my old man wonders where i've been

[batmantled]

WHO: Dick + The Ghost of Batdad and YOU
WHERE: everywhere
WHEN: all day the 17th
WARNINGS: possible violence, possible batangst
SUMMARY: Dick attempts to solve a mystery flanked by an unwelcome stalker.
FORMAT: anything!



option one: for people who know where the cave is!

Seventeen victims. Seventeen days so far in the month. All clean, sterile facts he can lay out like chess pieces. He passes an hour dismantling one of the comms; laying the components out one by one on the workbench while Bruce flits around the room, critiquing the layout, the tools, the car, and finally the stripped down version of the costume. He needs to solve this, and for once he needs to do it alone. Without Damian. Without Babs. Without anyone else involved who stands a chance to be hurt by this.

But it isn’t Bruce, and that means here in the cave he can tune it out like white noise. Shut it off, close it out, let the words Calendar Man’s programmed in roll off and away.

When the black gloved fist hits the table hard enough to scatter half the parts somehow it’s still enough of a surprise that he jumps. ]

You’re smarter than this.




option two: for anyone ever YES YOU TOO

Leaving the cave to shake down a locale for Calendar Man is inevitable. It’s an endpoint; a prize he needs his eye on now with their workspace an unlivable wreck of painfully visible frustration. He won’t lose that voice; not like this and not for long but for a few minutes he’s Robin again, making the rooftops his one by one like Bruce never can. Winning the argument only as long as he can stay out from underneath the solid weight of that shadow.

Comments

[incywincyhero]

Though he wasn't one of the seventeen victims, Calendar Man's latest stunt had left Spidey feeling on edge. It wasn't hard to imagine himself in place of Johnny or any of the others who'd been affected; even knowing that he'd know by now if the specter of Uncle Ben -- or worse, Richard Parker -- was going to make an appearance, he found himself compulsively looking over his shoulder as he made his rounds of the City.

Granted, if he hadn't been feeling so paranoid, he wouldn't have glanced around just in time to see a familiar caped figure on a nearby rooftop. Wait -- was that two Batmen? With a flick of the wrist, he shot out another webline and swung round to get a closer look.

[batmantled]

Bruce is breathing down his neck. Has been breathing down his neck for ten of the last fourteen hours. He's rubbing at his eyes through the cowl, fighting back the rising tide of frustration when he catches sight of Spider-Man, training him in the batbinoculars and watching while he changes direction. Yep, they've definitely been spotted.

"Yeah, I know him. He's a friend. Probably wondering who the hell you are." Wow is this one of the last topics he'd really wanted to make the centerpiece of their next meeting. He raises a half-hearted hand in that direction, already halfway wallowing in second-hand shame.

[incywincyhero]

Spider-Man landed on the cornice, acknowledging Batman's gesture with a wave of his own. But most of his attention was on the stranger in Bat's clothing, the one considerably less ... corporeal than he'd appeared at first glimpse.

"You're--" he began, then turned to address the living Batman instead. "You're one of the seventeen. This is ... your dad?" He was stating the obvious, he knew. It was just barely possible that Batman happened to get cursed with a ghost in a Batman costume the very same day Calendar Man decided to haunt seventeen people with their fathers. But likely? Even by the standards of the superhero lifestyle, it was a stretch.

[batmantled]

"I mean, it's not... he's not exactly my-" Bruce's sharp-voiced Nightwing cuts him off, and he has to duck his head, rubbing a chastened hand along the back of his neck. "Okay, yeah. He's been following me around for hours and at least one of my, uh. Siblings."

[incywincyhero]

"I get it," Spidey said easily, holding up his hands. "Family's not just about who passed down half their genome. But, uh..." He floundered. "Do you need, uh... d'you want me to leave you to your family reunion, or start checking the phonebooks for an exorcist?"