because they would come to love each other so much they would cause some of the worst scars.
But it would be worth it getting burned just to stand in the light that Dick Grayson radiated.
-
“We’re doing better now, but we need better pilots, pilots like you.”
It was already an old argument and it had only been a week since Lucius brought it up again. A constant banging on Batman’s walls. A constant gesture towards the ocean. When will it be Gotham? The Rangers stop the Kaiju, but another city usually falls with each appearance. They had to start saving cities if they wanted anyone to believe in the Jaeger program.
“Have you fixed the issue of having two pilots?”
“That isn’t an issue, Bruce. It’s fixed everything. Single piloting is reckless, insane.”
“Then I don’t understand why you’re talking to me.”
“Because you were good at it Bruce, because it wasn’t dozens you were saving, it wasn’t a family of four, or a messed up kid, or a sweet little acrobat—”
“Careful!”
“You were saving a city. You want to protect Gotham so badly? Protect it then. I have a list of candidates that might—”
“They won’t be.”
“They could be.”
Bruce shook his head, “If you want me to go through this again we can, but they’ll all be knocked down and you won’t have any arguments left.”
“If only to shut me up then,” Lucius grinned.
-
During the matches, every-so-often his eyes would slide to Dick. The boy perched, watching each fight critically as Bruce had advised him. When the last opponent fell he hopped over looking from Bruce to all the collapsed potential partners. The corner of his mouth twitched and Bruce knew he was about to make a bad joke.
“Well that fell flat, huh?”
His lips quirked in quiet response.
Lucius had let out a bark of frustration three trainees ago and vacated the room.
“I’m sorry, Bruce.”
“Hm?”
Dick looked down and sighed softly, then looked back up, “I know it meant a lot to you.”
“Did you?” He was honestly a little bit surprised. There weren’t that many people that could read him.
Actually there’s only one, Alfred, but with Dick…
“Not that you would have done it anyway, but I know you wanted to find someone that complemented you—”
Without even thinking he brought his bow staff down towards the boy’s head. Dick didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Bruce stopped it a centimetre away from his forehead.
He felt a bit scared, scared for Dick. The acrobat trusted him completely and knew him so well already. They had only known each other for three months, but this was his son. There was no question. Blood didn’t matter, time didn’t matter.
Batman swung the staff hard, aiming for exposed ribs. Dick flipped up out of the way, landed, and flipped again when the weapon came back the way it came. It was like a dance, a dance Dick was letting him lead.
Vanity, it was pure vanity.
Letting Dick become Robin was to avoid tragedy because Dick would have looked for Tony Zucco with or without him. If he trained the boy to be better than his very best he would survive his own grief better than Bruce Wayne had. There didn’t have to be two Batmen.
But this? This was vanity. Dick cartwheeled back and grabbed one of the fallen trainee’s staffs. It had been broken in half. He held the two ends as Batman had taught him. He had a cocky grin on his face.
They moved to meet each other. It felt right, they fit perfectly. Dick was sensitive to what he wanted, the boy let him lead their dance, but picked these beautiful moments to add his own flair.
Dick was allowing himself to be shaped into what Bruce needed—no, wanted, this was vanity. To find someone on his level, to find a person worthy? No, strong, strong enough to see the depths of Batman’s mind.
He’s ten years old.
Bruce Wayne and Batman battled and Batman inevitably won.
Bruce Wayne hadn’t been strong for a long time.
Dick would be his partner.
-
Of course he said yes, of course he was honoured. After the capture of Tony Zucco someone on the outside looking in might have thought Dick felt he owed Bruce Wayne, or perhaps the boy enjoyed such a daring adrenaline filled lifestyle, but in the end he and Bruce were reflections of one another. They could see every mark and blemish and crack and Batman knew as well as Dick did for him.
They were thankful.
They had lived and now they wanted to pay back their debt.
Because they had been spared.
“You can’t do this.”
Lucius had been so adamant about getting him back in a Jaeger and now he looked terrified at what that might cost. Dick was in a suit, built for his small frame, but still a little too big. He stood quietly beside Bruce. He didn’t smile or frown. He didn’t say anything or argue. He didn’t claim to be ready. He probably had no idea if he was ready or not. He trusted Batman and this was Batman’s decision. Robin had been so much to Dick, had meant so much, but Dick being a pilot meant a lot to Batman.
And Dick loved and trusted Batman, so of course whatever he decided.
“We have no idea what effects it could have on his mind,” Lucius dropped his voice and spoke in furious whispers glancing down at Dick. Dick kept his eyes on the wall trying to tune out the conversation.
“He’s stronger than your trainees, more in tune with me and a child’s mind is strong.” He didn’t say it out loud, but if there were others like Dick; children would probably be better pilots than adults because of their incomplete brain chemistry. It wasn’t something he was actually willing to contemplate. Dick was an exception.
“He’s a child,” Lucius hissed, “How can you even consider this? He is a child. They are monsters.”
Bruce put his hand on Dick’s shoulder. Cold, the smell of popcorn, the silence of a thousand people.
“He’s seen worse. If you want the best Lucius you have it.”
-
“Initializing neural handshake.”
He felt a shock at Dick’s presence in his mind. Like stepping out into sunshine after being in a cave all day. It hurt.
So much light he thought and the thought echoed back to him through Dick’s mind and then he heard the small:
So much darkness.
He felt afraid and realized it was Dick’s fear.
“Don’t focus,” Bruce breathed. “Let it flow. Don’t get caught in the drift.”
Memories passed by. His, Dick’s. Some of them private, personal, some of them shared between one another. He could smell the floor polish that Alfred favored and hear the sound of pearls tumbling on concrete. He could feel the rough skin of an elephant under his fingertips and taste the peanut butter sandwiches his Dad (Dick’s Father) used to make after practice. He ignored these thoughts and feelings, let them pass by uninspected. He felt Dick being tugged to and fro in the drift. He was caught in the river.
“I can’t stop thinking of elephants!”A young Bruce Wayne wailed making his mother laugh. Unbidden the name Zitka, a feeling of friendship, a gentle gray giant. Dick’s mind echoing his.
“It’s hard Bruce. I’m trying not to look, but—”
”I can’t stop thinking of elephants!” Young Bruce said again.
“Don’t focus on then, focus on now, focus on me. You’re doing well, Robin.”
Pride, love, a little fear. ‘Robin’ meant a lot to Dick.
“Batman—”
“Let me guide you.”
Dick nodded. Bruce caught his hand. He could faintly hear Lucius’ voice asking what they were doing, that the sensors were saying they were too close, that they needed to pull back. Bruce didn’t. He mentally leaned forward and caught Dick and held him.
“I’ll protect you,” his mind whispered.
”I know,” Dick answered.
He made a… barrier. A microsecond of a gap between the drift and Dick’s mind. It would flow through Bruce first. Everything.
If he needed to he could stop it.
-
Years later, Dick was seventeen. Two-Face was classified as a Class II.
But he was different. Something was wrong with him.
He was gigantic, not categorized as a class three, but bigger than the usual Class IIs. He had two heads. One of them smooth, the other scarred and mutilated, like it had been in battle before. They named him after one of the well-known villains of Gotham.
He was the one Batman had been waiting for. The one that came for Gotham.
”He’s bigger-- Dick began.
The Kaiju ripped through Dark Knight.
After that it was blind fear and panic. Dick struggling. Fighting, pain, terror. His parents falling repeated over and over, he couldn’t see Bruce and he thought he was dead because he couldn’t feel Bruce either. Bruce as blocking his flow so Dick wouldn’t panic even more, but he as making it worse, they were out of sync, but still in the drift drowning alone in their own minds and own terrors.
“BRUCE!!!!” Dick was screaming, “PLEASE!!”
Bruce closed his eyes. He was forcing his memories back, away from Dick’s mind so he didn’t realize the boy’s panic. His own nightmares were taking over. Mother, Father, falling pearls, falling Graysons.
“Please be alive!” a voice sobbed.
“Please be alive,” Bruce whispered shaking the lifeless body of his mother.
A horrified wail, the sound of screeching twisted metal. Bruce heard sirens, the mugger ran off.
Quiet weeping, “Bruce, oh God, Bruce.”
And then he felt control wrenched away, the neural link severed. He gasped. He suddenly remembered. Dick, where was Dick?
“DICK!”
Silence, nothing, he couldn’t feel him anymore. He couldn’t even feel the Jaeger. He was thrown out of the drift, but the Jaeger was still moving.
“I’LL KILL YOU!!” Bruce heard over the scraping metal. He tried to move, but he was still held tightly, locked in the machine. He couldn’t see Dick, there was debris between them. Dark Knight staggered forward. There was a breach in the head. Bruce could see through a patch of sky and then the scarred side of Two-Face’s face. A hand reached towards them and then he fell back. The monster gave a shriek. A sword was embedded in its chest.
The computer’s voice came online “Launch in three…”
No, he was firing the missiles too close. They were too close. It would kill them with the monster they were trying to slay.
“Two…”
“DICK!! DICK STOP!!!
“…Bruce?”
“One… ignition.”
-
They had barely survived. Dick had… if the metal had hit his leg a centimetre to the left he would have become permanently crippled or lost his leg entirely.
“It’s over.”
Dick was lying in a hospital bed. He looked young. Hadn’t he always been young though? When he was ten? Wasn’t he young then too? Didn’t Lucius and Alfred warn him of the potential tragedy?
“I know,” Dick whispered. He turned his head looking out the window.
It wouldn’t have been something Dick heard in the drift, he had just decided this, just come to his senses. Dick realized his confusion.
“You cut me out, I never realized. You never did give up control, did you? You never did completely trust me with what’s in your head.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You were trying to protect yourself,” Dick gently corrected. He sounded like Alfred. He was still a boy, but he had grown up at some point too, hadn’t he? When did he gain such wisdom?
Dick always had known him best.
“I trust you the most,” Bruce said because he knew Dick the best and he knew the young man must be hurting.
“Yeah, and it’s not enough is it?” A small bitter smile. “You might trust me the most, but that isn’t the same as completely trusting someone, Bruce. You’ve finally realized that.”
He wanted to say that Dick was right, he was trying to protect himself. He was trying to stop Dick from seeing too much and taking too much of him in. He didn’t want Dick to leave him and he didn’t want the light Dick shone into his life to dim. He stayed silent.
Vanity and selfishness. That was what Dark Knight was. That was what this partnership with Dick was.
“It’s not the same as when we’re flying,” Dick said wistfully. “I feel more in tune with you then. I feel like I trust you more then. I can read you better when it’s Batman and Robin.”
“Do you still want that? Batman and Robin?”
Dick looked guilty, “I think I’m ready to fly on my own Bruce.”
He had taken the stress on the Jaeger on his mind without Bruce there to mitigate the strain. There were few people that could fly a double pilot Jaeger solo, even if it was only for five minutes. He was ready for anything, but Bruce didn’t want to let him go.
“Dick—”
“I respect your decision Bruce. I don’t like it, but I understand. Respect mine. I’m staying here with them. Two-Face might not have been just a fluke. There might be more like him and they’ll need experienced Rangers.” He looked down and then smiled, “I’ll probably feel better with you on dry land, and weren’t you always worried about criminals getting a hold of Robin?”
“We’re partners, Dick. That hasn’t changed.”
“You’re my father, Bruce.” He picked up the adoption papers that had been lying on the side of the table. His signature was scrawled on the bottom beside Bruce’s. “That changes everything.”