Chapter Text
Α¢Ͳ Ι: Ѱнєη Иιgнт Ƒαℓℓѕ, Нє Ѕмιℓєѕ Ѱιтн Ͳнє Цтмσѕт Ρяι∂є
Dick Grayson is terrified.
His father’s watch on his wrist tick, tick, ticks. The small hand shifts to the number 7. In any other city, the sun has risen above the skyscrapers and floats above the clouds, casting its guiding light upon the residents.
Not here. Here, in Gotham, shadows rule supreme. Towering, dark shapes, made of nothing, curl around the edges of the buildings that surround him, taunting.
He should turn back. The juvenile detention center was hell on Earth, but it was a familiar hell, a known Devil. Outside of its claws, Dick had thought that night, he would be safe. He could camp out in one of those buildings that Mack the juggler had told him about. Abandoned buildings, he’d told Dick, a few weeks ago, were strewn across Gotham like extra change.
Dick remembers scrunching his nose and staring out of the open flap of the Big Top, where he could see the blinking lights of the City proper and saying, “Gotham doesn’t sound like a very happy place.”
Then he had launched to his feet and put his hands on his hips, announcing, with the stalwart determination of an eight-year-old acrobat, “We’ll make it happy then, if only for a week.”
He can still hear his parents chuckling in response and it sends his heart doing flips he could never pull off. He swallows back the bile and focuses grief-torn eyes back on to the street.
Dick from a few weeks ago was stupidly naive. An eight year old acrobat in any other city could twist reality. Could change frowns into smiles, make hearts stutter with excitement. An eight-year-old acrobat, if Gotham was a city, could make hardened eyes melt and gray souls burn brighter.
Standing in an empty street, shutting out whispers in the wind, trembling from the force of stares he cannot find the origin of, Dick thinks he was a moron to ever think Gotham was a city. An eight year old acrobat could do nothing against the maw of centuries old Gotham other than be swallowed, torn apart. He wishes he had kept his mouth shut. Never issued his challenge.
Dick Grayson from a few weeks ago had issued his challenge, wishing to spread the boundless happiness that had lived in his heart. The Dick Grayson of now, empty of that light, bubbling with an anger just as boundless, issues a new challenge to Gotham.
He wants all the criminals in this despicable city to suffer, just as he did.
A lamppost fuse explodes and the rest of the street is plunged into black.
Dick Grayson shudders and steps into the void.
Dick’s eyes feel like someone took a sledgehammer to them when he wakes up in the morning. At least, he thinks it’s morning. He rubs his eyes hard, forcing back the sticky, blurriness of a night spent in tears and focuses on his watch.
5:11.
Outside, the perpetual dark greets him once more. He pulls off his blanket and stuffs it into the backpack holding his last meager belongings. Then after a moment he also takes off the watch and places it safely in one of the inner pockets. He doesn’t want to damage it. He needs to move. He’d seen the collection of beer cans crowding the other room in the building but exhaustion had worn him down last night before he could scope out somewhere else. It was pure luck that his sleep hadn’t been viciously interrupted by a pack of drunks.
He snorts as he jumps out of the second story window and catches himself on the gas pipes below. ‘Pure luck’ in Gotham. What a joke.
He’s treading carefully through the early morning half-light, wincing as every step is succeeded by a crunch of glass, when he feels eyes on him. Dick shuffles his backpack to his front and squashes it to his chest with hands, moving forward with darting eyes.
His eyes catalog a vague form catching up in his periphery and Dick quickens his steps. Then he hears the man’s steps join him. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Four steps. Damn it. Two men then. Screw it, he thinks, and starts sprinting.
Dick is about to make a sharp left turn and lose them by climbing the fire escape bound to be on the wall, when he collides with something sturdy and is knocked off his feet. He stares up at the man in front of him, nose stinging from the impact, and swallows down a whimper.
The guy in front of him is huge. He’s built like a stack of bricks, more muscle than man, and the switch blade looks like a needle held in his grip. His mouth is twisted in snarl, teeth mottled yellow, eyes dark with the promise of violence and what light there is catches menacingly on the man’s exposed canines.
Dick’s entire being is vibrating from the adrenaline rush that fear gifts him. If he doesn’t stab him first, Dick thinks, the man is probably going to eat him or something.
Never let it be said that fear stops a Grayson. Dick raises his eyes to meet the thug’s and bares his teeth in response.
One of the men behind him snorts.
“Aww, look, the puppy’s gettin’ angry.” He sneers, fanning out so Dick is well and truly surrounded.
Dick doesn’t look back. He can’t shake the feeling that if he takes his eyes off the biggest threat, he’s going to die a quick and excruciating death.
“Well brat,” says the remaining member, “hand it over then.”
Dick just glares harder at the brick-house in front of him.
“Nothing in here.” He replies, knowing full well that isn’t going to stop anyone.
His hunch is proven correct when Brick-house’s mouth curls upwards in a twisted imitation of a smile. It’s positively grotesque and Dick would like to be out of here yesterday, please.
The man crouches down to his level and Dick mourns the chance to get to his feet.
“Well,” he rasps, and his breath rushes over Dick in a way which makes him want to throw up, “Good thing the bag’s not the only valuable thing here.”
Dick would absolutely punch this man if he knew it wasn’t a death sentence. He’s considering it anyway. He certainly doesn’t want to know what the man is insinuating.
The man behind hoists Dick up by his shirt and he chokes as the collar digs into his neck. His throat is the least of his worries though, as his face is smashed into the actual brick wall.
Dick can’t lose.
He feels hot pain explode in his skull and drip down the side of his jaw.
Dick promised Gotham.
The backpack is wrestled off his chest without care for his arms and he cries out as his shoulders twist backward with the movement.
Dick needs to survive.
Tears well up in his eyes, some from the pain, some from the frustration.
The man lets go and Dick slumps on the ground, choking on his hatred for Gotham.
Brick-house kicks him in the chest and grins when he groans but Dick only has eyes for the bag. He watches in horror as the man rips into it and empties it on the ground. As the man plucks up the watch, his father’s watch, and snickers.
“Piece of junk.” He snorts, and in that moment, as he turns and chucks it in the dumpster, he seems more cruel than the Devil to Dick.
He feels the sting as Brick-house thug yanks his head up, grabbing at his hair. But Dick’s gaze is fixed on the bin. He feels something in his chest, resolve maybe, splinter into pieces.
He wants these idiots to die. But there’s nothing he can do about it. A boot comes crashing down on his head and he hears the man above him cackle as he screams. Abruptly, his head meets the gravel and the sound is cut-off as his ear is driven into the ground.
Dick lost. He’s going to die in Gotham, owning nothing his parents left behind.
The pressure on his face lets off in a sudden and Dick belatedly hears a sharp CLANG.
He can only turn his head and stare wide-eyed and the scene in front of him.
Above him, silhouetted by the morning glare, stands a figure, hand hoisted, wrapped around something which looks like a shield.
The rays of lights fan out around him, almost like wings and Dick thinks he must have died, ascended and met an angel.
Then the clouds move over the light and the illusion is over. Color filters in and Dick makes out that the angel was actually a boy and the shield actually the lid of a garbage can. That was anticlimactic. Next, he registers the slumped form of Brick-house man lying next to him and the blazing eyes of the boy looking down on the guy and revises his thoughts. This is very climactic. Especially the part where the boy reaches down to haul Dick to his feet and then drags him through the alleys with a speed that shouldn’t be possible. The other two men are still staring after them, gobsmacked, when they leave them behind. Three turns away, Dick hears a belated “HEY!”, and the shrimp attached to his hand, somehow, pulls him even faster. By the time Dick’s brain has rebooted, the two of them are leaning against a wall, who knows where, panting like they’d run an entire marathon. Actually, Dick’s not entirely sure they didn’t.
“Did…,” Dick starts, as he catches his breath, “Did you just knock someone out with a trash can lid?”
He almost wants the boy to say no. His brain is still whirring like an overheated computer, trying to process the last few minutes.
The boy, face flushed red, turns huge green eyes on him and grins lopsidedly.
“I did.” He confesses, proudly rocking on his heels. His entire being screams trouble.
Dick stares at this little imp of chaos, who’d come down on his attackers like an avenging force of the heavens. Despite the blood coating his skull, and the ache of his whole body, Dick breaks into giggles in a random Gotham alley and another set joins him.
When they’ve finished, they both appraise each other’s mutual red faces, mirthful eyes and curled up lips before Dick sticks out a hand.
“Dick Grayson.”
Dick can visibly see the boy making an effort to hold back a joke. He settles with a deeper grin and snatches up Dick’s hand with a firm shake.
“Percy Jackson.” He says, then without letting go, moves out of the alley.
“Let’s get that head checked out.”
Dick doesn’t know why he trusted the idea of this spunky, grin-wearing kid but he’s already sitting on a sofa in the boy’s apartment, picking at his nails, so there’s nothing much he can do anymore. To be fair, it wasn’t like Dick put up more than a token protest when he was thrust through the door and ordered to stay put on the sofa.
His eyes survey the little living room. The walls are damp and peeling, the furniture mismatched in a way which speaks to their thriftshop origins, the sofa itself riddled with loose threads. Dick’s eyes catch on the mantle of the boarded up fireplace, a single picture frame hidden behind a potted plant. Curious, he sneaks up and pulls it out.
The picture shows a woman with long brown hair and brown eyes holding a small boy. Percy, he realizes. They’re both smiling, identical trouble maker grins, and the women’s face creases around the eyes in that way that which makes them look warm with laughter.
Dick pulls up all the willpower he can, not to burst into sobs on the spot.
There’s a clatter from the corridor Percy disappeared into and he returns with a bag of peas.
“He’s here!” He shouts eagerly backwards and the woman from the picture emerges behind him. Dick hastily stuffs the picture where it was as the woman’s eyes widen.
She rushes forwards, hands out as if she wants to pull Dick closer and then stops.
“Oh, dear.” She intones, eyes skimming his face, which he’s sure looks really pretty right now.
“Sweetheart, maybe we should go to the clinic-”
“No!” Dick shouts, shrinking into himself. This was a bad idea. He starts edging backwards, wondering if he’s fast enough to reach the door before she reaches him.
Then she puts her hands up.
“OK! No clinic.”
Dick falters. He eyes her warily as she crouches in front of him, similar to the thug from earlier. She leans in, but instead of scoffing in his face, she opens her arms in a clear invitation for a hug.
Dick should say no. He has blood all over his face and it’s going to stain her blouse. He had his own parents, to hug him, and they’re dead. Dick doesn’t deserve to stand here and pretend with this stranger. Except he’s tired. This woman also raised the boy who just saved him. As far as strangers go, in this world where Dick has no one, this is his best bet. So he surrenders into her arms and starts sobbing as they come up and wrap around his back tightly. Her hair falls across his face in warm, soft waves and he breathes in the sweet scent of chocolate as he breaks apart.
Mrs Jackson, or Sally, as she tells him to call her, is a multi talented woman. He’s sitting on the sofa again, this time swaddled in blankets Sally had magicked out of nowhere, and eating a cookie she baked as she finishes off putting his arm in a sling. The cookie is blue. Dick doesn’t ask. He looks a little like one of those Egyptian mummies from an exhibit they’d seen when the circus was in Cairo. Dick successfully smothers the memory with a few deep breaths and eats another bite of his unnaturally-colored cookie.
Sally carefully puts a plaster on his knee and pats it before standing up from her crouch.
“All done.” She tells him softly.
In the quiet, there’s a big cheer and Percy fist pumps in the air from next to him on the couch.
“Now, we can play!” He adds, and then makes to get off the sofa. Sally fixes him with a stern look.
“No skateboarding. He needs to rest, Sweetie.” The boy hunkers down with a pout and Sally turns to Dick, eyes still full of love.
He looks up at her, feeling sheepish, and says “These taste like heaven, Miss.”
Percy makes a sound of agreement around his fifth cookie and Sally’s smile broadens. She lets out a bright laugh and ruffles his hair.
“Thank you.”
Percy and Dick spend an hour debating the merits of different cartoons, watching reruns on the small box TV in the corner. The boy gets awfully quiet when Avatar comes on and turns off the TV. Dick spares him a quizzical glance but he doesn’t get a chance to ask because Sally comes out and sits on the armchair opposite them. A pang of anxiety makes itself known in the pit of his stomach.
“Sweetheart. Just one question, OK.”
His heart thudding in his chest, Dick can only nod. This is it. Dick’s eyes flick to the window. He can probably get out before CPS gets here.
“Is there anyone that will miss you if you stay here overnight?”
Dick’s brain pauses. Rewinds and hits play again. Did he hear that right?
He looks up at Sally, who’s patiently waiting him out.
“Um. No.”
She watches him, eyes taking on a knowing look, before standing and nodding. Then she takes the plate of cookies off the table, ignoring Percy’s whining.
“No more cookies,” she rules, “You get real food for breakfast.”
The she leaves him gaping with a wink and re-enters the kitchen.
Hours later, having eaten the most delicious poke bowl, and helping Percy read a piece of his English homework, Dick feels guilt bubble in his gut. He’s taking advantage of these kind people. He should stop being a burden. But the thought of the biting wind and the gray streets and the monsters lurking at every corner keeps him from leaving.
In the afternoon, Mrs Jackson leaves for work after kissing Percy on the forehead and placing a hand on Dick’s back.
“At the candy store!” Percy squeaks, delightedly pointing at her Sweet On America candy cane colored uniform.
She worries her lip as she looks between them and then tells them to go to Mrs Parnell across the landing if they need anything. She shows Dick the phone and tells him he can use it whenever he wants before she goes.
Dick sits on the bed in Percy’s room, colored pencil hovering above his blank piece of paper.
Percy is drawing something that looks like the sea, scratching his blue pencil roughly over his own sheet.
Dick draws a small figure. Then next to it, two bigger figures. He draws shoulder-length hair in black for one of them and brown flat lines on top of the other’s head. Next he picks out three colors and starts on their outfits. By the time he’s finished, Dick hates himself.
“Whoa.” Percy says, poking his head towards Dick and looking at his drawing.
“Who are they? The outfits look really cool. Like superheroes.”
And just like that, a dam breaks. The red, yellow, green blurs together as he feels tears well up in his eyes and splash down, marring the paper.
“Dick?” Percy asks, his face twisted in concern.
Dick sniffles.
“My parents.” He tells him. “They’re dead.”
Percy stares at him as he rubs his eyes, wiping off his face with his shirt. Slowly, he shuffles forward and wraps his arms around Dick.
After Dick’s sobs taper off, he starts to speak.
“My dad died just after I was born.” He tells Dick.
Dick turns to him with wide eyes.
“I’ve never met him, so it’s not the same but… sometimes my mum tells me about him.” He retracts his arms to fiddle with the sleeves of his t-shirt and leans on Dick’s shoulder.
“I asked her once, if I should stop asking. If it made her sad.” Then he turns and moves Dick around, putting his hands on each of the other boy’s shoulders.
“She said, the people who we love never leave. They live on in the stories we tell of them.” He tells Dick seriously, eyes locked onto his.
Then he picks up Dick’s drawing and asks, “Will you tell me about them?”
Dick stares at the seven-year-old in front of him. It sounds a little dumb to him honestly. Dick’s never going to hug his mum or ride on his dad’s shoulders. He’s never going to hear their voices. All he has are memories, false imitations in his mind and he wants the real thing. But the boy is looking up at him so earnestly and Dick’s eyes catches on their uniforms in the drawing. Images of his parents performing feats of nature flash through his mind. So he tells Percy about them. About their stunts and their hugs and their days out and their game nights in the caravan and the gifts he got and the first time he got taught a trick. His heart still hurts. He still wants to rip apart the world which stole them from him. His face is soft with tears. But Percy clings to him the whole time, looking enamored with the drawing, like he can see Dick’s parents in real time as Dick talks and Dick feels a little less alone.