Chapter five
That shocked him, Dick could see it. Bruce blinked a few times in obvious surprise.
"Do you understand?" Dick repeated.
"Dick, I am Batman, you know-"
"No!" Dick pounded his fist on the table. "You know the difference! I know the difference! And I will not have HIM a part of this! HE is always right! HE always wins! HE deals with criminals, for God's sake! I am not a criminal, and I am not HIS junior partner anymore!"
Bruce looked down. "So you hate Batman."
Dick knelt beside Bruce and put his hand on Bruce's knee. "No. No, I don't. There are things about my relationship with Batman that I wish you could accept in your relationship with me."
Bruce looked up at him, his blue eyes were clouded in confusion. Now that Dick had Bruce's attention again, he returned to his chair and sat down.
"Batman gave me a lot more freedom and a lot more respect than you did. You had to know where I was and what I was doing every minute of the day. I couldn't even stay out past ten o'clock on a school night." Dick laughed at the ludicrousness of the situation. "But Batman routinely left me on my own in fights, chases, surveillance, investigations. 'Follow him.' 'Check that out.' 'Meet me back here in three hours.' You wouldn't let me have too much candy, because it was bad for me. With Batman I was exposed to all kinds of weird gasses, chemicals, long falls, gunfire and God knows what else, and all he ever said was, "You okay, Robin?" and I'd say "Yeah". And he'd say, 'Good, lets go after him.' It was crazy, Bruce, really."
"Dick, that was different. Robin was going into a situation he'd been trained for. Robin was focused. Robin had a job to do."
"Robin was me."
"Dick, I know that, but when you were out with your friends, you weren't vigilant. You were too relaxed. You could have gotten into trouble. Do you realize how much danger you were in, just by being my ward?"
"No, Bruce, you don't understand. There was no Robin and Dick. It was all me. No matter what I was wearing, I was always me. I'm not like you, Bruce. I know, you wanted me to have two different lives, one as Robin the Boy Wonder and one as Dick Grayson the normal, typical kid. But I never did. It was all my life, Bruce, don't you see? I am Nightwing, Nightwing is me. Neither one is a cover or a masquerade. I am both, all of the time. I needed you to understand that. I needed him to understand it too." Dick took a large swig of his Zesti. He looked down, and traced circles in the condensation on the tabletop. "I was scared sometimes, you know, when I was out in the costume, with him. I was scared of all those criminals, and the hardness in their eyes. I was scared of all those madmen, and the insanity in their eyes. I knew they could do anything. I knew they wouldn't hesitate to kill; kill me, kill him. Sometimes, I would be running in an alley, or swinging from some building, alone, chasing someone, or looking for someone, and I felt an almost overwhelming urge to hide somewhere. I was just a kid, Bruce, and I was scared."
"Oh God . . .Dick, I thought you could handle it."
"I COULD!" Dick looked up with denial. "I could, I never actually did it! Never! I'm not saying that. But just that, I wanted to. And I thought I was a coward. And I wondered sometimes why he didn't take care of me like you did."
There was silence for a moment. Dick realized that Bruce had nothing to say. Hell, what did he expect anyway? At least he had his attention. May as well get it all out now.
"I always thought I had roles to play. I had to be the perfect child, the model student, the nicest guy, the greatest athlete, the best fighter, the smartest detective. Always do more than my share. Always be cheerful. Never complain. Follow all the rules, even when they changed. I had to make you proud and I had to make him proud, and it was impossible! I felt like I was always failing. I got a C on this test. I let that crook get away. I fell asleep in class. I missed a clue. I slurped my soup. I wasn't fast enough and one of the bad guys got me in a headlock. I used bad grammar. I didn't get the right footing and my kick was way off. I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse for this new bruise, or that long scrape. It was too many rules and I couldn't keep up. I was always failing, at everything all the time. I couldn't prioritize. I thought everything was of life and death importance."
There was pain in Bruce's eyes. He reached over and patted Dick's hand. Softly he said, "You WERE a perfect child, Chum."
Dick looked straight at Bruce and smiled. Even though he was steeped in some of his worst memories of childhood, the old nickname made him feel better. He hadn't heard it in almost four years. He had gotten angry about it once and done something stupid. He'd been sitting in Psychology 101 when he realized that he was conditioned to it, like Pavlov's dog. The way 'Richard' let him know he was really in trouble, and tensed his muscles, sent the adrenaline coursing through the old heart, 'Chum', let him know everything was alright. He automatically relaxed, felt better. He hadn't liked the fact that he was so easily controlled, especially by Bruce, who was practically his arch-enemy at the time. So the next time he was home for the weekend, and Bruce used the nickname, he'd exploded. Real good move, get rid of the things you actually like, Grayson. Kick your own ass into a deeper hell, why doncha? They didn't happen to have 'self-destructive tendency' in that Psych book, did they? God, he really was an idiot sometimes.
"Dick, I was always proud of you. You always gave me your best, I know that. I had to point out when you did something wrong or could do something better because I was raising you, that was my job. And as far as Robin is concerned, every wrong move WAS of life and death importance. Batman WAS taking care of Robin, making sure he was the best he could be, so he wouldn't get hurt. Can't you understand that?"
Whoa, Dick had never seen this kind of look on Bruce's face before. He wanted Dick to understand. He wasn't insisting, he was almost pleading. Is this what a paradigm shift looked like?
"Yes, Bruce," Dick answered gently. "I understand that. And I realize that in many ways you were right. But you have to understand how I felt." Dick stood up and began to pace, gesturing broadly with his hands as he spoke. "You have to understand how difficult it was for me to make everything look so easy. You have to understand that it was Dick that you were taking out there into the Gotham streets, and that it was Robin that you were telling to be in by ten. And you have to understand my frustration, my insecurity, my fear, and how that was all boiling over by the time I was in high school. . . and then . . .to top everything . . .I fell in love."
Dick stopped pacing and faced Bruce across the table. "With you." Dick paused, "YOU, my guardian, my surrogate father, my hero, my boss. YOU, of all people." He gave a little laugh, "So you can imagine what a tailspin that threw me into." He started pacing again, but kept his arms folded to his chest. "I was growing up. I wanted you to let me go. I wanted more freedom. I wanted to decide things for myself and take control of my own life. BUT, you were my life. I wanted to be close to you, closer than ever. I wanted you to hold me and not let go. I wanted to kiss you and not on the cheek anymore. The more you tried to make me into a copy of you the less I wanted to be like you. The more you tried to keep me that obedient little boy, the more I felt that the only way to grow up was to get out. The only way to get out was to leave you. Yet the only reason for growing up was so that you could see me as a man, and love me the way I loved you. I knew it would never work. I couldn't reject you to get closer to you. It all made me so angry. Everything you did made me angry, everything you said, everything you wanted me to do. The Manor felt like a prison that I wanted to escape, but the only place I wanted to escape to was your bedroom.
"I know I was hard to deal with, and a pain in the ass. I know that I did things just to piss you off. I know I started as many fights as you did. But . . .but . . .I don't know. It was like I couldn't control it. I had to get your attention somehow, and I had to show you I was independent. I know acting like an uncontrollable brat wasn't the way to do it, but . . . that is just how I was." Dick sighed and slumped into his chair. After a second he looked up at Bruce. "You want another?" He pointed at Bruce's empty beer bottle.
Bruce looked down at the bottle, he'd forgotten it was even there. "Sure, I'll have another."
Dick nodded, ran his hand through his hair, grabbed the bottle and threw it into his trash can, followed by his empty pop bottle. He went into his refrigerator and pulled out another beer for Bruce. For himself, he grabbed a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk, and drank straight from the carton. He handed the beer to Bruce and sat back down.
"I guess it's your turn." Dick said.
Chapter Six
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