I own nothing DC Comics are the gods of the graphic universe and own all.

ETA 31/08/05
Rose Tattoo has spawned a piece of...fanfiction. The Rose Tatoo (sic)
is a piece of MST. Weird.

The Rose Tattoo
Jay Tryfanstone

"Did it have to be so complicated? You and Bruce...all these issues...couldn't you have just taken him to bed, boy toy?"

"I do."

Babs snorts in amusement

"Well, it made it much more fun." Dick grinned.)

Chapter 1.

The slow, beautiful curve of a trained body in motion, one heart-stopping glimpse, just the barest hint of an elegant, controlled fall that takes him out of sight and camera angle. Images on the screen.

The newsreader, glasses, lacquered hair.

"...and caught yesterday evening on amateur videotape, the first confirmed pictures of Bludhaven's very own vigilante -"

Rewind.

Click.

That singular grace. The camera doesn't see the line and curve of muscle beneath the costume, of the smooth black hair and the callused palms of that body I know as well as my own.

Rewind.

Click.

The camera doesn't, can't, show those blue eyes, laughing, the mischief, the glee as he made one of those terrible puns.

Rewind.

Click.

It's early afternoon, and already darkening. Winter. Across the garden, lengthening shadows start to hide the detail of Alfred's cherished roses. As always, dark calls to the dark in me: in my belly I feel claws flexing against the night to come. But this time is mine. It's only when he has gone that I find this cool centre, this heartbeat of space that is mine alone, not Batman's - although he's here, of course, how can he not be? - or Bruce's. This space is for me, and I've learnt how to give it time. Later, he said that the darkness of the Bat was overwhelming, that he felt isolated, that he needed more - more what? Affection? Praise? - even love? Now he's gone, it's as if the gap he left was the space I, myself, was forced to fill. So here I am, in this time when I allow myself to be, watching a four-month-old five point two second video tape on a repetitive loop, with my hand resting on the cutting book that Alfred politely pretends doesn't exist.

Even if every so often I open it and find scraps that the cutting agency missed.

It's a constant battle not to do more. I could set feeders into Bludhaven's protective closed-circuit television system (and probably be the only one watching.) I could place just a couple of bugs in the police headquarters, maybe one just near enough to his desk: maybe one in the bunkhouse where he sleeps sometimes. Then where do I stop? Cameras on every chimney? Half my life caught up in watching his? And his privacy ripped open as if I owned every moment? I owe him more than that. He knew, too, when he came to Bludhaven, that I wouldn't do it. At least I have honour left for that. As it is, I feel ashamed of the video and the album: the money I spent trying to trace him over the three years he was gone.

Over the trees the translucent curve of a quarter moon has started to show. I can feel the itch that says, soon, night is coming. I hear the faint, cushioned thud of the front door: Alfred, back from Leslie's clinic with the smell of antiseptic still on him. Take the video out, tuck the album at the back of the second drawer of the desk. Pause, one second, to look down into the happy smile of a ten year old Richard John Greyson, seated in a cloud of wrapping paper with a brand new red leather harness for Elinore. When he went, I couldn't bear to see the photographs. Nor could I destroy them, although that first day, with the anger stripping my veins like acid, I had to ask Alfred to take them down. They've gone back up, of course, the graduation photograph in here, the picnic and party ones Alfred keeps on the larder door, the formal portrait in the main sitting room. I keep some here. It was the picture of Dick with a ponytail, added to Alfred's kitchen gallery that let me know he was still alive. Alfred said nothing, of course, but I knew by the curve of his back when I walked in the kitchen that something had changed. He was tense.

"What is it?" I had asked. He hadn't answered, but I followed his gaze to the bank of photographs. I don't know what I felt then. Relief, anger, pain, jealousy: all of these and more. And I know that it showed. Alfred looked shell-shocked. "Master Richard -"he began. I hadn't waited to hear anything else. He never mentioned it again.

Nor he mention the small print of Dick with a group of teenagers, the camera so focused that nothing could be seen except their faces: Dick on a practice mat, the muscles of one arm straining against the weight of a thick-set woman whose face was hidden behind the curve of his jacket. Or the picture of Dick seen from the back, outlined against the white metal curve of a balcony balustrade, in front of him the dark highlights of sea at night. All so carefully anonymous. The photographs were hand delivered: bright-faced youngsters who'd been asked to pass on a small parcel by other wanderers, a loose confederation whom Alfred fed and Bruce bought plane tickets for: none of them knew more than this address. And, always, the packages came to Alfred. That hurt, but what more could I expect? It was, after all, my fault.

I feel the creature inside me tense its wings. Time to go. For once, it's a relief to be patrolling on my own. Tim's away, gone to visit an aunt in Oklahoma. Without Robin, the world seems just a little darker, and tonight that's what I need. Dick would have said, of course, that I made my own darkness, and he'd be right: but I don't think he realised the colour that he brought into that instinctive, protective night. Tim is the partner I want: trustworthy, intelligent, bright. Dick was the partner I needed. And the partner I nearly destroyed.

Tonight, I need to hit something. Hard. I'm in luck: one of the club-land mobs has decided to run a little white powder into the docks, maybe hoping that the cold will deter onlookers. It does, apart from this one. It doesn't take long to knock some heads together, leave them tied in the back of the van, send a message to Gordon. Small fry, opportunistic smuggling. If I thought it was more, I'd have left them and tagged the van and the cargo: no one runs big shipments through my city with impunity. As it is, it's not enough: night slides across my skin, leaving an ache like fever that asks for more. I head downtown, pick up a idiot trying his first dime-store raid, a group of kids hassling one of the old men from the park. Homeless he maybe: that doesn't make him fair game. I wind up on one the warehouses by the canal, just looking across the dark skyline to where, in the distance, the glow from Bludhaven lightens the night sky. Beneath me I hear the slow footsteps of someone cruising along the towpath, a silent transaction in the dark. Once or twice I've wondered what it would be like, that dark anonymous sex, quick and hot and silent. I'll step in sometimes if there's trouble the community can't start sort out themselves. There's a couple of barkeeps I know well, down here in the gay triangle. One more reason I don't come down here as Bruce. Besides, it's not the sex. In a way, I wish it were.

Nothing happening here. I leave, take a run down to the projects, but all's quiet here too. Then back over to the docks: Gordon's men have picked up the van. The sky's just beginning to lighten as I head back to the manor, the horizon a pre-dawn grey seen through the Batmobile screen. In the cave, of course, dark folds protective against the rock, gathered by the big arc lights around the work surfaces, the practice mats and the big bank of monitors. One quick check, and I'll be done, although tonight the tiredness doesn't pull and linger on my skin as it often does. Alfred's been working on the computers: the satellite image screensaver that he uses flickers down as I sit. Logging on, I set the programme to collect and process e-mail from my accounts.

Light at the top of the stairs: I look up. It's Alfred, carrying a tray with a steaming cup of coffee and a newspaper: the early edition. There must be something he wants me to check. He looks worried.

"What is it, Alfred?"

"Have you checked the news media this morning, Sir?"

"No. Is there something I should know?"

"I think you should check the Bludhaven channels." Alfred's gaze is very direct across the tray. He knows perfectly well what happened, of course. But he won't speak of it, and neither will I.

At least he's not dead: Alfred would be halfway to the state line by now.

I turn the big monitor on, tune into Channel 7 news. Restrained excitement in the anchorwoman's face.

"- came as complete surprise to the BHPD. A spokesperson for the force stated that they had no comment to make until all the appropriate procedures have been followed, but it's quite clear that, in the glare of publicity resulting from this effective strike, federal resources will have to brought into play. We'll be asking the mayor about that when he joins us, in approximently twenty minutes time."

The newsreader checked the autocue. automatically smoothing down her hair. "Before then we'll have an analysis of the political fallout of this extraordinary event from out politics and current affairs editor, Mark Chapin. Mark, over to you."

The camera cut to an older man, his hair greying."Good morning." he said. "Well, after last night's amazing events, it's clear that the city hall is going to face a large shake-up after the press and public assess collateral damage from -"

I cut to Channel Three. Here they have sofas, not desks, but the air of excitement and tension is the same.

"- let's see that incredible piece of film one more time, folks. If you've just joined us this morning, the headline of today is the unexpected indictment of ten members of the civic council and numbers of employees on racketeering charges. This astonishing event was stage managed by Bludhaven's own vigilante specialist Nightwing. Now, whatever your views on vigilantes, (and we'll be having a phone-in special later, folks!) take a look at this spectacular piece of film."

In silence, a camera panned across an empty street, in darkness, to the lights and arched doorway of a big hotel. There was a crowd outside the doorway, held back by velvet ropes and uniformed guards: the occasional white light of a premature flashgun. The camera angles in on the door. Then, suddenly, spins around to the closed road: a stretch limousine drives up to the red carpet. A uniformed valet gets out and opens the door, but it's no sequinned star that steps out. One by one, cowed, stumbling, humiliated, handcuffed to each other, ten of Bludhaven's most prominent citizens struggle out of the cab. The crowd is silent, gasping a little in surprise: the press guns are flashing. Each of the men carries a large sign around his neck - "Thief" "Embezzler" - and on each sign is taped a familiar glinting CD. The press are shouting now - "Statement! "Statement!" as the men shuffle and line up on the carpet. Unseen by the limousine, the driver takes his hat off, then slips off his coat. I notice. I would. But it's a clear shock to the press when the masked man steps in front of the cameras.

"Ladies and gentlemen of Bludhaven,he says. His voice has deepened a little. "Each of these men has been carrying out a deliberate and damaging campaign of embezzlement and fraud with the City Council. Details and documentation are contained within the disks each man holds." He looks at the camera. He's got older: it shows in the shadows of his eyes, the broader set of shoulders that carry more muscle than I remember. "Copies of these disks have, of course, been mailed to all the major news agencies. Citizens, these men have been defrauding our children and our hospitals: I urge you to deal with them using the full weight of American justice." He pauses, and I see the corner of his mouth twist upwards. "I would like you to know that such crimes will not be tolerated in my city. Gotham's not the only place to have it's own crusader. "

He turns, dives into the empty door of the limousine, its darkened windows hiding the interior. As the camera zooms in, the car slides away from the carpet, accelerating as the press breaks ranks, racing down the street after the accelerating vehicle. He won't be in it, of course. I wouldn't be. But the camera doesn't pan back, or up, to show him quietly scaling the building opposite.

The newsreader again. But I've seen enough, for now: I set the machines to tape relevant broadcasts, key words - and then I turn and look at Alfred. He offers me the paper in silence: the head a bold statement above a still from the film. "Nightwing Strikes!"

"Alfred..." I know I'm right. "Alfred, who was driving the car?"

He doesn't say anything, but the hand holding the paper shakes a little. Frustration, banked up by shock, suddenly courses through my body. I stand.

"How long has this been going on? Doesn't he know how dangerous those men could be? That's Frank Jordan - he's got the shipping union in the palm of his hand! Didn't he think about the risks?"

Alfred looks at me. "Like you do, Master Bruce?"

"Why didn't he ask for help? And then, to step out in front of the cameras like that -"

"Master Dick seems to have organised things rather well on his own." Alfred's tone was mildly reproving.

"And then to say that -" I can't begin to work out what it means. Does he mean to challenge me? That's not the Dick I know. But what is this, other than a flung gauntlet - look, see what I can do?

"Why did he ask you?"

"Why not?"

We exchange looks over the monitor. "Master Dick has worked remarkably hard on this case," said Alfred. "It's taken him most of the last four months to put together. Everything had to be very carefully tied up, all the documentation accredited. I was very proud to have aided him somewhat along the way, and when we knew that we would be successful, he asked me if I would be there when the case was tied up and er...delivered."

I turn around and walk away. I didn't want to know how long Alfred and Dick had been in contact, how Alfred had helped him, how the two of them had been plotting behind my back in this dangerous enterprise. Part of me was terrified. I knew these men didn't get where they'd got without violence. And Dick, working with no back up - I didn't want to think about it. Behind me I hear Alfred collect the cold cup of coffee and the paper. He clears his throat.

"Master Bruce-"

I don't want to. I turn round.

"Master Dick, I believe, was hoping you would be proud of him."

Oh yes. Proud, horrified, frightened, and gripped in the bowels by a pain of desire so intense that I'm sure it shows all over my face. I can't say anything. But Alfred, giving me one cool stare, seems satisfied. I feel as if I'm thirteen again, caught with the sheets still wet and sticky: exposed, shamed.

He sent me an e-mail. I couldn't trace the sender - how does he do that? It's got Oracle's fingerprints - figuratively speaking - all over it. One word. "See." See what? See that he's as good as me? Dick, I knew that all along. You don't have to prove it to me. But at least, one could say, he's speaking to me.

I will not go to Bludhaven.

Bruce Wayne is invited to the opening of the new Bludhaven City Modern Art Gallery.I don't like modern art - most of it. I never have. I don't go to unnecessary social events.

But Alfred has laid out my tuxedo and polished my dress shoes before I mention the invitation.

So I find myself standing here in this overheated hall, a glass of unwanted and unpleasant wine in my hand, making small talk to a group of the same people I make small talk with at all the same events in Gotham. We could have been anywhere: same people, same conversation. I make my excuses, head out into the main entrance. For a second, I tilt my head up to the clear dark dome that covers this vast and circular area, now busy with Bludhaven's finest trying to look informed and attentive. There's a flicker of movement at the far edge of the dome. There was half an hour ago, too. Either it's not Dick, or he wants to be noticed. I can't decide. But either way, I'm tired of waiting. One of the porters looks as if the judicious application of some green paper might produce a route up onto the roof for a bored and wealthy man.

I'm right. There's a back staircase for maintenance. When I get to the top, I open the door gingerly. I don't know, after all, who's here. But it is Dick. He's not looking at me.

It's cold.

He's bulked out, and I hope he hasn't lost that limber grace that allowed him to fly.

As he turns his head light glimmers on the smooth crown of sleek, long hair.

Even here, in darkness, lit only by the diffuse silver light from the dome, I see the long line of his eyelashes as he lifts his eyes and looks at me. I can't tell in this light, but his eyes are the colour of a Mediterranean summer, where the sea meets the sky.

He looks at me.

There are three years between us. Three years of resentment, pain, of necessarily battened love.

"That was some stunt you pulled," I say. He looks at me.

"Must have meant a lot of work." He says nothing. And I can't hold back the words any more.

"Didn't you consider the risk? How could you involve Alfred in this? What if -"

And he moves, pulling back from the dome for a second's exasperated turn, and then he's moving towards me.

"Hello Dick, how are you? It's been a long time - are you okay? Like the costume - that was good work you did there with those councillors. Oh, thanks Batman, the boy blunder pulled it off this time. And how are you? Still playing nasty little games with those bat-toys, I see. How's the new Robin? Is he as good as me? Do you miss me?"

Oh, he's angry.

So am I.

"What am I supposed to say? You disappear for three years, no messages, no communication at all-"

"I sent photographs."

"And then this crazy, stupid stunt, the cameras, the costume, Dick, what do you think you're doing?"

"What did you train me to do?"

"I didn't train you to risk your life in some misbegotten investigation -"

"An investigation that succeeded. A stupid stunt that means a good fifteen million dollars a year is going to be staying in Bludhaven's coffers, not bleeding out to those vicious thieves. An example public enough to put the fear of God into anyone I've missed. I did just what you trained me to do, Batman, and I did it well, and I did it because the application of justice is the quest that was bred into me with the costume and the neat toys and the fear of failing. But I did it my way, sweetheart."

He's come fully into the light from the dome now. I can see the symbol on the kevlar weave of his costume, a sign that is all his own and yet echoes, so subtlely, my own bat. And I take a long breath.

"Shall we start again?"

"Start where, Batman? Do I go back to the puns and the shorts? Do I go back to the time when you were God and I thought you couldn't fail? Or do we go back to the time when I'm on my knees and you reject everything we ever had?"

Oh dear God.

"I'm not that kid any more."

"I..know that."

"Then, for fuck's sake, why not treat me like an adult? This is my city, Batman. I take the risks, I play my own games, I make my own choices. I'm my own man, here."

"What do you want me to do?"

"How about a moment's respect? Let's start - Dick, that was a good job you did there."

"Dick, that was a good job you did there."

"Nice costume. Good name."

"Nice costume. Like the colours. Good name."

"Why don't you come over for dinner sometime, Alfred would be glad to see you at the manor."

"Sunday would be good." I've already run that one. Tim doesn't come back until Monday week.

"Why don't we talk about what happened when you left?"

"NO!"

"So we're not going to get anywhere, are we?"

Silence. I can hear his breathing, harsher now, and it wouldn't surprise me if he could hear the beating of my own heart. I feel naked, here in the dark without my costume, the padding of cowl and cape and formed protection.

"It's been three years."

"And you hoped it would go away, shoved under the carpet with all the other things that might, just, have been seen beneath that cowl of yours?"

I owe him some honesty. "I hoped you would...grow out of it."

He laughs then, but it's a short, a bitter laugh, and I feel it twist at my heart, the beast within me stir and waken. This I don't need, this urge to protect and hold.

"Did you think you would grow out of it, when you were nineteen? We grow older, Batman, we hope we grow wiser, but some things don't change. I don't think Mr. short-and-blond was exactly your first."

Here I don't want to be, but I am: remembering the absolute despair when I look up from that brief goodbye, late afternoon, at the back of the hotel, and see Dick's back disappearing up the street. It had been obvious, to anyone who cared to notice. My biggest mistake.

"Dick, you know I can't -"

And he looks at me, and he says, "Do you know, I don't think I can, just now, either."

And then he turns, and he's leaving, and I must stand and watch, because if I make one move towards him I will never let him go. And that would be the biggest mistake of all. And the grief of it hits me.

"Why couldn't it be me?" asks Dick, three years ago, nearly four, standing opposite me in the study. "Why not me? Couldn't you love me like that?" He's crying, silently, the tears welling slowly out of his eyes and sliding over the smooth line of cheekbone and the little hollow under it. I had said everything right, of course, because how could I not: my son, my child, with all his life ahead of him: not to be tied to this obsessive, black mission, this cold and empty place that I fill with the necessary curl of raw justice and power. I wanted more for him. His is the future.

His too is the passion that I spend on the occasional, beautiful, stupid girls and the awkward, desperate fucks in hotel rooms with rare, safe men. Airport men. How do I span this mess of love and lust and possession on which he must never tread? Did it start when he was sixteen, seventeen, when his wit grew to challenge mine and his strength became that of a man? Or, sickeningly, did it start earlier - although I remember no trace of desire for that beloved, small boy's body? He is desperate, lit with a young man's passion that I had known and ignored, but I am fighting for everything I hold dear in this world. I thought his love nothing, a lust of the moment, held against the long years of partnership. I had thought he would accept my decision, would recognise the impossibility of what he asked.

"Dick, you know perfectly well that this is impossible."

"What's so impossible about it? Don't you love me?"

"Of course I love you - you're my son!"

"But I'm not your son." And for an instant his eyes catch mine, and I don't know what he sees in them, but I know that instant flare of heat that charges my body. He steps towards me, and now he's sure he's getting somewhere.

"What's the matter - I'm not your type? Not some anonymous fuck? What are you so scared of, Batman? Don't tell me we're risking the love word here?"

And the air between us thickens, and I have nothing to say, and he takes one step towards me, and another, and suddenly he's on his knees and his head is turning into my crotch and I see his mouth open as his hair slides across the fabric. Feel all the blood in my body lifting to my cock: feel for one second the warmth of his breath, as he, knowing, raises one hand, and before he can touch me I hit out at him, one open handed full force backslap that sends him up off his knees and reeling into the opposite wall.

"Never do that again."

There is contempt, now, in the blue eyes that stare across at mine. He's bleeding, just a little, where my hand caught the skin over his jaw.

"You liar."

"Don't do that to us!"

"It's not me that's doing it, Bruce." His eyes are very steady on mine. "I love you. You love me. I want you. And you - as you have just so...interestingly...proved, want me."

And he has given me the weapon I need.

"So I want you. Is that what you want, Dick, twenty minutes of sweaty fumbling, a quick fuck against the wall? Oh, I want you all right, but I sure as hell don't love you."

He is shocked now.

And I feel the rightness of what I am doing, the black power of it take wing, and I walk towards him. "Are you ready, Dick? You want to do it now, get it over with? Twenty minutes, ten, two? And the rest of it in ashes?"

There is pain now, in the blue eyes that rise to mine.

"Don't you love me?" he asks

"Do I want to watch the sun set with you? No. Do I want to wake up next to you in the morning? No. Do I want to spend my life with you? No. Do I want my cock up your arse? Yes. And if you can't take any of that, then get out of this room now."

For the first time, he raises his hand to the thin trickle of blood that outlines his cheek. He's still looking at me, but there is something lost in that gaze now, a hurt I want to hold and turn against my heart, this knife of pain and hate that is all I have left of him. And he stands up and walks, a little unsteadily, out of the room, and I remember to breathe, and feel the first, agonising pain rise, and I am gone and out into the night where I can hold it at bay. I didn't expect him to leave. I didn't expect to come back in the morning and find him gone. I thought he would know that the love I bear Dick, my son, is far more important than the brief lust that was all I offered as a lover. I lied, of course. How could I not?

Three years later, the pain of it still catches my breath in my chest. Did I do the right thing? Yes. Did I do it the right way? No. But what is said is said. I turn, slowly, and make my way down the staircase to the half-empty halls below. I'm too tired to go home. Gotham will have to look after itself tonight. And, slowly, I take this body that is myself and Bruce and Batman, and I find a small hotel where they don't ask questions and a bed and a cover that I can pull over my eyes and a space where, until tomorrow, I am just myself, with a loneliness that centres my heart.

I wake, and I know it's him. This warmth, this weight on my skin, every muscle aligned to my own, the shape of him clear against my skin like a brand, the only man who could do this to me, the little breeze from the window slipping across my fingers where he holds my hands outstretched. I don't want to open my eyes. I want. But what I want cannot, cannot be allowed to happen. And I open my eyes, and for an instant the ceiling is stark across my sight.

"Are you proud of me, Bruce?" he says, his lips inches from mine: I feel the warmth of his breath on my skin. "Did I do what you wanted?" I can't speak. He stretches his body against mine, the warmth of skin under the smooth costume. Here, in the dark, I can smell the faint essence of the night he's brought with him: ozone and starlight.

"Do you want to fuck me yet?" And I am unbearably aroused. He knows it, tilts his pelvis against mine: all the heat in my body rushes to that one, revealing point of contact. This point of stillness: and then he groans, so faintly it's just another whisper of breath, and moves, once, slowly, and through the sheet and the costume I know he wants me as badly as I want him. I want to touch him so badly, I want to hold him and rub my face in his hair and mark his skin, I want to hold him tight and safe and hard against me through the night, I want him wanting and gasping and mine. I want the heat and the passion of him around me, on me, in me.

And I must not.

"Dick-" I managed. I raise one hand to push him away, but what was meant to be a violent move, slows, and I find myself holding his head in my hand and he moves, again, and I feel his mouth on mine, his lips moving, hot, so hot. He's moving against me, and I can't..not..respond...

This must not be.

And deliberately I think of Dick as a boy, think of him at ten, at eleven.

A child.

My child.

And I can do it. I push myself off the bed, and he falls with me, rolling onto the floor, and in seconds I'm safely by the door and he's standing by the bed.

"I'm not eleven any more, Bruce," he says.

"You're still my son."

He laughs. "Oh yes. And your partner. And your friend. And your lover."

"No!"

"No?" He moves to the window. I can see him now, lit by the streetlights outside. "Don't you want me, Bruce?" He moves one hand, slowly down his body. "It's all yours."

"Dick - you know, this can't be."

"Why not? I was too young, too dependent, too inexperienced. I'm not any of those things anymore." And jealousy rushes through me, an electric shock of pain. Who? Who? It must have shown, because he laughed a little.

"Jealous? Well, perhaps you do care a little, after all."

I can't move. I'm terrified that if I move a muscle, I'll go towards him, not away.

"So which is it, Bruce, that's holding you back now? What excuse are you going to use for pushing me away this time? I know you want me. On my skin - " He stops. "I can still feel you on my skin."

"Sex...isn't the issue."

"No? Then come over here." Arousal has deepened his voice, sings through the air between us.

"I ...can't."

"Why not?"

"Dick, you're asking for more than I can give."

"Really."

"I don't love like you like -"

"No? Bruce, I'm not a fool. Lust doesn't care for me the way you do. Lust doesn't take a small boy and care for all the years of his childhood. Lust doesn't count the nights I woke up screaming in your arms. Lust doesn't spend three years trying to find one errant sidekick. Lust doesn't put money in my bank accounts - returned taxes, Bruce? Or send me odd gadgets and military hardware - mailing list mistakes? Love does that. I know, now, what you tried to do to us. And I'm not going to accept it. I don't care how much you pretend to me and to yourself that it's just sex and you can dismiss it. You love me. And I love you. You can take Batman's phobias and stuff them up the hole in his cape." He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice has a thread of fear that, almost, I cannot resist. "You're all I've ever wanted."

"You're too young."

"I'm twenty-two."

"I'm too old for you."

"Is that so."

"I won't do it, Dick."

"Why not?"

"I've been fighting crime for longer than you've been alive. I've never counted the crimes I've solved: I've never counted the people I failed, or the promises I've broken, or the people I've fucked in other people's beds. I'm not doing that to you."

"Don't you think that's my choice, too?"

"I can't offer you what you need."

"No? Isn't that my decision to make?"

"It's nothing to do with you." And he laughs then. "Bruce, Batman, lover: you think about it. I'll see you around."

And then he's gone, so quick and fast that in one breath, the room is empty. And I am terrified that he's right.

It's half past two. George had said there might be trouble. And it's the best view in the city of the Bludhaven lights. I'm here watching the lights of Nightwing's city and keeping half an ear on the men cruising below when I hear someone behind me on the roof. They're making no attempt to disguise their footfall, and I turn slowly. It's Dick, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. I'm stunned. This is Gotham, not Bludhaven: it's been two weeks since that abortive encounter in the Hilton. What is Dick doing here?

"What?"

"Good evening."

He's self possessed in the moonlight, almost as if this is where he should be. In civilian clothes. Above this anonymous towpath. Watching me. "What are you doing here?"

He's coming closer, walking slowly, deliberately. My eyes skim the curve of his shoulders, the gleam from his hair: my heart beats, once, and again. I can't move, and he's coming closer. And then he's here: one hand cupping my chin below the cowl.

"Too young?" he says, and I see in his eyes a very quiet determination. "Too inexperienced?" He kisses me once, briefly, a quick hard pressure of his lips that sends my breath streaming after his in the night. His eyes are very steady on mine.

"Bruce, I'm going to leave you and walk down that alley and find someone to fuck me. And then I'm going to find someone else, and someone else again. And I'm going to carry on doing that until the great Batman finally decides that I'm good enough to get into his bed."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. Rage, shock: I reach out for him but by now he's gone, twisting away and diving over the edge of the roof: I'm running, frantically looking for somewhere to anchor the rappel: as I look down I see him hit the floor and move away from the building: I'm airborne: the ground takes forever to meet my feet. I can't see him: can't hear him: I know which way he went, but that means nothing: he could well have doubled back. I hear murmurs start again in the silence, the tear of a condom packet and someone's choked cry. I cannot bear this, lust and rage spiralling up my body. I see images of Dick in a stranger's arms, his back arched in ecstasy: Dick on his knees in front of someone else, his long hair sliding over a stranger's cock. No. No and no and no.

And then I take one long breath. Why tell me, if he didn't want to be caught? But it's a full quarter of an hour before I find him, talking low-voiced with a tall man I recognise from one of the bars. As I see him, the man reaches up to touch Dick's hair. It's a casual touch, and it's enough to spur all the rage and pain I feel. He didn't know what hit him. But by then I had Dick in my arms, an instant of startled recognition before I feel his body curve against mine. Oh, he knows. And the blood is racing through my body. His hand comes up to pull the cowl off, but both my hands are on his the muscles of his ass and I pick him up, take two steps to the wall and hold him against it, my mouth on his, hungry, and then as I press close against him the tender skin of his neck and shoulder beneath my teeth. I want to mark him, want to let the world know he's mine. Dick's got one hand free, round my neck, and I feel his teeth on my ear.

"You're mine." I say to him, and raise my head and look at him while my body presses his against the wall, blood beating in my cock, the need for him racing through every vein and capillary in my body. "Mine" And he laughs at that, a little choked laugh that vanishes into a gasp when he feels my hands on his skin, under his jacket, undoing his jeans. Everything in my body is urging me to completion, but I can still, now, spare him a little humour. "I'll do subtle later." I promise him, but then his hand is on my bared cock and I've loosened his jeans: and I fall to my knees in front of him and take his clean cock in my mouth, my hands fumbling with his shoes as his tangle in my hair, and he pushes against me and groans: I smell sex, acrid, sweat, excitement, and suddenly I can't wait, I have to have him, now, and I spit on one hand and reach for his arse, and at that he spreads his legs a little, his breath coming faster, and then I know where I'm going and I know he's coming too and I rise off my knees and take his weight and my cock's pushing into the dark warmth of his arse - try to wait, but he's saying "Yes, yes yes!" and he drags my face round to his and says "I love you" as my cock moves in and out of him, mine, caught here in this tangled web of love and lust, and he's mine, and I tell him so with each thrust and he has breath left to laugh, yet, and I feel the dark unfurl in me and know I'm coming and I reach for his cock and find he's there with me and when I come I'm not alone.

When I open my eyes he's looking at me.

"I love you." he says.

And I can smile.

And then I realise where I am.

And I feel myself loose all balance, my knees going, turning and sliding down the wall, my breath coming harsh as the afterglow of orgasm kicks into a bleak wall of guilt. It's never been this bad. I hear myself gasp, the cold air hitting the back of my throat, and can hear the rustle of Dick's clothing. He must be leaving now: he's got what he wanted. But in seconds his arm comes round my head, and I feel the warmth of his body against mine.

"Shhh." he says, crooning to me. "It's okay, beautiful, it's all right, I'm here."

My fingers are spread against my face, and his join them, open palmed, and the tears, agonising, shaming, seep through our interlocked hands. I can't tell what is mine and what his, and at the moment, I don't care. This should not have happened. This is disastrous. This is yet another moment in time that, an I could, I would erase from all history. But Dick...Dick closes his warmth against me, sits, rocking me, his cheek against my bared hair and his voice soothing in my ear.

"It's okay." he says, quiet, sure. "It's really okay, Bruce. We'll sort it out. It's all right."

Where does he get this strength, this maturity? When did I give up my sovereignty?

I hear someone trip, cursing, and walk forward. "Dick? Richard Grayson?"

It's the tall man, and as I tense so does Dick, his arms holding me still.

"It's okay, man, everything's all right."

He's coming closer, but Dick's grip on my body is tensile steel. I don't think I could have moved him if I'd been able to hurt him.

"Are you sure? That was some - oh, shit!"

He's tripped on something else, and from the plastic snap I think it's one of the bracers from my cape.

"What is that? Jesus, Dick, who's that?"

"Leo, it's okay. Leave it."

"What is he wearing?" I can feel Dick's cheek round against my jaw as he smiles. "Fancy dress party. Leo, go away. There's only one person I want to be with tonight."

"Oh. So that's-"

"Go away."

"I'm gone. But take it easy with this one. You're sure, yeah?"

"Leo, everything's cool. Honest. Go away."

Part of me wants to smash his face into pulp for knowing things about Dick I have missed. Part of me feels utterly grateful that Dick has friends who care about him. Most of me never wants to leave this spot, never wants to face Dick or Alfred or think myself worthy to make any kind of moral decision ever again. But it's Dick who makes the decision, gathering up cowl and cape and wrapping it around me, one arm round my shoulders, tugging me to my feet.

"Come on, I've borrowed a flat a couple of streets away. It's not far. I've got decent coffee."

It's the amusement of that, a thread of normality in this stricken universe that stirs me to my feet. I'm not sure how we made it to Dick's flat, but we did, and by then at least I was walking by myself, although Dick's arm was still round my waist. He took one look at me in the sudden light and pushed me down on the couch. "Stay there. I'm making coffee."

I shut my eyes. Now was a good time to go. But I was tired of running. He won. I lost. We both lost. I hear the whistle of the cafeteria, Dick, oddly clumsy, clinking china. Then the light in front of my eyelids darkens a little, and I feel Dick settle down on the floor by my right thigh, where he used to sit so often to talk over the day's events. When he was small. But it's this older, adult Dick that wraps my fingers around the warmth of a mug of coffee and then rests his arm and chin on my leg. I know he's looking at me.

"Well, hi, Bruce," he says. "Or is it Batman? I find it hard to tell, when you're half and half."

I open my eyes and look at him. How odd. He looks exactly the same, same eyes, same nose, same quirk to his mouth, almost as if I hadn't raped him against a warehouse wall twenty minutes ago. His eyebrows twist.

"Oh no, don't go there. You know as well as I do that I set you up for this. I just hadn't realised it would have such an effect." He held one hand up, and I could see it shaking. "On me too."

I don't know what to say.

"You don't need to say anything." He's more serious now than I've ever seen him. "Bruce, I've had three years to think this through. You're not the only one with issues. I've got a Bruce that I love dearly, a Bruce that took me to the pantomime and gave me my first bike and played Jedi knights in the bat-cave, and I've got a Bruce who can make every part of my body come alive when he walks in a room. But I'm willing to bet that you pushed every part of this as far away from your brain as you possibly could, while I spent three years working out exactly how I felt. There's never going to be anyone else for me." He looks away for an instant. "And believe me, there was a time when I would have given an awful lot to have that possibility. But it's not so." His eyes meet mine. "I love you in every way known to man," he says. And smiles. "And then some."

I feel sick.

Dick has to put one hand over mine on the coffee cup. I'm shaking so much that liquid splashes on the black kevlar.

"What you have to recognise is that this is a choice I made as an adult, away from you, just as I choose to create Nightwing and choose to protect Bludhaven." He smiles, lightly, looking down at the floor. "It's near enough to commute, sometimes, don't you think?

And you..." He looks up. "I know you haven't thought about this. It's very easy to attack a man who's built a wall and forgotten about the foundations. If you'd really decided, I wouldn't have had a hope in hell. But Alfred told me about the album, and the video. And when you came to Bludhaven, I was very nearly certain I could have you. I was right."

He looks down again. "Maybe I should have said it straight out. It's always seemed to me as if, no matter what we say to each other, there's a bond between us nothing could break, a greater truth that isn't Batman or Robin or Dick or Bruce or whoever, but just us. I thought you felt that too. But..."

His hand tightens over mine. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to hurt you quite so much." And we sit there in silence, my eyes closed, my hand on his, on mine, on the cup of coffee, the warmth of him soaking into the padded thigh of this Batsuit that he didn't help design.

"I missed you," I say.

"I missed you too."

"I was so proud of you, when you unloaded those councillors in front of the cameras."

"It's okay, Bruce, you don't have to say it."

"I wanted...I wanted you to send those photographs to me." It wasn't quite what I meant to say, but he seemed to understand.

"You could say that I did. There's a whole other set you haven't seen. Alfred has those - all the ones with faces and scenery. I'll show you, sometime."

He lies his face down against my thigh, and I swear I can feel his eyelashes brush down. I lean my head back against the sofa, and feel silent, slow tears start again. His spare hand curls, warm, against my knee, and then he uses it to push away from my body, a long slow stretch that takes him up onto his heels in front of me. "It's been a long night," he said. "I'm going to take you to bed." And as I open my eyes to glare at him, Dick grins, that irrepressible mischievous Dick grin that I haven't seen for far too long. "Don't panic," he says. "I'm saving the anal expanders until tomorrow. I'd just like to feel you against my skin tonight."

And that in itself is enough to send fear dancing over my own skin. But I'm tired, and for once, I allow myself to want him beside me, and he reads it in my face and gives me a hoist up and we stagger into the bedroom, stumbling and cursing the straps of the Batsuit. My fingers are useless, but Dick is quick and deft, and in less time than I think is possible I'm lying on the bed with Dick's warm weight spooned against my back, one arm flung round me, the other lying in that comfortable spot between the pillow edge and my neck that he found instinctively. I have no thoughts. I can't bear to think this through, will wait, safe here, for morning.

It's the word morning that brings misgiving to mind. I tighten my hand on Dick's fingers, lying lax in this pre-sleep warmth.

"What about Alfred?"

"What about Alfred?" asks Dick. His voice is more of a vibration in my ear than a true sound.

"He'll think - I must call." Dick's arm tightens.

"Don't worry. I already did."

"What? When?"

"Before I got up on the roof."

There's a moment's silence, and then I can feel Dick start to shake with laughter and I roll over and catch him on that spot under the ribs where he's always been ticklish. He's laughing out loud and suddenly a chuckle forces its way up from my throat, and another, and Dick wraps his arms around me and lays one leg over mine and curls his cheek into my collarbone.

"That's better," he says. "G`night."

Chapter 2.

When I awake I don't realise, for a moment, where I am. The sun slants at an unfamiliar angle against a ceiling that is lower and smaller than my own, and every part of my body is weighed down with a deep lassitude that spells contentment. Then I remember, and I turn and rise: I'm halfway out of the bed before I realise that he isn't here. I listen, but the flat has that waiting emptiness that tells me he's long gone. I can't say I'm not relieved. I have no idea what, if anything, I could have said to him this morning. And yet, across my skin, I can feel the anticipatory crawl of thwarted desire. It's worse, now. Take one deep breath and another: let the pain out with the cool air. Start to think. There's a duffel bag by the door, and I can see the dark gleam of kevlar. Carefully piled up beside the bag are clothes: the sort of clothes that Bruce would wear on a casual day downtown. Gratitude and shame spike through me: I don't have to leave, in costume, in daylight. I get up. There's a note on top of the bag, and a small case. Dick likes his computers: I can tell from here it's a CD-ROM. I don't read the note until I'm dressed - armoured. Then I sit on the edge on the bed. Dick's handwriting, so familiar.

"Good morning," he writes. Then he leaves a line. I can tell, from the deliberate lettering, that he's taking his time, thinking before he writes. "Whatever you think, I have no regrets. Don't beat yourself up over this, Bruce, I got exactly what I wanted." Then there's one of those sideways smiling faces that I see often on Tim's notes and e-mails. "Thanks. Thanks for staying."

He leaves another line.

"I've left you a present. I thought you might enjoy it. It's a puzzle. Just think about it, hey, big man?" And he signs it, "Yours, Dick."

I take the bag and the note and the disk, and I call a cab and go home. And I manage to meet Alfred's grave, questioning gaze, although I feel that the shame of what I have done must cloak my body in a coruscating red haze.

"Is everything all right, Master Bruce?" he asks, and I can't bring myself to lie to him.

"I don't know, Alfred." We look at each other. Alfred knows everything. I have no secrets from him. What I do have is Alfred's abiding sense of privacy undisturbed, a reticence that will leaven any pain I care to offer but not ask for more. I know, in that second's weighted exchange, that he knows. God knows what Dick said to him.

"I'll be in the cave."

"Yes, Sir. Some coffee?" I ignore him: I'm already on my way. But he brings it anyway, finding me seated, again, in front of the computer bank with a single command on the screen in front of me.

"Master Dick's present?" asks Alfred.

I don't ask how he knows. "Yes"

"I believe you will find that the enter button will start the programme." He states quietly.

I look at the screen. Then I look at Alfred. And I can't bear to be on my own. "Stay with me."

"Of course." He brings over the second chair, and beside the desk. I look at the screen. What has he done?

Then I hit the enter button.

The screen clears. Dick, in his Nightwing costume, is seated, facing the camera over the kind of desk-top he's always had: a stack of floppy disks and wires, a pile of letters, two empty coffee cups. A framed photograph of the three of us. A small black raised disk that I'm sure I recognise. Dick leans back in the chair, his eyes steady on the camera.

"Well, Bruce, or Batman, if you're watching this, I'm pretty sure that I'm feeling rather good about myself this morning and you feel like shit." He gives the camera a half smile. "I'm not going to under-estimate the way you feel about this, Bruce. My guess is that you need space to think this through. And you'd better think it through, big buddy, or - or I'll come after your arse, and you know what that means!" His eyes are laughing at the camera.

How can he take this so calmly? How can he be so sure that this would happen? When did he grow up, become this young man who is so heartbreakingly familiar and so strange?

"I know you aren't going to find this easy," he says. "So I thought I'd give you a puzzle that might help you think about things. There's no hurry, Bruce. You don't have to do it." He smiles again. "I'll know if you've finished. I'll be in touch. But if you're so unhappy with this whole thing that you never want to see me again - chuck the disk." His eyes are serious. "It's not a test, Bruce. I think you might enjoy it." His hand curls around a coffee cup for an instant, the only outward sign of tension he shows, although I know by the set of his shoulders that he doesn't find this as easy as the tone of his voice would suggest.

"I love you, Bruce." His mouth quirks. "Whatever you decide."

And he reaches out a hand to the camera, and the picture darkens. The CD's still running, and I watch a single line of text scroll up from the bottom of the screen.

It reads. "..as the Actress said to the Bishop."

Below it, a line of spaces indicates letter spacing. Six, and then nine.

I don't realise I've said it out loud until Alfred answers me.

"I think, Master Bruce, that Nightwing has set you a challenge."

I turn. He looks at me, eyebrows raised.

"Well, what I am supposed to do?"

Alfred smiles. "I would suggest," he says. "That you start by answering the first clue."

And he gathers up the tray and the discarded civilian clothing and goes upstairs.

I try to play the CD again, but all I get is that single screen. I don't know what he's done to it: the files on the CD seem simple enough, but all I get is that screen, its cursor flashing with an infuriating patience. Evidentially, I'm not going to get any more answers unless I answer the clue. What is this, an Easter egg hunt? I'm not a teenager: I'm a grown man. I'm Batman. I'm also a man who has just committed the worst offence he could conceive of, and the person against whom I committed that offence is laughing at me.

He did say he'd had three years to think to think this over.

Dick's always been well balanced.

More than I, I think.

Three years is a long time.

I gaze at the screen.

Dick knows me very well. There's a misbegotten enjoyment in those games, the Joker's sick jokes and Harvey Dent's tragic fixation, all those doubles: in the Penguin's ornithological nightmares. Although I must admit, I've never been that fond of bird watching and I know more than I would wish to about the habits of the Sphenisciformes family.

As the actress said to the Bishop. It sounds so familiar. I know I've seen that before, heard it, read it, and I cannot remember. I run a search through the computer. It's the end line of a joke. Thanks, Dick. It's the end line of a joke that starts with any number of impossible situations - "Yes, that engine'll be ready tomorrow..as the actress said to the Bishop." "No, there's no fakes in that necklace..as the actress said to the Bishop." It's an old fashioned joke. Oh, thanks.

This gets me nowhere. Night is approaching: the light in the cave doesn't change, but I know dusk has fallen by the rustling of wings in the darkness above me. Soon, they'll start to fly, their sonar telling them that the entrance hologram is as insubstantial as the mist I can smell in this slight, damp tinge to the air. It's time to go. I head out into the night, carrying this riddle with me: a nagging, irritating memory that I tumble through my mind, a small pain that yet distracts from this greater sorrow.

I wonder if Alfred knows.

I wonder if it would be cheating to ask him.

And yet, there's a feeling around these words that means Alfred to me, an inherent sense of stability and reassurance that I feel in his presence. Whatever these words do mean to me - and I know, I know they are familiar - there is no sense of pain or loss. This is not a phrase that carries any feeling of hurt or anger. How odd, that such a small and, frankly, absurd phrase should carry such a charge of emotion. It takes a week before I bring myself to ask him. I don't feel any sense of urgency. Dick's question has settled at the back of my mind, a small trust that I carry with me, a keepsake pebble that I turn at odd moments. When I am tempted to think about what I have done, this is the memory that I reach for, this question, this particular and exact wording that I hold as a small light against the darkness of memories I do not want to face. While I have this, it seems as if all could be right in the world once again. At times, I don't want to know the answer and risk loosing this curious peace. But of course, I have to know.

I ask Alfred in the kitchen. He's baking, and flour lingers in the air over the kitchen table, with the smell of eggs and sugar and the slight whirr of the fan oven.

"Alfred."

"Yes, Master Bruce?" His tone is distracted.

"Dick's question..."

His eyes snap up to mine. "Would it be cheating if I asked you the answer?"

Alfred smiles. "How do you know I know?"

"Don't you know everything?" And indeed, when I was much younger, I thought he did.

Alfred cocks his head on one side. He looks as if he's thinking about it, but I know damn well he's probably been turning this question over in his mind for the past week. He's probably spoken to Dick - No. Don't go there.

"I don't think it would be right for me to answer the question."

"But?" There's always a but.

"But I could suggest that you looked in the old nursery."

What?

Out of the kitchen and through the baize door: up the stairs, and then up again: through the door into the nursery wing. Second door on the left. When was I last here? I don't know: I can't remember. Alfred, I am sure, has tidied a lot of stuff into this room: it's surely smaller than I remember. There are boxes stacked neatly along one wall: a rocking horse whose grey mane I smooth with one hand. There's a stack of games - I must get that scrabble set out for Tim, and then I remember that Tim's scrabble comes on a small black portable PC with an automatic word-check. And, over by the window, there's the bookcase. And a chair. Someone has sat here, fingering these old books: someone has come to relive the memories of too many nights reading to two young boys for whom the darkness of night was filled with memories that they did not want to face. A top row of thin spines: Anderson, Grimm, and that small volume with the clown illustrations that sends an atavistic shiver down my spine. Beneath them, the fun stuff: the Hardy boys - they must have been Dick's, although I remember the stories - the Secret Seven and the Famous Five, older hardbacks - Malcolm Saville, O. Henry - books that date from Alfred's childhood, the books that he saved and sent away for and read to us through the long nights. And beneath them, the vivid paperbacks that were carefully measured against our growing maturity. The Gideon books. Inspector West, of Scotland Yard. Josephine Tey, when Alfred taught us that detective did not necessarily mean bad literature. And then the faded, yellow covers of the Saint novels. Yes. And I run a finger across their covers. How could I forget? The Saint in New York: The Saint on the Spanish Main: The Happy Highwayman, with the Christmas tag still tucked in the front cover. "Bruce - Happy Christmas. With love, Auntie Leslie." The Saint: that blithe and debonair figure whose sense of justice was as odd - and as consuming - as my own. The Saint, with his twisted smile and his family of friends and fellow adventurers, with his dislike of guns and his throwaway catchphrases.

I know the answer, now.

And I gather up that long line of paperbacks and tuck them into an empty box and take them dowstairs to the cave.

Six: nine. Leslie Charteris.

The screen clears. Black and white film, transposed onto digital format but still scratched. The sound doesn't seem to - quite - match the movement. Two men, two chairs, a small table. It's an interview. One of the men is middle aged, dark: the other much older, with a startling shock of hair and long fingers traced with the veins and swelling of age.

"And so you came to settle down in England?"

"Yes."

There's a pause.

"Was there any particular reason for that? After all, you'd seen a lot of the world by then - most of Europe, America -."

"I liked the company." The older man pauses, says quickly, "My wife was English."

"And then there was your writing career."

"That's true. I hadn't realised quite how popular the books would become. And of course, I needed to carry on writing, and that meant finding somewhere to write..."

"You had quite a spectacular career. And, of course, the books were popular on both sides of the Atlantic."

"I was lucky." Then the old man smiles to himself. "At times, they seemed to take on life of their own."

"And now there is the new television series -"

"Oh, but that's not for real."

"You're still writing for it, aren't you?"

"Oh yes," says Leslie Charteris. "But it's not quite the same." He looks at the camera, and for an instant there's a gleam of mischief in his eyes that echoes the one I've seen so many times in the disingenuous blue eyes of another boy. Young man.

"And they've got the wrong car."

And the screen blanks again, and I hit the desk top with one closed fist. Frustration. What is this supposed to tell me? What am I supposed to learn? Dick, tell me, where do I go from here? There's text scrolling up from the bottom of the screen again. It's simple this time.

"Find the car."

And beneath the line, another set of spaces. Three: three.

Nothing else.

And I still can't get the damn CD to replay.

A quick search brings up any number of websites mentioning the Saint's choice of vehicle. I ignore the movie sites - what was the point? By that time, I know, that vivid, guarded old man in the interview would have died. The television series - now that was easy. Roger Moore. Of course. And that supercharged Jaguar that I'd never needed to envy. By then, I'd dragged Alfred into the twentieth century when it came to motor vehicles. A teenager's interest: turbos versus superchargers, the long line of Ferraris and the smell of the Daytona pit lanes: the first sketches for a car that was going to be better, faster, sexier, than anything else on the road. The possessive joy of my first convertible. The look on Dick's face when I gave him the keys - no.

But the Jaguar is the wrong car.

Of course. In the books, it's a Hirondel.

And I check it against the web, and I'm right.

And I check again. There's no record of a company, of a car model, of a real production car called a Hirondel.

Leslie Charteris invented that car. It doesn't exist.

So why has Dick asked me to find it?

I take the puzzle away with me into the night. Another frustration to set against the frustrated desire that, now, knowing, licks the marrow of my bones and yawns alone, against this black and empty sky.

It's a busy night. It's near eight o'clock when I get back to the cave, and I'm tired. I strip off, shower, and go to bed. My body might want to sleep, my mind will not. Images of cars turn, spin, speed in gleaming grace through my head. The sleek curves of my first Porsche: the image of Simon Templar leaping into the backseat of a long convertable faster than anything else on the road. The flash of blond hair at the wheel. What was that woman's name? It didn't seem that important, when I was younger. The first Batmobile: the rush of blueprints for the second. Alfred's face, eyes closed, the first time I drove him up the mountain road. I roll over, open my eyes, stare at the ceiling. Oh, damn, damn, damn. What does he mean?

I hear the sound of an engine, and for a moment think I am truly dreaming. Then I hear Alfred's voice, and the crunch of gravel, and the laughter of another young boy. Unexpected, devastating, shame hits me again, and I curl around myself in bed, imagining what would have happened, if,.. if,...But there is no trace in me of desire for this independent, honest, strong and loved - yes, loved - child. Teenager. Very nearly a young man. I can no more imagine Tim's gaze meeting mine for a second too long, his thigh hard against mine for a snatched moment, the blush that Dick could not, always, hide, colouring his cheek, than I can imagine -

Than I can imagine anyone but Dick beside me in this long, painful trail of desire and rejection.

I don't think Tim's ever thought of me like that in his life.

And, after all, I knew only too well that Dick did.

And my feelings towards Tim have never carried the faintest taste of eroticism.

After all, I know how that feels, too.

That is comfort enough to take into the night. No child: no teenager: no young man wanted, touched, damaged by this desire. Never. No one but him.

And my hands curl, empty, on the pillows.

When I wake the image is sure in my head. One small, black, raised disk on Dick's desk. One small, black, raised disk on Tim's workbench. Tim's voice, explaining impact velocities and electrical charges. Tim's hands, turning and throwing. Tim's invention. Dick's desk.

I can hear Tim laughing behind the kitchen door before I throw it open. In slow motion: Alfred, turning from the cooker with a spatula in his hand, his eyebrows rising. Tim, holding a fork, looking up from the plate of pancakes with the start of a welcoming grin before he sees my face. I am furious.

"You've been talking to him, haven't you?"

Tim's startled incomprehension.

"What? Who -"

"You've been talking to Dick. How long? How long, damn you, how long?"

"Whoa, hold on here, Bruce -"

Tim's defensive smile, Tim's slow retreat from the table I didn't realise I'd hit.

"I saw that disk. I know you've been talking to him. When? How?"

And then I see Tim's retreating gaze meet Alfred's, and the comprehension floods across his face.

"Ohhh, Bruce," he says, and then he giggles.

The shock of it steals the breath from my lungs: I've never heard Tim giggle before. Not only that, it's the shy, knowing giggle of a teenager suddenly faced with the half-understood, inopportune tangle of an adult's affairs.

Tim knows.

What was sure has suddenly become quicksand beneath my feet.

And Tim's surprise has turned to amusement.

"So lover-boy finally got in touch, did he?"

Alfred's "Master Tim!" joins with my "Shut up!" but both are equally ineffective. Tim has grabbed another pancake and is edging towards the garage door.

"Thank goodness one of you showed some sense," he says "I've spent far too long looking at those damn Bludhaven lights."

And with that he's gone. I sit down. I'm not entirely certain that my knees could hold me up. The best I can manage is the face of mute inquiry that I turn to Alfred's calm face.

"First question?" he asks, just as if I was eleven again, with the welter of queries and curiosities that a new day brings. I can't speak.

"Nightwing and Robin have been corresponding for some time. Since, I believe, a couple of weeks after Robin's first appearance in Gotham."

How could I miss it?

"As for the other...Master Bruce, your affection for Dick, and his for you, is painfully obvious to all of us who know you well. I believe we have all been hoping for some kind of rapprochement. Master Tim has been a little - voluble - about the amount of time spent on the west side of Gotham since Nightwing appeared in Bludhaven." Alfred cleans his spatula with a cloth taken from the rack of clean, white towels near the sink. So deliberate.

"This is not the nineteen fifties, Master Bruce. It's no longer shaming to have a relationship with someone else of the same sex."

Alfred lets that statement hang between for a moment of devastating silence.

"Alfred - he was a child. In my house. Under my protection. I loved him."

"And then he grew up," said Alfred calmly.

"He's my son!"

"Yes." Alfred sighs, and lays down the spatula. "Do you honestly think, Master Bruce, that if I had ever thought that there would be any - any - threat to Richard Greyson under this roof I would have allowed him to remain here?

"Furthermore, do you think, that if I had thought you capable of such a deed, if it would even cross your mind, that I myself would remain in this house?"

My mouth drops open. I can't believe what Alfred's just said. I can't believe that the possibility had entered his mind. And the enormity of his trust leaves me speechless.

Then Alfred smiles at me, that little half smile that is all a gentleman's gentleman allows himself. "Shut your mouth, Master Bruce, you're catching flies." He glances at my feet. "And before you enquire after Master Tim's fortnight with his family, I suggest that you put on something more substantial than those socks."

I look down. Not only have I forgotten to put shoes on, I don't even have matching socks.

I bet Superman doesn't have these problems.

Tim isn't in the garage. I find him in the cave, checking out the new surveillance system. His hands move over the keyboard with a facility I can only envy. Children. They grow up with technology. And that reminds me.

"Tim...about that shock star -"

Tim swivels the chair. "Oh Bruce, c'mon on. I spend entire fortnight playing card games and agreeing with how tall I've grown and eating humungous slices of cake and you lay into me the minute I get back? Where's that caring, sharing Batman we all know and love?"

("Hello Dick, how are you? It's been a long time -")

Tim looks at me in bemusement. "Oh, don't both-"

"I'm sorry, Tim. It was a bit of a shock."

"Oh."

"Did you have a good time at your aunt's?"

Tim looks at me with a distinct air of suspicion. "Hey, I was joking about the caring sharing bit."

"Someone else reminded me."

"Oh," said Tim. "Well, it was about time. I've got a bit tired of the brooding stuff. Not that I'm expecting balloons on the Batmobile, you understand."

"Well...no. Not this year. It's past May Day."

And Tim whoops. "You made a joke!" he carols. "Batman made a joke!"

"Tim, I'm sorry about laying into you about the shock star. I hadn't realised that you and...Nightwing..had been in touch."

"He did mention you wouldn't be pleased."

"It's not quite that."

"Look, I do realise that you two have the hots for each other. What with you glowering at the Bludhaven skyline, and him slipping in those awkward little questions, and you monitoring the BHPD broadcasts, and him working on these kevlar plates as if- Ooops!"

His eyes are dancing above the hand that covers his mouth.

"I can't tell you that," he says virtuously.

"What kevlar plates?"

"I promised."

"Tim - !"

"Nightwing-worked-on-the-kevlar-plates-for-the-new-Batsuit."

"What?"

"He said he'd spent a lot of time on the chemical stuff, and you hadn't."

"When did he - Oh, no. Don't tell me." But there is a flicker of surprised, gratified pride, that Dick had cared enough to work on the suit. Do I want to know more? Of course I do. Am I going to ask Tim, who has known for some time far more than I ever expected him to guess? Who has worked with me, my partner, my support, without seeming to care that I want to fuck the first person to wear that Robin suit?

"Doesn't bother you?"

"Oh, don't be silly, Bruce. Nightwing doesn't want to be me - Robin. He's got his own costume now. And his own city."

"I mean -"

"Oh, you mean about you and Nightwing?" Tim pauses. He cocks his head on one side, and his eyes glint across the cave. "Well, so long as you guys don't, like, do it in front of me..."

("Some chance," snorts Nightwing, later, when the conversation is reported to him. "If you knew -"

"Shut it right there, big bro," says Tim. "You know, there are some things I'm not old enough for yet."

Nightwing laughs. "Really?" he says. "What were you saying about that girl Candy over at your aunt's...")

Then he looks across at me. "So does that mean you've got the CD?"

Does everybody in the damn world know that Dick's sending me little graduation presents?

"It's in the drive."

"Cool"

And then I think of the first things that Dick says, and I reach to the main cable. Then I remember those unpassable screens, and I start to walk to the desks.

And then Tim runs the CD. From the beginning.

He's talking over the first bit. "I was there when he shot this, but he wouldn't let me listen. I was in the bathroom."

Dick's voice.

Tim listening.

Myself listening.

Then he hits the stop button, and looks at me. "If someone ever loved me like this, you know, I wouldn't let them go."

Hurt. Anger. Pain. And none of it Tim's fault. I walk away, hit the high bars, limber up. When I return, Tim's watching Leslie Charteris.

"How did you get there?"

"It's easy - don't you remember the Saint books? Alfred lent me them all. Cool dude."

Leslie ends - ' "And they've got the wrong car." '

The dark screen comes up.

"What does he mean, find the car? That author guy made it up, didn't he?"

"It was a Hirondel. I looked it up."

"Did you find it? Where is it?"

"How could I find it? Listen to yourself, Tim - that author guy made it up."

Tim turns round in the chair and looks at me. "Well, someone must have made one then, mustn't they?"

Of course.

Why didn't I think of that? I have to laugh. It's so obvious, and it takes a boy like Tim to point it out to me.

"What's the matter?" he asks.

"It's just that I never thought of that."

"Really?"

"Really. Er..thanks."

"No sweat, man." But Tim's quiet grin spells pride. "I suppose you'll want the big screen now?"

"It's another three hours til patrol - just time to get a good workout and a shower."

"Oh, Bats!"

"Hit the mat, Robin."

Once I'd worked that out - or once, I should say, Robin had worked that out - it didn't take too long to track down the few specialist car manufacturers I could find: the people that made Back to the Future's Delorean steam and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fly. None of them had ever been asked to make up a fantasy Hirondel, but one of them pointed me in the direction of the man that owned the car from the Saint television programmes. England. Specifically, a small museum in the town of Keswick. Where at this moment - I check the worldwide clocks - it's approximately two o'clock in the morning. It's also time to take a slightly tired Robin out on patrol.

With Tim at my back, I feel the depression of the last few nights slough from my skin: somehow, he can give the most serious events an ironic, humorous slant that is entirely his own. And, mindful of that irony, we spend a lot of time tonight on the east side of the city. Time passes quickly. A couple of hit-and-runs: one inept attempt on the Gotham City Bank, one solitary exploding penguin. I'll have to watch that one. I don't think it's the man himself - there's enough copy-cats out there to give Elvis a run for his money - but I'd like to be sure.

I send Tim yawning to bed, and check my chronometer: It's half four. That's half past nine in England, and I have my fingers crossed when I make the call.

He's there. He's volubly enthusiastic, and he doesn't think at all unusual that the billionaire car-collector Bruce Wayne is calling him from another country to try and trace a mythical machine that a dead author created sixty years ago. In fact, he knows the man I need to speak to. A young guy. An American. Does he still have the number? Paper rustles. Yes he does, and I lay the phone down with a sign and lean back in the chair. Tim's not the only one that's tired, but tonight it's the tiredness that comes with satisfaction, with a job well done, not the tense, unhappy worry that's strung my nerves for the past fortnight. Hell, that echoed through the past three years. I've talked about things today that I though I would never mention, and although I wouldn't say I'm happy, Tim and Alfred's trust has salved a part of my soul I thought I would never bare. I don't know where Dick's journey is going to take me, but he's intrigued me enough to let me think of more than the shame of my desire. His own intelligence. His skill. Even those awful puns: I can see his humour etched into this odd and convoluted puzzle. He's allowed me to think of the possibility that, one day, we might be able to work together without the tension of my betrayal. Although there are things I still don't want to consider.

And when I wake, later, with my body crying out for his, with this dark, blood-red, angry desire that I cannot stem stripping every control and safeguard I have ever set, I know that I am wrong. How can I do this to him? How could I do this to him? I remember the set of my teeth in the skin of his neck, and I am trembling.

Nevertheless, I make that call. It is a young man that answers the phone, and as he speaks I'm setting the tracers that allow me to pinpoint the phone.

"Hi, Simon"

"Hello," I say. "My name's Bruce Wayne -"

"Oh, you're the guy that bought that '64 Porsche from the Dubai auction, aren't you? Didn't someone say you'd got one of the Le Mons Jags, as well?-"

Car talk.

I spent a little time, in my teens, doing car talk. "And what about that Vincent Black Knight?"

It wasn't me that did bike talk, though. That was Dick.

"I...don't own the Black Knight," I say. "That was a gift..for my ward."

"Lucky guy," says Simon, on the other end of the phone. "It's great when your family like engines too. I don't think my mum ever got used to the filters in the sink. What can I do for you?"

So I explain. I don't get very far, but there's no doubt I've got the right man. (And by now I know exactly where I'm speaking to, and who owns this phone and pays the rent on this phone line, and in just a minute - ) "- reset the shocks for American roads, -" (I'll have the address...) "-of course, but the rest of it's nearly all original. Even got the right numberplate!"

What?

"What?"

"She was registered first in England, you know - she's got one of those old-style English numberplates, white on black, six digits-"

Six digits.

"- Of course, I'm sorry, Mr Wayne, but if you're thinking about it, she's just not for sale. I couldn't let her out of the family."

"It's okay," I say. "It's just the numberplate I'm interested in."

"I really couldn't sell you that either. It kind of comes with the car." He laughs. "Although, of course, we couldn't honestly say that she's always had that exact number."

There's something odd about this phone call.

"I thought this was a replica car," I say. "A Hirondel."

"Oh, she's a Hirondel all right," says Simon. "But she's real. The only one left. There were three, you know."

Real? Three? I take a deep breath. "I thought Leslie Charteris invented them. In the books he wrote about Simon Templar. The Saint."

"Oh, everyone thinks that. But he saw her first, this one, before he wrote the books. She's a real beauty."

"Were they all registered in England?"

Simon's tone is puzzled. "Of course," he says.

I wonder how to do this. "I had a..bet, with a friend of mine.. that these cars weren't real. There's a bit of money in it. If you could give me the license number, I could check it out with the people in England and prove it to him."

"Oh, I don't think I could do that." Simon's polite, but definite.

"I don't want more than a note of the figures. But I'd be more than happy to send a small donation...maybe to the car wax fund?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. You see, Dick said you'd have to see the car."

Silence.

"Hey, Mr Wayne, I'm sorry. Dick said you'd be ringing: he said I could have a little fun before I told you."

I bet he did.

"Are you there, Mr Wayne? I'd really like to give you the number, but Dick absolutely insisted..."

"Okay, Mr Simon whatever-your-name-is" I growl down the phone. "This is the way we're going to play it. In ten minutes time I'm going to step out of my back door and into my helicopter. And in twenty-four minutes time I'm going to sent foot on my jet. And in approximately six and three quarter hours, I'm going to be landing at Washington airport, and I'm going to have a driver waiting for me, and in another half hour I'm going to be outside your house. And then, Mr Simon, you can show me your numberplate and I am going to get the hell out of there. Is that clear.?"

There is a long, low, appreciative whistle in my ear. "Man, he said you'd be pissed," said Simon. "But I didn't think it'd be as good as that. Mr. Wayne, I think you should meet my Grandpa. You'd have a lot to say to each other."

"Seven hours, one quarter," I say. "Be there."

"Yes, SIR!" said Simon. He might have got the words right, but the amusement was not what I wanted to hear.

I slammed the phone done.

Unfortunately, he got there before I did.

I sent Alfred's carefully organised "to do" pile flying off the desk and towards the practice mats.

A long way towards the practice mats.

Then I called the helicopter pilot.

Some hare-brained chase. Some useless, futile puzzle. I'm not even certain why I'm doing this, why it's so important that I do this right. But if Dick wants me to go to Washington and see this car, I'll do it. He might have a twisted sense of humour, but he's never been frivolous with my time before.

Twenty-four minutes. Out onto the cold airport tarmac, the flimsy metal steps of the plane. " Morning, Mr. Wayne!" shouts the pilot from the cockpit. "Take off in seven minutes, if that's OK with you?" Her bright face peers round the cabin door.

" Great, Karen. I've got work to do." There is a second's bustle at the door, and then the steward, Jonathon, pulls himself in and shuts the door.

" Cut it a bit fine, that time," he says, smiling, and then I see him snap into work. " Coffee?" he asks. " I stopped at Verucelli's on the way. Croissant too?"

"Not just now," I say.

Jonathon looks at my face and seats himself as far to the rear of the plane as he can get.

I watch the airport spin beneath me, and then the long, slow slide over the outskirts of Gotham. My city. They don't allow planes over the city centre any more, but I don't mind: from here, I can see the odd, angular building that is the Manor, the trees my grandfather planted that hide the back road into the cave. I've work to do. In this portioned time that I spend so extravagantly on Batman's affairs, so frugally and resentfully on Bruce's, I have to find space to make sure that my second trust is running smoothly. Sometimes, it's the most difficult job I do, this subtle, careful balance between playboy and magnate, and there are times when I resent Bruce's vacuous hedonism in the same way that I resent Batman's certain ruthlessness. The trick to this edge of careful casualness has been the staff I employ, and without Lucius, I don't think I could manage. He's has forwarded everything he thinks I need to look at onto the on-board workstation: the financial statements, the employment records, the five-year-plan for that innovative mountaineering development set-up in Alaska that I suggested we supply with seed cash. That one should work out - if Terry McNeil can avoid breaking his neck before he makes his fortune. Climbers. I don't understand them at all.

Three and a half hours. It was misty over Gotham when I left, but here above the clouds the sun sends warmth through the window. I turn my head aside, and sleep. In my dreams, the ghost of a young man I once knew rests content, and I wake smiling.

"Twenty minutes, Mr Wayne!" calls Karen over the intercom.