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[sub][ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4940373]Prev[/url] ]  [color=#9fc5e8]“[b]FEAT OF CLAY[/b], Part IV”[/color]  [ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4954752]Next[/url] ][/sub][/center][COLOR=steelblue][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]B L Ü D H A V E N[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][sup][color=goldenrod]Meadowdale Mall[/color][/sup][/INDENT]
[color=silver]Bruce Wayne had never been Batman. Batman had just sometimes masqueraded as some millionaire playboy persona that went by the name of Bruce Wayne.  But that’s all it was.  All it had ever been, a persona.  A [i]nom de guerre[/i].  An act.

Everything the public thought they knew about Bruce Wayne had been carefully scripted and staged.  Every appearance, every seemingly random encounter with a paparazzi, every social occasion orchestrated, manipulated, and controlled in order to strategically message whatever misinformation was desired to prop up the desired perception of Batman’s alter ego.  It was something Dick had been confronted with early on, when he’d thought that he’d been adopted by Bruce Wayne and quickly found himself more alone within Wayne Manor than he had been without.  

The masquerade had been one of the things that Dick had hoped to leave behind him when he had walked out of the Batcave for the last time.  He had come to Bludhaven as Dick Grayson.  Made a career for himself as Dick Grayson.  Made [i]a life[/i] for himself as Dick Grayson.  One thing he had never done was to have let the identity of Nightwing define who he was or what he thought of himself.  It had just been another job.  A temporary side hussle to do what had to be done.

Now, Dick found himself pulling the pages from out of Bruce’s playbook.  Carefully orchestrating how he would now go about introducing a child into his public life, and starting to lay the work for manipulating public perception of the persona that Toyboy would have to step into.

“Dick?”

He was in the children’s section of the local Old Navy. Bludhaven was a relatively small city, making the Meadowdale Mall a central location where you were apt to see someone you knew.  Glancing up from where he had been admiring a boy’s graphic tee, Dick found Cissy Chambers looking surprised to see him there.

“Picking up stuff for another charity?”

If he had a guess, that was a reference to a few weeks earlier, when he’d run into one of the Bludhaven cops while out shopping for kid’s clothing.  He’d popped inside of the local Target store in order to get the clothes that he’d had on hand when they’d pulled Toyboy from out of the cold storage at S.T.A.R. Labs.  Inevitably, he’d been asked what he was there at the Target for and he’d replied that he’d been picking up some items for donation to one of the Wayne Foundation charities.

At the time, it had been a convenient sort of sleight of hand.  He was on the board at the Wayne Foundation, so it was the kind of lie that didn’t bear repeating.  It just made sense.

Now, he’d have to do a little bit more work with the messaging.

[color=#9fc5e8]“Of a kind,”[/color] Dick answered cryptically, hanging the tee over his arm as he turned toward the lieutenant. After a brief pause, he added, [color=#9fc5e8]“I’ve decided to foster a kid.”[/color]

The reaction was visceral. Cissy’s head went back. Blinking as though uncertain of what she’d just heard. If he’d been asked, he’d have bet that she’d have congratulated him.  Instead, the woman bluntly asked, “Aren’t you a little [b]old[/b] for that?”

[i]Tact, thy name is Cissy Chambers[/i].  Dick tried to smile, rather than wince, and came off doing an odd mix of the two gestures.  [color=#9fc5e8]“I’m almost at mandatory retirement,” [/color]he admitted, with a nod of his head. [color=#9fc5e8]“But I think I have a few years left in me even after that. Might as well go out devoting my energy to something worthwhile.”[/color]

He found the woman just staring him down. It got to be uncomfortable for a moment, before she merely said, “I forget, [i]you[/i] were a foster kid.” 

Not an inaccurate remark. Again, not a very tactful one either.  Dick gave another nod, which seemed to satisfy her. “Do I get to meet him?” Cissy offered, at last seeming to warm to the idea of Dick having a foster kid around.

Well, that was the hard part.  Laying the foundation.  If the notion itself didn’t fly, then the masquerade was never going to work.  But, she seemed to have bought it.  Which meant now it was just a matter of maintaining that belief.  [color=#9fc5e8]“I’m still waiting for approval to bring him home,” [/color]Dick lied smoothly. [color=#9fc5e8]“As soon as I do, you’ll be the first one over for dinner.”[/color]

With that, the man traded a few trivial pleasantries, extracting himself from the conversation as he headed toward the cash register to pay for the items that he’d picked up so that they could start an actual wardrobe for Toyboy.

The die was cast.  Now the rumor mill could start.

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“It’ll be a day or so more.”

Dick had ventured down to Gotham after leaving the mall.  It wasn’t on the way, but that hardly mattered.  He was disappointed when Sarah Charles met him to explain that he wouldn’t be seeing the robot today.

[color=#9fc5e8]“I thought you said that he was on-line again?” [/color]the man remarked, allowing his confusion to show through.  That had been the reason for the visit, actually.  Not that he was opposed to stopping by to peek in on Toyboy’s inanimate body in various states of disassembly, but he’d hoped to get some kind of gauge or assessment of Toyboy’s modified operating system and programming.

“We had a bit of a... [i]freak out[/i],” Sarah replied. Her choice of words immediately prompting a skeptical look on the part of Dick.

Toyboy’s composure was one of the things that tended to betray the reality that he wasn’t human.  The idea of the robot having a [i]freak out[/i] went against everything that Dick knew about the automaton.

“The initial boot didn’t go as smoothly as we expected,” Sarah explained, which did nothing to alleviate Dick’s concern that some assessment would be needed before he sent Toyboy out again.  All of which was just reinforced when the woman said, “We’re still smoothing out a few glitches. And then the internet connectivity proved something of a... compatibility issue.”

Dick’s head tilted slightly as he inclined an ear toward the scientist. It seemed odd to put a slight emphasis on the end of that sentence. [color=#9fc5e8]“Compatibility issue?”[/color]

“The internet,” Sarah supplied in answer, prompting another confused look from Dick, “It seems that it was a little overwhelming for him,” the woman added, supplying some context for Dick as she continued, “We’re uploading a software patch that will allow Toyboy to have autonomy over when he’s up on bluetooth or wi-fi.  But, we need a little more time to get him comfortable with exploring those capabilities.”

[color=#9fc5e8]“Well, they do say that the internet is a scary place,”[/color] Dick deadpanned glibly.[/color][/INDENT]