12216/A Time for All Things

A Time for All Things
Date of Scene:	21 September 2020
Location:	Barbara Gordon's Apartment, Clocktower
Synopsis:	Dick makes a decision and Barbara approves. Maybe some wounds can heal, if they are not picked at.
Cast of Characters:	Nightwing, Oracle

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Nightwing has posed:
It has taken over one table in the office. It is carefully collated, combed through, and examined. The data, new and old is meticulously gone through. Dick Grayson, Nightwing, is one of the finest in the world. When she's checked his work, it has been exemplary. The wealth of intelligence is broad and deep. At almost any point, Nightwing could strike.

Instead of planning an operation, a slightly unkempt Dick is boxing things up when Barbara wakes up. He is uncommonly and thickly scruffy, with his beard currently at a thick stubble that indicated two days without a shave. He's been on this operation for about a week now and has not wavered. The profundity of the simple act of putting the things away is quiet and vaguely ominous. Dick drops a couple of flash drives into the box with a casual air, having digitized much of the work just in case.

Still, Dick is seemingly done, which is completely unlike him.

Oracle has posed:
At first she lays there, just watching him silently. He's a fuzzy blob, but she knows exactly what he looks like (well, usually -- the dark patch on his face is kind of different and cute). Still, she's taking the opportunity to observe something that she doesn't often get the chance to see. Him, unguarded. Even without her glasses, the body language is off.
    Pushing herself upright on the bed, Barbara pushes her copper hair back out of her way and murmurs quietly, "What are you going to do with it?" Because she's aware of *what* he's doing, she's just uncertain exactly what he has in mind and she hasn't wanted to push it too hard just yet.

Nightwing has posed:
"When I was a little boy, a big, scary man who had no real reason adopting an orphaned circus performer stepped into my life and saved me from becoming the sort of monster who would take this information and beat that creature pretending to be a man to death." DIck's tone is quiet.

"He was a man who taught me how to smile into a mirror to hide it. To hide the drive. The need. The ?" Dick's voice catches with rage, sadness, and even for a moment despair, "-- the overwhelming urge to put the world to right. We can talk about weaponized childhoods. We can talk about obsessive patterns instilled into children." Dick carefully plucks some shiny, blurred object off the table and palms it. "He saved my life. He gave me the tools I needed to take the wound that would never heal and make something good come of it. Even more than that, he knew enough to not let me become him." Dick settles his gaze on her. "He can't have what we have. There isn't room in him for it. I.. I wish I could give him what he gave me. A life." DIck pulls in a breath. "He called me a disappointment. A waste of talent. Maybe I am. But I see where this road is going to take me. I'm not that angry little boy anymore. I'm something else now. I'll never be normal. I'll never not hurt. But there is only one thing I can do to thank him. I can let him take this over." Dick pulls in a slow breath to calm his raw nerves.

"I just hope he doesn't write me off for doing this."

Oracle has posed:
Pulling her knees up to wrap her arms loosely around them over the sheet that still covers her, Barbara says quietly, "I think if he's as smart as he thinks he is, he'll be proud of you." Tipping her head, she adds, "What you're doing takes strength. To step back and find justice instead of taking revenge, it's a hard thing to do. It's the same reason cops are pulled off cases when they're too close -- when emotions are involved, it's far too easy to lose control in a moment of blind rage." And he definitely still has rage in there. It doesn't require glasses to see it.

"You can't give him the same thing he gave you. But you *can* give him the knowledge that he succeeded. That he gave you what he couldn't find for himself." A life that has room in it for something other than the rooftops. Will Bruce understand it? Barbara thinks so. Especially after his reaction when she told him she was backing away from the cowl.
    "What can I do for you? What do you need?" The open-ended question leaves him ample room to close her out of it or to ask her for whatever he needs from her.

Nightwing has posed:
His facial expression shifts for a moment to something flirty and dirty. Dick tilts his chin. "I can think of a couple of things." He insinuates in his bedroom voice. She should know better by this point than to give him that sort of question.

His mood shifts, "Hold that thought." He quietly says. He tosses whatever he palmed inside his hand a couple of times. He struggles with emotions as he does it. In a spastic motion, Dick gets out of the chair, feet on the floor and his form lifting upwards. He walks over and as he gets closer he grows more in focus. "This was my mother's." He allows the little silver locket to fall from his grasp and dangle from his fingertips. "I saved up everything I could for months, and then dad kicked in the rest for it." Dick has casually given her objects of jewelry worth multiple degrees of magnitude than this simple, tiny, modest little silver locket. "I gave it to her for Mother's day before she passed. It was supposed to be buried with her. Alfred? well Alfred saw to it that it and some other items did not go into the ground. I understand now why."

Still he hesitates once. Then Dick holds it out to her. "I think she would want you to have it." Dick's voice is a little choked up.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara watches him until he comes into focus and as the chain dangles from his hand, there's a moment of incomprehension. He's given her exquisite pieces of jewelry worth far more than this before, but nothing he has ever offered her is as valuable. "Oh, Dick?" She reaches out a hand, so gentle as she cradles the small heart against her fingertips while it dangles on its chain. Her green eyes flicker upward, a hint of tears at the corners of them. "Are? are you sure?" The small silver pendant is laden with such meaning to her.

Nightwing has posed:
"Who else would I give it to?" He is gentle, and he thumbs open the locket. She didn't put John's portrait in there. There is a single, faded, old photo there. A smiling little boy undeniably a young Dick Grayson; the little boy Barbara never met. A happy boy who had no idea what the world held for him.

Dick moves to settle it around her neck in a quiet moment. "I know it's not much. I was seven. There was a lot of chores done to save up the money for it. Dad--."His voice cracks. "--Dad paid for most of it. Only later do I understand just how tight money was." He remembers it like it was yesterday.

Oracle has posed:
She chokes back a soft sniffle as she looks at that bright-eyed little boy with his gap-toothed smile. She holds the small heart against her skin as he closes the clasp around her neck and turns her face to look up at him. "She would be incredibly proud of the man you've turned into," she whispers, reaching across her body to use her free hand to cradle his neck and draw him down into a slow kiss. Resting her forehead to his, she murmurs, "I hope we can do half as well, Dick."

Nightwing has posed:
That's the first time she has said something about an actual future. It has been making do for now. It has been dragging their feet about moving in. About love, sure, but there has been a quiet forbiddance on hoping or planning for the future as if the mere action of it would tempt fate and court disaster.

Dick Grayson rests his forehead against her. HIs coffee breath still mingled with her morning breath in his mouth. He opens his mouth and closes it twice before he manages to say. "Me too." His voice tight. "You are going to get fat." He tells her softly, having to break the tension; he's strong but he's not strong enough to cry in front of her today.

Oracle has posed:
She laughs softly. "Someday," Barbara agrees. She draws him down, back into the bed with her to kiss him, ignoring the coffee breath and morning breath and crazy bed head. "I will almost definitely be fat someday."

Nightwing has posed:
"Sweet talker." Dick's morning improves a great deal shortly thereafter.