EDIT: TW BLOOD

One on one time with Connor was something Dick wasn't used to but it made a lot of sense for them to spend time together. They were both made to be something they didn't want to be one way or another. They were reformed weapons turned heroes. Big corporations and groups were behind them, wishing for their return to their side, but they'd never go back. So, in theory, they should spend a lot of time together but they just didn't. Probably due to Dick's family taking up half of his time and the two gingers in his life taking up the other half. This rare time together was purely due to the subject of the mission the team was going on. Batman explained that they had to sit this one out because the nature of it "could be triggering". The team wasn't allowed to tell them and they weren't allowed to ask. Obviously this was rather annoying and they had a full-length argument but you can guess who won it.

They sat in silence for the most part. Neither were really talkers but Connor decided that after watching static for half an hour he should at least try to have a conversation with the kid he was sitting next to. "So how have you been?" That was how you started conversations right? 

"Okay. Wally and Babs have been helping me with social skills. I was unaware that I don't blink from time to time," he explained. Connor hummed, a little preoccupied with congratulating himself on beginning a conversation. M'gann would be very proud of him when she found out he was the one to ask about his day. "You?"

"Well. M'gann and I have been practicing baking. I can make cinnamon rolls." Dick perked upon hearing that. A spark of excitement went off in his blue-yellow eyes. "Do you like baking?" he added, interested in the reaction he got.

"Very much so. It helps me relax since it's not as unpredictable as other activities."

"I like it for that reason too. We could try and make something to pass the time?" he suggested. Wow, he was on a roll with socializing today. It just seemed easier with Dick. Probably because he answered the question and didn't waffle on about something else for ten minutes. The younger nodded excitedly. He vaulted over the couch and ran to the kitchen, climbing up onto the kitchen island to wait for the older. Connor stood up with a small smile and joined him in the kitchen. He brought out the recipe book M'gann had and passed it over. "I didn't take you for the baking type," he commented as the boy flipped through the pages. 

"Same could be said for you. Judging by your fighting style, I didn't think we shared the hobby," Dick replied. He paused flicking through the pages and resaid that in his head. "That was rude, wasn't it? I've been told I come off rude."

"I've been told that too. If you ask me, there are too many rules to social interaction," he responded. 

"Exactly! Always tell the truth but you have to say it in a way that doesn't upset anyone and there are times where you should lie but those times change. It's a minefield." He passed over the book with his finger on one recipe. Simple pumpkin spice muffins. It was fall after all so it wasn't that unexpected of a choice. They rummaged through the cupboards and gathered up the ingredients they needed. Luckily, M'gann kept the kitchen fully stocked so they didn't need to go out to buy anything. That would've been way too much effort for a simple batch of muffins.

They measured them out and mixed them together, happily working on their own jobs in silence. Silence seemed to be what they were most comfortable with but Connor pushed for conversation. If not to develop his own social skills but to help Dick with his. They were both in the same boat when it came to talking so working together on it would be like sparring. Word sparring. "Is there anything else you find that helps you relax?" he inquired.

"Work does. Paperwork, patrol, investigations, planning. I don't sleep as other people do so it keeps me occupied when no one else can cause they're asleep." He paused for a moment and glanced over at Connor. "Do you find sleeping hard too?" Connor nodded, gaining a small smile from Dick. "Oh good, I'm not the only one. I can go for days without sleeping quite easily. It's only the boredom that makes me remember I should be sleeping."

"I tend to focus on listening to something then before I know it, it's morning and I've got sparring in ten minutes," he explained. Dick smiled to himself and began putting the batter in the cases carefully. Each was perfectly equal, just how he liked them to be. Alfred would always comment that they didn't have to be exactly the same amount but he couldn't stand when they weren't. Baking was exact and he liked to keep it that way. He liked that control over it. That probably said something about his mentality and the effects of being a Talon but he didn't focus on that stuff anymore. It was always so negative. "I could develop a set of earplugs if that would help? It would give me something productive to do at night," he suggested.

"That would be a lot of help. I don't really feel tired but it would be nice to not be up for hours. Sleep might be fun. Don't you get tired? You're still somewhat human after all," Connor asked.

"Sometimes but I only ever sleep when someone is there to make me. It's like I need someone else's permission to," he explained as best he could. He didn't quite understand it himself. It was all rather confusing. There were so many questions he had but they'd never be answered. That would mean going back and that was something he just couldn't do. "Didn't you sleep before?"

"No. We had these little pods that would fill up with this liquid and then we'd be out in a while. I never closed my eyes." He stared into space for a moment, only broken by Connor's hand on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch and looked up at him. 

"Are you okay?" He looked back to the batter and cake cases, not answering. That was telling enough considering he always answered questions. He didn't like leaving them unanswered but he didn't know how to answer this one. Was he supposed to know? He remained silent as he carried on putting the batter in the cases. Connor gently put a hand on his to make him stop. "Do you know how you feel?" He shook his head. "Then perhaps we should talk about it?"

"I don't want to talk about them anymore. Everyone says it's supposed to help but then the conversation ends and I'm left still thinking about it. I just want to stop thinking about them," he replied. Connor took the tray off him and placed it in the oven. He then knelt down and held his hand. There were no words spoken but Dick found it sort of helped. He didn't know why. He felt like he didn't know a lot of things most of the time. "I didn't like talking about when I came from either. It was a constant reminder of when I hurt my friends. Though, now that I have talked, I don't feel as bad." Dick took his hand away and looked away. This wasn't helping. Their experiences were similar but they weren't the same.

"You're a clone. I was a person before they got to me. I could've been a normal kid," he said spitefully.

Ah here's why they weren't usually left alone together. Neither knew how to express themselves very well. Dick's comment resulted in Connor standing up and folding his arms angrily. "I didn't have the chance to be normal either," he reminded the younger.

"You never would've been. Clones don't live normal lives. Especially when they look like Superman," he pointed out. They glared at one another before they blew up.

"I was only trying to help," he spat.

"Well, you're not helping. Our similar pasts don't equal similar solutions!"

"Oh, it's all about you! Every moment is about you. Don't say this in front of Dick, don't do that in front of Dick, do this instead of that or else Dick will get upset. I'm sick of all these rules," Connor ranted. He threw his hands up in exasperation of the topic. It's all anyone goes on about anymore. Every bit of news is about him and how he's doing. Why did they all care so much? They hardly knew him! They should be wary of him if anything. "Oh please, I'm not that sensitive!" Dick defended, stamping his foot to prove his point. The taller rolled his eyes dismissively. 

"You are! One mention of the Court and you get sad. Everyone has to be so careful around you, it's exhausting!"

"I didn't ask for this! I never asked to be made like this! I didn't ask for them to take me and turn into something so horrible that people have to tiptoe around me!" he screamed with his eyes shut tightly.

They opened when he realized what he said. Connor went to say something but his eyes caught on something behind Dick. His look made the other turn around. The team was standing in the doorway, staring. Now he knew why staring wasn't something people liked. A pit grew in his stomach when he saw them. He looked back to Connor who looked down at him as though they'd been caught breaking the law. "What's going on?" M'gann asked, feeling the tension and anger in the room. There was an air of sadness around both of them. One more intense than the other but both definitely sad. "I-erm-I." Dick tried again and again but he just kept stumbling over his words. He got frustrated each time he couldn't just say something. Anything. He ended up just letting out an angry groan and storming out the room, pushing away anyone who got in his path. "Okay, so it's official that we're never leaving them alone together again?" Wally commented. Connor rolled his eyes and followed Dick, grabbing M'ganns hand on the way and dragging her along. She gave him a confused look as to why she needed to tag along considering the issue was between the two boys, not her. "Need to know I'm doing it right," he explained briefly.

Since no one was home to care for him, Dick had to find sanctuary within the Mountain. He decided to go to his room and locked the door behind him before blocking it with a chair. Nobody would come to him unless he wanted them to. He liked that. Control. He craved it more than anything. There were so many things he couldn't control but he could control this. He could control who came into his room. He could control if he was going to forgive Connor. He could control whether he went out of the room before he had to go home. They didn't have control of that. He had this over them. He sat on his bed which happened to be adjacent to a mirror and scanned himself in his reflection. Talon showed through. His eyes. His face. Parts of his arms and neck. All Talons were made to look like that. Dick may have some control now but they had all of it before and probably would again. He stood up and walked over to the mirror. He tried to imagine what he would look like if this didn't happen. He'd have blue eyes. His skin would have no yellow marks tracing random veins. Yet he just couldn't look past the features in front of him. Did he even know how to take control of himself anymore? Learning feelings and how to communicate was one thing but that didn't teach him to control himself. He'd blown up at Connor when he'd just attempted to share a painful experience with him. Why did he do that? Why did he feel so bad when Connor looked at him like that? Why did he want to run away when the problem could've been fixed if he'd just stayed? So many questions floated around his mind but he couldn't get a grip on any of them so they continued unanswered. Haunting him. His eyes refocused on the mirror. Talon. Talon. Talon! TALON!

Dick couldn't remember what happened. He just had blood on his hands. Frantically he searched for the source of the liquid. He didn't do it again did he? No, he would've known. He would've remembered. He always remembered when he did it. That was the curse of it. His search for a body turned up empty so he studied his hands. The blood on his palms was from the blood that had trickled in between his fingers. He turned them over finding that the blood had come from the gashes in his knuckles. He wasn't going able to hide this from his family. Already he dreaded that conversation. They'd know that he'd blacked out. They'd probably bar him from going on missions until they knew why. He was such a fuck up. He glanced to the floor as his senses slowly came back to him. Glass from a mirror. The frame of the mirror must've been tossed from where he was because he couldn't find it now. The shards close to him were covered in blood but some of them had specks where he could just about see himself. There was blood on his face but it wasn't coming from his face. He must've moved the hair out of his eyes and got some on himself. Dick looked around for the frame, finding that it had been tossed across the room and broken. It was now that he could feel how labored his breathing was. How tight his chest had been this entire time. His ears rang before he finally heard the banging on his door. Two sets. Well, there were two sets until the door was forced open. There it was. The fragility of Dick's control over the world around him. Anyone at any time could take it away. This was yet another show of it. He turned around to find Connor and M'gann looking around at the destruction of the mirror, along with a few trinkets that must've been in the way. "What happened?" M'gann shrieked.

"I don't know. I-I can't remember," he answered, his eyes falling to the ground. She exchanged a concerned look with her boyfriend and took a few steps forward. 

"What's the last thing you remember?" He shrugged. "Are you sure?" He nodded, moving to shift the hair out of his eyes. There was some blood clinging to his black locks. He'd seen that before though it wasn't normally his blood. "Can you at least try to? What do you remember when you first got in the room?"

"I said I can't remember! Stop asking me questions! You're not helping!" he shouted, suddenly pulling at his hair in distress. He couldn't take any more questions. There were already so many. He shakily took a deep breath and tried to center himself but he was struggling to think of anything clearly.

A sudden feeling of fatigue took over but he couldn't shut his eyes long enough to let it engulf him. Connor must've noticed. Why else would he scoop Dick up and carry him to his room before placing him on the bed? He sat down beside him and held his hand. Touch meant permission but he didn't want to sleep just yet. They weren't on the same terms they'd began the day on. "Did Wally teach you about rule 34 and 35?" the clone asked quietly.

"Rule 34, when your emotions/opinions were intended to be positive but have a negative outcome you must apologize. Rule 35, when your emotions/opinions were intended to be mean because someone has hurt your feelings you must apologize along with an explanation of the background factors leading to it," Dick recited easily. He breathed a sigh of relief when he did. Finally, his mind was clearing up. He got a nod then thought over what he said. "Oh. I apologize for hurting your feelings. It was not my intention. I'm just so tired of talking about it when I still have so many questions that remain unsolved. Your experience is valid and I respect how our backgrounds are similar. You were simply trying to comfort me," he replied. He got everything wrong all the time, he should've known this was yet another time when he'd done something wrong.

"I'm sorry too. I don't know when to stop pushing."

"Am I really sensitive?" he inquired out of interest. He could always change that about himself. He'd changed before so he could change again. 

"Not sensitive no." Lying wasn't something Connor liked to do but he was smart enough to see that being completely honest here wouldn't help. "You're recovering and us watching what we say is beneficial to that I just struggle with it. I get frustrated." Connor sighed to himself. He didn't really need M'ganns help but it was nice to get little nods of encouragement from her in the doorway so he knew if he was saying the right thing. He didn't want another blow-up. 

"I'll get some bandages. You stay here with him," she ordered, satisfied with how well they were communicating. They nodded and she left them to it. Hopefully, it wouldn't go as bad as it had before. "You should rest," Connor suggested. It must've taken a lot of energy to smash up that mirror as he had. 

"I blacked out Connor. What if that's them testing me? Testing out some new plan? I don't want to hurt people again," Dick blurted out. He couldn't fall asleep with this on his mind. It was too much. Connor sat him up and moved him so he was on his lap, his head resting on the other's chest, knowing the personal contact would help ease him down. He looked tired. It looked like it was hitting him now more than before and he couldn't blame him. "I black out sometimes too. Mostly when I feel too much," he admitted. "Sometimes you can't control-"

"I'm sick of it. Not controlling things. There are so many things that I can't control and isn't it so wonderful how easily that comes to other people well it's not easy for me!" he complained, balling his hands up into fists causing the gashes on his knuckles to open further and bleed more. "No one has complete control over anything. They never had complete control over you since you're sitting here," Connor pointed out.

"But they had a lot of control. So much more than I did. What if that happens again? I can't even have M'gann in my head for fear of losing control over myself."

"I know that it feels like you're losing control but you're not. If anything, you're becoming more human." Dick hummed, hoping this lack of control wasn't from what Connor suggested. If that was the case he didn't know if he wanted to be more human.

They remained in silence, deeming it the better option until M'gann arrived with a roll of bandages. "You're fussing again," Dick stated as the Martian quietly fretted about the look of his knuckles. She glanced up at him in concern which he took as a request to rephrase his sentence. Things seemed to be coming out harsher than he meant them today. He pondered the option of just being silent but that would only cause more trouble. People would think there was something constantly wrong with him. Apparently silence was a bad sign under his circumstances. Why that was he was still trying to figure out. "You're worrying too much about me. It doesn't hurt too bad," he said.

"It's quite unnerving seeing you bleed," Connor explained on behalf of his girlfriend. He received a proud smile from her, reassuring him that his social skills weren't too bad. 

"Oh, the caring about my personal safety yes?" the smaller replied. They nodded. "Right."

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" M'gann asked. He shook his head, leaning further on Connor. He didn't want to talk. He wasn't sure he had the energy to. "You can take a nap if you like?"

"Would one of you stay with me?" He didn't like going to sleep alone. He always thought he'd suddenly wake up and be back in his holding cell. Back to hardly feeling anything and being unable to disobey the orders given to him. He had to take orders now but he could freely complain and contest them when he saw fit without risking his personal safety. "I can stay, I have homework to do," M'gann said, addressing Connor rather than him. 

"I'll stay, he's already comfortable sitting here," the clone offered. 

"We both could stay. I doubt I'd get much work done out there with Wally and Artemis bickering."

"The more the merrier," Dick mumbled with a small smile.

"I think Wally's rubbing off on you," Connor commented. He smirked, letting his eyes droop further. M'gann brushed away his bangs and kissed his forehead. 

"Get some sleep. I'll be right back."

"I have two questions," Batman began. "One, why are Dick's knuckles wrapped up? Two, is there something broken that I now need to fix or replace?" The team gulped at his gruff and irritated tone but Dick was hardly intimidated by it. 

"One, because I punched a mirror and it smashed. Two, I'd rather the mirror remained out of my room from now on," he answered calmly.

"Follow up question, why did you break the mirror in the first place?" he inquired. They shared a look of knowing, showing that this wasn't a topic Dick wanted to talk about in front of his team. "Alright. Let's get you home then. Whoever wrapped up your knuckles need better first aid skills," he added. The younger nodded and followed him out of the mountain. 

"Did Batman just throw shade at me?" M'gann asked, both surprised and rather offended. She thought she did a good job of it considering how awkward it was to wrap up. 

"It's Batman, every other word he says is shade," Wally pointed out.