Work Text:
Ric sighs to himself before looking at his popcorn forlornly.
Pausing the tv, he shuffles himself to the door- grabbing a baseball bat on the way of course this is Bludhaven -and opening the front door with a scowl.
He gives an automatic, and very annoyed, “What the fuck do you want?” Before realizing that the kid in front of him is in fact scowling right back and giving him a very unimpressed eyebrow.
He has never seen this kid before in his life. But looking up and down, he can’t help but think the guy needs some fucking sleep . His eyebags have eyebags and his eyes- vaguely familiar which is surprising since most things haven’t felt familiar at all -look like they’re both about to simultaneously close and not open for days on end for a semi-permanent and well needed coma, or pop out like he’s a crackhead kid who just chugged five coffees and four energy drinks.
Ric can’t help but feel impressed… and honestly a bit worried this kid’s going to drop dead on his doorstep in about five seconds.
The kid, however, apparently doesn’t give a shit about his need to process how fucked up he looks, and after giving him a scoff and a roll of the eyes pushes straight past him into his fucking flat-
“What the fuck- what are you fucking doing!? Get out !” He tries to grab the kid’s arm but he just slides out of the way like a fucking house cat with better things to do before heading to the kitchen to open the fridge.
“Seriously who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?” Pausing to shake his head, “Actually no, get the fuck out of my place,” He stands intimidatingly with the bat literally in his fucking hand and at this point he’s actually getting pissed enough to actually use it but the guy in front of him completely ignores him and wrinkles his nose at the contents of his fridge which honestly? Fair, but rude .
“Hey,” The stranger apparently finally decides to speak, right after slamming his fridge closed, and not answering a single fucking question or demand cause of course fucking not .
“You have no food.” He says without any fanfare before setting his backpack down on the table and pulling out a box of cereal and a half gallon of milk.
He then grabs two bowls from Ric’s cabinet without hesitation and starts pouring a bowl for himself. Ric watches the kid open a drawer for a spoon- blankly blinking at the fact it’s the junk drawer and not the silverware drawer for a solid thirty-four seconds -before visibility giving up, sitting down gracelessly and eating the cereal like a starved and spoonless fool.
Normally, Ric would (still be) furious. Especially as since he woke up as a full grown adult sans memories, his mood swings have been extreme and usually leaning towards anger.
But, this stranger is either a clinically insane weirdo who breaks into other people’s homes to steal their bowls, or this stranger is someone who knew the old him and decided the perfect first impression on his amnesiac acquaintance is to be an ass and then spill milk down his chin and use his bare fingers to scoop out the last few cinnamon toast crunch pieces before pouring another bowl.
Sue him. His curiosity can apparently reach higher than his more-often-than-not pissed off nature.
The kid looks up and they stare at each other for three minutes before Ric gives up.
He takes two steps forward and sits across tilts his head in bemusement.
“So,” the brat says after slurping the last of his second bowl unattractively, “What have you been up to? Heard you’re going by Ric these days. That’s cool I guess.” He continues nonchalantly like this isn’t one of the weirdest things that’s happened to Ric (from what he remembers of course (disregarding the whole thing about Batman telling him he’s a superhero and trying to force him to let the darkly dressed stranger to ‘fix him’ before switching to completely ignoring him along with various other brightly-dressed strangers trying to visit him and and speak or cry or reminisce with Dick Grayson)).
“...Nothing much. Taxi driving. Hit an asshole with my car yesterday when he wouldn’t get out of the way fast enough.” He says lightly, observing. Testing.
The black haired teen? Young adult? Regardless, he looks at him in the eyes sympathetically while solemnly nodding, “Yeah I feel the same. Nobody drives with me on public roads anymore since apparently I drive like ‘there’s nothing to live for’.” He uses bunny ears to quote someone. “I personally disagree, and if everyone else drove correctly then I wouldn’t need to hack into their personals and lower their credit score.”
Ric nods like that's a totally normal thing to say. “And what have you been up to?” He asks politely.
He lets out a dramatically annoyed sigh that makes Ric’s lips twitch upward before leaning forward across the table, “Okay so like a year back or something there was this word ending threat yada yada and I hacked all the robots to target me to give the Justice League the moment they needed to end the threat. Apparently everyone thought I died?” He shrugs and Ric just stares at him before nodding at him to continue.
“But Cassie- I don’t know if you watch the news but she goes by Wondergirl-” Ric has not heard of a Wondergirl on the news since he woke up but he believes it, “-and I made a deal that neither of us would accept the death of the other without a certain amount of proof, like a dead body and tests on that body to confirm. She didn’t believe me when Batman died a few years back even though I knew he wasn’t dead so we made the deal after I was right because c’mon not even a dead body? In our line of work? That’s just sloppy- it would take such an extreme amount of energy to completely neutralize me without some sort of ash being left behind, even if I was shot by upwards of eighty alien guns-”
Ric blinks.
“-so Cassie grabbed Kon and Bart- sorry Superboy and Impulse -we were on a team together when we were teens-” Ric absently decided the man in front of him must be a baby faced adult and not a sixteen year old.
“-and well I’ll keep the story short but through a harmonica contest with a magical witch boy- none of them play the fiddle- and a few months in a deserted jungle that psychosomatically disabled powers and some sort of body swap situation they won’t describe in detail- they found me in some sort of time box just past the Andromeda galaxy where I went a little insane and took over the organization that kidnapped me and gently stopped my overlord plans to take over the universe.”
Ric has decided that as this isn’t his problem and that as he’s no longer a hero, he doesn’t have to worry about any repercussions that came from whatever politically disastrous ending this turned out to have.
Instead he wonders faintly to himself if he’s insane for not feeling unsafe for some reason and says, “Oh? That’s crazy. How’d they stop you?”
Mr-could-have-been-overlord blinks and smiles like he’s just happy he’s being listened to which for some reason makes Ric want to smile back, “Oh! Well we’ve come across future-evil versions of me before so after they calmed me down they just put me back in the time box and adjusted time and reality so that I popped out pretty much right after being put in the first place and reality has slowly just been balancing out. We’re keeping an eye on it but it seems everyone involved’s memories are slowly coming back but just detached from their feelings- which is nice! Less trauma to worry about! We were able to deconstruct the organization and it looks like everything turned out okay!”
He smiles at him and Ric twitches before smiling back. In the back of his mind he’s really hoping this guy goes to therapy.
“Anyways, we got back yesterday and after crashing for like 16 hours and looking up everything that happened- sucks about getting shot by the way, glad to see you’re doing okay -” Ric holds back an amused snort over the genuine, but casual remark.
“I came straight over! Well after stopping by the store to grab some clothes and some cereal. You never have food anytime I visit you without calling ahead so I didn’t want to risk it even with the amnesia. Your new schedule seems way healthier for you by the way. Congrats!”
Unfortunately, this has actually been one of the most pleasant and non-confusing conversations he’s had since waking up after being shot, and the genuine support for his current decisions hits him way harder than it logically should. For some reason, Ric feels a surge of affection for this stranger in a way that hasn’t happened for anybody he’s met yet- not that he’s actually met that many people who apparently used to know him. He saw on the news that Nightwing was declared dead and talking to the man in front of him is actually making him think that maybe not everyone is as annoying and entitled as the ones he spoke to.
He wonders if all the heroes his age even know he has amnesia if nobody even knows about the guy doing his dishes in his kitchen being alive.
A thought to ponder.
“Well… I appreciate it. The support and the visit…?” He trails off leadingly. Half-wondering if he’ll ever get an actual name for the guy now cleaning his counters as he looks on in open amusement.
The guy pauses the cleaning to look at him in confusion before blinking heavily.
“I need about three more days of actual sleep before I understand whatever you’re trying to ask without asking.”
Ric just laughs- probably feeling the most relaxed he’s felt in front of another person since he was with his parents -before looking at him and smirking with a tilt of his head, “Can I get your name now?”
The guy blinks again before a soft blush appears to take over his skin.
“Oh shit I did it again.”
Ric just grins.