Archive of Our Own

It's raining at John and Mary’s funeral. Because of course it is. It was raining at Martha and Thomas's funerals too.

Bruce is surprised how much he remembers from the funeral rites. The order of processions, the priest’s blessings. The sniffling crowd and smell of incense in the air.

Mary and John are displayed at the front of the altar in their best hair and makeup. Bruce approaches out of obligation, and he can't help but think they're made of wax. He’s seen his fair share of corpses, but never like this. They're always freshly dead, bleeding and splayed out in the same position they had been when they died. The last ones he'd seen in a casket like this were his own mother and father.

Dick does not approach the caskets. He watches from a distance, eyes gloomy. He doesn't approach Bruce either, and he hasn't all afternoon. He’s still living at Haly’s for now, so the two haven't spoken since the night of his parents’ deaths.

Well, not deaths. Bruce has been doing a lot of detective work in his spare time, and is fairly sure they were murders. But between helping with funeral plans and preparing to adopt a child, Batman had been put on the backburner for the first time in years. Bruce promises himself he’ll get back out there after the funeral. The city needs it.

Bruce still can’t believe he’s taking Dick in. He barely feels like a regular person, let alone a father figure. But there was something he recognized in Dick’s eyes three days ago. An intense fire burning below the surface, a rage whose hot fire fueled Bruce’s mind and body each night that he went on patrol.

So that had been it. In that fateful moment Bruce had seen himself, clear as day, and the tears of a lost boy and the blood of a mother and father who by all means should still be alive. Gotham already had Batman. Bruce didn’t need another child’s rage consuming their life. And maybe he doesn’t have the best parenting skills yet, but Bruce has money and resources and knew what it was like. That had to count for something.

Today, Dick’s anger has all but disappeared, hiding dormant back below the surface. The boy sits silently in the front pew, eyes too sunken and tired for the tears to come. Bruce has so much to say and no time to say it, so for now he finishes paying his respects to the mother and father in the caskets and takes his seat.

He doesn't remember the rest of the mass. He's too busy thinking about the boy sitting in the front row. He doesn’t understand why Dick is so willing to leave his whole life behind for a stranger. Why the boy would so easily abandon the circus, all of his friends and loved ones, and everything familiar he had called home. Why he was so eager to start a new life from scratch.

But then again, maybe that was the point. The circus held everything about his parents close; the smell of popcorn and the names etched into John and Mary’s costumes and even the very dust that coated the performance grounds. Perhaps for Dick it was just too much to bear.

Sometimes running away was just easier. That, Bruce definitely understands.

The procession happens immediately after. The church has its own cemetery, so there is no hearse. Just a band of people marching through the rain with caskets on their shoulders. Dick is too small to participate, and all he can do is stare at his parents’ caskets being lifted into the sky. A gaze as helpless as it was when he watched his parents fall three days prior. Watching and waiting, desperately wishing to turn back time.

The group advances forward, solemn. Their dress shoes and fine boots become soiled with the wet mud, but if anyone cares, they don't show it. They reach the burial spot and start to set the Graysons down.

The holes are already dug, earthworms waiting patiently for their new meals. A final prayer is said, and the caskets are lowered into the ground.

Only then does Dick cry. He cries and buries his little head into the side of a man nearby—someone from the circus, Bruce can't quite remember who. The man coos quietly and puts an arm around Dick’s shoulder, rubbing his back as shovels begin to pile dirt on the polished wood of John and Mary Grayson. Bruce wonders who the man is and how he's apparently gotten so good at comforting children.

Whoever he is, Bruce will be separating him from Dick in less than a week, and the thought feels like a crime. He has to remind himself for the hundredth time that Dick chose to leave. Dick chose to separate himself and build a new life with Bruce. In a week the two will be in the same house together and it was Dick’s choice. That has to count for something.

Bruce looks, silent, as the dirt slowly covers the caskets. The soil is wet from the rain, sticking in heavy clumps. As he watches, the events of three nights ago replay in his mind for the millionth time.

The cheers. The lights. The sudden snap. The crack of bones hitting the floor, and a moment of silence before screams erupted in the theater. A boy all alone on his perch, a newly made orphan. A billionaire who knew he had a choice to make.

Slowly the holes are filled and the crowd thins. Bruce watches with a sorrowed gaze as Dick is led back into the church. Only after the boy’s small head disappears into the crowd does Bruce follow.

The dining hall is in the basement. It's damp and a bit musty but it's cozy, especially with all the people talking. It feels like this is exactly what the kitchen knew it was built for; to serve people when they needed comfort the most. Bruce isn't very religious, but he always had that same feeling when he went and volunteered at shelters and soup kitchens with his mother.

He scans the food line for a familiar face, that small frame and black hair. Nothing. It seems Dick has disappeared. Bruce thinks back to what he felt as a kid by this part of the funeral. Overwhelmed, tired, overstimulated. And definitely not hungry. Dick won't be down here.

Bruce turns around and creeps back up the stairs. He finds Dick just outside the main doors, away from the talking and the attention. It makes sense. For Bruce one of the worst parts about his parents’ funeral wasn't seeing their dead faces in makeup, or saying goodbye as their caskets were lowered into the ground.

No, it was the attention. It was all the condolences and apologies that went on foryears afterwards. Each one just reminded Bruce further that his parents were dead, that they were never coming back. The words were just salt in the wound disguised as sugar.

So Bruce understands Dick’s desire to be alone. But he also understands that Dick needs company, even if he doesn't want it. Perhaps the best one to offer it could be someone who understands.

At least, that's what Bruce hopes.

He takes a step forward, polished shoe scraping across the cement step. Dick glances at him and a small wave of surprise crosses his face upon realizing who it is. But then he just turns back around and gazes upward, frowning.

There's a plate of untouched food by his side, a pulled pork sandwich and some potatoes. Clearly someone had made Dick take food. Or maybe he took some on his own to stop others from worrying. From what little Bruce knows about the kid, he wouldn't be surprised.

Cautiously, Bruce joins him on the steps. The rain had stopped about half an hour ago, but the ground is still wet and uncomfortable. Dick sits on the damp concrete with his knees together, staring up at the sky. The sun peeks through the clouds, dappling the wet earth in soft, beaming rays. Humid wind rustles through the summer trees like a gentle song.

“Why is the sun out so soon?” he says suddenly, weakly. Bruce notices a fist clench at his side. “This feels wrong.”

Bruce clears his throat. He remembers that feeling. Just like the funeral, he's surprised at how much he remembers; how he's carried these emotions with him almost every day without realizing. That need, that intangible desire to have the world know his pain as viscerally as he does.

The world stopped and the ground rumbled and his entire life changed in one simple moment, but to everyone else it’s just another Saturday night. The neighbors down the street have no idea of the new orphan in the alleyway, of the pearls scattering on the pavement and the blood staining the ground. The sun still rises the next day and the universe continues on. And Bruce is there, alone, left behind.

Bruce adjusts his position. His hand comes damp off the ground. Dick glances at him with sunken, red-rimmed eyes. He's not crying anymore—the tears have all been drained—but it's left him sullen, exhausted. “People keep apologizing to me. Like they could have changed it, or something. Why do they keep telling me that they're sorry?”

Bruce almost winces. God, it's like looking in a mirror. This little, anguished kid will be living in his house next week and all Bruce can do is be there for him as his life changes completely.

“I don't think they know what to say,” he responds. “So they apologize.”

“And then it's still sunny. Why doesn't the sky just—” Dick sneers upwards. And then his gaze falls. He drops his head down and exhales deeply. “Nevermind. I'm… That was selfish.”

Bruce sighs. Even now this kid is so self aware. A good heart, Bruce can already tell. It's Bruce's job to make sure Dick's grief doesn't corrupt him like it's done for so many in Gotham.

“Y’know,” Bruce starts, “I had the same thought too. About the sky.” He gazes upwards, the puffy clouds rolling in to overtake the dark, hazy dream of the past storm. Birds are starting to tweet again, invigorated after the rain.

Bruce’s mother loved birds. She’d sit on the porch with her coffee and teach him certain bird calls—the common ones in Gotham. Right now Bruce hears three distinct calls, and each time the birds sing he can almost hear his mother’s voice.

A few chickadees, a pair of doves in the distance, and a common robin. Bruce’s mother always loved doves; they were her favorite because they were always in pairs; they mated for life. Seven-year-old Bruce retorted that no, she was wrong and robins were the best. His mother smiled wryly, a look that Bruce didn’t understand yet, and asked why. He said they looked funny and their calls were the best.

What he’d really meant was that their calls were the most comforting; he could hear a robin no matter where he went, no matter how many business trips and charity events his parents dragged him to across the country. The robin always seemed to be there, a cheery little memory of home.

Weird. Bruce hasn’t thought about that conversation in years.

“What do you think would happen if the sky just froze?” Bruce prompts, “If it was always sunny or rainy?”

Dick studies him. “It would dry up all the plants,” he says eventually. “Or flood.”

Bruce nods. He lets Dick process his words, come to the conclusion on his own. Dick does quietly. He looks at the ground, fiddles with the cuffs on his sleeves, and then finally looks back up. And Bruce can tell he understands.

The sky can’t freeze. Time without movement would mean nothing. Growth and change are a part of life, and—and Bruce has been avoiding that himself, hasn’t he? Ever since he put on the mask he’s been trying to run away.

They have to move on, both of them. Bruce has been stuck in the past for so long, that rainy haze has covered his thoughts for years. Maybe this boy can be his chance to see clearly.

In a week Dick will be in his home, and Bruce won’t be a father but he will be something to the kid. He doesn’t have a clue how to do it, just the small things he remembers from his own father and a desire to keep this kid on the right path.

So for now he sits on the steps and watches the clouds move by with the kid that is about to change his fate forever. Dick lets him, and somehow an unspoken agreement passes between the two. Here they can just sit and rest and be. No disguises, no facades.

Bruce doesn’t have a clue what the next week will bring. But taking in Dick will be the right decision. He’ll make sure it is.