When Robins Collide

"I'm just saying, man, you need to relax a little." Garfield Logan leaned back against the granite countertop, shoving red candy twists into his mouth. Beside him, popcorn snapped alive in the microwave. Across from this seen, practically laying stomach first over the kitchen island, was Dick Grayson. He sighed at his friend's comment, knowing he was right but not wanting to admit it. Garfield had seemed to be right about a lot of things recently -- whether to pursue Kory's identity or not, whether to trust Rachel's mom (that turned out bad in the end), and whether or not Dick was working too hard.

Dick shook his head slightly. "I know, but it's a lot easier said than done."

Garfield laughed, but the candy in his mouth made it sound like a gargle. "It wouldn't be so hard if you would just watch a movie with me."

"I don't know. I have a lot of research to do and..." Dick trailed off.

"Okay," Garfield accused, pointing a finger at his friend and team leader, "I know that's bullshit."

Dick rolled his eyes, but he knew it was true. He had nothing to do. In fact, he hadn't had anything to do for the past three days. Anytime any of the team would invite to do something fun he would politely decline and find something to busy himself with. On Thursday, Rachel and Garfield had asked him to join in their Mario Kart tournament. He'd used the excuse his study needed examining for bugs. On Friday, Kory had been teaching the others how to play poker (actually, how to cheat at poker, but regardless) and insisted Dick learn just as well. He'd said he needed to "do...something." That something had ended up being taking all of the documents out of the folders on his desktop and replacing them five times.

Then, this morning, Kory had cornered him in the bathroom. He had just finished his shower and was still dripping with the cool water. She licked her lips at the sight of him which would have normally sent him into overdrive. But when she dropped to her knees and wrapped her lips around his flaccid length, he pushed her away. She hadn't seemed mad. The only thing she had said was, "Go to them."

At the moment, Dick pretended not to know what Kory was talking about, but truthfully it made complete sense to him. He knew exactly what was keeping his mind so boggled -- or, who.

"Yo, dude!" Garfield's aggressive snapping of the fingers awoke Dick from his daydream.

He stirred frantically. "Yeah? Yeah? What?"

"Geez, dude, you'd think Trigon had you under another spell or something." Garfield laughed at his own quip, then grabbed the popcorn from the island which had apparently been removed from the microwave.

No. Dick thought to himself. Trigon doesn't have me under a spell, but someone does.

"You coming or what?" Dick looked behind him and saw that Garfield had already walked to the living room and found a seat nestled in the sofa.

This is good. Dick continued thinking. I need the distraction.

XXX

The movie Garfield had chosen to watch was not one Dick was familiar with, though Garfield had promised it would fulfill. "It's packed full of violence, blood, and sex. What more could you want in a movie?"

Dick hadn't cared either way what DVD was popped in. Truthfully, his mind wouldn't stop wondering to his cell phone in his pocket. The movie had only been playing for twenty minutes when his phone buzzed. His first two attempts to ignore it were successful, but eventually the onscreen slaughtering of a teenage camper drew Garfield in so much that Dick figured he was safe to take a quick peek. He wouldn't want to upset his friend by being on his phone during their movie night.