Do I honestly have to keep saying that I don't own anything?
Like if DC all of a sudden was up for sale and I bought up the majority of it's shares, don't you think you would have heard about it already?
And who sues fanfiction writers? I'm pathetic enough as is, do you really need to drag my ass into court?
Capitalism man...capitalism...
The Fabulous Adventures of Richard J. Grayson
Some heroes are born with the strength of a god.
Some heroes are born with speeds greater than the winds.
Some heroes can shift their shape into anything they wish.
Dick Grayson, has none of those powers. And yet, in his own special way, he has perhaps the most enviable power of them all.
Almost 90% of the planet wants to have sex with him.
No one is sure exactly how he came into possession of this great gift; whether it was divine gift or scientific accident or maybe, just maybe, an ancient genetic anomaly passed down from a bloodline infested with all sorts of writhing and wiggling tentacle abominations that populate our nightmares and the stars. No, it is a mystery that has puzzled a many historians, biographers and stalkers. There is one little tid-bit that all parties agree on though:
Oliver Queen had nothing to do with it.
Here then is a tale to prove, once and for all, that Oliver is a lying sack of shit and should stop trying to spread rumours about how he taught Dick "everything he knows" whenever some man or woman starts swooning over him.
I have it on good authority that this tale is true, the best kind of authority. Scouts honor you could even say.
It happened on a balmy summer night, deep in the heart of Metropolis's fashion district, several years ago, when Dick was still known as Robin...
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Metropolis
When and where the narrator said it was:
Clark Kent walked briskly down the sidewalk, whistling a jolly tune and carrying a rolled up copy of the New Yorker under his arm. The evening was marching on, meaning that the city streets were pulsing with lights from both windows and cars, and more and more denizens were dressing up and heading out for a night on the strip, if Metropolis could be said to have one of those. A rather normal evening for the city, Clark thought to himself absentmindedly. A rather normal evening indeed.
What wasn't normal was the image of Oliver Queen, crouched behind two plotted plants, a few steps in front of him, with binoculars held to his eyes. Clark's first thought should have been that something might be wrong, but he was well aware of Oliver's reputation of being (to put it mildly) a bit of a disgusting peeping tom.
Either way, Clark felt compelled to investigate further. It was his city after all.
He picked up his pace and closed the distance between himself and Oliver quickly, reaching his side quietly and without the other hero noticing. He tapped Oliver on his shoulder, expecting him to whirl around in shock at his sudden appearance.
Instead, Oliver seized Clark's wrist and roughly tugged him towards the ground, behind the bushes, mumbling obscenities along the way.
"Stop standing around like an idiot Clark! Can't you see I'm trying to lay low?"
Clark adjusted his glasses, but eyed Oliver with a look of indignation. "What exactly are you doing here Oliver?" he asked.
Oliver didn't say anything; just pointed over the bush towards a tall, well-built man with short black hair weaving his way through a crowded club across the street. Clark almost gasped.
"Is...is that Dick? Dick Grayson?"
"Damn right it is," Oliver said.
"Why are you spying on Dick? Is he in trouble?"
Oliver shot him a glare. "He's going to be in trouble if you don't shut up." He pressed his fingers to his ear, and across the street, Clark could see Dick doing the same. With his super hearing, Clark could pick up both sides of the conversation easily.
"How you doing kid?" Oliver asked.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Dick said, with a hint of apprehension.
"You kidding me? Where the hell else are you going to pick up women? One of Bruce's stuffy cocktail parties?"
Clark shook his head. "Oliver, you're not seriously..."
"Can it Captain Underpants," Oliver interrupted. "Dick, still there?"
"Yeah, still here. Still skeptical."
"Well cut that out kid. They can smell indecision a mile away."
"I don't think that's the appropriate thing to..."
"No back talk. Pick a target and report back before moving in."
Clark again sighed and resisted the urge to hit Oliver in the back of his head with the New Yorker...barely. He almost stood back up, tied of the sight playing out in front of him, but Oliver grabbed onto his shirt sleeve again and ushered him back to the ground. Clark new he could easily have launched the billionaire several kilometers into the sky if he wanted, but hoping to avoid an incident (again), he played along.
Though he doubted that the scowl on his face was disappear anytime soon.
"You're going to blow our cover!" Oliver hissed. "Don't stand up until I tell you!"
"Oliver, please explain to me what's going on? Besides you living up to your ridiculous reputation."
Green Arrow let his binoculars fall around his neck and shifted his knees, turning to fully face Clark. His blonde mustache bristled. "Look," he said, "the kid's got a gift. I can just sense it. Don't ask me how; I ain't the kind of person to start sounding like Deepak Chopra, but I can just feel it. So, I'm helping him develop his gift, in the real world, away from all those fancy computers and bats and stuff."
"Don't you think this is Batman's territory?" Clark asked. "Dick is his son after all, more or less."
Oliver scoffed. "What? You kidding me? First rule of being in the Bat-Family is celibacy, plain and simple. Under Bruce, those kids'll grow up to make Mother freaking Teresa look promiscuous."
That didn't register with Clark at first. "Bruce does that? Really? We're thinking of the same Bruce here, right?"
Oliver scoffed again, and shook his head. "Don't misconstrue Clark; Bruce makes the rules, but he doesn't follow them. Like any fascist. No, I figured that if Dick was going to learn anything that matters in life, I was going to have to take him under my wing."
Before Clark could (rightly) inform Oliver of what an utterly terrible idea that was, or perhaps inform the appropriate authorities of the calamity that was brewing, Dick's static laced voice rang out from Oliver's ear piece, drawing their attention back towards the poor, gullible, tormented kid.
"Hey Ollie? I think I see someone. Girl in the back, with long black hair."
Oliver raised his binoculars, started scanning for Dick's position, then followed his posture to the girl in question. He chuckled in approval. "The busty one? Good choice kid, good choice."
Clark, however, who was peering over the plants and staring into the club, was on the verge of panicking. He hurriedly tapped Oliver's shoulder.
"Uhm, Oliver?" he said.
"Oh excuse me Mr. PC, allow me to modify my complements pertaining to a girls..."
"No," Clark interrupted, grabbing Oliver's head and forcing him to look back at the girl. "Look at her. Doesn't she look a wee bit familiar to you?"
Through the lenses, Oliver's eyes strained, trying to making out any distinctive features. Just then, the girl spun around to face one of her friends, offering him a clear view of her face.
Huh, kinda looks like Donna Troy, he thought to himself.
"Oh shit," he said aloud as the cogs in his brain finally decided to start working again. He reached for his communicator and nearly screamed into it.
"Dick! Abort mission, I repeat abort mission! We have a Code: Amazon! Get your ass out of there!"
He only got the hiss of static as a reply, while through his binoculars he could see Dick meander closer and closer. Clark, who was originally quite panicked, now understood the comedy of the situation, and began to relax. "I think there's some interference on your end," he said, deadpanned.
"Gee, ya think?" Oliver dug his fingers into his ear and yanked out his communicator, slamming it hard into the sidewalk where it exploded in a shower of sparks and circuits. "Goddamn crappy outsourcing!"
Clark stood up. "I'll go and get him. You've done enough damage for one night."
Yet again, he was stopped by Oliver's arm, and yet again, his good hearted nature prevented the thought of simply breaking it from ever crossing his mind. "No," Oliver said, "I've trained him well enough. I'm sure he can get himself out of this mess."
"You trained him?"
"'Course I trained him! I wouldn't just let him walk in there as a rookie! Besides, when has working without a safety net ever killed anybody?"
"Ah," Clark said.
He's a gonner, Clark thought.
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Dick squeezed his way through the dancing bodies around him until he reached the woman in question. Still oblivious to the danger that lurked ahead of him, he tapped her gently on her shoulder, and readied himself to start making his moves.
Might as well make Ollie proud, right? He thought, like an idiot.
The woman spun around, still laughing at one of her friends jokes. When her eyes made contact with Dick's they lit up with excitement. Dick's meanwhile glossed over with fear as the insidious sensation of royally screwing the pooch, as he would later describe events, started to set in.
"Dick!" Donna screamed over the music, excitedly. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know," he stammered, "just...being here, I guess."
Donna shot off her seat and wrapped her friend in a strong hug, further making Dick wish that he could act logically and back out. She released him, and through the bar mirror he could see the row of plants where Ollie was hiding behind.
Well...don't want to disappoint him, he said to himself, like an even bigger idiot. He motioned to her drink with his finger. "So...whacha drinking?"
Donna cupped her glass in her hands. "Oh this? Just a Cuba Libre, nothing fancy."
"Oh," Dick said. "Yeah, uh, cool, cool..." He rubbed the nape of his neck. "Probably just get a straight up rum. You know, hard liquor, man's drink."
Donna's brow furrowed. "Bruce let's you drink?"
"Pfft, what? Like I let that old downer tell me what to do." Clark wasn't very specific at this point, but I can assure you, it wouldn't take someone as smart as Donna to notice how completely and utterly insecure Dick was being at the moment. None the less, Donna played along.
"Oh, right," she said. "So...what are you doing in Metropolis?"
"You know...stuff," he said. Like a fault line threatening to swallow up a peaceful village, Oliver's indoctrination picked this exact moment to kick in, and all the carefully honed gears in Dick's head decided to seize up. "So," he said, "enough small talk. Why don't you and I bounce outta this joint?"
Donna glanced over her shoulder. "Well, I'm actually here with a couple of my friends from the Embassy..."
"C'mon toots, it's a bore here. Whaddya say?"
At this point, morbid curiosity over the drastic change in behaviour from her best friend set in, and to this day she insists that she though he may have been some sort of shape-shifter posing as the Titan's leader.
I believe her.
"What do you have in mind?" she asked, eyeing him incredulously.
More than a little shocked at getting this far (and so clouded by Oliver's idiocy that he ignored all warning signs), he stuttered out, lamely, "I-I was thinking, uhm, that we blow this place, and then maybe you can..."
For the sake of public decency, I'll leave this next exchange out. Rest assured, it was exactly as bad as you think it is, and understandably, Donna was not too impressed.
"Dick," she said, leaning closer, "as your friend, and more importantly as your teammate, let me tell you something." Her lips were nearly brushing his ear as she whispered. "If you don't stop whatever game you're playing, I'll punt you into lower orbit. Are we clear?"
As if he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol (I checked just to be sure. He was clean.), instead of seeing the red flags and retreating, a little bit more Oliver managed to worm it's way into his brain.
"Uhm, I love the type of girl that can kick my ass?"
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Across the street, Oliver was staring at Clark, who had resigned himself to realizing that his nice, relaxing evening was now completely and irrevocably ruined..
"Alright big guy," he said, "what's happening?"
"What?"
"You keep grimacing and shaking your head. Spill."
Clark sighed and wiped his glasses with his sleeve. "Your soldier in there isn't doing very well," he said.
Oliver blinked. "Oh. Really? How bad?"
Just as he said that, a loud crash rang out from across the street, and before Oliver could even adjust his field of view, a battered Dick Grayson soared head over heels across the street. He plowed through the plants and landed with an audible crash against the wall behind the on looking heroes.
"That's how bad," Clark said.
Oliver was beside himself, as he should have been. He ran up to the crumbled heap that was Robin and nervously pulled at his hair. "Ah shit," he said, "I broke the damn bird!"
"Bruce isn't going to be happy," Clark accurately surmised.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit!" Oliver paced back and forth. "I gotta do something. I gotta hide him, or fix him up, or take him to Canada, I don't know." He turned to Clark. "You've gotta help me! I'm a dead man pacing right now!"
Clark, being the definition of too nice, lightly placed his hand on Oliver's shoulder, trying his best to reassure him in spite of the guillotine hanging over his head. "Look, Ollie, I'll help you, but you have to understand..." He paused, noticing that Oliver's eyes were tracking something behind him. Clark craned his neck and saw a rather attractive blonde woman gaping at the destroyed wall of the club. Clark put the pieces together quickly.
"Ollie, what ever you're thinking..."
"Can't talk," he said, moving out from in front of Clark. "I see a woman, I'm hitting her with my sex dance."
Before Clark could say anything else, Oliver was gone, lost to the primordial urges of a man with no self control. Clark sighed, shook his head, then turned back to Dick, who was busy making sure his arms and legs still worked. He stood over Robin, his arms crossed, like a disapproving Uncle.
"You know what I have to do," he said.
"Yeah...I know," Dick replied.
"Alright, good. And no matter what happens," he lightly scooped up Dick into his arms," just remember that it wasn't necessarily your fault."
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In a way, Clark was right.
When he brought Dick back to the mansion, I was both too tired and too injured to deal with whatever had transpired, so Dick merely got away with a stern lecture about proper etiquette from Alfred, who also made him phone Donna and apologize almost immediately (Diana tells me that this likely saved him a few extra stitches).
By the next day, I had enough time to think things over and realize that the root cause of all this mayhem had little to nothing to do with Dick, and everything to do with one very large and specific problem that needed to be addressed.
As the fascist that I am, I presented Dick with a new set of rules about dating, to replace all the old, now obsolete ones. The rules were as follows:
-You may date whomever you wish
-So long as Oliver Queen is no less than three time zones away from you when you make your decision.
Not that the last qualifier was all that hard to maintain, in the end. After Dick agreed to the rules, I distinctly remember hearing about a certain canister of Fear Gas going missing, and turning up empty in an apartment complex somewhere in Star City.
Of course, I wouldn't know anything about that...
The End
Apparently his middle name is "John", so says various sources of high repute (ie fan-made wiki's). But that's stupid.
In my world, Dick's pulling a Truman and adding a middle letter to his name just for the hell of it.
Head-canon activate.