21. Into The Black
The leggings were too tight.
The mask was uncomfortable, the boots itched and his shoulders strained against the material. It had been a long time, indeed.
“Grayson.” Diana spoke the word firmly, but with care as she lowered herself down upon the heart and soul of the place once known as The Batcave.
“I look like an idiot.” Grayson said as he stood like a deflated mannequin, his once dynamic Nightwing costume, now looking less than amazing. “The 'boy wonder' indeed.”
“Time moves on.” Diana spoke, hiding a smirk, “Whether we would want it to or not.”
“Bah!” Grayson grunted, pulling the top off and throwing his mask to the floor. “Old ideas. Old ideas for an old world. What use are they now?”
Diana stepped forward and kneeling down gracefully, as if picking up a fragile relic, lifted the mask from the floor.
“What is happening, Richard?” She asked, eyeing the Nightwing mask with something like awe, “Where is everyone going?”
“To their deaths, probably.” He answered, his back to her, his hands flying across the keys of the vast computer which stood before him. Diana saw the scars, the multitude of broken tissue across his bare back, most of which he had earnt getting the innocent out of Gotham... those that he could, “You were right, Diana. Would you like to hear that? You were right. The time for hiding is done.”
“I have not come here to gloat, Richard.” She said, walking up beside him and placing the mask on the console before him, “I'm just here. With you. That is all.”
Grayson stared at the mask as if looking at a long forgotten reflection.
“Old ideas.” He muttered to himself and pressed a button on the keyboard before turning and walking away.
“Richard?” Diana asked, turning toward him as he marched toward a darkened corner of the enclosure, “What...”
“Who hides in whose shadow?” Grayson said calmly, his voice almost swallowed by the shadows about him as the ground at his feet seemed to crack open and a light rose from the cracked earth. “You asked me that, Diana. I have spent my life trying to crawl from the shadows, out of the darkness...”
The ground moved, pulling away from itself as a tower, a great holding case like a coffin rose from beneath, the brilliant blue light from below and within blinding Diana briefly as she raised a hand to her eyes.
“It is time for me to stop running.” Grayson said as the case stopped, its rise concluded and he reached out a steady, controlled hand and pressed a button on its side. “It is time for me to rightfully claim what is mine.”
The doors slid open and there, within, hung a costume; armour plated, fearsome, stained black and grey, the symbol of the bat burnt into its chest.
“Today I stop hiding from the darkness, Diana..." Grayson said, a steel, certain excitement in his voice as he rested his hand upon the symbol of the bat. "Today I become the darkness.”
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