browngirl | A Step Across Skies (DC Comics/Cartoons Crossover, PG)

Title: A Step Across Skies
Fandom: DC Comics / The Batman crossover
Characters: Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth
Rating: the G side of PG
Summary: In the morning, Dick opens the drapes and looks out at his new world.
Disclaimer: No versions of any of these characters belong to me, nor do their fictional universes.
Beta Reader, whom I thank muchly:

deconcentrate
Dedicated To:

_marcelo, because, and to my roommate, who told him about this awhile ago and thus ensured I'd write this.

The thing about a universe is, it's really big. So even if an entire one implodes, even if stars and solar systems and galactic clusters all sink into one dot of infinity and wink out of existence, there are usually a few little fragments left.

Such as Dick. Whose fellow heroes lost once and for all, whose world went down, whose universe is gone. He's watching the last of it fading, ashes in his hair and bitterness on his tongue. It's all gone. The galaxy, the stars, the planets. Vega, Rigel, Earth. The Justice League. The Titans. Donna, Kory, Roy; Tim, Barbara, Clark. Alfred.

Bruce.

Not even the subatomic particles remain. Maybe, on the other side of what was once a shattering everything, there's someone else Dick knew, or some other sentient from another planet, or some cinder-burnt chunk of rock. But as far as he can see, he's alone, and he's fading, like an isolated ember. Ordinary people aren't built to withstand the end of existence, and he can already feel the darkness creeping up along the borders of his mind.

Except that, he's looking over his shoulder, at darkness fading into dark. He can feel, in this place of nothingness, light on his face from the door in front of him. Well, it's not a door. None of the languages he knows really have an accurate word for it. His mind, limited by humanity and bruised from the last battle, interprets the phenomenon before him as a white hole, pouring out the light of trillions of stars; his intellect, with his small store of knowledge to work with, analogizes it to a passageway and a door.

His heart, sore from the loss of everything he's known, calls him a traitor for leaving his world behind to die.

But it's already dead, and there's always justice to be done. That's what Bruce would say, what Donna would say, and so would Kory. Clark would say there are always people who need help. Tim and Babs would want to know, gathering data with stars in their eyes. Roy would laugh, and jump; all of the Titans would.

Dick takes a deep breath, and steps forward into space, falling into the light.

************

"Welcome back, Master Bruce," Alfred says from the darkness, brisk and warm as always. "I admit now, after the fact, that I had despaired of your return. The phrase 'the end of the world' does convey a certain ring of finality." Something cool and wet--- a damp cloth? "However, your skull proves once again its adamantine durability." The scrape of heavy drapes pushed open, and warm light dim and red.

Dick groans, from the bottom of his sore lungs, up through every grating crack in his ribs and collarbone and arms, every bruise and knot in his stiff muscles. The ends of his hair ache against the pillow, every cell of his face throbs. He groans again because it hurt so damn much to make the first noise, and because he's an idiot, and cracks open one gummy eye.

It's an obscenely sunny morning, green and gold light across the ceiling, happy birds chirping like musical needles poking into his skull. Alfred hums and water splashes, somewhere infinitely far away like the other side of the bed. Dick groans again, interrogatively, ending on a pathetic whimper because it really really hurts. Breathing air hurts. Everything hurts.

He's definitely alive. He doesn't know what he must look like, if Alfred of all people thinks he's Bruce, but he's alive.

Alfred lifts the wet cloth off Dick's forehead, replacing it with a cooler one. A wonderfully, beautifully, blessedly cool one. Dick's forehead has become the only part of him that doesn't hurt. "As you have no doubt deduced, both you and existence survived the recent unpleasantness, as did most of your fellow citizens of the globe. More detail must wait on your further recovery." Alfred's hand, somehow cool and light and unhurty as the wet cloth, strokes Dick's hair once. "Which would doubtless be hastened by a return to sleep."

Dick rolls his working eye, and winces, but keeps trying, until he can shift his field of view. The black blur that somehow conveys crisp neatness must be Alfred. "Aa," he manages to say. It's a letter, at least. Maybe next he can manage a whole word.

"Sleep." Alfred pauses. Dick can hear the catch to his voice. He heard it before when... when...

Before Dick can remember, before he can focus enough to see the expression on Alfred's face, he falls asleep.

************

Dick wakes up disoriented and hollow, as if his stomach were consuming his insides and his head filled with cement. He thrashes out of the covers, throws himself into a sitting position and nearly keels over from dizziness.

It's city nighttime, distant traffic noise, sodium yellow light smearing the dark walls. A door opens down the hall, and Alfred's deliberate step echoes through Dick's snuffling. "Alfred," Dick whimpers gratefully as the door opens.

Alfred has a tray in one hand, but he stops in the doorway, and his severe expression is etched deeper by the street-lights. "So you know me, sir," he says, low and cool. "However, I am not certain I know you."

Dick slumps, head leaned on one hand, and croaks a laugh. He couldn't lie to Alfred if he were firing on all cylinders, which he really isn't now. "I'm not Bruce," he admits hoarsely, hoping wistfully that truth will buy him some time to explain, maybe even some food.

"You did not seem the man you were before," Alfred agrees, unmoving in the doorway. "Who are you, then, and how did you come to inhabit my employer's body?"

There are lots of places he could start, but... "I'm Robin," Dick says, picking the logical one.

Alfred nods in cool acknowledgement, and Dick waits. And waits. And begins to sweat when no recognition shows on Alfred's face. This Bruce whose skin he's wearing... "Alfred. I'm Dick! I'm Batman's---" Dick's raspy, scraped throat gives out right about then, and he folds over his lap, coughing helplessly as his cracked ribs ache and his eyes tear up.

"You know of Batman, then." The last time Dick was interrogated by Alfred he was nineteen? Twenty? He can't even remember what about, what stupid secret he was trying to hide.

It was much warmer than this, if no less ruthless, and Dick belatedly remembers Alfred's previous career before he became a valet. "And you, I know you," he insists, wiping his face with a bandaged hand. "Alfred Pennyworth. You and Bruce took me in when my parents were killed, and I became Bruce's partner. Batman's partner. Robin."

Alfred still regards Dick from the doorway, but his expression might be thawing. Maybe. "And so you joined our strange menagerie." He steps into the room, setting the tray down on a side table which is far too far away from the bed. "There are other Gothams, then. Other Earths." Under his breath, he adds, "Lucius will be thrilled."

Dick thinks of laughing, but laughing hurts a lot. "He will. And yeah, there are, or at least were. The Crisis..." His chest constricts into a drum-tight ache, and he's no longer in any danger of laughing.

"It stretched across more than one world, then, and incinerated more than one sky." Alfred comes to sit beside Dick, and he's familiar again, less wary. "My unfortunate boy," he says, patting Dick's shoulder. "If you were an ally of the Batman in your dimension, you certainly have a home here."

"Thank you," Dick croaks, and plaintively adds, "and some food?" Alfred smiles, that dry smile which is better than a laugh, and gets up to retrieve the tray.

Dick never liked cold potato soup in any language, but it tastes wonderful now, even if he can't smell it. Alfred watches him eat, and Dick wonders how different he looks from the Bruce this Alfred knew. When the bowl is empty, Dick resists the temptation to lick it by asking instead, "how did you know?"

Alfred's smile is warm now, the smile he used to give Dick over Mother's Day cards. "Your movements, your manner of speech, all are very different. Even the expression in your eyes." He examines Dick for another moment. "So he did not return, after all," Alfred's voice is calm and sad with finality.

Neither did Dick's Bruce, or anyone else. Neither will his world. "I'm sorry."

"I am sorry for your losses, as well." Alfred pats Dick's shoulder again. "Though I also envy you your advantage; you knew my counterpart, but I have only just made your acquaintance."

Dick shakes his head, smiling helplessly, until dizziness hits so hard he has to catch himself with both hands and Alfred has to catch the tray, bowl, and spoon. "I, uh."

"Surely," Alfred says, setting the cover over the dishes, "you know me well enough to know what I would say next."

Dick obediently lies down, and Alfred pulls the comforter up. "We will speak further in the morning," Alfred promises, and feeling rather as he did when he was twelve, tucked in after a long night of protecting Gotham, Dick closes his eyes.

***********************

In the morning, Dick opens the drapes and looks out at his new world.

First, of course, he falls out of bed trying to get up. His legs aren't broken, but they're as battered as the rest of him, and currently too weak to hold him up. He drags himself back into bed before Alfred reaches his room, but it's a near thing, since he's somewhat hampered by the different shape and balance of this body. Bruce's body. Is this how Bruce felt in those few moments late at night when Dick saw him sag like granite slumping?

Alfred gives Dick the same reproving look he always uses on a misbehaving convalescent, and Dick has to smile, and spin the offered cane on his palm before he can concede to use it. He hobbles ridiculously, remembering how easy the climb was to the roof of the Manor, but this time he makes it to the window, pushes the drapes aside, and looks out.

What he sees are tall sunlit skyscrapers of stone and glass, reaching high above streets full of busy traffic; apparently, this Manor is inside Gotham. That's going to take a little getting used to. At least the window is reassuringly high, the city familiarly vertical; there are some broken buildings, some scaffolding, but not really much more than usual, and Gotham glitters, grimy and familiar, in the sunlight.

When Dick focuses on the window instead of the view he can see who he is now; Bruce's cool blue eyes are just as familiar, even if the shaggy haircut is rather more Dick's style and the nose is unfortunately broken in what feels like more than one place. It's still a little disconcerting to move his mouth and see this mouth move, to feel these broader shoulders and this different center of gravity, and this Bruce really could've done more flexibility work.

All in all, though, Bruce would never leave him any less than the best.

Nor anything less than a full-time job. One of the billboards is an ad for the Gotham Police Department, praising an 11% reduction in "costumed and regular crime alike". At street level there's a turbulent eddy in the foot-traffic; Dick sees the bright flash of a woman's skirt as she falls over and the crowd rippling around the fleeing thug who stole her purse. Gotham's still Gotham, and somehow Dick doubts that purse-snatching is the worst thing that'll happen before he gets back in form.

Of course, just because this is Gotham, just because Dick has worn this cowl before, doesn't mean it's only up to him. Alfred has stood behind him this whole time, looking out with him, and Dick doesn't even know how to explain what he wants beyond that it feels right. It's not just that he's inherited this Bruce's life. It's... he glances over the nearby buildings, picking out good grapple-holds and sturdy-looking ledges, and remembers being Robin on rooftops, Gotham shining at his feet, the midnight breeze skimming his legs and fluttering his cape as he leaped. For the first time since he saw his world crumble to ash he's seen something he wants. Something he knows how to do. Just as he knew it would, seeing Gotham makes things fall into place.

So he looks at Alfred, to make his case, and finds Alfred looking at him, measuring him. Hopefully he's not coming up short. "This coincidence is fortunate, if indeed it is coincidental that you should come to me wearing this face." Alfred nods, slightly and precisely as always, to the city outside. "The Crisis is past, but everyday woes still persist."

Dick looks up beyond the tops of the towers. The sky is hazy blue, scattered with white puffy clouds and flecked with a few dark dots of helicopters, but he knows that at night it'll glow purple, or maybe red. He can already see himself soaring through it. "Everyday in this city," he murmurs. He's done it before; he can do it better, this time, in honor of his lost world. In honor of Bruce. "Gotham needs her Batman."

Alfred exhales approvingly. "I had hoped you would see these events in that light."

"I was hoping you'd be in my corner," Dick replies, turning from the window, against the ache in his sides, to see Alfred smile. "So, let's see if I can find the Cave, then?"

"Perhaps first a solid meal, young sir," Alfred points out, and Dick's not about to argue.

**********************

It isn't Robin who finds him first, which startles him so much he actually discourages her until he finally gets around to applying his brain to the situation. His Batgirl is tiny and bright, more like Spoiler than any Babs he might have imagined, and it's not until he remembers Steph Brown and Alfred talks some sense into him that he stops putting off this young Miss Gordon. Different world, he figures, different rules. His own world is fading into distant memories, and every flash of red hair and acrobatics pulls him that much more into this one.

That's when Robin comes to him. A kid as scrappy as Jason, as skinny as Tim, younger than either--- but he recognizes those moves, remembers speaking with that voice. Every time Dick calls him "Bruce" it gives him the best kind of vertigo, like swinging through Gotham's sky.

Which only makes sense, he thinks in freefall between one jumpline and the next, watching Batgirl and Robin zig-zagging in tag across the roofs below him, tilting forward to compensate as his cape billows in the wind between the skyscrapers. This is his Gotham now, and he's her Batman.