Birdflash oneshots 2

Painting

Being an artist in Gotham city was no easy task. It was even harder when your left leg was injured from the fall you and your parents took that you barely survived. Medical bills weren't cheap, and having flare-ups that landed him in the emergency room didn't help anything. Art supplies were expensive, and it was hard to start out. There were plenty of artists to get commissions from, so the chances of being chosen were slim. Dick got a lucky break when one of the rich business owners commissioned him for a painting, wanting a picture of him and his wife. Dick obliged, and suddenly found himself with six new commissions. He'd slowly built up a rapport with the people of Gotham, and even had one of his paintings accepted into the museum. 

It was one of his favorite paintings, something he'd dreamed about one night. It was a redhead, a guy staring into rolling hills of green grass. He wasn't sure why, but that painting held a special place in his heart. He didn't even know who the redhead was, but he knew things about him. Things like he had 2,074 freckles, or that his favorite food was chicken nuggets from a little hole in the wall restaurant in Chicago. The more Dick painted him, the more he learned. Dick had three paintings of the redhead now, each with more detail than the last. This redhead was very fast. He had a pretty laugh. He made a lot of chemistry jokes, although they weren't very good.

Dick often visited his painting in the museum, whenever he wasn't working on commissions. He loved to see people admire it, and often brought his sketchbook to draw the redhead. People didn't pay attention to him much, especially since he was usually on the bench for hours. The museum staff all knew him, and they knew what to do if he had a flare-up. 

That's where he was that fateful day, when he finally discovered his muse. He'd been in the museum again, doodling little pictures of the redhead as people walked around. He'd learned recently that his redhead lived some sort of double life, and he was trying to dig deeper. All he was getting so far were flashes. An uncle, some sort of base, maybe a blond girl who got on his nerves. He wasn't getting anything concrete. 

Dick finally sighed, closing his sketchbook and stretching. Whatever supernatural force was linking him to this redhead had decided to be stingy today, and the best path forward was just to let it be stingy until it coughed up something good. He looked back at the painting, trying to get anything from the mysterious redhead. Could this be a real person? Someone who actually existed? No, that was crazy. That would be some prophet-level shit. He wasn't a prophet. He was just a kid who was struggling to pay for a surgery that he needed to get sometime in the next year.

A person caught his eye. It was a redhead, just like the one he painted. He was traveling with a small group, two guys and three girls. They were all chatting quietly, although they didn't seem to notice Dick. The redhead girl stopped in front of Dick's painting and snorted. "Wally, it's you." 

The redhead, Wally, rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. You've said that about every redhead in these paintings, as well as anything you consider ugly." Dick kept looking between Wally and his painting, finding exact matches with everything he looked at. Jawline, freckles, hair, even his ears were the same. That was the redhead he'd seen in his dreams. It was actually a real person. 

"You know, I think she's right this time. You two look very similar." The black haired girl commented. 

"Actually, yeah. I've got those same freckles on the back of my neck."

Dick decided it was time to head out. He put his sketchbook in his bag, grabbing his crutches and standing up. The taller guy definitely noticed him now, but didn't seem to care. Dick started walking out, hoping he didn't seem as freaked out as he was. The guy he'd painted and drawn for months was an actual person, and had seen his painting. He needed to go home, before he got accused of being a stalker. He walked back through the halls of the museum, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he'd been painting a stranger for two months and getting information about him without ever seeing him before. Maybe he should go to bed and just pretend this day never happened. He could forget everything about the redhead and pretend that it was just another random person he liked to paint. Besides, he had to check and make sure he didn't have any more commissions.