milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's been a busy day for Tess. Today Lettie is six months old, a milestone Tess is thrilled to have reached with baby still intact. Since it's not an actual birthday, she had scaled back the celebration and merely invited a few friends over to chat and reconnect.

Naturally, Lois and Clark were there and it was strange to see Lois so interested in Lettie. Lois is not a baby person. But then Clark had asked for her help and the pieces fit into place. She said she'd have to think about - and work on - it, as the request was not something she's sure she can pull off.

But she does have one idea.

At the moment, Tess is curled up in an armchair holding an odd looking crystal, sleek and smooth, with a mirror finish. She doesn't look pleased.

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"Who's the fairest of them all, then?" Dick asks conversationally, from where he's crouching on the bar trapeze ready to jump down. "Is it you?"

"I don't think so." She smiles up at him. "I see you've been busy."

"Yep."

He grins at her, and pushes himself off the bar to land lightly on the floor near her, from where he flops backwards into another armchair.

"Much better up there now. Somewhere that's mine, you know?"

She nods.

"Had any company up there yet?"

He shakes his head. "Not on the trapeze. A flyer came up for a chat, but I don't know that there's many aerialists around. I'm locking it up when I'm not up there - don't want anyone who's not trained having an accident."

Safety first, in all things.

"That's a good idea."

Tess also believes safety is important. Just not her own.

"You're about fourteen, right?"

"Thirteen," says Dick. "Last month."

For him, not for Milliways.

"You're so young."

She sighs, remembering herself at 13.

"You're very careful, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah."

His smile fixes itself, his legs unconsciously drawing up to cross themselves in front of him.

"I know what I'm doing."

And he knows what happens to trapeze artists who are less than careful.

"You can know all you like, but you need to be extra careful."

She looks him over with a small frown.

"You're by yourself, aren't you."

"Yeah," Dick says, bluntly.

He is. He's by himself. Because Bruce doesn't want him and because his parents died because of a faulty trapeze rope.

So he's careful.

Okay, she obviously hit a nerve.

"I've been on my own since I was 15."

"Harvard, right?"

It's... not quite the same.

"Harvard was a place to go. It wasn't really the reason I left."

It's a little more similar than he might think.

"My mom died when I was little. I don't even remember her. And my dad... He wan't a real dad. So when Harvard came along, I left."

"Okay."

Dick, holding his ankles, uncrosses his legs but only to place his soles together and press his knees wide against the inside of his elbows. He tilts his head, waiting to see where she's going with this.

"So I know what it's like to be lonely and on your own at a young age."

"And trapeze safety?" he asks, circling right back around to the thing she started with.

"What?"

She looks at him confused.

"Well, yes you have to be careful on that, but you also have to be careful in life."

"Like how?" Dick says, because while it's fine that she wans't specifically accusing him of being careless about the trapeze, it still felt like an out of the blue thing to bring up.

"You have to know who to trust, who your real friends are. You have to be vigilant to not be taken advantage of."

She's a mother and with Lettie's milestone birthday, she's thinking a lot about the future.

She also remembers another boy, who was at Dick's age once. She was basically his mother, too.

"Okay."

Dick narrows his eyes slightly, tilts his head. "Why d'you think I'm not?"

"I don't think you're not. It just... bears repeating."

She offers a half smile.

"I'm in full on mom mode today."

The thing is though, she's not his Mom and it's tiring to have to fend this off.

He lets it drop though. "Something to do with that?" he asks, nodding at the crystal in her hands.

"Oh this?"

She holds it up.

"Very tangentially. It's a mirror box. It moves people to a different universe."

"Like - going through the door here?"

"Something like that."

She nods.

"It only goes to one place, too."

"Is it a good universe?" Dick asks, as if that's an easy question to answer.

"I actually haven't been there, but I hear it's different in some not so good ways."

"Like what?"

"I'm dead, for one."

She doesn't seem overly affected by it.

"And Superman is a bit out of control."

Dick frowns, partly at dead Tess, but mostly at... "Out of control how?"

"He pretty much does what he wants and if someone gets in his way, he takes care of them."

Dick... stares.

"Superman??"

Superman wouldn't.

Superman? No, she remembers.

"Ultraman is what he calls himself."

"But," protests Dick, slightly confused. "He's not like that, he just isn't."

But there's something nagging at the back of his mind, something very persistent that he doesn't know how to shut off: Bruce has a plan for this.

"I'm afraid he is. Not all universes are full of good guys."

"What about Batman?"

He's always got a plan.

"I don't know."

She muses on that for a moment.

"I only know one Batman."

"How many are you supposed to know?"

"If I'd been to multiple universes I could know many."

But she hasn't.

"And really, any universe only needs one Batman."

Dick gives a slight smirk. Obviously that's true, even if they're not talking, he's still the closest thing Dick's had to a father i the last year.

"I mean, in that universe," he nods at the crystal. "If Superman goes bad, Batman would be able to help."

"I think you're right."

Bruce would be there in her world, to.

Course he is.

"So," says Dick, a little less insular now, "what are you planning with it now?"

"I'm not sure."

She says this honestly, with a small sigh.

"I may go there to pick something up to bring it back to my world."

Dick tilts his head.

"What something?"

Well he wasn't going to let her stay this vague.

She hesitates for a moment, wondering whether she should tell him or not.

"Sorry, kiddo. That's classified. But it may be able to help two people."

Well, it's not like they don't both have secrets.

Dick leans back in his chair, stretching his arms out above his head like they're tired from being still so long.

"Hope you figue it out then," he says.

"Thanks."

She gives him another smile.

"Enjoy your rafters."

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