fifty frenchmen can't be wrong (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
some_stars) wrote2005-11-30 05:27 pm
some_stars) wrote2005-11-30 05:27 pm
Commentary: "Someone you're not," by Te
Original story here.
Oh...this story. Man. This is the story that made me want to do commentary tracks, because there's so much to SAY. I glommed onto this story as soon as she posted it and I have never un-glommed, which struck me as odd for a while. Te's written several stories that are longer and broader in their concern, but this one just curls up in my brain like a dark little fractal whenever I read it.
He'd never looked right in the suit.
Part of it is the fact that Dick isn't sure if anyone (ever)
could, because Robin is --
No. No, no --
*
Stories with 'unconventional' formatting or narrative almost always make me cranky, because usually people affect highly noticeable styles to distract from a lack of content. But the parallel structure works so well here, because it is a structure, not just a device. --more on this as it becomes evident.
Once, Kory had told him about her people. About the
Gordanians, and the wars they'd had amongst
themselves before -- the only word for it is
"Holocaust."
She'd said 'when you love, you give yourself. Otherwise
it isn't love at all. You give of yourself to this one, and
to that one, and then, when they die, a part of you
will always be missing. Until you take it *back* from
the one who'd stolen your love.'
He'd tried to explain to her that it didn't work that way.
That he'd gotten nothing back from Zucco of his
parents, and that he never would. That he'd already
*had* everything of them he ever could, and that he'd
ever needed.
He loves Kory, even when her eyes are greenly opaque
and (alien) strange.
Dick in this story is so precisely located in time. This is the post-DitF Dick, the late-eighties Dick, and the differences are subtle enough--especially with the confused constantly-shifting nature of comics canon--that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what they are, but he feels exactly as transitional--unsettled--as he should be, here.
There are pieces of him missing now.
*
"Okay, *fine*. You don't want to spar, you don't
want to patrol with me. So let's just sit here and
fucking *glare* --"
"Watch your language, kid, or --"
"You'll wash out my mouth? Please."
*
The angel is only wrong until you look closely. Until you
shift, a little to the side, and see the hardness of its
mouth. Or... maybe it's not 'hardness.'
It's *stone*, after all, and it's not like... it's not.
Another device that's usually annoying, and one which I am highly guilty of, the unfinished sentence is almost always gratuitous. Most of the time it's used when the writer can't figure out the end of the sentence, but when it's done right--when the character can't, or won't let themselves, know that last word, it's visceral and jagged in a meaningful way. This whole story, to me, is about Dick circling and circling around what he can't say and won't know, and finally finding only emptiness at the center of the spiral.
There's a set to the angel's mouth that has nothing to
do with sadness, or calm, or resignation.
It's something that keeps making him stare at its -- her?
his? -- feet. Looking for the movement. For the --
*
"I *get* it. Jesus, Nightwing. You'd think I didn't
used to *do* Three-Card Monte on the corners."
"No, I just wouldn't have thought you'd be any *good*
at it, kid."
Jason's eyes are wide, obvious behind the mask, and his
mouth hangs open. He looks -- he looks like Dick had
*slapped* him.
Only a slap probably would've -- "Hell. Jason --"
The blown-out breath sends garlic and cumin at Dick's
face, and then Jason stumbles and laughs and -- "Aw,
you *bitch*."
*
For the tell. There's no tell, not really. It's just a statue,
on a grave.
The sections are connected, but not blatantly. The connections seem incidental, at first, or not there at all, but when they slide into place they mean much more than something simple and linear would. Like the next section--
There's nothing to smell but dirt and grass and -- God,
roses. Red roses for Bruce's parents, red roses for his --
for Jason Todd.
When Dick was young, the manor was often filled with
roses. It smelled like the expensive version of Ample
Annie's trailer. When he'd explained that to Alfred --
carefully, very carefully -- Alfred had done a lot of
blinking.
And cleared his throat.
He remembers being young enough not to realize that
was the equivalent of Alfred laughing so hard he was
crying, and he remembers trying to --
*
"Aw, man, no, no, I didn't mean it like --"
"How *did* you mean it?" No one, no one gives him
*headaches* like this... this fucking *kid*.
Hands in the air and not backing off -- not really. Just...
he looks like he wants to.
He shouldn't find it so satisfying. "Well?"
"Look, I'm just saying -- maybe Bruce freaked, you
know? I *know* you know, you lived with him for six
*years* --"
It was supposed to be forever.
"... and, anyway, who knows? I'm gonna need some
place to shack up whenever *I* get shot and, gee,
look, this freaking circus suit doesn't have enough
*armor*."
He doesn't have to look at Jason.
"Aw... *fuck*. I didn't --"
*
He remembers trying to backtrack, and Alfred clearing
his throat again, and steering them away from what
he'll always think of as the 'breakfast room,' because
Lower Dining Room just seems too... too.
Away from all the roses.
And Alfred had said something about the importance
of memory, and how, perhaps, roses were the first
*good* thing Bruce had remembered smelling after...
After.
Which had made a lot of sense -- enough, at least,
that it had felt okay to leave Alfred to his duties -- Dick
had *never* been able to think of them as 'chores' --
and go back to thinking on his own.
It hadn't made *enough* sense. Because while good
smells (sawdust, cotton candy, teddy after mommy
washed him, by hand, with the soap she only used
on *herself* when they stopped somewhere with a
cheap motel and a bathtub) were important, there was
a *reason* he'd asked Bruce to stop wearing the
cologne he'd been wearing when he took Dick home.
And he had.
So... hadn't Bruce understood? A little?
The surface connection is the circus, and how Dick's old life is filtered and warped through Bruce, and beneath that--Bruce holding on to things he shouldn't, even things that are poisonous. "The importance of memory" and their three approaches to it.
He remembers when he hadn't ever asked questions like
that. When he hadn't had to.
*
"When did you get *that*?" The words are out
before he can stop, before he can *think*, and it's like
the world is frozen around them.
Colder than it ever could be on a Gotham September
night, and worse when Jason freezes, too.
With his hand over the strange (it isn't, you know it
isn't) bruise on his thigh. "Uh --"
"Never mind," he says. "Just..."
"Yeah."
*
Dick asking Jason questions is this story--it's all one awful unanswered question. The themes start small and weave themselves together gradually.
"You never looked right in the suit," he says, rolling the
words through his mouth just as if it's something he
*had* let himself think about saying aloud.
The angel doesn't fly, the roses put him in a trailer with
the woman who gave the third-best (Mommy, Daddy)
hugs in the universe, except when she was entertaining,
and then there were swats. There's only a little grass,
so far.
"You made it look *wrong*. Like it was something... I
*flew* in that suit, Jason. I -- I --"
*
"Okay, I'm asking for it, I *know* I am, but..."
Robin made a face whenever he smells alcohol.
Nightwing... Nightwing kind of likes Guinness.
Sometimes. "I'm mellow tonight, kid, go ahead and
ask."
Except that Jason doesn't. He tugs the cape a little to
make sitting in the curvy Tower chairs more
comfortable, and then he just... looks.
"Or *I* could ask," he says, and smiling feels so good
on his face (too long, too --) that he does it a little
too much.
"Well, I was *gonna* ask about the boots --"
"*Showmanship*, kiddo --"
"But now I just want to know what's got you feeling
this good."
No one had ever asked him that question before. No
one had ever had to, really.
"Fuck. Yeah. I'm just going to stop pushing my luck,
I think."
"Are you?"
*
"Except. Except for the mask. You got that right,
sometimes. When you had the lenses up and you backed
off a step or two, you might as well have been *Bruce*."
Instead of Dick?
It's so easy to be heavy-handed about the costume/identity symbolism--god knows the comics are, most of the time--but it's more complicated than it looks, I think. Dick was Robin before he met Batman--possibly before there was a Batman, depending on which insanely fucked-up timeline one subscribes to. Batman and Bruce absorb and reform his previous life and leave him without any center or foundation--and then when he stops being Robin, and someone else starts--how can he know who he is at all? I love the line about alcohol, because it's so helplessly prosaic, that even tiny everyday things like what tastes good are defined by the suit.
And of course, he also has to figure out who Jason is, this kid, this intruder--who is he to Dick? Who is he to Bruce?
It's windy enough that the clouds pass over the sun and
back again what feels like every few seconds. It's longer
than that. His time-sense has been messed-up for days.
Raven hangover.
"She didn't take everything, you know. She said she
couldn't, but I know her, I think. She knew I wouldn't
*want* her to."
Excellent use of a weird creepy passing moment that's probably been long-forgotten by the people who actually make canon. They really have no idea what they're doing sometimes, do they? And whatever it meant in the original context, it fits so perfectly here in the setting of Dick searching desperately for something to form himself around.
*
"No, I'm *not* a fucking bigot, Nightwing --"
"You *sound* like one --"
"There are aliens, and there are metahumans, and then
there's *Raven*."
"She didn't *ask* for her powers, kid, and I think you
need to step *back* and think about what --"
"*I* didn't ask her to... to... what the hell did she *do*
to me, Dick? I can't -- I can't feel --"
Despite the fact that these are comics characters, I can still hear the visceral horror in Jason's voice there.
Oh. Fuck. "It's temporary. I swear. It's just -- she
didn't -- do you know what you were thinking about?"
"Yes, I fucking know what I was *thinking* about, you
sonofabitch, and so do *you*."
*
"See," he says, and crouches, brushing Bruce's roses
aside. "See, it's like this. What I couldn't figure out
how to say before. What I was... anyway.
God, I just have to SQUEE sometimes. Because there's so much there--Dick finally able to be direct for a few seconds, brushing away the roses--that's the kind of thing that would be way too anvilly if you focused on it, but dropped lightly on the side there it's just--just as little thought as Dick would ever give something like that.
She knew
you were messed-up about... about that night, and she
knew you didn't ever want us to be... to be..."
The sound of his own voice is choked, breathless. Not
yet. Not... just not yet.
"*I* didn't understand it. How much you wanted us to
be *okay*. I didn't want to, because then I would've
had to deal with how much I *didn't* want that, and
also maybe think about..."
It's so -- so *fucking* quiet out here. Rich people
graveyards, without even traffic noise to remind you
that everyone in the world isn't dead, save for you.
Jason would've hated it. Jason --
And again, trying and trying to get at something, stabbing at it from different directions and recoiling when he gets too close. It works so well because there is some unseen thing that he's reaching towards, and the writer isn't just trying to sound like s/he knows more than s/he does.
"God, why can't I get you *out* of here, kid? Why can't
I just -- I *know* I could make this better. That you --
I could -- you liked the circus, when I took you. Even if
you liked the parts I kept trying to hide best --"
*
"Holy *shit*, you were all a bunch of *crooks*!"
"I... not *all* of us."
Jason smiles so broadly his face scrunches up like a
child's. It's shocking enough that the punch might as
well come from nowhere, and Dick has to work not
to use any of his more obvious moves in reflex.
"*Watch* it --"
"Admit it. You totally fleeced the marks whenever you
could."
"I... the word is 'rubes,' kid."
"Oh, dude, I think I love you."
*
One answer to "who is Jason to Dick?" is that he's there to do this. To see things as they are, and not let Dick hide things--it's not what he does for Bruce, he's not Dick's id or his self or anything like that. He's...well, he's Dick's Robin, as different from Dick as Dick is different from Bruce.
"I'm losing the thread. Again. I..." Dick laughs to himself,
and moves to kneel. His suit pants are going to be
ruined, but he hates this suit.
He hates *suits*, because even the *best* ones make
him feel like he's being wrapped up tight in something
conservative and bland and meaningless.
Kneeling like this feels better, for a lot of reasons.
"Okay, I'm just going to say it, and I'm not going to
try to be *coherent*, because it's not like you couldn't
mess me up when you were here, right?
"This is better."
It was about two rereads ago that I finally realized this story is all about communication. The utter failure of, the desperate need for, the fact that Dick--for all that he's the touchy-feely-huggy one--is unable to ask Jason questions until he's dead and can't answer them.
Dick pulls some of the thorns off Bruce's roses, but he
doesn't toss them *away* from the grave.
Again, one of those metaphors that--if the story emphasized it as much as I do here--would be unbearably annoying, but just slides right through--Dick does notice it here, but for a different reason than I do--
"You probably loved 'em. Did you like the smell? Did
you know why Bruce did?"
If he stays here long enough, the grass will grow in
a gentle, perfectly maintained curve over the grave
everywhere he isn't. He digs in a little more with his
knees.
To him it's about something that connected him to Bruce, now belonging to Jason. Like everything else he used to have.
"I didn't say anything to you, or to Raven, because
then I'd have to think about it. It wasn't just a huge
mistake -- I'm a *cheap* drunk, Jason -- but. You
thought it would make things okay. With us."
*
"Like -- like this?"
"Yeah, kiddo, yeah just -- ah, fuck, your hands --"
"Heh. You didn't come around when I was still
blistering and bleeding --"
"Should've -- taken it easy on the weights --"
"Aw, shut up, dude, the weights are where I
*shine*."
Even in the dark, maybe especially in the dark, Dick
can trace all the scars on Jason's knuckles. All the
cuts and slashes that even the gauntlets won't
protect you from.
If you're a brawler.
"Jason --"
"Yeah, show me..."
*
"And, see, it kills me, kiddo. How could you *ever*
think *that* would make it okay? With *me*?"
That's the line that sits in my head and rocks back and forth making little cooing noises. It's not just the essential tragedy of Dick's life, but the whole damn Bat-clan. They know themselves just well enough to think they know themselves, and they can't change anything. Dick still has Helena and Babs ahead of him at this point, plus whatever other non-canon entanglements you want to add. Even if he knows better, he still believes *that* can make it okay.
The angel isn't looking at him.
"How could you think anything *would*? How --
how could you be so fucking *stupid*?"
All the questions, all of them. Where did Bruce *get*
this kid? How could he ever think -- why is he in
my *clothes*? Why wasn't I *good* enough?
Why did you --
He can't ask Bruce, because Bruce might answer him. (Granted, it's not likely, but still.) So he has to ask everything of Jason, who couldn't answer most of these even if he was alive. The story is about Dick and Jason, but who they are has to exist as a function of who they are to Bruce, so they can't ever be comfortable with each other. --I feel that I am not making sense anymore, but I TOLD you this story did THINGS to me.
"Jason, Jason, just please tell me you aren't *here*.
That this isn't -- this whole thing is so -- "
*
"Look, just tell me what the fuck that *was*."
His shoulders are as broad as Dick's will ever be. His
eyes are blue and impossibly wide. He smells like
the cologne Bruce started wearing after he'd stopped
wearing --
The sections start to get increasingly fragmentary closer to the end, as Dick starts to actually approach some kind of answer--as he gets closer to the center of the spiral of memories, more and more unable to name them. The use of Raven's brainsucking powers is so perfect, because he still has his memories and his feelings, but he can't let himself remember them or feel them.
Also, I think this is a pivot point, where the Jason in Dick's head...wakes up, as it were, and starts asking him questions, getting louder and louder.
"Yeah, I thought so." The laugh is sharp and mean
and real. "Remind me to keep you away from the
demon liquor, man. You can't *handle* it."
"Jason --"
"You never call me Robin, unless you have to. Ever
think about why?"
You stupid, ignorant little *prick*. How -- "Shouldn't
you be in Gotham, right now?"
Jason spreads his hands. "Maybe somewhere,
anyway."
*
And I love that Jason is so utterly real in this story. He's a person, no matter how much Bruce--and Dick--see him, or try to see him, as a symbol.
Dick has dirt beneath his fingernails, but his calluses
are a little too hard for the thorns to make him bleed.
"She took it away so we could try again, Robin."
This is another line that just kills me, because this is Dick trying--calling him Robin, even, and saying things much much too late.
The scratches are white on his skin, save where
they're smudged with dirt.
"She let me keep it, because she knew how upset you
were when you figured out what she'd done. And she
knew you were dead, and that this -- this --"
Time -- real time -- hits like a padded brick. It's
getting dark, and it's windier than it was before. It's
worse, because the cold and dark feel like it should
actually mean something, this time.
"Yeah, even after *years* in Gotham, kid. Robin."
It doesn't mean anything at all, of course, save that
he's feeling everything the way he should, again. All
of it.
"I think she's sorry, for what it's worth. I."
*
"You didn't have to do this, Dick."
The cocoa isn't as good as Alfred's, and the snow is
from a machine. "Nope, I didn't."
"I mean -- you -- look, it doesn't *matter* that Bruce
wants us to be brothers. We both know it doesn't
work like that."
Dick takes another sip and watches the glare of the
sun on the snow until his eyes start to sting.
SKIING. Oh man, that one little photograph has led to so much snowsuited joy.
"Dick --"
"Just drink the fucking cocoa." He can feel that
eye-roll from over here.
"You think he's right. You think if you keep trying --"
"I don't think *anything*, Jason."
Jason blows on his cocoa -- loudly. It's pretty much a
somewhat-more-subtle-than-usual raspberry.
And then it's an actual laugh, loud and careless and --
Dick can feel the eyes of the other skiers on them.
"What is it?"
"You don't think because it hurts. *I* don't think
because there's no point. I'm just..." The laughter
fades, and Jason leans back against the couch beside
him, slugging back half his cocoa like a shot. "It's just
funny, is all."
"If you say so."
*
This scene is what the story hinges on, I think, more than the sex. I can't really pinpoint exactly what's happening, but it's a micro-version of the whole story in some ways. Jason interrogates him just as Dick will himself, later, and comes to the same non-answer. This makes me think of Dixon's Jason-as-Dick's-creepy-spirit-guide. And this is where the two parallel narratives start to collapse into each other, the present-thread overtaken by memory.
His collar is wet, and cold, and uncomfortable. It's
better when he opens it, even though it's also colder.
He could unbutton this shirt nearly to the waist and
his Nightwing suit wouldn't show. Maybe he should --
*
"Look, it's not like you *don't* have a sweet rack,
Dick. Because you *do*."
*
Should --
*
"It was just a bruise, you know. I was -- I was on
the beam. Trying to. There's a reason why I don't do
any acrobatics, man. I couldn't jerk off for a week."
"The others --"
"We're not *talking* about the others. Fuck, God, can
we at least agree that if there's *anything* we
shouldn't talk about, it's *Bruce*?"
*
Dick sighs, and stands, and doesn't even try to brush
off his knees. "No, kiddo. We really, really can't."
*
And now the present and the memory are actively interacting with each other, with Jason asking questions of Dick (except of course, at the same time, Dick's asking them of himself) more and more aggressively:
"Are you some kind of *masochist*?"
*
He punches the angel, and lets the jar vibrate all the
way up his arm, and grits his teeth.
*
"What do you *want* from me?"
*
"I never wanted anything, Robin. Not from you."
"Fucking *obviously* --"
"I just. I just think we maybe could've done this
better. At the very least, I would've made you a better
suit."
"Your taste *scares* me."
"Because..."
Because he'd never looked right. In the suit.
*
And finally collapsed into one story, with present and past directly connected instead of tenuously. Dick's answer to Jason's last question--only question, really--is both truth and lie, because of course his relationship with Jason was all about his relationship with Bruce, but Dick is here asking the question of himself because he knows there's an answer--he just can't make himself know it. He circles back to the suit, the symbol that obscures the person beneath it and any answers they could have.
He finds his bike right where he'd left it, and uses the
jacket to scrub off a gift from a pigeon that would
probably die of mortification if it ever tried to take a
crap over *that* graveyard.
Then he balls up the jacket and tosses it in a
wastebasket.
Then he goes back to New York.
end.
It would have been terribly easy and simple to end the story on the nice circular last line, but this is better. It isn't circular for Dick--he doesn't keep asking. He closes the door on his not-answer, throws away the suit-jacket that feels so wrong on him, and goes back to being who he was, essentially unchanged. The tragedy is how close he comes to being able to change, to understanding--how hard he and Jason both try to speak to each other, and ultimately fail to say anything.
In conclusion: OMGOMGOMGSQUEE.
Oh...this story. Man. This is the story that made me want to do commentary tracks, because there's so much to SAY. I glommed onto this story as soon as she posted it and I have never un-glommed, which struck me as odd for a while. Te's written several stories that are longer and broader in their concern, but this one just curls up in my brain like a dark little fractal whenever I read it.
He'd never looked right in the suit.
Part of it is the fact that Dick isn't sure if anyone (ever)
could, because Robin is --
No. No, no --
*
Stories with 'unconventional' formatting or narrative almost always make me cranky, because usually people affect highly noticeable styles to distract from a lack of content. But the parallel structure works so well here, because it is a structure, not just a device. --more on this as it becomes evident.
Once, Kory had told him about her people. About the
Gordanians, and the wars they'd had amongst
themselves before -- the only word for it is
"Holocaust."
She'd said 'when you love, you give yourself. Otherwise
it isn't love at all. You give of yourself to this one, and
to that one, and then, when they die, a part of you
will always be missing. Until you take it *back* from
the one who'd stolen your love.'
He'd tried to explain to her that it didn't work that way.
That he'd gotten nothing back from Zucco of his
parents, and that he never would. That he'd already
*had* everything of them he ever could, and that he'd
ever needed.
He loves Kory, even when her eyes are greenly opaque
and (alien) strange.
Dick in this story is so precisely located in time. This is the post-DitF Dick, the late-eighties Dick, and the differences are subtle enough--especially with the confused constantly-shifting nature of comics canon--that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what they are, but he feels exactly as transitional--unsettled--as he should be, here.
There are pieces of him missing now.
*
"Okay, *fine*. You don't want to spar, you don't
want to patrol with me. So let's just sit here and
fucking *glare* --"
"Watch your language, kid, or --"
"You'll wash out my mouth? Please."
*
The angel is only wrong until you look closely. Until you
shift, a little to the side, and see the hardness of its
mouth. Or... maybe it's not 'hardness.'
It's *stone*, after all, and it's not like... it's not.
Another device that's usually annoying, and one which I am highly guilty of, the unfinished sentence is almost always gratuitous. Most of the time it's used when the writer can't figure out the end of the sentence, but when it's done right--when the character can't, or won't let themselves, know that last word, it's visceral and jagged in a meaningful way. This whole story, to me, is about Dick circling and circling around what he can't say and won't know, and finally finding only emptiness at the center of the spiral.
There's a set to the angel's mouth that has nothing to
do with sadness, or calm, or resignation.
It's something that keeps making him stare at its -- her?
his? -- feet. Looking for the movement. For the --
*
"I *get* it. Jesus, Nightwing. You'd think I didn't
used to *do* Three-Card Monte on the corners."
"No, I just wouldn't have thought you'd be any *good*
at it, kid."
Jason's eyes are wide, obvious behind the mask, and his
mouth hangs open. He looks -- he looks like Dick had
*slapped* him.
Only a slap probably would've -- "Hell. Jason --"
The blown-out breath sends garlic and cumin at Dick's
face, and then Jason stumbles and laughs and -- "Aw,
you *bitch*."
*
For the tell. There's no tell, not really. It's just a statue,
on a grave.
The sections are connected, but not blatantly. The connections seem incidental, at first, or not there at all, but when they slide into place they mean much more than something simple and linear would. Like the next section--
There's nothing to smell but dirt and grass and -- God,
roses. Red roses for Bruce's parents, red roses for his --
for Jason Todd.
When Dick was young, the manor was often filled with
roses. It smelled like the expensive version of Ample
Annie's trailer. When he'd explained that to Alfred --
carefully, very carefully -- Alfred had done a lot of
blinking.
And cleared his throat.
He remembers being young enough not to realize that
was the equivalent of Alfred laughing so hard he was
crying, and he remembers trying to --
*
"Aw, man, no, no, I didn't mean it like --"
"How *did* you mean it?" No one, no one gives him
*headaches* like this... this fucking *kid*.
Hands in the air and not backing off -- not really. Just...
he looks like he wants to.
He shouldn't find it so satisfying. "Well?"
"Look, I'm just saying -- maybe Bruce freaked, you
know? I *know* you know, you lived with him for six
*years* --"
It was supposed to be forever.
"... and, anyway, who knows? I'm gonna need some
place to shack up whenever *I* get shot and, gee,
look, this freaking circus suit doesn't have enough
*armor*."
He doesn't have to look at Jason.
"Aw... *fuck*. I didn't --"
*
He remembers trying to backtrack, and Alfred clearing
his throat again, and steering them away from what
he'll always think of as the 'breakfast room,' because
Lower Dining Room just seems too... too.
Away from all the roses.
And Alfred had said something about the importance
of memory, and how, perhaps, roses were the first
*good* thing Bruce had remembered smelling after...
After.
Which had made a lot of sense -- enough, at least,
that it had felt okay to leave Alfred to his duties -- Dick
had *never* been able to think of them as 'chores' --
and go back to thinking on his own.
It hadn't made *enough* sense. Because while good
smells (sawdust, cotton candy, teddy after mommy
washed him, by hand, with the soap she only used
on *herself* when they stopped somewhere with a
cheap motel and a bathtub) were important, there was
a *reason* he'd asked Bruce to stop wearing the
cologne he'd been wearing when he took Dick home.
And he had.
So... hadn't Bruce understood? A little?
The surface connection is the circus, and how Dick's old life is filtered and warped through Bruce, and beneath that--Bruce holding on to things he shouldn't, even things that are poisonous. "The importance of memory" and their three approaches to it.
He remembers when he hadn't ever asked questions like
that. When he hadn't had to.
*
"When did you get *that*?" The words are out
before he can stop, before he can *think*, and it's like
the world is frozen around them.
Colder than it ever could be on a Gotham September
night, and worse when Jason freezes, too.
With his hand over the strange (it isn't, you know it
isn't) bruise on his thigh. "Uh --"
"Never mind," he says. "Just..."
"Yeah."
*
Dick asking Jason questions is this story--it's all one awful unanswered question. The themes start small and weave themselves together gradually.
"You never looked right in the suit," he says, rolling the
words through his mouth just as if it's something he
*had* let himself think about saying aloud.
The angel doesn't fly, the roses put him in a trailer with
the woman who gave the third-best (Mommy, Daddy)
hugs in the universe, except when she was entertaining,
and then there were swats. There's only a little grass,
so far.
"You made it look *wrong*. Like it was something... I
*flew* in that suit, Jason. I -- I --"
*
"Okay, I'm asking for it, I *know* I am, but..."
Robin made a face whenever he smells alcohol.
Nightwing... Nightwing kind of likes Guinness.
Sometimes. "I'm mellow tonight, kid, go ahead and
ask."
Except that Jason doesn't. He tugs the cape a little to
make sitting in the curvy Tower chairs more
comfortable, and then he just... looks.
"Or *I* could ask," he says, and smiling feels so good
on his face (too long, too --) that he does it a little
too much.
"Well, I was *gonna* ask about the boots --"
"*Showmanship*, kiddo --"
"But now I just want to know what's got you feeling
this good."
No one had ever asked him that question before. No
one had ever had to, really.
"Fuck. Yeah. I'm just going to stop pushing my luck,
I think."
"Are you?"
*
"Except. Except for the mask. You got that right,
sometimes. When you had the lenses up and you backed
off a step or two, you might as well have been *Bruce*."
Instead of Dick?
It's so easy to be heavy-handed about the costume/identity symbolism--god knows the comics are, most of the time--but it's more complicated than it looks, I think. Dick was Robin before he met Batman--possibly before there was a Batman, depending on which insanely fucked-up timeline one subscribes to. Batman and Bruce absorb and reform his previous life and leave him without any center or foundation--and then when he stops being Robin, and someone else starts--how can he know who he is at all? I love the line about alcohol, because it's so helplessly prosaic, that even tiny everyday things like what tastes good are defined by the suit.
And of course, he also has to figure out who Jason is, this kid, this intruder--who is he to Dick? Who is he to Bruce?
It's windy enough that the clouds pass over the sun and
back again what feels like every few seconds. It's longer
than that. His time-sense has been messed-up for days.
Raven hangover.
"She didn't take everything, you know. She said she
couldn't, but I know her, I think. She knew I wouldn't
*want* her to."
Excellent use of a weird creepy passing moment that's probably been long-forgotten by the people who actually make canon. They really have no idea what they're doing sometimes, do they? And whatever it meant in the original context, it fits so perfectly here in the setting of Dick searching desperately for something to form himself around.
*
"No, I'm *not* a fucking bigot, Nightwing --"
"You *sound* like one --"
"There are aliens, and there are metahumans, and then
there's *Raven*."
"She didn't *ask* for her powers, kid, and I think you
need to step *back* and think about what --"
"*I* didn't ask her to... to... what the hell did she *do*
to me, Dick? I can't -- I can't feel --"
Despite the fact that these are comics characters, I can still hear the visceral horror in Jason's voice there.
Oh. Fuck. "It's temporary. I swear. It's just -- she
didn't -- do you know what you were thinking about?"
"Yes, I fucking know what I was *thinking* about, you
sonofabitch, and so do *you*."
*
"See," he says, and crouches, brushing Bruce's roses
aside. "See, it's like this. What I couldn't figure out
how to say before. What I was... anyway.
God, I just have to SQUEE sometimes. Because there's so much there--Dick finally able to be direct for a few seconds, brushing away the roses--that's the kind of thing that would be way too anvilly if you focused on it, but dropped lightly on the side there it's just--just as little thought as Dick would ever give something like that.
She knew
you were messed-up about... about that night, and she
knew you didn't ever want us to be... to be..."
The sound of his own voice is choked, breathless. Not
yet. Not... just not yet.
"*I* didn't understand it. How much you wanted us to
be *okay*. I didn't want to, because then I would've
had to deal with how much I *didn't* want that, and
also maybe think about..."
It's so -- so *fucking* quiet out here. Rich people
graveyards, without even traffic noise to remind you
that everyone in the world isn't dead, save for you.
Jason would've hated it. Jason --
And again, trying and trying to get at something, stabbing at it from different directions and recoiling when he gets too close. It works so well because there is some unseen thing that he's reaching towards, and the writer isn't just trying to sound like s/he knows more than s/he does.
"God, why can't I get you *out* of here, kid? Why can't
I just -- I *know* I could make this better. That you --
I could -- you liked the circus, when I took you. Even if
you liked the parts I kept trying to hide best --"
*
"Holy *shit*, you were all a bunch of *crooks*!"
"I... not *all* of us."
Jason smiles so broadly his face scrunches up like a
child's. It's shocking enough that the punch might as
well come from nowhere, and Dick has to work not
to use any of his more obvious moves in reflex.
"*Watch* it --"
"Admit it. You totally fleeced the marks whenever you
could."
"I... the word is 'rubes,' kid."
"Oh, dude, I think I love you."
*
One answer to "who is Jason to Dick?" is that he's there to do this. To see things as they are, and not let Dick hide things--it's not what he does for Bruce, he's not Dick's id or his self or anything like that. He's...well, he's Dick's Robin, as different from Dick as Dick is different from Bruce.
"I'm losing the thread. Again. I..." Dick laughs to himself,
and moves to kneel. His suit pants are going to be
ruined, but he hates this suit.
He hates *suits*, because even the *best* ones make
him feel like he's being wrapped up tight in something
conservative and bland and meaningless.
Kneeling like this feels better, for a lot of reasons.
"Okay, I'm just going to say it, and I'm not going to
try to be *coherent*, because it's not like you couldn't
mess me up when you were here, right?
"This is better."
It was about two rereads ago that I finally realized this story is all about communication. The utter failure of, the desperate need for, the fact that Dick--for all that he's the touchy-feely-huggy one--is unable to ask Jason questions until he's dead and can't answer them.
Dick pulls some of the thorns off Bruce's roses, but he
doesn't toss them *away* from the grave.
Again, one of those metaphors that--if the story emphasized it as much as I do here--would be unbearably annoying, but just slides right through--Dick does notice it here, but for a different reason than I do--
"You probably loved 'em. Did you like the smell? Did
you know why Bruce did?"
If he stays here long enough, the grass will grow in
a gentle, perfectly maintained curve over the grave
everywhere he isn't. He digs in a little more with his
knees.
To him it's about something that connected him to Bruce, now belonging to Jason. Like everything else he used to have.
"I didn't say anything to you, or to Raven, because
then I'd have to think about it. It wasn't just a huge
mistake -- I'm a *cheap* drunk, Jason -- but. You
thought it would make things okay. With us."
*
"Like -- like this?"
"Yeah, kiddo, yeah just -- ah, fuck, your hands --"
"Heh. You didn't come around when I was still
blistering and bleeding --"
"Should've -- taken it easy on the weights --"
"Aw, shut up, dude, the weights are where I
*shine*."
Even in the dark, maybe especially in the dark, Dick
can trace all the scars on Jason's knuckles. All the
cuts and slashes that even the gauntlets won't
protect you from.
If you're a brawler.
"Jason --"
"Yeah, show me..."
*
"And, see, it kills me, kiddo. How could you *ever*
think *that* would make it okay? With *me*?"
That's the line that sits in my head and rocks back and forth making little cooing noises. It's not just the essential tragedy of Dick's life, but the whole damn Bat-clan. They know themselves just well enough to think they know themselves, and they can't change anything. Dick still has Helena and Babs ahead of him at this point, plus whatever other non-canon entanglements you want to add. Even if he knows better, he still believes *that* can make it okay.
The angel isn't looking at him.
"How could you think anything *would*? How --
how could you be so fucking *stupid*?"
All the questions, all of them. Where did Bruce *get*
this kid? How could he ever think -- why is he in
my *clothes*? Why wasn't I *good* enough?
Why did you --
He can't ask Bruce, because Bruce might answer him. (Granted, it's not likely, but still.) So he has to ask everything of Jason, who couldn't answer most of these even if he was alive. The story is about Dick and Jason, but who they are has to exist as a function of who they are to Bruce, so they can't ever be comfortable with each other. --I feel that I am not making sense anymore, but I TOLD you this story did THINGS to me.
"Jason, Jason, just please tell me you aren't *here*.
That this isn't -- this whole thing is so -- "
*
"Look, just tell me what the fuck that *was*."
His shoulders are as broad as Dick's will ever be. His
eyes are blue and impossibly wide. He smells like
the cologne Bruce started wearing after he'd stopped
wearing --
The sections start to get increasingly fragmentary closer to the end, as Dick starts to actually approach some kind of answer--as he gets closer to the center of the spiral of memories, more and more unable to name them. The use of Raven's brainsucking powers is so perfect, because he still has his memories and his feelings, but he can't let himself remember them or feel them.
Also, I think this is a pivot point, where the Jason in Dick's head...wakes up, as it were, and starts asking him questions, getting louder and louder.
"Yeah, I thought so." The laugh is sharp and mean
and real. "Remind me to keep you away from the
demon liquor, man. You can't *handle* it."
"Jason --"
"You never call me Robin, unless you have to. Ever
think about why?"
You stupid, ignorant little *prick*. How -- "Shouldn't
you be in Gotham, right now?"
Jason spreads his hands. "Maybe somewhere,
anyway."
*
And I love that Jason is so utterly real in this story. He's a person, no matter how much Bruce--and Dick--see him, or try to see him, as a symbol.
Dick has dirt beneath his fingernails, but his calluses
are a little too hard for the thorns to make him bleed.
"She took it away so we could try again, Robin."
This is another line that just kills me, because this is Dick trying--calling him Robin, even, and saying things much much too late.
The scratches are white on his skin, save where
they're smudged with dirt.
"She let me keep it, because she knew how upset you
were when you figured out what she'd done. And she
knew you were dead, and that this -- this --"
Time -- real time -- hits like a padded brick. It's
getting dark, and it's windier than it was before. It's
worse, because the cold and dark feel like it should
actually mean something, this time.
"Yeah, even after *years* in Gotham, kid. Robin."
It doesn't mean anything at all, of course, save that
he's feeling everything the way he should, again. All
of it.
"I think she's sorry, for what it's worth. I."
*
"You didn't have to do this, Dick."
The cocoa isn't as good as Alfred's, and the snow is
from a machine. "Nope, I didn't."
"I mean -- you -- look, it doesn't *matter* that Bruce
wants us to be brothers. We both know it doesn't
work like that."
Dick takes another sip and watches the glare of the
sun on the snow until his eyes start to sting.
SKIING. Oh man, that one little photograph has led to so much snowsuited joy.
"Dick --"
"Just drink the fucking cocoa." He can feel that
eye-roll from over here.
"You think he's right. You think if you keep trying --"
"I don't think *anything*, Jason."
Jason blows on his cocoa -- loudly. It's pretty much a
somewhat-more-subtle-than-usual raspberry.
And then it's an actual laugh, loud and careless and --
Dick can feel the eyes of the other skiers on them.
"What is it?"
"You don't think because it hurts. *I* don't think
because there's no point. I'm just..." The laughter
fades, and Jason leans back against the couch beside
him, slugging back half his cocoa like a shot. "It's just
funny, is all."
"If you say so."
*
This scene is what the story hinges on, I think, more than the sex. I can't really pinpoint exactly what's happening, but it's a micro-version of the whole story in some ways. Jason interrogates him just as Dick will himself, later, and comes to the same non-answer. This makes me think of Dixon's Jason-as-Dick's-creepy-spirit-guide. And this is where the two parallel narratives start to collapse into each other, the present-thread overtaken by memory.
His collar is wet, and cold, and uncomfortable. It's
better when he opens it, even though it's also colder.
He could unbutton this shirt nearly to the waist and
his Nightwing suit wouldn't show. Maybe he should --
*
"Look, it's not like you *don't* have a sweet rack,
Dick. Because you *do*."
*
Should --
*
"It was just a bruise, you know. I was -- I was on
the beam. Trying to. There's a reason why I don't do
any acrobatics, man. I couldn't jerk off for a week."
"The others --"
"We're not *talking* about the others. Fuck, God, can
we at least agree that if there's *anything* we
shouldn't talk about, it's *Bruce*?"
*
Dick sighs, and stands, and doesn't even try to brush
off his knees. "No, kiddo. We really, really can't."
*
And now the present and the memory are actively interacting with each other, with Jason asking questions of Dick (except of course, at the same time, Dick's asking them of himself) more and more aggressively:
"Are you some kind of *masochist*?"
*
He punches the angel, and lets the jar vibrate all the
way up his arm, and grits his teeth.
*
"What do you *want* from me?"
*
"I never wanted anything, Robin. Not from you."
"Fucking *obviously* --"
"I just. I just think we maybe could've done this
better. At the very least, I would've made you a better
suit."
"Your taste *scares* me."
"Because..."
Because he'd never looked right. In the suit.
*
And finally collapsed into one story, with present and past directly connected instead of tenuously. Dick's answer to Jason's last question--only question, really--is both truth and lie, because of course his relationship with Jason was all about his relationship with Bruce, but Dick is here asking the question of himself because he knows there's an answer--he just can't make himself know it. He circles back to the suit, the symbol that obscures the person beneath it and any answers they could have.
He finds his bike right where he'd left it, and uses the
jacket to scrub off a gift from a pigeon that would
probably die of mortification if it ever tried to take a
crap over *that* graveyard.
Then he balls up the jacket and tosses it in a
wastebasket.
Then he goes back to New York.
end.
It would have been terribly easy and simple to end the story on the nice circular last line, but this is better. It isn't circular for Dick--he doesn't keep asking. He closes the door on his not-answer, throws away the suit-jacket that feels so wrong on him, and goes back to being who he was, essentially unchanged. The tragedy is how close he comes to being able to change, to understanding--how hard he and Jason both try to speak to each other, and ultimately fail to say anything.
In conclusion: OMGOMGOMGSQUEE.