WIP excerpt for Marina; a fake cryptid and a real romantic.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
“Okay,” he says cheerfully. “Tried YouTube yet? They’ve got tutorials for everything on there. I found a guy who taught me how to change my oil and tie a Windsor knot.”
“Did you not know how to tie a Windsor knot?” Tim asks, both clearly puzzled and clearly a trust fund kid.
“Naw, Bruce or Alfie always just materialized it for me whenever it came up,” Dick replies with an easy shrug. “Also had to learn how to shave from Ollie, which was definitely an experience. But Dinah taught me how to smuggle a full bottle of Jack into a bar in fishnets at the same time, which is actually really useful knowledge so remind me to pass that one on later. Donna and I literally saved most of San Francisco and our favorite coffee shop that way once. Oh, and Harvey was the one who explained taxes existed. Did not know those were a thing ‘til I was like, twenty.”
Twenty-ish, anyway. Well, he’s twenty-three now, probably, so . . . eh, twenty-two at the latest.
“. . . your life experiences are not universal,” Tim says after a long pause, like getting wooed with handmade nests and giant diamonds by a half-alien superclone and knowing how to tie a Windsor knot at age fifteen is somehow “universal”. No one in this conversation has been even slightly “universal” in their life experiences.
“Are you telling Superboy about Robin yet?” Dick asks, and Tim–hesitates, a little.
“I didn’t think it was mine to tell,” he replies carefully. “Most of the Justice League doesn’t even know about Robin.”
“I told the Titans,” Dick replies with a shrug. “And Uncle Clark.”
“Jason–” Tim starts, and Nightwing’s sleek feathers all instantly, involuntarily twitch. Tim cuts himself off, and Dick . . . doesn’t say anything, for a moment.
Jason never told anyone about Robin.
Though the Joker was pretty bored when he figured it out, apparently. A “real” person wasn’t as interesting as the mask. The mask being a mask wasn’t as interesting, maybe.
( Dick doesn’t think about how much RAGE it puts in him, thinking about the Joker cutting Jason out of Robin’s wings and finding him BORING. thinking he was LESS than, thinking he wasn’t worth–
it’s not the time for that. for any of that.
it’s not. )
“You’re your own Robin,” Dick says. “It’s up to you who you tell what.”
“I did tell Steph,” Tim says awkwardly, looking away. “Well . . . I mean . . .”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, baby bird,” Dick says. “Like I said: you’re your own Robin.”
“But you were Robin first!” Tim practically bursts out, gesturing sharply with Robin’s wings. “And it just . . . it feels wrong, to tell people! Like it’s someone else’s secret. I only actually told Steph because I felt like I had to, if we were gonna–if we, you know–but Superboy doesn’t care whether I’m human or not, and she did, and . . . I never felt right about telling her anyway. Just because I thought I was supposed to, not because I . . . sorry. Just . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
( “I’M sorry,” Dick doesn’t say back, because he can never say that to Tim while he’s wearing Robin.
it never ends up as him saying it to TIM, when he tries to. )
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