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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Chapter Seven
Then...
"Grayson, where have you been? We were supposed to leave for patrol over an hour ago. If any innocents have been maimed or killed in this time, it's your responsi..." Damian trailed off when he finally caught sight of Dick.
Dick was sitting in a corner of the Bunker with his knees pulled up, forehead resting against them. His shoulders were shaking, and Damian hoped to god the man wasn't actually crying. He'd have to retreat and bring in Pennyworth if that were the case. At the moment though, he had to concede that Dick had done an admirable job comforting him in the past (and Damian was aware that he hadn't made the task at all easy or pleasant). He felt the need to at least attempt reciprocation.
Damian hesitantly approached Dick and sat down next to him. "What's troubling you?"
Dick didn't look up. When he spoke, his voice was shaking. He probably was crying. Damian felt a strong urge to run away and get the butler, but he fought that urge and managed to stay put.
"We found Roy...I, I talked to him today."
"Oh." The last Damian had heard, Harper had fallen back into his addictions, gone off the grid, and joined up with a band of supervillains, including the one Dick had assaulted with an IV. Clearly the man didn't handle grief well.
"Er, how was he?" Damian winced. 'Really? That's all you can think to say?'
"High as a kite, delusional, aggressive...same as he was last time I tracked him down...I think he's sleeping with Cheshire again." Dick's tone was hollow, but his actual voice was ragged, hoarse.
Damian snapped his head around to stare at Dick, who was still curled in on himself. "But isn't that a betrayal of the arrangements you've made?"
Another tremble went through Dick's shoulders, but this might have been from bitter laughter instead of a sob. "We haven't really been dating for...for a few weeks now. We just never made it official."
"Well he still shouldn't move on to another partner if he's dating you, even if it's only nominal. Did you end your arrangement?"
Dick finally looked up and rubbed at his face with the heel of his hand. It was red and splotchy, but he wasn't actually crying. Damian breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"Yeah...I didn't have much choice. I know I didn't, but I wish..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I wish he'd let me save him."
"You tried. He was too stupid to accept your help. Next time you pursue a romantic relationship, please consider my input more carefully. I did tell you that he was stubborn and that you could do better, if you'll recall."
Dick shook his head and let out a low chuckle. "Is this your first time trying to cheer someone up?"
Damian thought about it for a moment. "Other than the occasional frightened bystander, I think so. I'm not sure if I'm better at it with or without the mask obscuring my face. How am I performing?"
"You're actually not too bad at it."
Damian nodded, feeling a bit of awkwardness. "Does this mean you're ready to go out on patrol?"
"Yeah. I'm good. And I promise not to brood too much about Roy. Damian...thanks. You just helped me confirm that I made the right choice."
Damian watched as Dick got up and strode off to get his costume, feeling slightly puzzled. How had he done that? Feeling some impatience and annoyance, he wondered how long it was going to take him to get the hang of human emotions. Considering all the fighting styles he'd already mastered, he felt that he really should have had it down already.
Now...
Lian was declared completely, competently resurrected at seven in the morning. The first time Dick called Roy, the phone rang for a few minutes and went to voicemail. This happened the second and third times as well, but by the fourth time he got a response.
"If the world's about to blow, you should really call my reserve communicator." He sounded groggy. Dick always forgot that Roy was one of those rare Costumes who usually got a healthy amount of sleep (a feat accomplished by seeing very little sunlight, and none of it in the morning).
"The world's fine, it's-"
"Then don't fucking call me this early!" Roy shouted before hanging up on him.
Sighing, Dick prepared himself for another four calls to voicemail, when his phone suddenly started ringing in his hand. "Hello?"
"Hey dude," Roy said, sounding slightly more alert and a tad hopeful. "You weren't calling for a hookup, were you?"
"No," Dick ground out.
"Oh." He sounded disappointed. "Well what's up?"
Dick had been mentally rehearsing this conversation for hours, pretty much since Damian had jumped out of the wall with Lian in his arms. In that time, he'd decided that there really wasn't a subtle lead-in for this bit of news, and so he just came out with it. "Lian was resurrected."
There was a long pause. Dick patiently waited for Roy to process what he'd said. When he spoke again, it was with a weak, hoarse voice. "M-my little girl? She's back?"
"Yeah. As of last night. We ran some tests first to confirm it before calling you. It's really her, and the res' is permanent."
"She...where is she? Where am I going? Because I'm going like right fucking now, so tell me where I'm going please. Th-this is real? It's real? My little girl's really okay?" His voice got louder and louder, verging on the hysterical.
Dick tried to imagine what Roy probably looked like right then; hopping around his bedroom in a state of undress, with really bad bedhead, shrieking in joy and likely pissing off his neighbors (Dick had been personally acquainted with a fussy old lady who lived upstairs from Roy: she was also the type to whack the floor with her broom). Dick was smiling so hard it hurt.
"She's not exactly your little girl anymore though-"
"Wait, what? What the hell does that mean?"
"Calm down! It's her, it's just...I don't really get how it works, but I guess she was res'd as though she'd never died."
Roy sounded hesitant. "So...what does that mean?"
"It means she's twelve, not six."
"O-oh. Okay. Okay, well, well good."
"Cool. I'll teleport you up."
"Wait," Roy said. "Just give me a minute. I need to find a shirt and-shit, that's not clean. Hold on dude, I can't really do this while I'm on the phone."
Dick was kind of surprised he'd even tried to dress himself: he was either attempting to use the stump to put on clothes, or he was using it to cradle the phone. "Fine. You've got three minutes."
"Kay."
Roy hung up, and Dick winced. He still hadn't told Lian about the missing arm. The poor girl was already so disoriented, but doing really well considering. He didn't want to upset her, but someone had to break it to her before Roy actually showed up.
Lian walked up to the teleporters with Damian following after her, looking surlier even than usual.
Well, the kid was pretty tactless. Maybe he'd broken it to her already? No, Damian's social taboos never made Dick's life easier.
Lian stopped in front of the teleporters and offered Dick a bright smile. "Is Daddy coming soon?"
"Yeah...hey, Lian, there's something you shoud..." Dick's voice faltered and slowly died. It would have been easier if she'd stop smiling at him like that. "Uh...your dad really missed you."

Lian barely took in any details about her father when he was teleported into the Watchtower; she saw enough to confirm that it was him, and then she charged forward to give him a huge hug.
Roy started to call out her name, but the word turned into a sort of exclamation of emotion unrestrained by proper syllables. Her skinny arms wound around his neck, and he crushed her to him as best he could with his good arm and the stump.
Lian shrieked when she felt the stump graze her shoulder. "Daddy, w-what is...?" She pulled back and gingerly touched his empty sweartshirt sleeve. Roy glanced past her and sent a look Dick's way, which he didn't see because he was pointedly gazing out the window at Earth again.
"No one warned you, huh Peanut?" Roy asked, his question clearly directed more towards Dick than Lian. "I lost that arm awhile ago."
She pushed against the empty sleeve some more, eyes wide in wonder. "Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore." He smiled, and pulled her into a one-armed hug. "I missed you so much Lian. I'm so glad you're back."
"I love you Daddy." She gave him a tight squeeze, trying not to think about all the horrible things that could have happened for him to get maimed like that. 'It's not important now,' she told herself.
When Roy finally let go, Lian clasped his hand in both hers, and they studied each other, taking in the changes. Lian was struck by how different her father looked. Even though he was beaming with happiness and love, the rush of new emotion wasn't enough to completely dispel the lingering evidence of long sadness; there were lines on his face that hadn't been there before, and his dark auburn hair had streaks grey. He was unshaven, he needed a haircut, and his clothes were wrinkled and scrubbby. Lian knew he was able to take better care of himself than that.
He still had the physique of a superhero though. Even the stump was pretty muscular. She took that as a good sign.
For his part, Roy's evaluation of his daughter with six additional years was more pleasant. She was a little short for twelve, but healthy looking and beautiful regardless. Mostly she looked like her mother, but her eyes looked more like his than he'd ever noticed before.
"Alright Peanut, what now? Do you need to do anything else up here or can I take you home?"
Dick stepped forward. "You sure that's a good idea Roy? You wanna go...right back to your place? I mean we're all set here, but..." Dick looked at him pointedly, and Roy's eyes widened with epiphany.
"Oh yeah. I should probably uh...clean up first. Hey Peanut, wanna visit Grandpa Ollie instead?"
"Sure." Lian waved at Dick and Damian, then seemed to think better of it, darted forward, and gave each of them a hug. Dick tousled her hair and murmured a quick "Welcome back," but Damian stiffened and looked away from her. Lian frowned at him, but she strode back to her father's side as though it hadn't bothered her. She waved again as they teleported away.
"What was that about?" Dick snapped.
"She was awfully dismissive of me. Why shouldn't I have responded in kind? I've been working on this resurrection for six years and I've barely gotten to see her."
"Well Damian, she's got family to see. They kinda take precedence right now."
"It doesn't matter. I don't care anymore anyway." Damian stalked off in an angry huff that completely contradicted his words.
"O-o-okay..."

While Lian reacquainted herself with her family, Dick made his way to Roy's apartment in New York, armed with a bucket full of cleaning supplies and a mop. He was a bit surprised to find Donna waiting for him in the hallway, but figured she'd probably gotten some frantic texts from Roy similar to the ones he'd received, instructing him on what in the apartment to destroy before his daughter was allowed to see the place. Donna smiled at him and held out a tray of coffees.
"You don't have your own key?" Dick asked.
"Roy...doesn't invite me around that much. Not often enough to need a key, anyway. I was actually a little surprised he called me in for the emergency scrub down."
"Well you can fly. That's going to come in handy." Dick took his coffee, set down the bucket, and unlocked the door. "You sure you're prepared for this?"
Donna rolled her eyes. "I've seen how single guys live. I may have been raised on an island full of reclusive warrior women, but-Oh Hera that's a smell!"
Duck had flung open the front door. "Yeah...see, he was only ever as clean as he was for the sake of social services not taking Lian away. Now c'mon, we've got a lot to do."
Donna pulled her sweater up over her nose and tried not to gag. "Apparently I don't know how single men live." She turned a suspicious look to him.
"Alfred," Dick said, answering the silent question. He liked to think that without the butler's influence he still wouldn't live in a state of squalor similar to Roy's, but really Dick knew himself better than that.
Donna warily glanced around the room. "Should we just assume all the laundry's dirty?"
"Probably even the stuff hanging up in his closet. Wait! Don't go in his room. You're not allowed in there."
She laughed at that. "I've seen his bedroom before Dick. I know I don't have a reputation like yours, but I'm not celibate and Roy's...what?"
"Donna, look...he cleans for you when you come over. You think scented candles and fresh new sheets are standard for this guy?" He kicked an open pizza box towards her, and she stuffed it in a trash bag.
"Now I'm just curious. What is it he doesn't want me to see?"
"Mostly his porn. So, I'll sanitize the bedroom if you wanna start with the kitchen, and then we can meet back in the living room?"
"I guess that's fair...how did he get that on the ceiling?" She mumbled, gazing upwards in some confusion. Dick waved at her and disappeared into the bedroom. Donna flew up to the ceiling and investigated the peanut butter stain.
"Oh Hera, we're going to find lots of insects in this place, aren't we? Wait...I wonder what he meant by mostly porn..."

Needless to say, between Dick's observation-born-of-paranoid-Bat-training and Donna's mother-hen nurturing instincts, by the time Roy brought Lian back to the apartment it was much closer to being the type of home she remembered than it had been. They didn't have any of her personal effects, and obviously she didn't have any clothes, but it was still good to be home (plus Grandpa Ollie had loaned her a credit card to fix all that up).
"I need to go food shopping, so we'll just order a pizza tonight. Wally's gonna run by with some of his daughter's old clothes. That should hold you over until we can get to the store-"
"Daddy, there's a dinner on the table."
Lian had wandered into the kitchen. Roy followed her in and gazed in some amazement at a dining table he didn't remember owning, neatly set for two. There was a covered casserole dish sitting in the center of the table.
"Oh. Donna made us baked macaroni and cheese. Well that's way better than pizza."
"Auntie Donna was here? Why didn't she stay?" Lian pouted.
"Uh..."
Before Roy could think of something to say, Lian noticed the seven jumbo sized trash bags sitting next to the garbage can. "Oh. She cleaned up for you, huh?"
"I...get a little messy on my own. You know that."
"Well, as long as she visits later, I guess I don't mind."
"Why don't you crack into that mac and cheese? I'll be right back."
Roy left her in the kitchen and did a quick survey of the apartment. Deciding that he had no qualms about leaving Lian to poke around in any of it, he returned to the kitchen and shared a nice meal with his daughter, something he'd only dreamed about ever being able to do again.
Lian carefully avoided all the questions Roy wasn't ready to answer, focusing instead on what the important people in their lives had been up to for the past six years ("Grandpa Ollie and Dinah are divorced? Well that stinks." "Don't worry sweetie, they both still love you. It doesn't change anything, really." "Yeah...it just stinks because Grandpa's never going to find anyone else to put up with him. He shoulda noticed that and treated Dinah like gold.")
He did notice that a lot of her questions came back to Dick and Damain, but dismissed it as natural. After all, they'd resurrected her (he wasn't yet aware that it was just Damian, or how significant the world's worst tempered sidekick was about to become in his life). It was completely normal for her to be interested in them.
She didn't ask a single awkward question until just before bed, when Roy was spreading out a blanket and pillow on the couch (Lian would get his bed for the time being).
"Daddy, why did you and Uncle Dick break up?"
Roy fumbled with the pillow he was holding and almost dropped it. "I...wasn't aware you'd noticed we were dating."
"I didn't know that's what it was when I was six, but I don't have a six year old's level of perception anymore. The more I think back on it...you really loved him, didn't you? What gives?"
Roy sat down heavily on the couch, and Lian curled up beside him.
"Look Peanut...a lot happened back then. I mean, losing you was more than enough to...well, it really hurt me. I loved Dick...and I kinda still do and probably always will, but all I could see then was my pain. It would have been ridiculously selfish of me to ask him to stay with me during that, and I didn't."
"But if he loved you back, shouldn't he have helped you?"
"He tried. I wouldn't let him."
"Well that's stupid. Why not?"
Roy sighed. "I don't know. I guess...I guess I wasn't ready to get better. When I was, he was there for me, and he helped me just like he always does, but we've just been friends." Well, friends with benefits, but he was not ready to get into that with her anytime soon.
"You should have let him help you," Lian said with a frown.
"It would have hurt him though, and I didn't want that. I didn't want to drag him through what I was feeling. He's...he's a really good person. He hurts when other people hurt, you know?"
"Still though, if you loved each other then you should have tried harder." The situation seemed perfectly clear to her, and Roy didn't want to destroy her illusions of true love conquering all just yet.
"You're probably right. We could have tried harder. I just didn't want to risk hurting him by staying with him, and I promise, we're still really good friends. Dick's always going to be in our lives. Is that good enough?"
Lian scowled. "When I was six, Grandpa Ollie had just married the coolest step-Grandmother ever, and you were dating my favorite fake-uncle. You guys just fell apart without me, huh?"
Roy smiled grimly. "You have no idea sweetie."
"Well, don't expect me to fix everything now that I'm back. You guys do need to learn how to take care of yourselves eventually. Course, if you do wanna invite Uncle Dick and Damian over for dinner, I think that's a good start."
Roy eyed her with some curiosity, and she turned a bit red. "Peanut...?"
"G'night Daddy." She darted forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then retreated for the bedroom.
"Night Lian."

Lian ended up benefitting greatly from years of spontaneous resurrections. By this point there was a strong system in place, up to and including cancelling her certificate of death at City Hall. It turned out she wasn't even the first civilian from the tragedy at Star City to gain a resurrection, though none of the other half dozen people were connected to the superhero community (and as far as the public record went, she wasn't either).
After a couple months, the Harpers had some semblance of a normal life put back together. Roy moved into a bigger apartment out in the suburbs, and Lian slowly acquainted herself with the time she missed and got used to being twelve. She had a few sleepovers at Wally's house and began rebuilding her friendship with Irey, who didn't seem at all thrown by the death and resurrection, though Jai occasionally asked her uncomfortable questions about what death felt like when his parents were out of earshot.
She didn't hear from Damian again, which bothered her to no end, but she wouldn't admit it.
They reached a snag when the subject of school came up.
"Are you sure you're ready to just jump right back into public schooling?" Roy asked for possibly the billionth time.
"Yep," Lian answered. She was sitting in her new bedroom with a stack of fashion magazines, half her new wardrobe spread out on her bed, contemplating potential outfits. "How else am I going to adjust to a new age and time period without diving right in? Hey Daddy, do people really walk around without pants now?" She held up what to her looked like a long shirt, but was apparently arguably a dress, and a pair of thin leggings. She'd seen superheroes do it plenty, but it still didn't feel right to her somehow.
"...no," Roy lied. At any rate, his twelve year old daughter didn't walk around without pants.
"I didn't think so, but it's in the magazines. Will I look weird if I wear this?" She held up a pair of skinny jeans and a Wonder Woman t-shirt.
"Looks fine to me. Look, I'm just saying, I know your education is really important, but you missed a lot. You don't have to start right with seventh grade. You're coming into the middle of the school year, and you won't know anyone there. I could homeschool you for a little while first, and we could get you a tutor-"
"Dad, how am I going to ever know anyone at the school if I don't go to it and meet people myself?"
Roy watched her continue to fuss with the clothes, glad she wasn't showing signs of anxiety or trauma from what had happened to her, but feeling plenty of anxiety and trauma himself. She'd barely been out of his sight since she'd come back to life, and he sincerely did not like the idea of letting her wander off amongst strangers five days a week.
But Lian's arguments were ultimately much more convincing than his paranoia, and he did want her to have as normal a life as was possible. So Lian started school, and even though the Middle School was only up the street from their new house, Roy drove her to and from school, and accompanied her inside the first day.
"Dad, I don't think I'm going to get lost," Lian mumbled, feeling some embarassment. A lot of the kids milling around the building stopped to stare at them as they walked past, including a group of girls wearing leggings instead of pants (she should have known her dad had lied about that). She couldn't help but notice that no one else had a paranoid looking adult following them like a body guard.
"Sorry Peanut, but it's just for today. I've gotta go and talk to the principal again."
"Oh." Well that made sense. The administrative offices were on the third floor, and for the entire walk up to them, kids kept staring at Lian and her father. At one point a particularly dazed looking girl walked into an open locker door and dropped all her books.
Something finally occurred to Lian. They probably weren't gaping because she was being chaperoned. They were probably staring at her dad's missing arm. She tightened her grip on her backpack and scowled, trying to will her anger away. It didn't even look that bad! He had the shirt sleeve pinned up with safety pins and everything. 'If anyone makes fun of my dad for having a missing arm, I'm going to punch them in the throat.'
Roy had some paperwork that needed to be filled out for enrolling a student who had previously been deceased. Lian was the first student to attend that particular school under those circumstances, so the papers hadn't been on hand earlier in the week(they'd had to fax them over from a larger school in Metropolis). Lian waited while Roy completed the forms, the principal went over some basic school rules and promised to accomodate Lian and her "special circumstances", and then she was finally given her class schedule and assigned a locker.
She still had ten minutes before her first class, so she walked with her dad back to the front entrance. "So...you're really ready for this Li?"
"Course I am Daddy." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's not like I'm joining the Teen Titans or something. It's just middle school."
"Yeah, well personally I think the Titans were easier. I'll pick you up right at two thirty, so don't even think about walking home. And if you get out earlier for any reason, call me."
Lian rolled her eyes. She'd been equipped with a cellphone and a League communicator, which she considered overkill. "I promise Daddy." She gave him a big hug, and watched him reluctantly walk away.
Then she heard someone nearby whisper to a friend about the hot guy with the nice ass who was heading out to the parking lot. Suddenly all the staring made sense (she hadn't noticed before, but it had been mostly female students).
Lian groaned, and decided she would have preferred it if her new classmates had been staring at her dad because of the missing arm.

Finding out she had a Dad-I'd-Like-to-Fuck turned out to be the most traumatic thing that happened to Lian on her first week of school. It was traumatic enough for her tastes though, and she began adopting strategies to deal with the unpleasant discovery. First on the agenda was to get her dad to stop driving her to and from school.
They only lived up the street from the school, so it was wasteful to begin with, and she didn't want him to notice the eighth graders who'd timed their schedules to ogle him in the parking lot.
Lian was a daddy's girl, and had a lot of charming illusions about the man, but she was aware of his vanity and ego. If he noticed that girls were checking him out, even if they were only preteens and teenagers, he'd encourage the behavior.
Roy's new stalkers also made it difficult for Lian to befriend her schoolmates. Twice she'd thought she was making a real friend, only to discover that the girl was just trying to get invited to her house. One of them was even brazen enough to ask if Lian had pictures of her dad in her cellphone ("And if you don't, could you take some and send them to me? I'll be your bestie for life!"). It took her a few tries, but she finally bonded with a brother and sister who lived in her neighborhood, and happened to walk by the Harper residence on their way to school every morning.
"Please-please-please just let me walk to school with Cameron and Emma? Come on Daddy, I'll still have my phone and my JL comm with me, and it only takes like ten minutes to walk to school. Ple-e-e-a-se?"
"Lian, I gave you my answer this morning, and again this afternoon when I picked you up, and at least fifteen more times between now and then. I'm just not comfortable with you walking to school by yourself. Come on Peanut, we know I'm barely even comfortable with you going to school."
Lian flopped down at the dinner table with her arms crossed, a look of dramatic twelve-year-old misery on her pretty face. "You know, supervillains aren't actually lurking around every corner waiting to strike. And even if they were, they wouldn't know to strike me. No one knows I was res'd."
Roy went back to stirring the pasta he was making, turning his back to her as well. "Last time the supervillain wasn't targeting you. It just happened."
"Right, because it could happen anywhere at any time to anyone!" Lian exploded.
"And that scares me!" Roy yelled. He turned off the burner with a shaky hand. "I wasn't there last time. If anything happens..."
Lian ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, crushing her face to his back. "I'm sorry Daddy, it's okay. Y-you can keep driving me to school."
Roy took a deep breath, calmly pried her fingers apart, and stepped out of the clinging hug. "So we're going to let my fear control your second chance at life?"
Lian eyed him fearfully. "Uh...you'll get over it by the time I'm old enough to drive, right?"
"Not at this rate. Let's figure out a compromise. Would it be okay if you didn't walk to school every day? Then I'll only have maybe two or three days a week where I'm creepily staring out the window for you shitting bricks?"
"Dad!" Lian rolled her eyes. "I promise, I can really and truly walk to and from school without inviting disaster."
"And I believe you Peanut. It's my stupid paranoid gut instinct that won't listen. So...compromise?"
She scowled. "Fine, if it's the best I can get. Can I walk with them tomorrow?"
Roy winced. "You really gotta start right away?"
"Daddy, I think you're letting your fear control my second chance at life..."
"I'm really going to regret saying that, aren't I?" He asked.
"Oh yeah."
"Fine, you can walk tomorrow. But make sure you remember your phone! And your comm!" He had to yell the last bit up the stairs since she was already on her way to her bedroom to call her friends.
She rolled her eyes, but dutifully put the JL communicator in the front pocket of her backpack, not expecting in the least how soon she would need to use it.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Birds and Bees