Post by lizity on Jun 6, 2012 13:46:12 GMT -5
Rose and Damien had left to go talk to the man that Lily was staying with. While she was glad that they’d found Lily again, she still had a sinking feeling in her gut. Not because she didn’t want her found but out of her own pure selfishness. The last few weeks with Damien had been… well, better than when he’d been in Paris. Lily was his ex? Sort of ex? She didn’t exactly know but she knew he still had feelings for her. She’d told him when she’d first come to Gotham on the job offer that she didn’t expect anything and she didn’t. He needed to make his own choices in life, that was the one thing she always stressed to him. Either way she’d smile and wish him well because she did want him to be happy.
It didn’t stop her from nervously nibbling on her nail as she sat in the plush living room at the manor staring at the flickering flames of the fire that Daniel had started in the fireplace. The hypnotic dance of flames was distracting her from her work on the lap top in front of her.
She’d offered to stay at the manor while they’d left incase Dick needed anything. She didn’t mind either, they hadn’t had much of a chance to talk since she’d brought him back from Watchtower and despite the fact that she knew no one in their little hodgepodge family she still felt a strange responsibility to him. She wanted him to be alright. She’d read over his files that were on the mainframe computer down stairs and well… he was a living relic of sorts. The last real family that Damien had left too. It was all very…. Surreal.
She didn’t hear someone so much as she felt eyes on her and she jolted out of her thoughts to sit up straighter and look over her shoulder at the door. She smiled at Dick as he wondered in, no doubt full of nervous energy too. Strange as it was, Lily was his daughter and he wasn’t that much older than her. Poor girl was going to be in one heck of a shock when she found out. She wasn’t exactly sure he wasn’t still in shock finding out about it all.
“Hey, you look a lot better. Granted that isn’t saying much from the last time I saw you.” Her rich French accent rolled easily off her tongue and to his ears. “Daniel left some snacks if you’re hungry. He’s retired for the evening I think.” Reaching up she pulled a pair of thin black rimmed glasses off her face and closed her lap top.
~~
Night had begun to settle in, the sun was never very bright in Gotham. Hidden behind tall, sky scraping buildings or the heavy fog and clouds that hung over the city like a dark blanket. Dick's hand touched the glass of the window, the pane of glass cool beneath his touch. He heard a pitter, then a patter, he watched as a lone drop of water fell from the sky and burst on the window. It was followed by a thousand more and soon the audible crescendo of a building summer rain storm was tapping on the glass like a million fingers typing Morse code.
The mansion was much the same as it had been when he was twelve, when Bruce had taken him into his home. It did little to stave off the lingering memories of the many ghosts that walked these halls. And yet, there family had persisted. Most of the originals, the one's that he knew, they were gone long dead and buried. Dick shuddered and wasn't because of the cold. They had been replaced with new names and faces, a second generation, perhaps a third? To them, Dick Grayson, NightWing, the original Robin was more myth and legend than man. Only Damien had known him personally, and he was very young when Dick had vanished, presumed to be dead. Since returning from the Watchtower he often wondered what exactly they had put in the coffin that they buried into the ground underneath the stone that bore his name. It was a dark place to let your mind travel and he laughed out of some morbid, black humor when he did.
Dick let out a sigh and tore his gaze from the window and the darkening grounds below. He found it difficult to be alone now, he felt so out of place, so out of his element. He had never wanted to be the last... The last one alive and it pained him to know that all he had known, all that had made him happy was gone. Except Rose. Most of all Rose. She was his one salvation in this new dawn, this new era. That she had accepted him back nearly without question was what kept him going. He hadn't realized he had needed her so badly until that first night she slept next to him and Dick had felt right for the first time in a week.
He turned and left his room, finding no point in dwelling, he wandered to the living room to cut through tot he den where the television was. He made little sound as he moved, his training having ground in a habitual ability to mask most anything audible when he walked, ran, or did anything, really. So it was, when he stood in the threshold of the door that Cecelia, the young computer whiz Damien had hired some time before Dick's return hadn't heard him coming and took a minute to register his presence. She jumped like she had seen a ghost. Dick, standing there, framed in the pale silver moonlight, his skin as pale as the waxing moon, perhaps he looked close enough to a ghost. he felt like one. An ancient ghost of myth and legend.
Dick smiled incongruously to the startled look on Cecelia's face. He chuckle slid passed his lips.
"You're a damn poor liar," Dick mused "but thanks for the flattery. it'll get you everywhere."
He moved further into the room, the dim spill of light from the lamp resting on the mahogany table beside her. his ghostly viasge was bathed in the warmth of the light and he looked far less sinister. Now, in the light, he just looked tired. Dark circles rimmed his eyes but he seemed much stronger than he had the day she had found him.
"Cecelia, right?" he asked, sitting in the easy chair next to her. "I never got to thank you, for what you did. It took real guts doing it. you saved my life, so I guess I should tell you I owe you one."
~~
“Everywhere?” She said with a flirtatious grin. It was harmless… okay partially harmless because while the thought might have popped in her head for a brief moment she never would have followed it through. Still it was nice to hear easy flirts coming from herself again. “It’s hard to lie when you’re surrounded by super detectives too.”
Tucking her legs under her she leaned on the arm of the couch and smiled at him. She gave him her full attention which was something that so many people had loved about her. In Paris she’d never had any shortage of friends. It felt different in Gotham. The dark city wasn’t exactly a place she wanted to go exploring on foot and the people she worked with… well, even she had a limit to how much nerd she could handle at a time. Especially when she was one of the bigger nerds in the room.
“Yes and you don’t have to thank me, just thank my never-ending curiosity.” She gave him a genuine smile. “I did what anyone would have done. You needed help, I wasn’t going to just leave you there. You don’t own me anything Dick.”
She wasn’t a hero, she didn’t deserve any praise, at least she didn’t think she did. She really truly believed that she’d done what anyone else would have done and helped someone… well before she’d gotten to Gotham but that was something else altogether.
“How are you settling in? Starting to get everything in order? I can’t imagine how hard it’s been, or what kind of shock it must be.” She hesitated for a moment. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to think about it. I’m a little awestruck, forgive me.”
~~
"as well as can be expected, I suppose. I'd be a liar if I said that this whole experience hasn't been a little surreal. You fall asleep for two minutes and when you open your eyes; the whole world's changed. Last I had seen Damien, he barely came up to my knees. now he's a man, I have a daughter of an age.. and.. A... a girlfriend I haven't seen in twenty years." He gave a sincere laugh at that, the thought was ludicrous even to someone whom had seen the impossible happen more than once. "It's not what I expected, to put it mildly. But now that I'm here? I can't say I have any regrets."
It was an off handed way of saying thank you, even if she didn't feel she was a hero, in Dick's eyes, she had done something heroic. Damien certainly seemed happy his 'uncle' was back, a new father figure, perhaps one that could guide him better than Jason and his mother. Helena was many things, but she was still a woman and a mother, some things a boy can only learn from a man.
"Not anyone." dick corrected, he had seen people stand by as hapless spectators while crimes occurred right infront of them. "Not many people would have done what you did. Lept into the unknown, not knowing where it was going to take you. You shouldn't sell yourself short, you put your life at risk for someone else's; that's a hero in my books as far as I'm concerned."
"Awestruck?" Dick asked with a laugh, it would be the first time anyone had told him they were awestruck by his presence. But then, he'd grown up in a world full of Batman's and Superman's... Dick had never seen himself as being on their 'level'. The truth was that there were few men in the superheroing community that were as respected as Dick Grayson, Nightwing. He'd worked with nearly everyone over the years and was even a core member in the Justice League. He successful out grew Bruce's shadow and became a notable hero in his own right, in many ways, perhaps even more so than Bruce.
"Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, it's just, well, nobody's ever said anything like that to me before. Maybe I'm just used to being the one whose awestruck."
~~
“For what it’s worth I’m glad you’re here.” She gave him that smile again then glanced down to her hands, fingers picking at the nails she’d just chewed to hell and back. “I don’t know if Damien would ever say it himself but he needs you. When I met him in Paris he was… well he was pretty lost. I think I helped him, or at least I like to think I did. Made enough of an impression for him to give me a job at least. He was pretty beat up over his mother’s death, and other things but I didn’t know what those were back then. I think he really found his focus in Paris.”
She blushed at him, ducking her head to hide behind a fall of wavy blond hair. It was a very girlish action and made her look like a teenager again rather than the young woman she really was. “I’ve always liked helping people, just never like that before. It really does make me happy to see you sitting here now. “
“I read up on you after we got you settled in. I hope you don’t mind. I was curious. You’ve been through a lot of changes through the years, it’s pretty fascinating. All of them were but I think I’m partial to you seeing as I’m your white knight.” She teased him, her good natured smile slipping easily back onto her face.
“You deserve it. You’ve been through so much.” She paused a moment, taking a deep breath. “I have this weird theory that we all have this magnetic pull inside us. It’s what drives us to certain people in our lives. We’re pulled together because of it. It’s where chance meetings come from, where the strange urge to go somewhere for no reason at all comes from. Maybe you’re the pull that everyone here needs, maybe you’re just so strong that J’onn knew that the future had so much in store for you.”
She laughed at herself then. “Sorry, I’m a nerd. I come up with weird theories all the time. My parents were very free love and mind freeing drugs. I have a very strange outlook on live because of it.”
It didn’t stop her from nervously nibbling on her nail as she sat in the plush living room at the manor staring at the flickering flames of the fire that Daniel had started in the fireplace. The hypnotic dance of flames was distracting her from her work on the lap top in front of her.
She’d offered to stay at the manor while they’d left incase Dick needed anything. She didn’t mind either, they hadn’t had much of a chance to talk since she’d brought him back from Watchtower and despite the fact that she knew no one in their little hodgepodge family she still felt a strange responsibility to him. She wanted him to be alright. She’d read over his files that were on the mainframe computer down stairs and well… he was a living relic of sorts. The last real family that Damien had left too. It was all very…. Surreal.
She didn’t hear someone so much as she felt eyes on her and she jolted out of her thoughts to sit up straighter and look over her shoulder at the door. She smiled at Dick as he wondered in, no doubt full of nervous energy too. Strange as it was, Lily was his daughter and he wasn’t that much older than her. Poor girl was going to be in one heck of a shock when she found out. She wasn’t exactly sure he wasn’t still in shock finding out about it all.
“Hey, you look a lot better. Granted that isn’t saying much from the last time I saw you.” Her rich French accent rolled easily off her tongue and to his ears. “Daniel left some snacks if you’re hungry. He’s retired for the evening I think.” Reaching up she pulled a pair of thin black rimmed glasses off her face and closed her lap top.
~~
Night had begun to settle in, the sun was never very bright in Gotham. Hidden behind tall, sky scraping buildings or the heavy fog and clouds that hung over the city like a dark blanket. Dick's hand touched the glass of the window, the pane of glass cool beneath his touch. He heard a pitter, then a patter, he watched as a lone drop of water fell from the sky and burst on the window. It was followed by a thousand more and soon the audible crescendo of a building summer rain storm was tapping on the glass like a million fingers typing Morse code.
The mansion was much the same as it had been when he was twelve, when Bruce had taken him into his home. It did little to stave off the lingering memories of the many ghosts that walked these halls. And yet, there family had persisted. Most of the originals, the one's that he knew, they were gone long dead and buried. Dick shuddered and wasn't because of the cold. They had been replaced with new names and faces, a second generation, perhaps a third? To them, Dick Grayson, NightWing, the original Robin was more myth and legend than man. Only Damien had known him personally, and he was very young when Dick had vanished, presumed to be dead. Since returning from the Watchtower he often wondered what exactly they had put in the coffin that they buried into the ground underneath the stone that bore his name. It was a dark place to let your mind travel and he laughed out of some morbid, black humor when he did.
Dick let out a sigh and tore his gaze from the window and the darkening grounds below. He found it difficult to be alone now, he felt so out of place, so out of his element. He had never wanted to be the last... The last one alive and it pained him to know that all he had known, all that had made him happy was gone. Except Rose. Most of all Rose. She was his one salvation in this new dawn, this new era. That she had accepted him back nearly without question was what kept him going. He hadn't realized he had needed her so badly until that first night she slept next to him and Dick had felt right for the first time in a week.
He turned and left his room, finding no point in dwelling, he wandered to the living room to cut through tot he den where the television was. He made little sound as he moved, his training having ground in a habitual ability to mask most anything audible when he walked, ran, or did anything, really. So it was, when he stood in the threshold of the door that Cecelia, the young computer whiz Damien had hired some time before Dick's return hadn't heard him coming and took a minute to register his presence. She jumped like she had seen a ghost. Dick, standing there, framed in the pale silver moonlight, his skin as pale as the waxing moon, perhaps he looked close enough to a ghost. he felt like one. An ancient ghost of myth and legend.
Dick smiled incongruously to the startled look on Cecelia's face. He chuckle slid passed his lips.
"You're a damn poor liar," Dick mused "but thanks for the flattery. it'll get you everywhere."
He moved further into the room, the dim spill of light from the lamp resting on the mahogany table beside her. his ghostly viasge was bathed in the warmth of the light and he looked far less sinister. Now, in the light, he just looked tired. Dark circles rimmed his eyes but he seemed much stronger than he had the day she had found him.
"Cecelia, right?" he asked, sitting in the easy chair next to her. "I never got to thank you, for what you did. It took real guts doing it. you saved my life, so I guess I should tell you I owe you one."
~~
“Everywhere?” She said with a flirtatious grin. It was harmless… okay partially harmless because while the thought might have popped in her head for a brief moment she never would have followed it through. Still it was nice to hear easy flirts coming from herself again. “It’s hard to lie when you’re surrounded by super detectives too.”
Tucking her legs under her she leaned on the arm of the couch and smiled at him. She gave him her full attention which was something that so many people had loved about her. In Paris she’d never had any shortage of friends. It felt different in Gotham. The dark city wasn’t exactly a place she wanted to go exploring on foot and the people she worked with… well, even she had a limit to how much nerd she could handle at a time. Especially when she was one of the bigger nerds in the room.
“Yes and you don’t have to thank me, just thank my never-ending curiosity.” She gave him a genuine smile. “I did what anyone would have done. You needed help, I wasn’t going to just leave you there. You don’t own me anything Dick.”
She wasn’t a hero, she didn’t deserve any praise, at least she didn’t think she did. She really truly believed that she’d done what anyone else would have done and helped someone… well before she’d gotten to Gotham but that was something else altogether.
“How are you settling in? Starting to get everything in order? I can’t imagine how hard it’s been, or what kind of shock it must be.” She hesitated for a moment. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to think about it. I’m a little awestruck, forgive me.”
~~
"as well as can be expected, I suppose. I'd be a liar if I said that this whole experience hasn't been a little surreal. You fall asleep for two minutes and when you open your eyes; the whole world's changed. Last I had seen Damien, he barely came up to my knees. now he's a man, I have a daughter of an age.. and.. A... a girlfriend I haven't seen in twenty years." He gave a sincere laugh at that, the thought was ludicrous even to someone whom had seen the impossible happen more than once. "It's not what I expected, to put it mildly. But now that I'm here? I can't say I have any regrets."
It was an off handed way of saying thank you, even if she didn't feel she was a hero, in Dick's eyes, she had done something heroic. Damien certainly seemed happy his 'uncle' was back, a new father figure, perhaps one that could guide him better than Jason and his mother. Helena was many things, but she was still a woman and a mother, some things a boy can only learn from a man.
"Not anyone." dick corrected, he had seen people stand by as hapless spectators while crimes occurred right infront of them. "Not many people would have done what you did. Lept into the unknown, not knowing where it was going to take you. You shouldn't sell yourself short, you put your life at risk for someone else's; that's a hero in my books as far as I'm concerned."
"Awestruck?" Dick asked with a laugh, it would be the first time anyone had told him they were awestruck by his presence. But then, he'd grown up in a world full of Batman's and Superman's... Dick had never seen himself as being on their 'level'. The truth was that there were few men in the superheroing community that were as respected as Dick Grayson, Nightwing. He'd worked with nearly everyone over the years and was even a core member in the Justice League. He successful out grew Bruce's shadow and became a notable hero in his own right, in many ways, perhaps even more so than Bruce.
"Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, it's just, well, nobody's ever said anything like that to me before. Maybe I'm just used to being the one whose awestruck."
~~
“For what it’s worth I’m glad you’re here.” She gave him that smile again then glanced down to her hands, fingers picking at the nails she’d just chewed to hell and back. “I don’t know if Damien would ever say it himself but he needs you. When I met him in Paris he was… well he was pretty lost. I think I helped him, or at least I like to think I did. Made enough of an impression for him to give me a job at least. He was pretty beat up over his mother’s death, and other things but I didn’t know what those were back then. I think he really found his focus in Paris.”
She blushed at him, ducking her head to hide behind a fall of wavy blond hair. It was a very girlish action and made her look like a teenager again rather than the young woman she really was. “I’ve always liked helping people, just never like that before. It really does make me happy to see you sitting here now. “
“I read up on you after we got you settled in. I hope you don’t mind. I was curious. You’ve been through a lot of changes through the years, it’s pretty fascinating. All of them were but I think I’m partial to you seeing as I’m your white knight.” She teased him, her good natured smile slipping easily back onto her face.
“You deserve it. You’ve been through so much.” She paused a moment, taking a deep breath. “I have this weird theory that we all have this magnetic pull inside us. It’s what drives us to certain people in our lives. We’re pulled together because of it. It’s where chance meetings come from, where the strange urge to go somewhere for no reason at all comes from. Maybe you’re the pull that everyone here needs, maybe you’re just so strong that J’onn knew that the future had so much in store for you.”
She laughed at herself then. “Sorry, I’m a nerd. I come up with weird theories all the time. My parents were very free love and mind freeing drugs. I have a very strange outlook on live because of it.”