Fic: Dress Blues
You know, this started as an angsty romantic vignette. I'm not sure what to call it now.

Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon.
Sometime months after current Nightwing continuity.
Entirely worksafe.
First line by gchick, the rest by me.

Dress Blues

I.

It isn't exactly the Ritz, but the ballroom at the top of the old Kenilworth hotel has a good caterer and a good view of the lights coming up over Gotham Harbor. It's strange to see the harbor from this side of the river, but after everything that had been going on the last few months, Amy thinks, maybe a change in point of view is just what she needs.

"Having fun?" She hadn’t heard Dick come up behind her. It used to be the only person who ever managed to sneak up on her was her husband. She's going to have to ask him how he can be so stealthy in department-issue dress shoes.

"It's not about the event, Dick; it’s for a good cause." The Gotham and Bludhaven PDs couldn't get their acts together to coordinate chasing the week's latest maniac across the river, but they'd somehow managed to come together to raise money for the Fresh Air Fund. It's a start.

"Which is why you dragged half the unit to this party?"

"No, it's why I made you pay for the tickets. Everyone else volunteered to come."

Dick's smile is quieter than the ones she remembers from when they were partners, but it's a real one. "You know I don't mind."

"I know." She looks around the room again, at the sea of dress blues and dark suits. "Got to show these Gotham types there are good cops in Bludhaven, right?"

"Right," he says. "You know, I, uh..."

She looks over at him in concern, then follows his gaze to see what he's staring it. Gotham's ex-commissioner Gordon is standing about fifteen yards from them, talking to a group of men in suits, and Dick is transfixed by the woman in the wheelchair next to him. His daughter.

She read about the shooting when it happened -- everyone did. No one on the Force wanted to think about something like that happening to one of their kids. Jim had refused to have her service revolver kept loaded in the house, not with the kids so small, but she'd made a point of making sure they knew not to open the door without a grownup there, not for anyone. The last time Amy could remember seeing the Gordon girl on TV, she was on her way home from the hospital, nearly three months after the shooting. She'd looked pale and she'd struggled to get into the car. Amy had changed the channel.

The woman Dick is looking at now, Amy wouldn't have recognized without Gordon being right there next to her. She's sitting up straight in a sleek little wheelchair, and her arms are as muscular as an athlete's. Her red hair is up in the sort of complicated bun Amy never has the patience for, with a couple of strands falling artfully down to frame her face. She's wearing a dark blue dress with some serious cleavage and those tiny spaghetti straps, and sapphire earrings that match it. She's pretty, in a serious and reserved sort of way, but Dick is staring at her like she's the Venus de Milo.

Gordon and the men he's talking with burst out laughing, a booming masculine sound. The girl smiles politely and looks around. When she spots Dick, her eyes widen. His mouth opens, and he's already half a step towards her when her expression turns wary and closed. He stops dead where he is, and she gives him an apologetic little wave before she turns her chair in a tight circle and wheels off into the crowd. Dick looks lost and angry, and Amy realizes for the millionth time that she doesn't really know him at all.

Amy coughs a little to remind Dick that she's there, and he flushes red. "I think I'm gonna go get some air," he says.

"OK," she replies. "See you tomorrow?"

It is still as much a question as a commonplace, and she finds his nod reassuring. "Yeah. See you then."

He disappears as silently as he'd arrived. Amy takes a sip of her drink and goes to find her husband.

II.

It's the last place she looks, and she kicks herself mentally for having not made it the first. Of course he's out on the balcony. Where else would a Bat-boy go to brood if there wasn't a rooftop handy but the next best thing? He's off by himself in the shadows of one of the balcony's darkest corners, as far from the French doors as he can get -- so predictable -- and someone who didn't know him would probably not have even seen him there. But Barbara knows he's there, the same way she knows he knows she's coming even before her wheels crunch over someone's discarded plastic cup.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi." He doesn't turn around.

"Well, that was awkward."

He doesn't say anything at all, just braces his arms against the railing. She can tell he's wishing for a jumpline to get him out of here; right about now, so is she.

"You took me by surprise, Dick. I just didn't want to talk to you with my dad and all his friends watching."

"If you want me to skip Gotham PD events," he growls, "just let me know."

That's typical Bat behavior too: slapping at a hand that tries to reach out. Dick is looking out at the harbor lights, and Barbara just feels tired. She's played enough variations on this scene for one lifetime already. She bites back the retorts that come all too easily and puts her hands on the wheels to go.

"How've you been, Babs?" He doesn't move, but his voice is softer, more conciliatory.

"Good," she says, putting her hands back in her lap. "I'm good. You?"

"I'm OK," he says. "Been doing some meditation training with Bruce the last couple of weeks."

"Really?" She can't imagine him sitting that still for anything. "How's that going?"

He grins out at the night sky. "It's *killing* me. But you know I like a challenge. How's Dinah?"

"She's fine. Between missions, so a little bored. She even did my hair for me tonight." Barbara laughs a little self-consciously and puts a hand up to check on her bun.

"It's nice. You look... you look amazing."

She hates that Dick can look right at her and see someone she'll never be again. But when their eyes meet, she knows he's seeing *her*, the way she looks tonight, and the feeling is close to a panic. "Amazing," he says again, his voice rougher.

Her heart is pounding rabbit-fast, and she grips the wheels again. "Thanks," she says. "I'll tell her you said so."

His mood collapses like air being let out of a tire. "Yeah," he says. "Do that."

She could just leave, but it's awkward enough working together as it is. Barbara can't bear the thought of it getting worse, so that makes it her turn to try to break the quiet. "You know, I think this is the first time I've seen you in dress blues."

"Really? I guess so. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to wear them so far."

"It suits you."

He glances over at her warily. "I thought you didn't approve of me staying on the force."

She'd sworn once that she'd never end up with a cop. And now it looks like she won't after all. "I was just worried you were pushing yourself too hard."

"Well, I have a lot more free time these days." His voice is rueful, and she has to stifle an irrational desire to comfort him. "And things are different anyway. There are good cops in charge now."

"Thanks to you."

He's trying not to look pleased. "I didn't do it alone, Babs."

"I know. I was there," she says lightly.

"Yes," he says. "You were." His eyes are bright and painfully sincere. "Barbara, look, I –"

"Dick, no. Please, let's just not. OK?" Sometimes, she wishes she'd never kissed him, not once. It would have been so much easier than all these years of dancing around each other. Some nights, though, when Dinah and Helena have signed off and gone home, she'd give anything for that knock on her front door, or even the knock on a window that meant he'd found another way around her security system. "This is nice just like this."

"OK," he says. He backs off so quickly, it won't be more than a temporary retreat, but that will do for now. He leans back against the railing, arms crossed. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. Made any righteous busts lately?"

He smirks. "Your cop slang needs some serious updating. But, as it happens..." He's telling her a complicated story about a drug dealer whose operation he and his partner shut down. She offers the story of Dinah's run-in with a street corner buy gone wrong in return, and he laughs easily, appreciatively. She would give anything to stay like this forever, the two of them high above the city on a warm spring night, trading stories like the old friends they should have been.

"Barbara?" It's Cris Allen, coming out onto the balcony with his tie loosened and his beer still in his hand. "Barbara, are you out here?"

Dick slides deeper into shadow as Barbara goes to meet her father's old friend.

"Your dad's looking for you," Allen tells her. "He says you're his ride home."

"Tell him I'll be there in a minute," she says. Allen nods and heads back inside. When he's through the French doors again, Dick reappears beside her.

"Curfew, huh?" he murmurs in mock sympathy.

"Curfew? That was your problem, not mine, former Boy Wonder."

His face lights up at the nickname, but it's too late to take it back now. "Alfred always said crimefighting till all hours would stunt my growth. I'll talk to you later?" he says, surreptitiously miming the action of switching on his transmitter.

"I'll be up."

"Good. Get home safe." And he leans over and kisses her on the cheek. Not a passionate kiss, though maybe it's a little too long for an old friend. But it's a kiss that doesn't presume, doesn't try to be more than it is, and the fact that it leaves her cheek tingling doesn't hurt either.

"You too." He steps back and stands at something like attention as she goes, and she can feel him watching her until she's back inside the ballroom again.

Her father looks old and tired, and she wonders again if he should have come to this party when he's just getting over being sick. "Ready to go?"

"Sorry to pull you away, Barbara."

"Don't be silly, Dad." Barbara doesn't underestimate her father's eye; that was part of why she'd kept her relationship with Dick at arm's length from him in the first place. "It's fine."

They make their way to the bank of elevators. There are a couple of Gotham cops waiting there already, and they try not to look so drunk when they realize who's just walked up.

"You know," her father says suddenly, "I don't say things like this often enough. But you look really nice tonight, Barbara."

"Thank you."

She's almost irrationally pleased by this paternal compliment in all its gruff offhandedness. In her mind's eye, she can see Dick again, now in the very different blue uniform he'll have on the next time they speak. He used to call her beautiful all the time. She'd shrugged it off as just more of Dick's exuberance, but now as she examines her reflection in the warped mirroring of the elevator doors, she can sort of see it herself.

The elevator comes, wiping the image away. "After you," her father says.

The cops give her enough time to turn her chair around to face front before they get in. As the doors close, she finds herself scanning the crowd for a familiar jawline and bright blue eyes, but all she can see is a sea of dress blue.