savesthedance | voicemail;

Dick? [Steve was thrown. When he had seen the message from Dick on his Dreamberry, he was expecting to hear from the younger kid he was so fond of. But...he wasn't so much a kid anymore. The voice was so different, yet way more familiar than he would have thought. It was still so clearly the person he knew, so he didn't doubt who the message was from. It definitely wasn't something Steve was expecting. His mind reeled at this new information, unable to push down the confusion of how the same thing happened to a young hero he was fond of..

He pushed that aside though, as processing that wasn't the priority. Dick said there was an emergency, and if that was the case, Steve needed to address that first.]

An emergency? What seems to be the problem?

[He couldn't help the smirk. Thank goodness for the voice function.]

Well, I got back, and I saw a video of some-- There's a group of supervillains from the same world as me. I saw one of them on the Dreamberry not too long ago, pretending to save some girl.

Supervillains? [You can probably hear the concerned tone in his voice.] And you're sure one's here?

[If this was true, then that was a problem. Yes, Schmidt and some of their other problems were gone, but with the loss of rest of his team and the dwindling numbers in of nonlocals, having supervillains here was far from good news.]

Absolutely, I'd recognize him anywhere.

[The mirror, perhaps.]

It's... there's a long story behind it. He's well-known in my world. Famous. About ten years ago, he started running with heroes like Batman. Called himself "Robin, the Boy Wonder," and it's just gotten worse since then.

[He pauses, to let that sink in, to let Steve react. He has an entire backstory lined up, but it won't have any effect if Steve can't hear it over his own thoughts.]

[It's a good thing the Dreamberry was on audio because the expressions that crossed Steve's face were rather shocked and surprised.]

No. No, that...that can't be right. I know him. He's not a bad guy.

[Something just isn't adding up. Robin-- Nightwing was a supervillain?]

Maybe he wasn't, but he's changed a lot. You must have seen it-- the dominant-black costume, for one thing.

Something happened, and he got very... controlling.

Controlling? [That didn't....sound like Robin-- Nightwing. Whatever. This was all so muddled and confusing, so Steve decided what he wanted to do first was sit back and think about this. It was heavy information to take in, after all.

He wanted to talk to Nightwing, too. His side of this was important. It wasn't as if Steve didn't trust Dick, but he trusted Nightwing too. He had to handle this delicately, and getting both sides of things seemed like the most reasonable thing to do first.

Something else was nagging at his mind, too, and he had a feeling his instincts were right, but he wasn't going to bring any suspicions up just yet. For now, he was going to put Dick's mind at ease and do what he felt he needed to do in this situation.]

I'll see what I can do. This Nightwing, he trusts me. Maybe I can use that to my advantage. [Doing what, he didn't say. But if what he was wondering was true, then...well, he had to plan his next moves carefully.]

It's a long story, but there was... another Robin, after him, who was murdered on the job. He didn't take it well.

[The best way to present a lie is to start from the truth, and embellish. Genuine facts lend verisimilitude.

And the other way to really ensure the lie goes undetected is to not bog it down with unnecessary details. To not make it seem rehearsed or prepared.]

I think he just snapped one day. He didn't want to ever feel that impotence again.

[A little sincerity and empathy sneaks into his voice, to his chagrin. He'll play up the fear again later, but his foster brother was a tender memory even to him. He hadn't been any use to him, not like Bruce Wayne, but not having to use him for his own gain had allowed Dick to develop affection for him.]

So he went down the other road, and hasn't looked back. He's not going to stop until he's running this place so that no one will be hurt like that again.

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Voice; tl;dr OOPS

Voice; no no i love it