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bossymarmalade) wrote2004-02-05 09:47 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote2004-02-05 09:47 pm
...instead of old lima beans and pumpkin mix
I'm'a post these for the Coming Out of the WIP Closet Day festivities, and then tomorrow it's one long popslash one and comments on everybody else's WsIP. mmmm, I'm looking forward to it.
This came about because of an storyline in "Gotham Knights" where Bruce had self-inflicted amnesia and was being psychoanalyzed by a Dr...Strong? I don't remember. Anyhow, the boys found some really detailed files about themselves that the Bat keeps, and I found that freaky and had some idea of exploring Dick and Tim a bit more, but then lost momentum.
======
“Why does a loner like Batman cultivate an unpredictable crew of dependents? What does it suggest about his methods and ultimate objective?”
---
This place never changes.
I can be away from the Batcave for days, for weeks, for years; the minute I'm back and jump off my bike and take off my helmet, that sharp, cold air hits and it does more to remind me where I am than anything else could. The sound of dark water dripping unseen, the mighty crays whirring, the half-imagined leather of bat-wings.
What a place to spend your childhood, huh?
Not that you'd ever catch Timmy complaining. The kid could quite happily be welded to the damn crays, I'm pretty sure. Only other person who spends that much time working on the Bat-Computer is -- say it with me -- Batman. It's kind of what he spends his time feeding in there that I'm concerned about.
"Hey, Dick," Tim says, his solemn voice pitched to carry to me and not any further. He's good at that, at keeping silent and hidden and a host of other sneaky things; a very different Robin from the one I was. He knows it's me without turning around, but that's hardly surprising since I all but announced myself by roaring in on the bike. Professional courtesy in the vigilante business, making a loud entrance. Bruce has yet to start -- Batman ain't really about courtesy.
"Timbo," I grin, vaulting over the chair next to him to sit perched on the back. "Anything interesting?"
He looks a bit sheepish, giving me sidelong glances. "Nah." Tim gestures to the screen, which is displaying a multi-dimensional mock-up of what I'm pretty sure is a Roman chariot. "Just doing homework." He spins a bit in the chair, big feet scraping the stone floor. In amazing physical shape he might be, but Tim's still got that puppyish big-hands-and-feet thing going. Gonna be tall when he grows up.
...For a while there, when Tim first started this gig, I never said anything like "When he grows up," or "When Tim gets too old for this," or any of that. After Jason, I stopped taking it for granted that we have futures, old ages to look forward to. There was a choice to make when Bruce first let the kid put on the colors. I had to decide; do I stay distant from the new Robin so if the worst happens I'm not devastated, or do I stay close to him, get to know him, treat every minute with him like it's precious because Jason Todd in his cold grave tells me that they are?
Sitting here, looking at the fifteen-year-old genius who's certifiably the closest thing to a kid brother I'll ever have, I'm glad I went with the second option.
“Dropped in for anything in particular?” he asks me now, perking up. Tim and I always have a great time when we go out together; it’s the sort of well-intentioned mayhem that even Bruce can’t get too upset about. After all, he trained us both, didn’t he?
“Nah.” Damn. He’s looking at me expectantly and I’m wishing I’d thought out a better opening line to what I want to talk about. Oh, what the hell—just dive right in, it’s what I do best, after all….
But not here. Not in the cave.
Time to go out.
...
“I can tell you this about the boy. He was fearless. He was effusive. And he was full of grace.”
Ever since we found those files of Bruce’s -- Batman’s -- Bruce’s -- those words have been stuck in my head. Because it’s the most perfect description I’ve ever heard for Dick.
Going out with Nightwing is hard to explain. You can’t say that he’s a polar opposite of Batman, because he’s not; there’s a similarity in the movements, in the methods, that’s been bred into him. But where Batman’s powerful, Nightwing’s agile. Where Batman’s a menacing vigilante, Nightwing’s a laughing daredevil. There’s nothing I love better than comparing the two…unless it’s seeing them in motion together.
Okay, that sounded kind of creepy. But it’s not every person who gets to watch the world’s two greatest detectives in action on a routine basis. That’s my defensive excuse and I’m sticking to it.
I can tell something’s eating away at Dick tonight because he’s even more flippant than usual, cracking jokes at a rate of two per minute and moving fast, so fast I miss half his jokes just because I have to concentrate so hard to keep up with him. I tried to explain this to him once, and he just laughed and said we should set up a mutual admiration society. It’s true in a way -- any sort of discussion of skills between us tends to end up in “you’re great -- no, you’re great” arguments -- but I don’t think that’s too much of a bad thing. When you’re swinging around Gotham every night and so many of the people you encounter are decidedly unhappy to see you, it’s sometimes nice to know you’re appreciated.
=======
okay, let me explain. i went through this little phase of being absolutely OBSESSED with this anime, to the extent where i thought i could write fic for it. then i tried this, and it proved i was WRONG and i abandoned it in utter shame.
====
The window is never quite clean enough.
The morning sun is warm against my back as I scrub the glass, back and forth, watching the rag streak suds and then wipe them clean again. Inside, Ken and Omi are arguing. Or rather, Ken is; Omi is reasoning gently.
"I know they smell pretty, Ken-kun, but sweetpeas just *don't* last long in arrangements."
"They would if we arranged them *properly.* If we just surrounded them with some ferns, and maybe a few peonies -- ah, k'so!"
Omi sighs, a whispery sound that's almost lost under the scuff of his oversize sneakers as he heads into the back. Omi's pain is always drowned out by louder noises, by duty, by necessity. "I'll clean it up. You get some more oasis and we'll try again."
But Ken doesn't do as he's told; instead, he escapes out into the bright sunshine, stretching lazily like our feline namesakes. He makes a contented, groaning noise. Ken makes a lot of noise, all the time. It's a wonder, sometimes, that he's such a good assassin.
"He's right, you know," I tell him. Ken blinks, then wrinkles his nose at me.
"I know," he says wryly, rearranging gladioli in their display bucket, pausing to smoothe a petal here, straighten a stem there. His voice turns wistful. "I just really love sweetpeas."
"Hmm." I watch out of the corners of my eyes as he fiddles with the gladioli, bunching them by color. Spiky flowers, growing in ebullient sprays just like the clingy, fragrant sweetpeas that are lying on Omi's arranging table inside, fading by the moment.
We busy ourselves at our tasks in silence for a while. Silence, I know well, can be a lonely and painful place; more and more, however, I am learning that it can also be companionable, soothing, warm. Yohji finally drags himself dishevelled out of bed and makes it into the shop, submitting to Omi's rather disgruntled demands for help with the botched peony arrangement. It doesn't take long after Yohji relents for Omi to go back to being his usual sunny self.
Yohji and Ken are much the same as Omi, sublimating their private hurts under drawling innuendo and almost hapless cheer. Out of all of Weiß, I am the only one who wears his agony like a shroud, letting it radiate darkly through my every movement and word and look.
They don't know how much I admire them.
Ken stops in his work to carry on a loud, laughing conversation with the woman who owns the ice-cream parlour across the street. The woman herself happens to be on the other side of the street, which makes their banter a public spectacle. I dip the rag in my tin pail of cleaning solution, watching with a strange thrill of satisfaction as swirls of dust and grime color the water. Cleaning is a tedious job--no matter how much I scrub at these windows, one night away sees them filthy in the morning--but it somehow contents me to do it. A few swipes of the rag, instant results, instant clarity.
I have an idea.
+++
"Any new flavours today?" I holler, cupping my hands over my mouth so the sound carries. I don't really need to do that, because when you're a soccer player you learn to yell like crazy, but it makes my voice really good and *loud.* Keiko giggles and scoots up her storefront, unlocking the inner glass doors.
"Hai!" she says, surprisingly. I've been asking her that same question for five months now, and this is the first time she's said yes. "Ken-kun, we now have lychee and mango ice cream! Come and try some!"
"Okay, I'll come over later!!" Aya's glaring at me, I can tell. Or if he isn't, he's gritting his teeth and scrubbing holes in the glass. He thinks I'm such an idiot sometimes.
When I turn back to the glads, though, Aya's just looking at me, almost placid, almost pleasant. "You can have them," he says cryptically. Omi's the only one who nearly always catches on to what Aya's talking about; Yohji and me kind of wait until somebody explains in a little more detail.
"Have what?" Since Omi's not here and Aya obviously isn't going to elaborate, I'll have to ask him myself.
"Sweetpeas." He gestures up at my room, oblivious to the dripping rag in his hand. It's kind of endearing. "You can grow some outside your window. You have plenty of sun in your corner --"
"Oh!" For a while I'm so delighted that I can't say anything else. Why didn't I think of that? It's such a great idea! I could stick a trellis against the wall, and they'd climb all over it!
"You don't have to." The curt tone makes me tear my gaze from the visions of sweetpeas to find Aya washing the damn window again. For a minute I'm confounded -- what's his problem *now?* -- and then it sort of hits me. He thinks I didn't like the idea.
The thought that I might have hurt Aya's feelings is too weird to process right away. I mean, I would count on Fujimiya Aya to save my life, even lay down his for me, but I wouldn't expect him to do something *nice* for me just to make me happy. Wow, now I feel really guilty....
"Aya."
He looks over, pausing in his diligent washing. I smile at him. It's not hard.
"That's a fantastic idea. Arigatou."
He turns his head back, concentrating on his cleaning so intently that his red hair nearly follows the rag in a trail across the window. "Mmmm," is the only response he gives. But I think I can see him smiling.
+++
Also, once upon a time I had a nice little WIP concerning Mikey and Meldrick getting into a fight over whether or not the right word is "normalcy" or "normality", and then calling a truce when they realize the squadroom's relatively empty and this is their chance to snoop in everybody else's desks. But that was, like, three harddrive crashes ago, so it's lost in the annals of time. *g*
This came about because of an storyline in "Gotham Knights" where Bruce had self-inflicted amnesia and was being psychoanalyzed by a Dr...Strong? I don't remember. Anyhow, the boys found some really detailed files about themselves that the Bat keeps, and I found that freaky and had some idea of exploring Dick and Tim a bit more, but then lost momentum.
======
“Why does a loner like Batman cultivate an unpredictable crew of dependents? What does it suggest about his methods and ultimate objective?”
---
This place never changes.
I can be away from the Batcave for days, for weeks, for years; the minute I'm back and jump off my bike and take off my helmet, that sharp, cold air hits and it does more to remind me where I am than anything else could. The sound of dark water dripping unseen, the mighty crays whirring, the half-imagined leather of bat-wings.
What a place to spend your childhood, huh?
Not that you'd ever catch Timmy complaining. The kid could quite happily be welded to the damn crays, I'm pretty sure. Only other person who spends that much time working on the Bat-Computer is -- say it with me -- Batman. It's kind of what he spends his time feeding in there that I'm concerned about.
"Hey, Dick," Tim says, his solemn voice pitched to carry to me and not any further. He's good at that, at keeping silent and hidden and a host of other sneaky things; a very different Robin from the one I was. He knows it's me without turning around, but that's hardly surprising since I all but announced myself by roaring in on the bike. Professional courtesy in the vigilante business, making a loud entrance. Bruce has yet to start -- Batman ain't really about courtesy.
"Timbo," I grin, vaulting over the chair next to him to sit perched on the back. "Anything interesting?"
He looks a bit sheepish, giving me sidelong glances. "Nah." Tim gestures to the screen, which is displaying a multi-dimensional mock-up of what I'm pretty sure is a Roman chariot. "Just doing homework." He spins a bit in the chair, big feet scraping the stone floor. In amazing physical shape he might be, but Tim's still got that puppyish big-hands-and-feet thing going. Gonna be tall when he grows up.
...For a while there, when Tim first started this gig, I never said anything like "When he grows up," or "When Tim gets too old for this," or any of that. After Jason, I stopped taking it for granted that we have futures, old ages to look forward to. There was a choice to make when Bruce first let the kid put on the colors. I had to decide; do I stay distant from the new Robin so if the worst happens I'm not devastated, or do I stay close to him, get to know him, treat every minute with him like it's precious because Jason Todd in his cold grave tells me that they are?
Sitting here, looking at the fifteen-year-old genius who's certifiably the closest thing to a kid brother I'll ever have, I'm glad I went with the second option.
“Dropped in for anything in particular?” he asks me now, perking up. Tim and I always have a great time when we go out together; it’s the sort of well-intentioned mayhem that even Bruce can’t get too upset about. After all, he trained us both, didn’t he?
“Nah.” Damn. He’s looking at me expectantly and I’m wishing I’d thought out a better opening line to what I want to talk about. Oh, what the hell—just dive right in, it’s what I do best, after all….
But not here. Not in the cave.
Time to go out.
...
“I can tell you this about the boy. He was fearless. He was effusive. And he was full of grace.”
Ever since we found those files of Bruce’s -- Batman’s -- Bruce’s -- those words have been stuck in my head. Because it’s the most perfect description I’ve ever heard for Dick.
Going out with Nightwing is hard to explain. You can’t say that he’s a polar opposite of Batman, because he’s not; there’s a similarity in the movements, in the methods, that’s been bred into him. But where Batman’s powerful, Nightwing’s agile. Where Batman’s a menacing vigilante, Nightwing’s a laughing daredevil. There’s nothing I love better than comparing the two…unless it’s seeing them in motion together.
Okay, that sounded kind of creepy. But it’s not every person who gets to watch the world’s two greatest detectives in action on a routine basis. That’s my defensive excuse and I’m sticking to it.
I can tell something’s eating away at Dick tonight because he’s even more flippant than usual, cracking jokes at a rate of two per minute and moving fast, so fast I miss half his jokes just because I have to concentrate so hard to keep up with him. I tried to explain this to him once, and he just laughed and said we should set up a mutual admiration society. It’s true in a way -- any sort of discussion of skills between us tends to end up in “you’re great -- no, you’re great” arguments -- but I don’t think that’s too much of a bad thing. When you’re swinging around Gotham every night and so many of the people you encounter are decidedly unhappy to see you, it’s sometimes nice to know you’re appreciated.
=======
okay, let me explain. i went through this little phase of being absolutely OBSESSED with this anime, to the extent where i thought i could write fic for it. then i tried this, and it proved i was WRONG and i abandoned it in utter shame.
====
The window is never quite clean enough.
The morning sun is warm against my back as I scrub the glass, back and forth, watching the rag streak suds and then wipe them clean again. Inside, Ken and Omi are arguing. Or rather, Ken is; Omi is reasoning gently.
"I know they smell pretty, Ken-kun, but sweetpeas just *don't* last long in arrangements."
"They would if we arranged them *properly.* If we just surrounded them with some ferns, and maybe a few peonies -- ah, k'so!"
Omi sighs, a whispery sound that's almost lost under the scuff of his oversize sneakers as he heads into the back. Omi's pain is always drowned out by louder noises, by duty, by necessity. "I'll clean it up. You get some more oasis and we'll try again."
But Ken doesn't do as he's told; instead, he escapes out into the bright sunshine, stretching lazily like our feline namesakes. He makes a contented, groaning noise. Ken makes a lot of noise, all the time. It's a wonder, sometimes, that he's such a good assassin.
"He's right, you know," I tell him. Ken blinks, then wrinkles his nose at me.
"I know," he says wryly, rearranging gladioli in their display bucket, pausing to smoothe a petal here, straighten a stem there. His voice turns wistful. "I just really love sweetpeas."
"Hmm." I watch out of the corners of my eyes as he fiddles with the gladioli, bunching them by color. Spiky flowers, growing in ebullient sprays just like the clingy, fragrant sweetpeas that are lying on Omi's arranging table inside, fading by the moment.
We busy ourselves at our tasks in silence for a while. Silence, I know well, can be a lonely and painful place; more and more, however, I am learning that it can also be companionable, soothing, warm. Yohji finally drags himself dishevelled out of bed and makes it into the shop, submitting to Omi's rather disgruntled demands for help with the botched peony arrangement. It doesn't take long after Yohji relents for Omi to go back to being his usual sunny self.
Yohji and Ken are much the same as Omi, sublimating their private hurts under drawling innuendo and almost hapless cheer. Out of all of Weiß, I am the only one who wears his agony like a shroud, letting it radiate darkly through my every movement and word and look.
They don't know how much I admire them.
Ken stops in his work to carry on a loud, laughing conversation with the woman who owns the ice-cream parlour across the street. The woman herself happens to be on the other side of the street, which makes their banter a public spectacle. I dip the rag in my tin pail of cleaning solution, watching with a strange thrill of satisfaction as swirls of dust and grime color the water. Cleaning is a tedious job--no matter how much I scrub at these windows, one night away sees them filthy in the morning--but it somehow contents me to do it. A few swipes of the rag, instant results, instant clarity.
I have an idea.
+++
"Any new flavours today?" I holler, cupping my hands over my mouth so the sound carries. I don't really need to do that, because when you're a soccer player you learn to yell like crazy, but it makes my voice really good and *loud.* Keiko giggles and scoots up her storefront, unlocking the inner glass doors.
"Hai!" she says, surprisingly. I've been asking her that same question for five months now, and this is the first time she's said yes. "Ken-kun, we now have lychee and mango ice cream! Come and try some!"
"Okay, I'll come over later!!" Aya's glaring at me, I can tell. Or if he isn't, he's gritting his teeth and scrubbing holes in the glass. He thinks I'm such an idiot sometimes.
When I turn back to the glads, though, Aya's just looking at me, almost placid, almost pleasant. "You can have them," he says cryptically. Omi's the only one who nearly always catches on to what Aya's talking about; Yohji and me kind of wait until somebody explains in a little more detail.
"Have what?" Since Omi's not here and Aya obviously isn't going to elaborate, I'll have to ask him myself.
"Sweetpeas." He gestures up at my room, oblivious to the dripping rag in his hand. It's kind of endearing. "You can grow some outside your window. You have plenty of sun in your corner --"
"Oh!" For a while I'm so delighted that I can't say anything else. Why didn't I think of that? It's such a great idea! I could stick a trellis against the wall, and they'd climb all over it!
"You don't have to." The curt tone makes me tear my gaze from the visions of sweetpeas to find Aya washing the damn window again. For a minute I'm confounded -- what's his problem *now?* -- and then it sort of hits me. He thinks I didn't like the idea.
The thought that I might have hurt Aya's feelings is too weird to process right away. I mean, I would count on Fujimiya Aya to save my life, even lay down his for me, but I wouldn't expect him to do something *nice* for me just to make me happy. Wow, now I feel really guilty....
"Aya."
He looks over, pausing in his diligent washing. I smile at him. It's not hard.
"That's a fantastic idea. Arigatou."
He turns his head back, concentrating on his cleaning so intently that his red hair nearly follows the rag in a trail across the window. "Mmmm," is the only response he gives. But I think I can see him smiling.
+++
Also, once upon a time I had a nice little WIP concerning Mikey and Meldrick getting into a fight over whether or not the right word is "normalcy" or "normality", and then calling a truce when they realize the squadroom's relatively empty and this is their chance to snoop in everybody else's desks. But that was, like, three harddrive crashes ago, so it's lost in the annals of time. *g*
no subject
Why must you taunt me so?
Re:
no subject
nana-nana-nana-nana
nana-nana-nana-nana-batfic!
I need to read this run someday. It sounds nifty. And you do write nifty Batfic. And yay, Dick and Timmay!
Re:
Dick and Timmay! I love them so. *snug*
And now, Dick getting hit on the head with a building! You're crazy. *selects icon*
no subject
I now understand what it feels like to have your heart broken.
Re:
Re:
no subject
Hard drive crashes are just plain evil.
Re:
And I'm so glad you liked the Batfic! I started off an X-Men girl, but once I hit the Batverse -- it was all over, baby. Those comics are unbelievably good with the creepy, thoughtful undertones and not shying away from ugly subjects. I really should start writing more fic in that fandom, if only to satisfy myself. *g*
Re:
And me. And me and me and me.
More Dick and Tim, please. Much more. Please. Thank you.
Re:
Maybe if I re-read those issues, I'll remember what the hell I'd intended to write about. At any rate, I'm glad you liked it! Thank you!
no subject
You have such a beautiful handle on Dick's and Tim's voices, and the nuances of their relationships with each other, and with Bruce. I really, really hope you can find your original (or a new) inspiration by rereading the storyline -- which just recently turned up on scans_daily (http://www.livejournal.com/community/scans_daily/20351.html) -- and finish this.
Failing that, I hope you'll write some new Gotham fiction. This fandom continues to need more people who know the characters and can write them as well as you do. Mmm, subtextual goodness.
(The GK storyline was called "Transference," btw, and the not-so-good doctor was Hugo Strange.)
Re:
Dear sweet Jebus.
*whimpers*
You've got them down. You've *so* got them down...
Re: Dear sweet Jebus.
Thank you so much for the feedback! It's terribly encouraging, man.