Fic: I Must Belong Somewhere (DCU, Dick/Rose)

[amathela]

Title: I Must Belong Somewhere
Fandom: DCU
Pairing(s): Dick/Rose
Word Count: 1273
Rating: R

Summary: Dick visits Rose at Titans Tower.

Notes: Set post-Renegade arc in Nightwing. Written for dudski as a yuletide treat.


It's strange, being back in Titans Tower. Dick knows its twists and turns as well as he knows Wayne manor, the streets of Blüdhaven, but it's full of half-remembered ghosts, too different and too familiar to make any sense. Wonder Girl. Kid Flash.

Robin.

He doesn't linger in the corridors; a bout of nostalgia to him could look to them like an intrusion at worst, checking up on them at best. Besides, he knows where he's going, and it doesn't take him long to get there.

Rose is already in the gym when he arrives, beating up on some poor training dummy like it has her father's face on it, and he stops for a minute; watches her form as she attacks and regroups, the lines of her body as she lashes out in movements so swift, so ferocious, it's easy to miss how controlled they are.

"You want to join me?" She hasn't looked around since he got there, hasn't so much as glanced up, but he isn't surprised she knows he's there. Not a lot about her surprises him - not even the stuff that surprises herself.

"You look like you're doing okay." He takes a step forward into the room, smiles at her. She doesn't smile back, but her body language relaxes, angles towards him, and that's a good enough greeting for him.

"I didn't mean for me." He could say she's smiling, now, if he wanted to fool himself, but he knows the difference between that and a smirk. "I thought you could use the practice."

It isn't what he came here for, but -

Well, maybe it is. He came here to - what? Check in on her? Continue her training? Make sure she was okay?

Let her know he was still on her side?

All of the above, probably. He shrugs a shoulder, moves forward to meet her in the centre of the room. She smiles properly now, a fierce, predatory grin, and he can't help echoing it. She's always seemed most like herself at times like this, in combat, when she can let loose against an opponent who can take it. Dick wonders if the same isn't a little true of him.

"So," he says, as he dodges her first blow. He isn't surprised that she made the first move; only that it wasn't a potentially lethal one. "How's the team?"

She parries his counter-strike, feints left in an attempt to force him into overextending. "They're okay."

'They.' Not 'we.'

Dick takes a glancing blow on the shoulder, stands back and waits for an opening. "The Titans," he says, ducks as Rose aims an elbow at his face. "They're important. It's a good place for you."

She grunts as he catches her in the small of her back, strikes back at his midsection. "Maybe someone should tell them that."

Ah. "They're probably still adjusting. Give them time."

"How much time?" she asks, and as Dick opens his mouth to answer, she sweeps his legs out from under him. "Maybe I'm not just Titans material."

"You are," he says. A little breathlessly; her follow up is solid, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him to the ground. It could have been done in a lot of ways; she chooses to do it by straddling him.

He tries not to notice.

"I know the Teen Titans, Rose, and I know you. You're one of them." He pauses. "One of us."

She hesitates a little at that, and then rolls her eyes. "Maybe somebody should tell Little Miss Perfect that."

Cassie, he's guessing. Sometimes he wonders at the differences between her and Donna; how they can be so fundamentally similar, but react to things so differently.

"She'll come around," he says, because he firmly believes that. He wasn't sure about Rose, either, at first, but anyone who spends more than an hour with her can't help but notice there's something there; something beneath the violence and ferocity, something fundamentally good. Something that wants to be good, which is even more important.

"And you?" she asks, tilting her hips. "What do you think of me?"

And this is ... very much not what Dick had planned when he came here. Rose still has him pretty well pinned, but not perfectly; with the movement, her focus falters enough for him to gain leverage, to flip her and reverse their positions.

Rose doesn't seem put out. If anything, it's the opposite. "I like a man who takes charge."

Dick takes a breath. Swallows. And then eases himself off her, wishing very much that their sparring session had lasted long enough to justify him taking a cold shower right now.

Rose pouts, but she looks pleased with herself. She did win that one, Dick supposes. (He's not sure exactly which part he's talking about.)

"I think you need someone to believe in you," he says. "I do. the Titans will. Give them a chance."

"The same chance they're giving me?"

"The same chance I'm giving you," he says. Realises she's standing a lot closer to him than she should be; he doesn't take a step back.

He expects her to keep fighting him. To keep arguing.

She leans forward and kisses him.

One of her hands is around his neck, pulling him in. After a second, after Dick doesn't resist (after he kisses her back), she relaxes, throws her arms around his neck. She presses forward into him, her entire body flush against his, and Dick's hands go instinctively to her waist; to push her away or draw her closer, he honestly has no idea. His hands clench down, gripping her hips, and she moans a little into his mouth. The sound is almost enough to make him instantly hard.

Which is why he pushes her away.

Rose looks put out again, for real this time. A flash of hurt crosses her expression for a second before it's buried, and whatever mask she usually wears is firmly back in place. Dick takes a deep breath, tries to compose himself; he hates that it's so much easier for her than it is for him.

"This is -" he starts.

"Yeah," she interrupts.

"I just mean that -"

"I get it," she says. "It's no big deal."

It's a very big deal, he wants to say, but he's afraid she'll take it the wrong way. He steps forward instead, takes her chin in his hand. He can feel her tense up, knows she must want to pull away, but she doesn't, and he relaxes a little. Whatever may have just happened - or not - at least he hasn't ruined everything.

"You're important to me," he says. "I won't ruin that."

"Who says it would ruin anything?" she asks. "I just thought it would be fun."

Liar. At least, he's pretty sure she is. "It would be," he says, and allows a little of whatever he was just feeling - what he's still feeling, if he's being completely honest with himself - to seep into his voice. "But I want more than just fun with you."

And what exactly he means by that, he has no idea. He tries not think about it too much.

"See?" she says. Her expression hasn't changed much, but her body language has relaxed, and she isn't looking at him like he rejected her any more. Which is good, because he's pretty sure that's not what he did. "I told you you were a good guy. No fun."

"You say that now," he says, "but what about after a rematch?"

And that gets her to smile again, which is, he thinks, all he really wanted. "You're so on."