𝐂𝐈𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐘 ━ peter parker

xi. ″dressed like a clown″

It's a weird thing, pride. Fickle.

Pride.

The sort of thing that could make a man feel accomplished, floating on the clouds of euphoria. The sort of thing that could make him feel like biggest piece of shit on Earth.

Dick didn't understand why the two were simultaneous.

"You did well," Bruce commented. His steely gaze had been trained on Dick for many silent minutes, a slight smile gracing his handsome face. The teen shrugged, swinging his feet where they failed to meet the floor over the edge of the hotel room's bed.

"I wasn't going to do it," Dick said quietly, not meeting his mentor's gaze. It made his skin crawl, thinking about what he'd done. No, not crawl. It burnt. "I had this entire other plan in mind that I didn't tell you about."

"I know. But you did," Bruce supplied, coming forward. His passive face softened as he spoke, and Dick felt the mattress dip beside him as the man sat down. A steadying hand fell onto his shoulder and Dick leaned into that touch, strong and sure, anchoring him to the moment. "Thank you, Dick."

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Dick looked down at the floor. A familiar sting in his eyes threatened to prick into something much more tangible, and it had been ever-present in the foreground of his emotional state since he'd been dropped back at the hotel after the god-awful date.

Date. It was a pathetic excuse for one, wasn't it? They didn't even finish their food. Dick felt sick.

"You're not going to find anything," he said eventually, and he detested the way his throat tried to close before the words could be forced out. It made his voice crack; it made him sound weak.

Bruce squeezed his shoulder gently as the boy let out a thick, heavy sigh. "Probably not," the man agreed. "But we can never be too careful."

The fact that Dick agreed with him only made him feel worse. He hated it. Hated the way he was becoming less and less satisfied with the world. Hated the way he was every day closer to becoming just like his mentor.

It might've made for a good sketch on SNL. It sure felt like a joke: A boy slowly turning into his father, the two melding and spinning together until eventually there was no difference between them at all.

Only, the key difference between Dick and other kids his age was that Bruce wasn't his father... not really. And what he was becoming was a person that had more bruised ribs than compassion in their body. And even then, 'person' felt too good of a word to use. He was becoming less of a person, more of a soldier.

And it wasn't Bruce's intent. Dick knew that. The man had taken great pains to try and ensure that this path they were both on lead to different endings for the two of them (and ick was almost certain that Bruce intended his own road to end on the streets, bleeding into the filthy Gotham gutters). All the same, it seemed improbable that the apple would really fall far from the proverbial tree.

Dick picked at the soft bedsheets beneath him, running the fabric between his thumb and forefinger.

"Am I a bad person?"

Bruce's hand fell away, and the boy yearned for his touch. There was a speechless moment, where Bruce remained stoically silent in his usual mesmerising way, and Dick felt his heart hammer confusedly in his chest.

"Dick..." Bruce sighed, his words firm. "Look at me. Look at me."

Dick pulled his gaze from the white cotton with great effort, staring up into those ghostly and observant blue eyes. A sigh escaped him, the sincere kindness that he was met with pushing back the upset and turmoil raging in his young heart.