For flyingg

[hypnoticsong]

The doctors would keep the amnesiac Dick Grayson another day for observation but aside from still not remembering his identity, his brainscans were good so they eventually released him into Hartley's care. He was the only visitor the man had received and no one had thus far reported a man matching Dick's description missing unfortunately.

So as they stood there outside the lobby of the ER, the former Rogue found himself hesitating. What now? He couldn't just take the man home like he was a stray. That would be both presumptions and just a little bit creepy.

"So...what now? Do you want to go find your car? Maybe we'll get lucky and there's some kind of identification in it? You didn't have a wallet on you, after all. I sometimes forget to grab mine too so maybe it's just waiting for you stuck between two seats?" He was babbling a little and he knew it. "Or we can go clothes."

Piper shot Dick a wry smile. The shirt he'd picked out for the man was probably a size too small and was distractingly tight around his shoulders. But at least he couldn't really go wrong with sweatpants, right?

Comments

[flyingg]

He didn't mind the tight, really, and the clothes Hartley'd picked were comfortable.

But he was getting decidedly edgy for not knowing. He only thought a moment before meeting the redhead's eyes. "Car. Please." Then he registered just how nervous Hartley sounded and. Why?

He wasn't sure.

"Then we can do clothes?"

For some reason, Hartley playing dress-up with him didn't seem like a bad thing, right now.

[hypnoticsong]

The tight material stretched across a truly amazing pair of shoulders was doing bad things to Piper's hind-brain unfortunately. God help him, he really needed to stop this crush right here and now. It was just going to lead to inevitable heartbreak on his part. The cute amnesiac had to be taken, he was just too drop-dead gorgeous to not be. A fair portion of the gay and straight people he knew would probably be drooling after the man after all. So being attracted to a handsome and attached man was just a recipe for disaster.

"Of course, come on. My car is parked this way. Should we start at the closest parking garage or do you want to try the street?" Hartley forced himself to smile at the other man as they headed down the sidewalk towards where he'd parked. Piper was thankfully oblivious to Dick's train of thought otherwise he'd have been even more flustered than he already was.

[flyingg]

Hartley, you'd be so, so surprised to find out that he was, in fact, single at this time. Though it was complicated, as always. But, no. Not taken.

"Um. Considering the kind of suit I was wearing, I'd say garage. Didn't look like I'd just leave my car on a parkmeter." Beat. "Which I didn't think of until you asked, thanks."

All the flustering. Though he was following Hartley pretty docilely - and with much better bounce to his step than the day before.

[hypnoticsong]

Surprised and more than a little thrilled but that was beside the point.

"Good, that means it's less likely to have been towed as well. That would have been a major drag trying to track it down." Piper was trying for humor and shot a small smile over at Dick as they approached his car. They made idle small-talk of little consequence during the drive over to where the building that had gotten damaged in the explosion was at. City engineers and workers poured over the rubble and debris and cleared it away as people who could only be government officials investigated.

"Oh, man, I hope they let us into the parking garage. I didn't even think that it might be cordoned off."

[flyingg]

Dick blinked for a few moments, then stared at the mess.

"Maybe it was in a garage outside the cordoned area? If not, maybe we can try to just... charm our way in. I mean, not like I want to do something wrong. Just check on my own car."

Rented, but, how could he know?

[hypnoticsong]

"Well, only thing we can do is ask, right? And maybe the other entrance isn't closed off?" Piper could have easily hypnotized the guards into letting them pass but that wasn't really the proper behavior and he knew it.

He was supposed to be reformed these days. But for this mystery of a man, he might just bend the rules a little. "I'm going to drive around the other size. if anything, hopefully we'll find a parking space." Piper turned down a side street and headed around the block from where the parking garage was. Unfortunately, the street was crowded so he ended up pulling into a parking garage that was open.

"Alright, shall we?" The musician asked with a sunny smile.

[flyingg]

It was probably the relief, that this side was okay. And the excitement, of finding some facts, probably. Or maybe Piper's own smile. But he gave Hartley another of the bright, full-on smiles, like the day before not so far from here.

"Absolutely."

He held the key in a slightly-sweaty palm, and started out of the car, letting Hartley lock up and then striding to the garage entrance.

"Hi!" He showed the key to the watchman there. "I think I left my car, here, got a bit turned around after the boom yesterday. Mind if we come in?"

"'course not." The guard looked bored. That worked, right? He flashed another smile at his new friend and led the way into the cool shadow.

[hypnoticsong]

Piper tried to look as iniquitous as possible as Dick worked his charm on the guard. It wasn't very hard considering he definitely blended into the background in comparison to the beautiful dark-haired stranger.

"Try the alarm? Maybe we'll luck out and the car is parked on this level?" Hartley suggested. In all actuality, he was going to be listening for the tell-tale chirp of the car alarm. He could only hope the implants, which had been ringing intermittently since the accident could pick up the sound. For the first time in years, Piper was having trouble differentiating sounds. It was a terrifying prospect. The idea of his implants failing now and rendering him deaf once more scared him. To lose his music? It would be a fate worse than death to the musician.

Despite having spent the majority of his life hearing, he could still remember that scary time when everything in the world was a scary surprise waiting to jump out and bite him. He hadn't been able to hear traffic or anyone coming up behind him. No, he didn't want to go back to that. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure who all could help him with the implants either.

[flyingg]

"Yeah, definitely."

He threw a smile in the redhead's direction... and blinked slightly. There was some tension in his face, he could see suddenly, and he didn't think it had been there last night. Today... he wasn't sure.

Unselfconsciously, he moved to walk closer to Hartley, a non-verbal gesture of support, and clicked the button of the key that he thought could be it, then the others, for good measure. The markings on the key were too faded to make out.

With the last one, there was suddenly the sound of an engine starting somewhere a level down.

"... I've a car that starts remotely? Fancy!"

Humor would help, right?

[hypnoticsong]

Hartley mistook his approaching closer as Dick silently reaching out for comfort and not the other way around so he smiled encouragingly and laid a hand on the dark-haired man's shoulder as Dick fumbled with the buttons on the keychain.

He heard the chirp of the alarm and then the sound of the engine starting remotely. Dick's humorous reaction was touching and he nodded quietly with laughter in his eyes.

"Fancy indeed. And I think it's downstairs so that was relatively painless, right?" Piper said, squeezing Dick's shoulder lightly. And if he happened to notice the distracting firmness of the younger man's muscles...well, sue him. He was only human.

[flyingg]

It felt good, the hand on his shoulder. The warmth, the touch, the proximity... Hartley's face relaxed a little with the sound, too, so it... wasn't too bad, right? He didn't want Piper to be upset, but it wasn't... he didn't think it a good time to ask what the problem was.

Instead, he smiled over his shoulder and led the way, only lingering a moment into the touch. (He was tempted to reach up and take Hartley's hand, but... well. Maybe when he knew who he was. Possibly.)

He headed down, easy step, and found the car soon enough. He slipped into the driver's seat, and turned off the engine.

"No way," he looked over to Hartley, and nodded to him to settle in the passenger seat, if he felt like it, "am I going to drive right now. No way."

[hypnoticsong]

If he'd only known he was dealing with the son of the world's greatest detective, maybe Hartley wouldn't have bothered to hide his concerns about his hearing. Still, he'd suffered through enough horrible Rogue's meetings and even dinner parties with his parents to be able to fake a cheerful demeanor.

The ginger was somewhat reluctant to let the handsome amnesiac go just but he did and followed Dick down to the other level where the car was.

"Alright? Want to start searching for clues then? Maybe you've got ID around here somewhere?" He suggested helpfully as he slid into the passenger's seat. Hartley was hesitant to point out that maybe the guy with the concussion probably shouldn't be driving anyway. "I'll check the glovebox?"

[flyingg]

He was amnesiac, not an idiot. If he couldn't recall his name, what were the chances his driving reactions would be anywhere near sufficient?

Not satisfactory, at any rate.

"Thanks."

There was a driver's license in the slip in the shade above the steering wheel, and the documents of the car.

There was, it turned out, also a box in the glove department which, on opening, would show three more sets of identity papers (one of them real). But that would only be known when Hartley opened it.

"Hey, look! I'm Freddie Dinardo, apparently!" Beat. "I grew my hair some since taking that pic... And shaved."

The bright reaction faded a little as he... tried to fit that in his head. It wasn't working.

[hypnoticsong]

Understandably curious, Piper leaned over to get a look at the driver's license. Some people could pull off facial hair, Freddie really wasn't one of them. He looked like some kind of mobster wannabe.

Of course, this close Dick would be able to smell the older man's aftershave and the neutral scent of his shampoo. One of Piper's hands rested on the console for balance. "Well then, 'Freddie' I guess I wasn't too far off with the Mediterranean guess."

Piper teased and withdrew with a smile so he could go back to the glovebox. The contents were organized neatly but he noticed a relatively flat box that didn't look like it came with the car and withdrew it first. "What do we have here?" He murmured more to himself as he opened the box and found two more sets of ids including driver's licenses and passports. The pictures were all of the same man, Freddie. But now Piper wasn't sure that was his name after all. "Uh....we might have a small problem?"

He held up the box of fake ids.

[flyingg]

For a moment, while Hartley was leaning close, he - Freddie? - looked up, to read his face, to share the feeling that it wasn't quite right, and their eyes met, way too close. Way closer than Dick could make the words come out, and then Piper moved back away and he found himself with his lips feeling way too dry.

He swallowed, and started looking over the meager other papers there with the driver's license. Then Hartley mentioned a problem, drawing his attention away from a hotel restaurant receipt he was looking at, and his attention snapped to what he was being shown and.

What.

The.

Fuck?

His jaw dropped and he. His hand reached up towards the box, then dropped, then reached up again, scooping two of the papers, holding them open but staring at them unseeing for a few moments...

... then, then his face lit up.

"This one. This is me." He held up the license with the right name.

Richard John Grayson. Permanent address in Gotham, but there seemed to be a New York something in that pile that he caught sight of.

[hypnoticsong]

Piper didn't miss the momentary spark between he and the other man. Awareness of the attraction between them was visible in Hartley's eyes as they met Dick's briefly. Unfortunately, the situation hadn't changed in the past ten minutes and he still didn't know anything about this man so Piper told his hormones and hindbrain to shove it and concentrated on digging through the glovebox.

"Why would you have three sets of ID's? Are you some kind of spy? An undercover detective?" Piper had some experience with secret identities but people who had them rarely did so for honest purposes.

Surprise flickered across the former Rogue's face when Dick firmly insisted that he'd discovered his real name. "Richard Grayson? Gotham City, huh? That explains the accent. You definitely don't sound like you're from the Midwest."

[flyingg]

"Dick," he corrected, absently, his mind trying to race, and then he realized how that sounded and flushed. "... I mean, Dick Grayson. Richard... is not a name many people use. Just Dick."

He buried his face in both hands for a moment, the papers dropped in his lap, a part of his mind noting the comment about the accent and curious about it, but it was.

"I don't know, Hartley. This feels like. Making one step forward and sinking five feet deeper into a gray whirlwind of confusion. What am I even doing here, if I'm from Gotham?"

But the name did help. It just did. He permitted himself a moment, then sighed, plucking out the receipt from his lap and showing it. His voice was just a tad... duller. He was disappointed at himself. Having different sets of ID papers was not legal, was it?

"Is this hotel nearby? Maybe I'm staying there."

[hypnoticsong]

Hartley didn't miss the accidental suggestiveness of Dick's correction but he was mature enough to let it pass with little more than a slightly cocked eyebrow. Of course, he felt somewhat vindicated when the younger man's cheeks heated up in a flush considering how many times Dick had made him flush in their short acquaintanceship.

"Dick? Well, that would explain the porno logic from yesterday. I can imagine how much teasing you got growing up with a name like that." Soft understanding was reflected in the musician's eyes because he'd gotten more than his fair share of teasing for terrible names with a first name like Hartley.

"Hey, it was better than where we were ten minutes ago." He reached over and touched Dick's shoulder reassuringly. "We're one step closer to getting your memories back and that fact that your name came back so readily is good news, Dick. Maybe you just need a few more jolts of the familiar and it'll all come back." Hartley coaxed him gently and leaned in to peer at the receipt curiously.

"It's downtown, I know where it is. Let's keep searching the car and then we'll head over there, okay?"

[flyingg]

... suggestiveness is better than insult. Which the word, said in no context, could easily be taken for. Ahem. Hence the blushing.

However, that first comment made Dick focus, and perk up a bit, eyes widening slightly. "It would, wouldn't it. Explain the porno thing. Rather... rather well, in fact."

He took a deep breath and conjured up a smile. "That sounds to me like a good plan. Thank you." After a side-eye of the rest of the papers, he turned to the back seat (clear, other than a couple of candy wrappers and a water bottle), then.

"Trunk?"

Beat. "I hope there's no body there. That would be really, really bad."

He could make jokes about it, right? Bad jokes?

[hypnoticsong]

It definitely wasn't an insult to Hartley and because he could understand Dick's plight better than other people he'd never mock the man for his name.

Hartley found himself laughing at the man's jest. Could he be some crazed serial killer? Possibly but he'd met people with that kind of darkness in their souls and it left its mark in the icy, flat gaze of a killer. Dick didn't have those eyes so he had to believe the man wasn't some depraved maniac.

"I seriously doubt that's the case but if you want I'll check it for you instead?

[flyingg]

Laughter. Laughter was good, whatever else came, and it gave Dick a nudge of confidence, of hope. He smiled back, then tilted his chin up.

"Together. How 'bout that?"

Because, really. That was only fair, right?

[hypnoticsong]

The urge to lean over the short distance between them and kiss Dick was overpowering. Piper could already imagine the texture of the younger man's lips against his own and how lovely it would be to kiss him. But he shoved that urge back once more and flagged it as inappropriate.

"Sounds like a plan." His throat was dry as a desert when he next spoke. Because he didn't trust himself or his impulse control, Piper shut the glove box with an audible click and slid out of the car to put some much needed space between them before he gave into his more primal urges and gave into temptation.

[flyingg]

Did I do something wrong? was the first thought through Dick's mind as he startled at the click, then he stared after his new friend and. It took him a moment to think to grab the key again and follow out of the car.

"Hartley?" he called, quietly. "Is everything okay? You didn't remember you should've been across half the country last night, did you?" Beat. "I mean, if you have to, that's okay, I just..." Didn't want him to go.

[hypnoticsong]

He hadn't done anything, Hartley was just having trouble controlling his libido in check.

"Huh? Oh, no everything is fine." The older man reassured him with a smile as he made his way back to the trunk. Please don't let there be a body in the trunk. Or other signs of criminal activities. He didn't know what he'd do if he found out his new crush was actually some mobster hitman or other criminal.

[flyingg]

Which Dick probably would have gotten, if his mind wasn't working in sixteen directions at the same time, on lower power because, explosion.

He eyed the redhead over the hood of the car, then nodded, slightly. "Okay. That's good." Because, really, what else could he say?

There was no body in the trunk. There weren't weapons there, either, well, other than a couple of smooth black sticks. Unmarked. There was an extra suit, though, some random makeup, and an empty backpack which didn't exactly fit with the suits - the one here or the one he'd worn yesterday, but it looked comfortable, the straps a little worn.

And a thermos of yesterday's coffee.

"... is it bad that even this smells good to me?" Dick asked when he got to open and sniff that last one.