Archive of Our Own

Dick is on the chandelier.

An eight year old. A genius gymnast, to be sure, but a child, small for his age and under Bruce’s legal care. On the chandelier. Twenty five feet above the ground, surrounded by glass and kept up by a single fifty-year-old chain bolted to the ceiling.

“Get down now!” Bruce almost doesn’t recognize his own voice.

Dick’s face—the sliver of it Bruce can see through all the glass—pales and for a second Bruce thinks the boy has been cowed and is about to listen, but then his eyes narrow.

He seems to be under the impression that Bruce doesn’t know Italian, and he growls something in that language. Bruce’s Italian isn’t quite as good as his French or Spanish, but he can figure out that Dick isn’t very happy with him.

How did he get up there in the first place?

“Right now, Dick. I’m not joking. Get down.” Bruce’s pulse is so high he’s worried. He’ll have to take his blood pressure after Dick is safe on the ground.

“Or what? You don’t care what I do!” Dick shouts down in English.

Bruce thinks back to being a kid himself. It’s not a proud memory but sometime...after, but before he was in high school, he’d thrown a plastic chair at the wall. He’d earned two days of in-school suspension and a month’s worth of school counselor visits, where the counselor told him about healthier ways to get adults’ attention.

This seems like Dick’s equivalent of throwing a chair across a classroom. Maybe Bruce shouldn’t give him what he wants, but he’ll be damned if he’s not going to give Dick attention while the boy is hovering in the air on top of very breakable glass. The chandelier sways and Bruce can’t be imagining the creak from the chain.

“Dick.” He tries softening his voice; he isn’t sure if he succeeds. “Just come down, okay, bud? Get down from there, and we’ll talk. It’s not safe,” he pleads.

“I’m not gonna fall.” Dick shifts further into Bruce’s view, and the chandelier swings ominously. Dick scowls. “You don’t care if I fall. I hope I make a mess on your stupid floor and you go to jail!”

Bruce...can’t decipher that. Nope, it’s not connecting.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he says. “Can you please—”

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”

Dick curses at him in French.

Bruce starts analyzing the height and angle of the chandelier. The staircase winds up near to it. He starts to climb it, getting slightly closer to Dick. It won’t get him close enough to try to grab Dick and carry him to safety himself; not without putting his weight on the chandelier, and he’s sure the chain holding it up wouldn’t survive his weight. But maybe if it starts to fall, he’ll be close enough to help.

Dick sits up sharply. The chandelier tinkles. “Go away! I’ll jump!”

Bruce freezes.

Dick’s eyes light up with an evil little spark.

Quickly Bruce does his best to wipe his face clean of any fear and relax the tension in his muscles. It’s too late, though, because Dick had gotten a better reaction than he had probably hoped for. Maybe he was bluffing when he said it, but in the next second he starts to crouch and looks away from Bruce and towards the ground.

Bruce has two seconds from when Dick’s eyes slide away from him to react before Dick throws himself from the chandelier.

All thoughts of maintaining his civilian persona exit Bruce’s mind as he vaults over the bannister and slams straight into Dick as he drops. They’re still about ten feet from the floor, and Bruce puts a hand behind Dick’s head and curls himself around him and angles himself so that he hits the marble shoulder-first.

The momentum pushes him into a forward somersault. He manages to twist and land on his back instead of landing on top of Dick. The same shoulder that took the brunt of the impact slams against a table. Something falls off and shatters on the floor.

Bruce sits up. His arm tingles with cold and hot pain. It’s not going to be pleasant tomorrow, but he’ll live. Dick is very still in his arms. Panic hits him in the chest and Bruce grabs Dick’s wrists and yanks them from his face so he can look him over.

Dick stares at him with wide, scared eyes, all of the anger and bravado from minutes earlier shocked out of him. Did he not expect that jumping meant falling? Did Bruce scare him by catching him?

Bruce stands up, drags Dick with him by his armpits and sets him on his feet. He sees a clear image in his head of himself pulling his hand back and hitting Dick across the face. Not to hurt him, nothing to do any damage, but to teach him. He dismisses it as quickly as he might click the X on a computer pop-up, almost too quickly to register what he sees.

“What did you think was going to happen?” he says roughly. “Don’t do that again. I care if you get hurt, do you hear me?”

Dick stares at him. His eyes shine. “Sorry. Sorry, Bruce.” The little lisping accent he’s quickly growing out of is prominent; maybe saying so many “s” sounds so close together is just tough.

“It’s okay. You’re not hurt, are you?” Bruce squeezes his arms, then runs his fingers through Dick’s hair to check for bumps.

Dick shakes his head, twitching away from Bruce’s hand.

“Then it’s okay. Don’t do it again.”

Dick nods. He doesn’t like to cry in front of Bruce—which suits Bruce just fine, though it makes his stomach twist with guilt when, like now, Dick runs away to one of his hiding spots in order to cry. Still, he’s grateful that Dick genuinely would prefer to be left alone rather than have Bruce chase him.

He’s sweeping up the broken glass from the picture frames that toppled over when he realizes he doesn’t know what made Dick so angry in the first place.

He pulls the pictures out of the ruined picture frames (nature shots from a mountain in Appalachia, too aesthetically pleasing to get rid of) and tosses the glass and porcelain.

Was he ever so angry as a child? Well, of course he was. Of course Dick is angry. Less than four weeks ago—Bruce hasn’t counted the exact number of days, though he’s sure Dick knows—John and Mary Grayson died. After that night it took Bruce four days and two lawyers to locate Dick at the West Gotham Residential Community Home, and two days longer before he was able to see and speak to the boy.

Despite Bruce’s anger and a third lawyer, the judge in charge of Dick’s case refused to move up Dick’s next scheduled detention hearing, and so it was an additional two weeks and a very rushed foster care licensing process before Bruce could take custody.

That put Dick’s time in the Residential Community Home at sixteen days. He’s been at the manor for less than half of that.

Bruce knew before he signed the custody papers that Dick was far from the grinning, energetic kid he saw interacting with the crowd before the Flying Grayson’s last performance. The quiet, sullen boy he spoke to during his half-hour visits to the community home was evidence enough of that. As far as he was concerned, that was another reason to take the boy in.

He knew it wasn’t going to be easy. And it isn’t, at all.

After the first few days of walking around the manor like a ghost, glimpses of Dick’s inherent cheerfulness and a deep anger both began to resurface at the same time. Bruce understands the anger better than he understands the cheerfulness, but even that doesn’t always add up in his head. The things that set Dick off aren’t the things that Bruce thinks should set him off. The things that Bruce thinks should help him don’t often help, or seem to make a difference at all.

What Bruce wanted—what he remembers wanting more than anything, when he was eight, was space. To be left alone. Sometimes that seems like exactly what Dick wants. Sometimes…sometimes Bruce thinks he’s wrong.

Dick shows up for dinner at the usual time, though he’s uncharacteristically subdued and his eyes are red. Alfred eyes Bruce over Dick’s head, but even so Bruce can’t think of a single thing to say that would break the silence.

“Can I be excused?” is the first thing Dick says.

“Of course.”

Dick takes his dish into the kitchen to put it in the sink and then slinks back out and towards the stairs.

Alfred comes from the kitchen and turns towards Bruce. “Do I have to press you in order to find out what happened, sir?”

Bruce clears his throat. “He was climbing on the chandelier in the front hall.”

Alfred’s eyebrows pinch together. Something about the expression, maybe the complete lack of surprise, makes Bruce frown.

“Does he do that? Alfred, he shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Perhaps,” Alfred starts in a clipped tone, “if you spent a little more time in the manor, you would be more aware of how Master Richard spends his days.”

He’s right, Bruce realizes. Thinking back on the past week, he’s been at Wayne Enterprises or asleep or in the cave on all except for two days, including today.

Alfred must see something of the realization or the guilt on Bruce’s face, because he softens. “Yes, I have on more than one occasion caught him climbing on things he shouldn’t. He’s given me quite a few scares. I suppose that doesn't matter so much to a boy of eight.”

“Alfred, he jumped off.”

That causes Alfred’s face to slacken in shock. “Was he harmed?”

Bruce shakes his head. “Because I was there. I caught him.” He rubs his forehead. “He said he didn’t care if he got hurt and he hoped I went to jail.”

He looks up at the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. Alfred sits down at the dining table across from him.

“That sounds to me like exactly the kind of thing a very troubled young boy would say. Someone who isn’t sure where he stands.”

“Someone who doesn’t trust me,” Bruce finishes.

Alfred looks at him. “Have you given him reasons to trust you? Sir?”

That night’s patrol is an easy one, but he spends the entire time hypervigilant, waiting on his toes for—something to happen. Nothing does. He comes home, changes into sweats, and falls into bed.

He dreams of searching the manor for Dick and being unable to find him. The cupboard in the foyer bathroom, the wardrobe in the fourth bedroom, the crawlspace under the attic—he exhausts every hiding place he knows about. Then he remembers that he forgot to check his old bedroom.

The bedroom he uses now is the master bedroom in the west wing. His childhood bedroom is in the east wing, closer to the master that his parents slept in.

He opens the door with dread building in his stomach, but Dick isn’t there.

When he wakes he can hardly remember the dream. He stumbles to the kitchen for breakfast and finds Dick having lunch. He’s sitting on the counter with both hands around a sandwich, heels kicking against the drawers.

“Hi Bruce,” Dick says.

“Morning.” Bruce pours filtered water into the Keurig.

“It’s afternoon,” Dick says. It’s almost as if yesterday hadn’t happened.

“Good afternoon.” Bruce watches the Keurig until his coffee starts to trickle out.

“When are you leaving?” Dick asks.

Bruce squints at him. “Why?” The time is just past noon, and he does have a meeting later on but he doesn’t have to be at the office for a few hours.

Dick shrugs, just nonchalantly enough to be faked.

“Are you planning something?” Bruce asks tiredly.

“No sir.”

Dick is planning something, and he’s very pleased with himself about whatever it is. That doesn’t bode well for Bruce’s blood pressure or, given what happened yesterday, Dick’s safety. He downs as much piping-hot coffee he can manage in a few gulps.

“Dick,” he says. The boy’s expression shutters just hearing Bruce’s tone. Still, Bruce steamrollers forward before he loses his nerve. “Can we talk about yesterday?”

“Why?”

Good question. Bruce isn’t sure he wants to anymore. But… He thinks about Alfred. What would Alfred say? “Because I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.”

Dick puts the rest of his sandwich down at his side and picks at his jeans. He mutters, “I won’t get hurt. I can’t do anything around here.”

“Hey, that’s not true.” Bruce frowns. “The house and the grounds are all yours, so long as you let me or Alfred know where you are and you don’t do anything dangerous.”

Dick jumps off the counter, then strides forward and kicks the opposite drawer. The hollow thump and rattle makes Bruce jump.

“It’s not dangerous! I know what I’m doing!” His hands ball into fists at his sides.

Bruce puts his mug down and keeps his voice soft. “Dick. I know that you’re very good at what you do. But you are a kid. You can’t—”

“Stop telling me what to do!” Dick kicks the drawer again on “telling.”

“Hey,” Bruce says sternly. “Don’t do that. This is your house now too, and you should treat it with—”

“No it’s not.” Dick kicks the wood panel again and looks straight at Bruce’s face as he does it.

An image of himself hitting Dick—not hard, only enough to make the point—flashes at the front of Bruce’s mind. The same thought, he remembers, that he had yesterday.

Once is—he barely even remembered it afterwards. But twice, two days in a row—if his mind can bring up a picture of it so easily, how easy might it be to do it before he can think twice?

Suddenly he doesn’t want to be within fifteen feet of Dick. He steps around the counter to the other side, too far away to touch him. Dick looks at him warily now. In some way or another, Bruce’s response to his challenge wasn’t what he expected.

Bruce is tired. He opens his mouth and has no idea what to say. Dick sets his jaw and resumes glaring at him. Bruce turns around and goes to find Alfred. At this time of the day he’s usually reached the east wing in his cleaning, and that’s where Bruce finds him straightening the bedclothes in an unused room.

Alfred stands up when he sees him. “Is Master Richard all right?”

“How did you do it with me?”

Alfred’s face contorts in a combination of sadness and pity. Bruce isn’t sure which is directed at the angry kid he used to be and which is directed as the adult he is.

“I tried to talk to him,” Bruce says. “He won’t listen.”

“Kids rarely do,” Alfred says, his voice lighter than his expression. “Did you walk away, or did he?”

“I did.” Bruce flinches, knowing it’s the wrong answer.

“Shall I speak to him?” Alfred asks.

“Please. If you can. I don’t know what to do…” Bruce trails off. He isn’t sure how to say that he was afraid of what he’d do. As Batman he puts child abusers behind bars almost nightly; is that where the images come from? Is a few corrective slaps really abuse?

Bruce watches Alfred head towards the kitchens with warring senses of relief and dread. Without knowing why he does it, he steps out of his shoes and follows. He couldn’t say whether or not Alfred notices, but he does his best to stay quiet and undetected in the shadows.

Alfred doesn’t find Dick in the kitchen, but Dick is in the very next place he looks, the game room.

Bruce stations himself behind the door frame and catches a glimpse of Dick on top of a bookcase, with his heels idly kicked up against the wall above his head.

“Master Richard.”

“What.”

“To begin with, I should apologize on Master Bruce’s behalf. I imagine he simply turned and left in the middle of a conversation?”

Dick mutters something inaudible.

There’s a click of the television turning on. “Do you know of anything that’s playing now?” Alfred asks idly. He flips through channels, never staying on one very long.

After a few minutes, Dick says, “Cartoon Network sometimes has cool stuff on Fridays.”

“Do you happen to know what channel number it’s on?”

“One hundred seven,” Dick says.

A pause as Alfred turns to the right channel. “Ah, look at you. Watching cartoons on a Friday afternoon, no school in sight. How lucky.”

Dick mutters something.

“What was that?”

“I hope he never makes me go to school.”

“Well. Certainly homeschool is among the options you can choose from, but we can talk about that later. Will you come down to watch?”

“I can see.”

“What’s this one about?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.”

Bruce stands and listens to the muffled sounds of a cartoon show for a very long time. Then Alfred says, “Thank you for joining me. I suppose the couch is a little bit more comfortable, at least.”

Bruce hadn’t even heard Dick climb down from the bookcase.

The show ends with an upbeat song. Over the music, Alfred says, “I admit I prefer cartoons from my own childhood.”

Dick says, “It was okay.”

Bruce wants to storm in there and demand for Alfred to get to the point. But Dick sounds relaxed in a way that he has never heard before, and he knows his presence at all would ruin that.

If Dick is afraid of him, maybe he’s right to be.

“I think that Master Bruce would still like to talk to you,” Alfred says, as if hearing Bruce’s thoughts. “Would that be something you’re open to?”

Dick doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then he says, “He’s just gonna yell at me some more.”

“I imagine that’s not pleasant,” Alfred says simply.

“He thinks I’m stupid. My p—” Dick chokes and tries again. “He doesn’t let me do anything. Alfred, he just wants me to sit in my room forever. He said so.”

Bruce doesn’t remember saying anything of the sort. Irritation bubbles in his stomach, and it’s quickly washed away in a wave of shame and guilt. He purposefully imagines himself hitting Dick and waits for his stomach to turn; it does, and he feels a secret shameful relief.

“Do you think it has something to do with what happened yesterday?”

“He doesn’t want me to get hurt so he doesn’t go to jail because I’m his responsibility.” Dick makes an admirable attempt at pronouncing “responsibility.”

“You are his responsibility. And no, he doesn’t want you to get hurt. Neither do I. I will admit,” Alfred says, “It makes me sad to think of you getting hurt in any way. So of course I want you to be safe.”

“I was safe at Haly's and I almost died. I wish I died! I wouldn’t be here!”

Bruce sags against the wall like a puppet. Can a child really hate so strongly?

He knows the answer is yes.

Can a child really hate me that much?

He could never have hated Alfred that way. Neither could he have hated his own father. Not that he thinks of himself as a father to Dick, that was never something that was on the table. But to think that Dick would rather die than live with him…

“Dick,” Alfred says. “You have weathered in the past month more than anyone should have to in their lives. I’m sorry that I can’t do more for you.”

Dick responds, but he’s crying so hard that the words are an undecipherable tangle of sounds. Neither of them say anything else for a long time. Eventually Bruce creeps off.

Bruce usually doesn’t put much stock in dreams. He has too many nightmares to assume that they all mean something. His feet, however, take him towards the east wing and his childhood bedroom.

Nothing important of his is still in the room. The sheets are neutral, the bookshelves are filled with textbooks, since he brought all of his own favorite books over to the west wing. He took the pictures down from the walls some time ago.

It’s just another bedroom that Alfred keeps clean and ready for hypothetical guests. There’s nothing here to uncover, nothing to help answer his questions. Like what to do about Dick, or why he didn’t know that he had urges to hurt children until he procured one of his own.

No. Dick isn’t his child, nothing possessive like that. Bruce isn’t a father. How can he be? He’s twenty eight years old, and his own father… His own father was dead before he turned thirty five.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. It’s an alarm letting him know he has to leave for Wayne Enterprises in five minutes to make it on time for the shareholder meeting.

Being a few minutes late will be very in character for Bruce Wayne. He detours back to the game room, which is now quiet inside. He peers through the entryway at the back of the couch. Alfred sits facing the black television screen, and the top of Dick’s head is visible at Alfred’s shoulder.

Bruce hopes that he’s asleep. The circles under the boy's eyes seem to worsen every day.

He can’t fathom ever hitting an eight year old boy. Even lightly. Dick is so small and breakable, and Bruce is even taller and broader than his father was.

In his head he sees his father’s shoes. He always wore brown dress shoes even indoors, polished to a shine. Bruce sometimes spent a very long time gazing down at those shoes. He remembers them better, he thinks, than Thomas Wayne’s face.

He remembers also, as easily as breathing, as if he’d always known and simply never had a reason to think about it, the back of his father’s hand.

Bruce leaves the shareholder meeting half an hour early, citing a migraine. No one bothers to try to stop him; his presence at the meeting, and at Wayne Enterprises in general, is more of an aesthetic than a functional one.

At the manor, he finds Alfred wiping down the kitchen.

“Where’s Dick?” he asks.

“In bed, sir. I took the liberty of making him a small dinner. He was very tired.”

Bruce undoes his tie and lets it hang around his neck. He sits at the counter and puts his head in his hands. Then he lays his forehead against the cool countertop. Alfred doesn’t say anything, which is just as well. The sounds of him working in his thorough, methodical way are more comforting than any words would be.

He raises his head after a long moment of concentrating on his breathing. “Alfred, what should I do?”

Alfred places down his sponge and rag. “I don’t know. I wish I did, Master Bruce. I will say, I think that more of your presence will help, not hurt.”

Bruce flinches. Alfred knows him too well. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t,” Alfred says simply.

“Every time I talk to him he tries to make me angry.”

“He’s testing his boundaries. He’s testing you. That’s normal.”

“He does make me angry at him. He says and does things that don’t make sense, and…” How angry does Bruce have to be in order to hit him? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. He can’t let himself know. “Maybe Dick will be better off somewhere else.”

“In the foster care system?” Alfred’s voice is harsh.

“No, no.” Bruce isn’t stupid. “But a boarding school, or somewhere...like that.”

“Well.” Alfred doesn’t seem any happier. “That’s something you will have to discuss with the boy. He’s young, but his opinion matters. Do you agree?”

“Of course,” Bruce snaps.

“Good.” Alfred turns to the sink and rinses his hands. “What would you like for dinner?”

On Saturdays Bruce has no obligations at Wayne Enterprises. He cuts his patrol short and gets to bed by four AM, so that on Saturday morning he is awake and having his morning coffee by nine.

The television in the game room is on, so Bruce looks there first. Dick is draped on his stomach over the back of the couch, his legs dangling over the edge towards the floor, and his arms on the cushion.

He notices Bruce but doesn’t move or stop watching the cartoon on the television.

“Good morning,” Bruce says.

“Hi.” Dick throws one leg over the back of the couch so he’s laying sideways across the top.

“May I watch with you?”

Dick slithers head first onto the couch and reaches for the remote. He mutes the cartoon and says, “What do you want?”

Bruce is taken aback and in the moment when he says nothing, Dick scoffs and slithers headfirst from the couch to the floor. Bruce rushes forward to make sure Dick hasn’t hurt himself and watches from a few feet away as Dick crawls back onto the couch and situates himself on the back of it once more.

“Can you sit properly?” Bruce asks.

In response, Dick slips backwards off the cushion.

“Dick!” Bruce jumps around to the other side of the couch. Dick is lying on his back, unhurt except for maybe being a little winded. Without thinking, Bruce reaches to help him to his feet. He chides, “Don’t do that.”

Dick’s face falls and he rips his arm away from Bruce. “Alfred knows I’m in here,” he says as if he’s defending himself from an accusation.

“That’s fine,” Bruce says, nonplussed. “Listen, you can finish your show, but later I want to talk to you.”

Dick’s eyes narrow. “Talk to me?”

“I was researching options for schools in the state, and I wanted to get your opinion about where you’d like to live.”

From Dick’s expression, someone might think that Bruce had brought out a tiny puppy and then kicked it across the room.

Dick turns and runs, bare feet thundering down the hallway. Bruce follows for a few steps but then thinks better of it. What would he do when he caught up to him? No, better to let Dick calm himself down and talk to him later.

But what if Dick isn’t okay? What if he gets hurt? Why is he so upset?

Bruce thinks of all the hiding places in the manor, and how tiresome it would be to search all of them.

Then he hears yelling. It’s a young, high-pitched voice coming from the direction of the front door. Bruce runs there. Alfred has Dick by the shoulder as Dick alternates between trying to struggle out of his grip and flailing to hit at any part of Alfred he can reach.

“Let me go,” Dick yells. “Just put me back. Put me back already!”

Alfred catches Bruce’s eye over Dick’s head, his expression confused and not entirely calm. That tiny crack in Alfred’s facade gives Bruce the strength to step closer.

“No one’s going to take you back to the community home,” Bruce says, taking a stab at what Dick means. His only clue that Dick registers the words is that Dick stops throwing his tiny fists at Alfred and aims them at Bruce instead. Bruce takes a patter of hits against his chest and stomach. Dick isn’t crying yet, but his eyes are shiny.

It would take a single hit, Bruce thinks, to signal to Dick that it’s time to stop crying. But no, that’s wrong, because no one has conditioned Dick to know the meaning of a slap.

And Dick isn’t crying. Dick isn’t Bruce.

“I’m not sending you anywhere you don’t want to go,” Bruce says.

“I want to go home.” Dick’s voice breaks, and he goes limp suddenly. Alfred loosens his grip on him, and in a second Dick darts for the staircase.

Bruce knows somehow that Dick gets onto the chandelier by jumping from the stairs, and that this is his destination now. He moves before he can think. He steps in front of Dick and catches him up in his arms.

Dick’s knees slam into Bruce’s sides and Bruce is sure for a moment that he’s made a horrible mistake. He lets his arms fall to his sides, not confining Dick like they were a moment ago.

Dick grabs onto the back of his neck and hangs there. It reminds Bruce of Dick’s sudden stillness after he fell from the chandelier. He hesitantly raises his arms to support him and Dick presses his face to Bruce’s chest.

“I’m sorry you can’t go home,” Bruce says awkwardly. He carries Dick down the few steps that he’d managed to climb. Dick doesn’t help or move or say anything, just hangs like a limpet. “I want to do what you want, bud. I’m sorry I don’t know what that is.”

He catches Alfred’s eyes and notices they are slightly misty.

“It’s okay if you don’t know what you want,” Bruce adds. He hoists Dick up a little higher and Dick tightens his chokehold around Bruce’s neck. “How about, um, tea to start?”

Alfred disappears towards the kitchen, undoubtedly to start the kettle. Bruce doesn’t know what he’d do without him.

Bruce carries Dick to the game room. The television is still on, though muted. Bruce fumbles for the remote one-handed and without bending very far at the waist, and turns it off.

Dick says, “You’re strong.”

“A little bit.”

“I’m heavy.” Dick kicks his legs.

“Not very heavy.” Bruce bounces Dick in his arms. Dick is on the shorter and lighter end of the normal parameters for his age—if Bruce remembers correctly from last week’s appointment with Dr. Thompkins, he’s exactly four feet tall and forty five pounds—but if Bruce didn’t weight train regularly he might have some trouble lifting him. He hums like he’s thinking and says, “You’re, what? Twenty pounds? Thirty?”

“That’s how many kilos I weigh. That’s heavy.”

“Twenty of anything is not heavy.”

“Twenty trucks!”

Alfred comes in with a tray and two teacups, which is a good thing because Bruce’s arms are beginning to tire, especially the one still bruised from the day before.

“Twenty horses,” Dick continues as Bruce carefully sets him down. “Twenty elephants!”

Then Dick frowns and seems to remember that he’s angry at Bruce. Alfred sets the tray down on the coffee table and says, “Would you like to sit down, both of you?”

Bruce sits down and reaches for his cup. His drink of choice is usually coffee out of necessity, but the tea smells amazing. “Thank you, Alfred.”

Dick sits down, then starts fidgeting so wildly that Bruce worries if he tries to pick up the tea the scalding liquid will go flying.

“Can someone explain what caused both of you to become so upset?” Alfred asks gently.

Bruce suddenly feels like a chastised child. “I...wanted to talk about schools.”

“Master Dick was saying, and stop me if I’m wrong, that you wanted to send him away.”

Bruce blanches. “I never said—”

Alfred gives him a look, and Bruce realizes Alfred was talking to Dick.

“I don’t want to go to school,” Dick says. “You don’t want me here. You don’t wanna see me so you’re sending me to—”

“That’s not true.” Bruce knows he probably shouldn’t interrupt but he can’t bear Dick’s anger, or the idea that Dick believes the things he’s saying. “Dick, you have to go to school. It’s the law.”

“M-mom and Dad taught me everything and I didn’t need to go to—to—to,” Dick stutters.

“Master Dick,” Alfred says. “What don’t you like about the idea?”

Dick gulps in a deep breath. “It’s stupid! I’m not stupid. I hate everyone and teachers and they’re mean. I’ll run away."

“I don’t believe that you hate everyone,” Alfred says.

“Well I do. I hate them all.”

“Even me?” Alfred asks.

Dick crosses his arms and bites his lip. “I’ll still run away,” he threatens.

Alfred looks at Bruce. Bruce stares back. He’s so out of his depth that the water’s above his head. “Dick…” he starts helplessly.

“Elementary school isn’t like the West Gotham Residential Community Home,” Alfred says.

Bruce watches Dick collapse further into himself, crossing his arms all the way around his chest and holding his sides.

“And if it is,” Alfred continues, “You can certainly let us know and Master Bruce will fix it for you. He has quite a lot of money and influence, if you can believe it.”

Bruce adds, “You don’t have to live at school. Is that bothering you?” He’d thought, maybe, that Dick would like to leave the manor and that after growing up in the close quarters of a traveling circus he would prefer living in close proximity with other people. But no, he wasn’t thinking at all. At a boarding school Dick wouldn’t be living with his family, he’d be living with a group of boys his age and older, after his experience of that in juvenile detention.

He’s under no impressions that just because kids mostly left Bruce alone at school, that they aren’t mean and that they won’t target Dick, with his background. No, of course Dick hates him for bringing up the idea as if it’s already decided.

Dick squints at him as if measuring him up. “I don’t wanna go.”

Bruce sits back and really thinks about it. “You still have to take placement tests before we can think about schools, anyway,” he says slowly. “I could set that up first. We could do it at Gotham Academy. Then we can talk about—I’m sure there are plenty of options, in this day and age. We can go slow.”

“I don’t wanna take tests,” Dick says, with less venom than before.

Bruce doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m afraid there are some things money and influence can’t save you from,” Alfred says.

Alfred takes Dick into the kitchen for some supervised baking, and Bruce makes a few calls. It’s the weekend but he has Gotham Academy’s principal’s number as well as the superintendent’s, and Bruce Wayne is very good at being a pest. By the end of an hour he has a math placement test scheduled for next Thursday, and an English placement test for the week after. He has to call again on Monday to confirm, but he’s assured that the spots will remain open.

Dick looks mutinous when Bruce swings by the kitchen to relay the news. He’s covered from head to toe in baking flour and has cookie dough on his fingers, though, so he can’t very well run away or try to hit Bruce again. He calms down a little when he learns the closest test is in math, a subject that he’s much more comfortable with than English.

“You’ll do fine,” Alfred says. “It’s only a matter of finding out what you already know, so we don’t bore you.”

“Those look good,” Bruce says, gesturing to the chocolate chip cookie dough Dick is shaping into balls and placing on a tray.

Dick shrugs and keeps working. Bruce reaches into the bowl of dough and steals a pinch to try.

“Ah, it tastes good.”

Dick stares at him in surprise, then turns back to the cookies without reacting. A second later he sucks a little bit of cookie dough off the side of his hand. Then he goes back to rolling out cookies.

“Let me know when they’re done,” Bruce says. “I’d love to taste them when they’re finished.”

Dick shrugs.

Bruce clears his throat. Sad to say, that was probably the most civil interaction he’s had with Dick in the past two days. To quit while he’s ahead, he says goodbye and moves to his study.

There’s very little Wayne Enterprises work to do, and for once he finds himself procrastinating on descending to the batcave. He dithers around on his laptop, sends a few emails, and writes himself a reminder to call Gotham Academy on Monday.

It surprises him when about half an hour later Dick knocks on the half-open door and sticks his head in.

“Are the cookies done?” Bruce starts to get up out of his chair. His office is far enough away from the kitchen that he isn’t able to smell anything from the oven.

“Yeah. Here.” Dick nudges the door open with his foot and comes in, carrying a plate with two cookies on it. “These are for you.”

“Wow. For me?”

“I just said that.” Dick holds the plate out.

Bruce takes it. “Thanks, bud.”

Dick bounces on the balls of his feet. Excitement bleeds into his expression. “They’re really good,” he says.

“Did you try one already? Ah, straight out of the oven.” The cookie Bruce picks up is warm and soft. He takes a bite. “That’s really good.”

“I know,” Dick says. “I made them all the same size so they baked evenly.”

“It shows.” Bruce takes another bite and then notices the way Dick stares at the plate. He holds it out. “Want the second one?”

Dick’s scowl returns as he remembers that he’s angry at Bruce. He turns away and shrugs.

“Hey, you made it. It’s only fair. Go ahead.”

Dick doesn’t need to be asked again. He devours the cookie in two bites and does a little hop in place.

“Even better than the cookie dough, huh?” Bruce asks.

Dick just shrugs.

Bruce does end up having time to work in the batcave. He spends a few hours putting finishing touches on his case file on Judge Hartwell. The man had sent an orphaned child to juvenile detention, then used Dick’s “noncompliance” as a justification for the placement. As soon as Bruce had custody over Dick, his attention turned towards removing Hartwell from the Gotham courts. His initial plan was to send the file to Commissioner Gordon when he was sure that it would result in Hartwell losing his position; however, digging into his court history made it immediately clear that the system that resulted in Dick’s placement at a Residential Community Home was not simply the consequence of one bad actor. The case file now stretches over fifty pages and is the product of a week and a half of research and groundwork, and Bruce isn’t done yet.

He’s so invested that he doesn’t see Alfred’s call for lunch, but a few hours later he emerges in time for dinner.

He hears uneven thumping coming from one of the living rooms on his way to the kitchen. It sounds as if someone is executing a gymnastics floor routine on top of the furniture. His heart sinks as he detours to the room.

Dick is standing on top of a high chest of drawers. His back is to the entryway so he doesn’t see Bruce, though Bruce isn’t sure that would do anything to stop him. Dick jumps into the air, somersaults once, and lands neatly on his feet on a couch. Then he scrambles down and climbs up the dresser again.

He jumps and somersaults one and a half times before colliding with the couch.

“Dick!” Bruce rushes over only to find the boy completely unharmed and scowling.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

“You can’t keep doing things like this,” Bruce says. “None of this is meant to be gymnastics equipment. Even if you think you can’t get hurt, you can.”

Dick ignores him. He turns his head away and everything. Bruce sighs.

“Dinner’s in a little bit. Go wash up, okay?”

Dick turns his chin in the opposite direction, still ignoring him.

“I’m going to go. I hope I’ll see you at the table.”

As Bruce walks to the kitchen, the thumping sounds start up again from the living room. An idea begins to form in the back of his head.

Alfred has to go retrieve Dick for dinner, and the boy walks in sheepishly but continues to ignore Bruce throughout the meal. Bruce spends the time thinking, and dinner passes in silence.

Dick leaves without asking to be excused. Once he’s gone, Bruce turns to Alfred.

“What if I install a training room for Dick?”

Alfred tilts his head. “I’m sorry?”

“In one of the spare rooms. Maybe some equipment outside too, in the yards.” He’s getting ahead of himself. “Gym equipment. Horizontal bars, and mats. I could bring some mats up today from the…garage. Something for him to use instead of the chandeliers.”

Alfred’s face does something interesting and Bruce stops talking, bracing for the worst. You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect it to go away, more than one person has said to him before. He doesn’t feel as though that’s what he’s doing now, but Alfred will let him know for sure.

“I think that’s an incredible idea, Master Bruce,” Alfred says.

Bruce stares at him, caught off guard.

“Perhaps you can ask the young master what he’s used to training on, and what he prefers.”

“Yeah.” Bruce taps his fingers on the table, thinking about which room would be best. The dining hall, located in the west wing, is spacious and doesn’t have a lot of furniture to clear out. That might do. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

The next hour finds him with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, dragging a blue training mat from his study to the dining hall. He’s taking a break to wipe his forehead when Dick pops into the hallway.

Dick narrows his eyes. “What’s that?”

Bruce’s heart lifts, because Dick is talking to him. At least, he’s asking a question in Bruce’s presence, and a question that Bruce can answer.

“For you,” he says. “Want to help me set up?”

“Set up what?”

“There isn’t much to see yet, but I could get whatever you like.”

Dick crosses his arms but his curiosity visibly perks him up. “What is it?”

“An exercise room for you. Come on.”

Dick takes that as an invitation to sit on top of the mat and make Bruce drag him along to the dining hall. He looks around disappointedly at the table pushed against a wall and the stacked chairs. “There’s nothing here.”

“No, not yet. I didn’t know what you’d like. Horizontal bars, maybe?”

Dick jumps off the mat and starts running around the perimeter of the room. There’s no chandelier, but there are two candelabras set high into the walls. Bruce sees Dick eyeing them and makes a mental note to remove them later. Now, he sets about unfolding the mat and laying it across the floor.

Once it’s fully extended, Dick jumps onto it and does a handstand. He walks around a bit on his hands until Bruce feels the need to clap.

“Nice job, buddy. That’s amazing.”

Dick gets to his feet and looks away, but he can’t hide that he’s happy with the compliment. He launches into a few perfect cartwheels that make him look exactly like the spokes of a wheel turning in a circle. Somehow he ends up standing on his hands again, and walks into Bruce’s side.

“Woah, careful there.”

Dick’s legs wobble but he keeps his balance. He hand-walks into Bruce’s side again. Bruce steps away to give him room. Dick follows him and his knees bump against Bruce’s side.

“I want to get a rope to climb. Without knots in it,” Dick says.

“Done. What about those horizontal bars?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Anything else?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t want to go to school.”

Bruce ignores that. “A rope, from the ceiling? Horizontal bars, more mats maybe. I’ll go put in some orders.”

Dick drops from his handstand suddenly and wraps his arms around Bruce’s shin.

“Um.” Bruce politely tries to move his leg and after a second Dick lets him. “I’ll go order the things.”

He goes and does just that.

Packages start arriving the very next day. The first to come is a trampoline that Alfred had suggested. Bruce has his morning coffee at noon as usual and then drags the box to the dining hall. He’d bought two trampolines: a smaller one to put inside, which is what he has now, and a large one to set up on the grounds outside, which is due to arrive on Tuesday.

He has the box halfway through the entry to the dining hall when a small weight jumps onto his back and arms close around his neck.

“How are you so strong?” Dick says into his ear.

“Push ups.” Bruce holds onto Dick’s forearms in an effort to release some of the strain on his throat.

“Is that for me?” Dick somehow gets his knees up on Bruce’s shoulders and then Bruce is stuck standing as still as he can because Dick braces a hand on the top of Bruce’s head and stands up.

“Buddy,” he pleads, hands grabbing at Dick’s shins in horror. “Just give me half an hour and you can use the trampoline.”

“Hm,” Dick sniffs. “I can’t get down. Let go of me.”

Bruce reaches up, grabs him by the waist, hauls him off his shoulders and deposits him on the floor.

So Dick is mad at him again, and refuses to leave the dining hall turned training room while Bruce assembles the trampoline. It’s very difficult to keep an eye on a hyperactive eight year old while also concentrating on a small engineering project and keeping the eight year old away from sharp screws and protruding pieces of metal.

It takes longer than half an hour for Bruce to finish building, but he finally manages it. The only thing left is to turn the trampoline over. When he looks behind his shoulder, Dick has his feet braced five feet up the wall and is hanging by one arm off a candelabra.

“Dick Grayson,” Bruce shouts in alarm.

Dick jumps, which causes his weight to jostle the screws holding the candelabra in place, and Bruce watches in horror as the screws fail and the entire metal contraption sinks away from the wall. It seems to take a sickeningly long time, but in fact it must only be a few seconds. Not long enough for Bruce to make it to the side of the room before it falls and takes Dick with it.

Dick hits the blue mat, and then the metal candelabra falls onto him. An instant later Bruce yanks the weight of it off of his chest and tosses it away with a clang.

Dick’s eyes are wide with shock and there’s no blood on him, no obvious impact to his head or face, and for a brief moment he is silent and Bruce thinks he might, like every time before, be okay. Then he finishes taking a deep breath, opens his mouth, and starts crying.

Not just crying but wailing. Snot starts running down his face immediately, and he clutches his chest with both hands as though he’s really, really hurt.

Bruce doesn’t know what to do. For a second he’s frozen and helpless in a way he works tirelessly to avoid. Dick cries and rolls onto his side. Bruce falls to his knees next to him. Nothing he’s learned about injuries or children or crisis management can penetrate the panicked fog in his mind and help him.

“Where does it hurt?” he asks over the sound of Dick’s sobbing.

“Owww,” Dick wails. His knees are curled to his chest and his eyes are closed.

Something clicks back into gear in the back of Bruce’s head. Dick is using his lungs so robustly that it’s reasonable to assume there’s no damage to them, and that any severe damage to his ribs is unlikely. The next course of action is to manually check his ribs and then move on to treatment, which in the immediate term likely will be ice packs. And then getting Alfred to check him over again, and possibly Dr. Thompkins as well.

He takes Dick’s shoulder and rolls him onto his back. Dick’s crying starts to decrease in volume but he won’t remove his hands from his chest.

“Dick,” Bruce says. “You have to let me see.”

“No,” he gasps, the word trailing off into sobs as he digs his fingers into his shirt. “It hurts.”

Bruce gives up on trying to pry his hands away and goes straight to the next step. He scoops Dick up into his arms and stands. The first thing he sees is Alfred rushing through the doorway, towards the commotion. Bruce answers his question before he can ask it.

“He fell. Why do we have these anyway?” He kicks the candelabra as he passes it. He’s only in his indoor slippers and he mostly hurts himself, but he doesn’t let it show.

The actual medbay down in the cave is off limits (though for a moment, Bruce considers it) so he carries Dick to the kitchen. Alfred follows, allowing Bruce to keep Dick in his arms while Alfred digs out some ice packs.

Dick has graduated to sniffling now. Bruce tries to feel his ribs again, and this time Dick lets him, his face red and his eyes averted. It seems like eight years old is old enough to start feeling ashamed of crying after getting hurt.

Bruce is relieved to feel nothing wrong with Dick’s ribs, though Dick winces and hisses when Bruce’s hand strays to the left side of his chest. “You’re okay,” he says. “Does it still hurt?”

He could kick himself—of course it still hurts, what kind of question is that—but Dick nods, his bottom lip quivering.

“You’re going to be fine.” Bruce drags a kitchen table chair out with his foot and sits in it with Dick in his lap. He’s a little too big to fit entirely comfortably, but it works.

Alfred finishes wrapping an ice pack in a towel and asks, “Where does it hurt the most?”

Dick points to a line down his left side. Alfred presses the ice pack down gently and Bruce takes over holding it.

Now that Alfred’s here and Dick is going to be okay, Bruce is able to take a breath. “Hey, buddy. That was scary, wasn’t it?”

Dick nods and takes a deep breath through his mouth. Bruce lifts his head to ask for a tissue or a paper towel and Alfred is already holding a tissue box. He pulls out two and hands them to Dick. Dick blows his nose messily and hands the tissues back to Bruce, who takes them.

He’s done worse things for people who deserved it less than Dick.

“You’ll be okay,” he says.

Once he’s really sure that Dick is okay, Bruce leaves him in Alfred’s care and spends another five hours in the dining hall. He removes the excess furniture and the other candelabra from the wall, drags two more mats up from the cave, and finds a long rope that isn’t quite a regulation climbing rope but won’t scratch or pinch. Most of the hours are spent finding the right place to drill a hook into the high ceiling and then hanging the rope from it.

He finishes everything he can do before more packages come in, and then pauses to look around. There’s a lot of usable empty space, even when he accounts for the other equipment on its way. Alfred had checked Dick’s bruising and ordered that he wasn’t to be climbing on anything for the next few days, so Bruce has time to make the room perfect.

He realizes out of nowhere that even in all the chaos, not once did he think about hitting Dick. Not when he disobeyed him, not when he got hurt, not when he cried about it.

He’s getting used to the peculiar feeling of relief and guilt roiling in his stomach at the same time.

For dinner Alfred has made soup and he carries a tray of it up to Dick for him to eat in his room.

“Is he that hurt?” Bruce frowns. “I thought…”

“There’s nothing wrong with coddling him just a little, sir, if you’ll forgive me the impulse,” Alfred replies.

Bruce has no objections to that. He eats by himself, listening to Alfred bustling in the kitchen. It smells like he’s baking something, though he reappears promptly to take Bruce’s dishes when he’s done.

“Can I ask you something?” Bruce says.

Alfred pauses. “Of course.”

“Did my father ever hit me?”

Alfred’s face freezes and then falls and Bruce immediately knows the answer. He’d thought that it would be devastating, a nail in the coffin, to get confirmation. Reality is nothing of the sort. In fact, he almost feels lighter. If he had been wrong, and it was a figment of his imagination—well, it no longer bears thinking about.

Before he speaks, Alfred puts the dishes down on the dining table and takes a seat across from Bruce. He studies his hands. “You might remember this. With Martha and Thomas, I was an employee, nothing less or more. So I wasn’t privy to much that went on in private in your family. But,” he says, “I admit that I had my suspicions.”

He raises his eyes to meet Bruce’s, and the amount of emotion in them takes him by surprise.

“You never asked me about it.” Bruce thinks about all the time Alfred had to ask—all the opportunities. He isn’t sure what he would have said, at any time before this one.

“No. I never did say anything.” Alfred pauses and meets his eyes again. “I’m not sure if that was a mistake.”

Bruce shakes his head. He doesn’t know if it was a mistake either, but, selfishly, there’s nothing right now that could make him angry at Alfred—the man who took care of him, who practically raised him. Bruce couldn’t stand it.

He brings up something else. “You keep leaving me alone with Dick,” he says.

Alfred’s eyebrows furrow. “Of course. I— Well.” He laughs humorlessly. “I don’t believe you’re that type of man. I suppose many people would say the same about Thomas Wayne, including myself, years ago. I was wrong then. Am I wrong now?”

Bruce squeezes his fingers together. “No. I’m— No.”

Alfred sighs. “For what it’s worth, I think Thomas had kindness in him. I just rarely saw it directed at his family.”

Bruce learned many of the hiding places in the manor when he was very young and small enough to fit into all of them. The other things he learned from his father— He doesn’t want to dwell on them. No, it will do him no good.

No. He shakes away the image of his father’s brown shoes and thinks of it in broad terms instead. There are plenty of bad people in the world, and plenty of people who do bad things. Everyone has a reason, multiple reasons, for their actions.

His father might have been a different man than the image he’s had in his head for years, but that doesn’t mean the image has no truth to it.

Yes, a man who loved him as a son could also have been a man who scared him as badly as Bruce remembers being scared. He always remembered hiding in the cupboard and the spare bedrooms, but he supposes he’d thought it all came after Crime Alley. Strange to think that some of it came before.

The man who took him to the movies once a year. Who wouldn’t abide by Bruce’s tears. The man who screamed at his mother while Bruce covered his ears—

Enough. No more. No more.

He can’t leave for patrol early tonight, and that’s the direction those thoughts will take him. He has something he has to do before he descends to the cave and gets ready for patrol.

“I think I’ll say goodnight to Dick, if he’s not asleep.”

Alfred’s brow smooths out. “That’s a wonderful idea. Why don’t you take him some of the cookies he made? Here, I’ll warm some milk.”

Bruce watches Alfred get a tray ready with a cup of frothing milk and two cookies from the refrigerator.

“Thank you, Alfred,” he says.

Alfred puts a hand on his shoulder briefly. “You’re so very welcome.”

Dick’s bedroom is in the west wing and his door is propped halfway open. Bruce balances the tray on one palm and knocks. It causes the door to swing the rest of the way open. Dick is laying in bed on a couple of fluffed-up pillows, with that stuffed elephant on his chest. He gives Bruce a wary look.

“It’s me,” Bruce says unnecessarily.

“What are you doing here?” Dick asks, more surprised than accusatory.

Bruce realizes he hasn’t been in this room at the same time as Dick before. He holds out the tray. “From Alfred. Can I come in?”

“Okay.” Dick fidgets with the blanket pulled over him. The blanket is a neutral blue and it’s straight and unwrinkled, as everything Alfred touches seems to remain.

To enter the room Bruce has to walk around a cardboard box that contains all of Dick’s belongings, which he brought to the manor in a black trash bag. Bruce wonders why Alfred hasn’t unpacked it for him; then he thinks about it and decides that no one should touch the contents except for Dick.

He places the tray on the nightstand and says, “The milk’s warm.”

“Thanks.” Dick doesn’t make a move to reach for it.

The bookshelf is out of order, Bruce notices, with books organized by color instead of author, the way that he and Alfred like it, and quite a few have been pulled off the shelves and placed back sideways.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asks.

Dick shrugs, and that makes him wince and reminds Bruce of his close call earlier that day.

“Do you understand now why I keep telling you not to jump on the furniture?”

Dick yanks at a loose string in the blanket.

“By the time that bruise is gone I’ll have the training room set up, and then you don’t have to improvise anymore. All your equipment will be the real deal. Is it okay to wait that long?”

Dick shrugs.

“Is it? If not, I—”

“Sure,” Dick says. “That’s fine. Whatever.”

Bruce frowns. “And if you ever need or want something else, just let me know and I’ll make it happen.”

He regrets his phrasing immediately. He meant in terms of equipment for the training room, but it comes out completely broad and he knows that if Dick takes this moment to ask for something difficult or outrageous, Bruce will be powerless to say no. If he asks not to go to school. Bruce will call and postpone the placement tests. If he asks to visit Haly’s, Bruce will buy plane tickets. If he asks for a horse, or a stable of horses—

“I need chalk,” Dick says. “For my routines.”

Bruce blinks. He already purchased a quantity of gymnastics chalk from the same website where he ordered the horizontal bars.

“No problem,” he says. “It’s on its way already.”

Dick nods to himself. “When will it come?”

“Everything’s due to be delivered by Wednesday. I’ll have it up and ready by Thursday at the latest.”

Dick’s mouth twists into a frown. “That’s when I have the test.”

“Yes. And by the time you get back you’ll have your own training room.”

Dick’s frown deepens.

“What?” Bruce asks.

Dick mutters, “Who’s coming with me to the school?”

“Well,” Bruce says. “Would you prefer Alfred, or me? I’m sure we’ll both be available.”

Dick glances at him out of the corner of his eyes. “I don’t care.”

Clearly that’s not the truth. Bruce isn’t sure who Dick would really prefer, but in absence of that certainty he decides to go for telling the truth. He says, “If you change your mind let me know. But if you don’t care, I was planning on driving you.”

“Oh,” Dick says, relieved. “Okay.”

If it will make Dick more comfortable, Bruce will gladly stand between him and Gotham Academy teachers. He’s starting to think that he would do a lot worse, and a lot better, for Dick Grayson.