Chapter Text
For the first month, Bruce and Dick circled eachother like two scared animals.
Bruce, despite his wealth of knowledge and his want to help the boy cope, didn't have enough experience to gaurentee he would interact with Dick in the right meaningful ways.
Dick was cautious of the man who took him in, understandably skeptical of a dude in his mid 20s whose only hobbies consist of dressing up as a bat and beating the shit out of people at night and inventing new things that further aid in beating the shit out of people at night.
Bruce still tried. He tried his damndest, but spending a good few years abroad having exclusively only been either learning or being under attack, plus his at times debilitating neurodivergence made an awkward, unsocialized mess of a man instead of the stable, patient gaurdian that Dick deserves.
He tries to relate to the kid. Find something in common. His hesitant, soft questions are often met with a scowl, stony silences, or a biting remark. Dick snarls and screams at him, denying any closeness Bruce tries to ease his way into.
Okay. Maybe the wrong lane, he thinks idly the hour following another painful (and unsuccessful) attempt at conversation. What does he already know will catch Dick's attention?
The answer is, as it more often than not happens to be, right in front of his nose; The Zucco case. Of course he can't move on with his parents murderer still at large. Of course he doesn't believe he can.
(God knows Bruce hadn't.)
God, Dick needs therapy. Bruce was already looking at some professionals, but if he tries to suggest it to his ward he won't listen. He doesn't respond well to the softness Bruce tries to treat him with, but of course he doesn't. Bruce feels stupid for making that same mistake at first, trying to treat Dick like he's fragile. Hell knows he'd never been able to stand it back then.
( Still isn't.)
So, he starts speaking plainly to the kid. Like the equal he deserves to be. he starts updating Dick whenever there's a developement on the Zucco case.
Bruce tells him about how Zucco has gone underground after his arrest warrent has officially been sent out. He watches Dick's little fists ball up, knuckles still bruised and cuts still healing.
He watches Dick's eyes slant and harden, two sapphires burning in the low light.
It's too familiar. It makes Bruce sick.
(was this how Alfred felt? Staring at little 8-year-old Bruce Wayne, unable to talk or eat or do much else other than stare out of the window?)
(perhaps not. Maybe someday Bruce will ask him.)
Bruce catches Dick before he could even try taking the elevator to sneak out of Wayne Tower that very night.
He's wearing his circus colors. Bruce is wearing his compression suit that goes under his armour.
They stare at eachother for a long moment. Dick, as if he's daring Bruce to stop him. Bruce, as if he's sifting through his choices.
He makes his choice with a slow, shaky exhale.
Bruce becons Dick to follow him silently.
Dick follows, light on his feet but not as silent as Bruce is.
They haven't set up Dicks schooling just yet, so he doesn't need to worry about staying up too late for now. Bruce will keep that into consideration later, but for now, he needs to give Dick an outlet that isn't just shouting profanities at Bruce (never at Alfred. Dick wasn't Alfred's responsibility, he was Bruce's. Bruce would be the only one on the recieving end of such violence.) and occasionally outright throwing punches. (The hit he'd landed on his lip had needed stitches. It was definitely going to scar and leave Bruce a bisected lip.)
He shows Dick the base he'd built under Wayne tower before Dick can sneak in himself.
The colony of bats that has made its home here skitter and cheep as if greeting him and the boy. The floodlights awake with clicks and hums. Dick looks around in wonder, his hands twitching with the urge to touch and explore.
Bruce shows him to the main computer, and sits him on the stool he'd scrounged up a few years ago. (it's not as stable as he thought. Certainly not stable enough for Dick. He should look into a better chair, if only just for his ward.) He leans against the table itself, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"I can't let you go out and hunt Zucco." He admits quietly.
Dick bristles, that righteous anger sparking and twisting his mouth into a snarl. Bruce continues before the 10-year-old can start shouting at him in Russian again.
"But.. I can let you help me."
Dicks anger quells, but only so much. "Sounds like you're not letting me do much of anything." He grumbles, but Bruce can see his interest.
Bruce gestures to the multiple monitors, to his equipment and most notably, to a headset and microphone. "You'd be helping me track him down from here. You nearly caught up to him in a week, that's impressive." he admits softly. "It's more than what the Police have been able to do in the same time."
"Which is nothing." Dick growls, baring his teeth.
"Which is little to nothing." Bruce agrees, tilting his head in admission. Jim had been doing a lot of good work, and his men were trying, but even then Gotham PD left much to be desired. Hence the continued presence of the Bat.
"Your perspective would be invaluable." Bruce says to him, staring down at the child and meeting his inscrutable gaze.
"I could do more if I was out with you." Dick argues. "I don't care about getting my hands dirty."
Bruce is violently reminded about how this 10 year old, just a few weeks ago, was proving his own point.
He shakes his head, grimacing. "I know. That's what I'm worried about."
Dick's eyebrows scrunch.
Bruce leans foreward slowly. He doesn't know what he's doing, trying to help this kid. He just knows that he doesn't want Dick to turn out like Bruce did.
(He's not blind to his own flaws, the ways he lacks and the ways he dissapoints and the ways he hurts. He doesn't want that for Dick, not for anybody. Bruce is a black hole and he's determined to not let Dick John Grayson burn out in that same horrible fashion.)
He takes the acrobat by the shoulders, gentle but firm- and god he's so small, Bruce feels so terribly big, too clumsy, too much for how scared he is- and he has his attention, the kid is looking at him with that scrunched, inscrutable expression that's somewhere between awe, confusion, and grief.
"If I let you out on the streets, you'll do something you regret." Bruce whispers tone laced with deadly certainty. "If I let you out on the streets, there's a chance that you won't come back."
Dick's eyes are glassy. His hands are shaking in his lap.
"Dick, you're ten," Bruce says, and it's soft and choked and desperate and everything Bruce tries to cover up, "This isn't supposed to be your burden."
And before he can think about his next words, they're spilling out of his mouth in a torrent.
"You were never meant to be abandoned by the system. You were never meant to be put in Juvie. You were never meant to have been so violently mistreated that you escaped and you were never meant to live and starve on the streets, thinking you were getting so close to revenge and you were never meant to be an orphan."
Dicks tears drip out of his eyes. His breathing is hitching with silent sobs. He keeps Bruce's eyes, but his expression has crumpled and it's devastating. Bruce swallows around his sore throat. He hasn't talked so much in a decade.
"But it happened. It happened and you didn't deserve it. But," The word falls apart halfway through. "But you've been so brave, Dick." Bruce's face is warm. His vision warps and he's fucking crying but he can't be bothered by it because Dick needs to hear this. "You've been so fucking brave. Please, please let me be brave for you, this time. Let me be strong for you."
It's a plea and a promise wrapped into one, whispered words that Bruce had never heard but would speak into existence for this grieving boy with a familiar world on his shoulders.
Dick springs into his arms-a leap of faith- and Bruce catches him. The same way he did that night on the trapeze tower, wrapping around Bruce's torso tight, arms sliding around his neck, legs interlocking around his waist, head tucked into the hollow of his throat.
Bruce in turn holds him ever tighter, clutching him to his chest because he's something so utterly precious and he's trusting Bruce.
He's reminded of the first promise he made Dick, both of them nearly 60 feet in the air.
He sobs with a boy that feels like kin, and vows it once again.
"I won't let you fall, Dick."
An understanding is reached,
a bond is formed. Tentative, shy, but real.
Dick Grayson will never fall like Bruce Wayne did.
It doesn't take long for the word to get out that Bruce Wayne has taken in a kid.
It starts when he's spotted carrying groceries with a little shadow at his back, a boy with blue-black raven hair barely tall enough to reach Bruce's waist bravely hoisting a couple bags himself.
Which wasn't odd, at first. Bruce often entertained the particularly brave street kids who would come up to poke and prod at him. Some would even help him, like the boy with the dark hair and the deep eyes.
But the difference is that this boy kept appearing.
And he was almost always either clinging to Bruce himself like a limpet, or wandering not far, and never out of Bruce's eyesight.
They're spotted in the less-wild sections of Robinson Park playing by a group of wayward teenagers, taking turns making chase until the both of them collapse on one of the less-than-sturdy benches. The boy whispers a joke in Bruce's ear, and the man lets out an honest to god laugh, and the teens pretend not to notice when one of them starts recording.
At a soup kitchen, the boy climbs up to Bruce's shoulders to perch there like a precocious little parrot while Bruce gives someone a much needed meal with the smallest of smiles. The boy chatters and laughs at Bruce, poking fun in multiple languages while wrapped around the man with obvious affection and astounding trust.
The child tips and squirms precariously, and any time he's even close to falling Bruce is there and he's keeping him stable.
It's a mesmerizing balancing act, one of the other workers in the soup kitchen on Park Row remarks to another.
Trust like that is hard to find in Gothams narrow, dark streets.
Word spreads quick in Gotham, and soon people wonder about the boy, about the tragedy at the circus, about the photo of Bruce climbing down a tower with a familiar head of black-blue hair tucked under his chin tightly.
About the boy that follows him every where he goes. About the new sutures keeping his upper lip together.
There isn't a press conference this time.
Instead, there's a video, posted to the official @B.Wayne accounts.
It starts like this:
The video opens with a clear shot of Bruce's face, stitched up lip and all. the shot stabalizes as he sets it down against something, leaning back against a couch to reveal more of his torso.
He's wearing layers, a black compression shirt under a well-loved Nirvana tee, much less formal than what he's seen in on "official" outings, but to the average Gothamite who's seen him wandering around it rings true to his sense of style.
"I'm only making this so people will stop whispering about it behind my back." Bruce says, soft and deadpan.
A little head of raven hair pops up from behind the back of the couch, followed by the two mischievious eyes of the boy who'd been following in Bruce's shadow. "And because I made him." He pipes up smugly, his voice laced with an unplaceable accent, before launching himself over the back of the couch to land beside Bruce in a surprisingly acrobatic manuever.
Bruce gestures to the boy, face softening into a small radiant smile. "This is Dick Grayson, and he will be under my care for the foreseeable future." He elaborates.
Dick waves to the camera.
"No, I will not allow any interviews." Bruce continues, "No, I will not allow any questions. Dick's privacy is to be respected, under no circumstance should that privacy be invaded." His eyes gain a flinty, hard quality to them at that. It's a clear threat.
Dick nods solemnly, looking up to Bruce with a shy little smile.
Bruce nods once again, having made his case clear.
The video ends.
Gotham social media explodes.
dove-in-the-narrows
A SINGLE MOM WHO WORKS TWO JOBS
#Bruce Wayne post #Gotham City #Dick Grayson #HES A DAD NOW GUYS OMFG
tardigrades-r-us
[A gifset comprised of three gifs of Bruce talking in the video, and three of Dick flipping over the back of the couch. There are sparkles. There are stars. It's very cute.]
bro idk how but bw got impossibly hotter
#Bruce Wayne #Bruce Wayne post #the way he watches dick to make sure he doesn't hurt himself… #my fucking ovaries bro
girl-with-one-eye
ok so theory on how bruce adopted dick;
read more..
#Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson #Gothamblr #Bruce Wayne Post #you cannot tell me that Dick appearing with bruce a month after haly's circus was sabotaged is a coincidence
wayne-appreciation-blog
mr wyane… with chilbd… babie..
wayne-appreciation-blog
i'm very normal about this man
liedetector
lie
wayne-appreciation-blog
thank you user liedetector on tumblr.com
#wayne appreciation post #Bruce Wayne post #Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson
Bruce Wayne was an odd man.
If Dick hadn't figured that out right at the moment he'd seen the man poke his head up over the trapeze tower's lip to get him down, it certainly would've struck him when Gotham's revered Bat tugged his ears off and Bruce's eyes were there staring at him.
Living with him, though, was another beast altogether.
Because now Bruce was odd in the little ways, in his habits and his reactions. It was hard not to notice, now that Dick was settling a bit and has gotten over his (very reasonable!!) suspicion over the whole situation.
So, because Dick was a smart boy (just like his Tati used to call him before-) he started really looking for those little bits of oddness.
Bruce, Dick found, had learned a plethora of languages. He tests this out by periodically jabbering in whichever dialect suits his fancy at Bruce, and gauging how fast (and how accurately) he responds. So far, impressively, Bruce would answer back occordingly, with a curious little tilt of his head. The only ones he hadn't gotten were the really obscure dialects from hidden corners of the world.
Bruce's favorites, the ones that he replies to with the shyest smile Dick has ever seen in his life, are Russian and Italian. His Italian is a bit of a mismatch, Dick isn't able to quite place it, but his Russian has a distinctly Ukrainian twist to it that struck Dick as odd.
(When he asks who he learned Russian from, Bruce stares for about five seconds, before he smiles something ghostly and whispers that his Mother was the one who taught him Russian, had been raised with it as a second language.
Dick pretends not to notice Bruce's wet eyes, or his shaky hands.)
Dick learns that Bruce is particular about his food. And more often than not, forgets he needs it.
He eats infrequently, too infrequently for being a vigilante.
Alfred- who, Dick thinks, is more like Bruce's dad, even though they both pretend he's not- adjusts with this, or he tries to at least.
Dick sees Bruce eat more fruit than anything else, despite Alfred's exhasperated insistance in eating "anything of substance." Dick finds it kinda weird- especially when there are so many good foods other than fruit. Not that fruit is bad- Dick likes fruit just fine, but his Mama always told him that he can't just have only one thing to eat all the time.
Its something that Dick tries his best to remember, but the few weeks he was in Gotham Juvie and the streets he was more focused on finding anything to eat than eating healthy.
He's doing better now that he has Bruce and Alfred looking after him, but he still finds himself worrying a little about Bruce.
(The man eats like a fruit bat. The commitment to the bit is getting a bit out of hand, in Dick's humble opinion.)
So, Dick naturally decides he's going to help this silly man eat better. Alfred smiles at him when Dick tells him about his plan, encouraging him with a little clap to the shoulder and a "Lovely idea, master Dick."
His plan is ago.
He finds out that its a little more complicated than he originally planned.
Bruce, when presented with a snack plate, will not eat anything if it's touching eachother. He doesn't like messier food that leaves residue, like slices of riper peach, but if presented with a whole peach he will somehow manage to devour it without a trace of juice on his fingers. He only likes the sourdough that Alfred makes, but if that's not available he will reluctantly eat a different kind, but only if it's still sourdough.
Bruce, when presented with a chunky soup of any variety, will inspect it with narrowed eyes as if he's parsing through evidence in an investigation. 9 times out of 10, he will drink the broth and perhaps some of the more uniformly cooked pieces, but not much more. However, when Dick puts a bowl of a blended soup in front of him, aafter a few passes with a spoon to make sure there are no solid bits he'll eat the entire thing with no hesitation.
So slowly, Dick gets better at predicting what Bruce will eat. He finds the most success in shoving a random snack in front of his gaurdian whenever he's hunched over paperwork or stuck in front of his computer screens in what Dick has started calling the 'Batcave'. Usually, Bruce will take the offering without a word and start munching on it on pure muscle memory.
Dick thinks that Alfred had always been doing that long before Dick had been in the picture. Regardless, he makes a habit of it, and he starts noticing Bruce looking better, less hollow in the cheeks. He counts it as a win.
(it makes him feel just a bit better, to have something to focus on instead of stewing in the room that didn't quite feel like his, yet.)
Dick starts following Bruce, a little shadow at his back. He insists on going out with him for his more legal errands, remarking loudly about how Bruce would forget to eat otherwise, and Bruce, a little abashed but happy to spend time with him, can't find it in him to say no.
Its there that Dick learns that Bruce is kind.
Not just to Dick. Not just to Alfred. It's baffling, really, how this shut-in man attempts to open himself up at least a bit for the community of the city he calls home.
Dick watches as Bruce listens to an exhausted mother explain how she can't afford baby formula. Bruce has that worried purse of his lips, eyes trained intently somewhere in the middle of the woman's face. He gives her some money, a card with contacts to him and the Wayne Foundation, and a few soft words of solace.
Sure, he looks like a particularly startled cat when she starts crying , but to his credit he offers her a hug and cradles her until her tears run dry again.
Dick helps dish out food at the soup kitchen right next to Bruce, even if Bruce tells him he doesn't need to. He watches as Bruce doesn't shy away from those who would be labelled 'undesirable' by those inhabiting Bruce's tax brackets; addicts, homeless people, working girls, those doing what they have to to make sure them and theirs survive the next month, week, day, hour.
(and Bruce doesn't say anything when some of those people recognize Dick from his short tenure on the street, a couple working girls gushing over how much better he looks, street kids grilling him on what happened, a homeless man who'd shared a meal with him brushing a gentle hand over his curls in relief.
("Lucky little bastard," they call him with affection, eyes flickering towards Bruce Wayne. Bruce only rests a large, warm hand on his shoulder, squeezing it with unplacable gentleness. Dick understands. There is kindness in his silence, too.)
Its not just kindness toward the people of Gotham, no matter how willingly he hands that out in spades.
Dick is baffled when that kindness is turned back on him.
Bruce pretends he doesn't notice when Dick sneaks into his room in the middle of the night because his room is too cold and too big without anybody else in there. He listens when Dick explains it, and shows Dick a room right next to his that's smaller, cozier.
He builds him a gymnasium out of one of the floors of Wayne Tower, and implements one into the training area of the Cave.
He retrieves Dick's and his parents belongings from the circus. Without Dick having asked, or mentioned it at all.
He gives Zitka back to him, the loved stuffy held between scarred palms with impossible gentleness, almost shaking.
Dick sees Zitka, and the tears he'd been suppressing the last few months spill out in a rush of anguish and grief.
Dick cradles Zitka as he sobs, and Bruce cradles Dick like he's precious, and It's the warmest he's felt since his parents died.
That night, in the comfort of Bruce's study, they whisper in low tones to eachother over the crackling of the fireplace. They tell stories of their parents; good ones, bad ones, any they can think of. Any to keep those sparks of memory, of soul alive. Dick has more than Bruce by a mile, so he does most of the talking.
Dick tells Bruce about how his Mama and Tati taught him to fly, how they'd always kept a net when he performed with them regardless of how he whined that they didn't have to, that he trusted them and trusted himself to never fall.
Bruce tells him about the lullabye, the songs his mother would sing for him as her mother had sung to her back when she was small. He tells Dick about how Martha "Maya" Wayne nee-Kane's mother had married into the Kane family to immigrate from Ukraine, and had brought the culture with her. He tells Dick about how this study had been his father's, how his mother was one in a long line of Italian-Americans. About how Bruce learned Italian to connect with his dad, from Oz Cobb back when he was Bruce's babysitter, an almost-uncle that'd pulled away at the death of the Wayne's.
Dick falls asleep against Bruce's chest as he shyly sings "Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon", voice cracked and husky as if he hasn't used it in so long.
(They hold a little funeral for Mary and John Grayson in the cemetary they were buried in unceremoniously.
Dick wears red and white and plants a garden behind their headstones, with Bruce's help and Alfred's supervision. He dances and he cries and he places offerings under his mother's favorite flowers and his father's favorite bush. He gives them a candle that smells like beeswax and roses and home, and he gives them a portion of his meal, and tells them about his life now and how he's not used to living in such a big city for so long, and how he misses them terribly.
(he catches Bruce murmuring to them, laying out a bouquet of lillies and gladiolas next to the candles and the food. It's not praying, but it's a close thing.
Dick asks him what he said. Bruce says he told his parents how good of a kid he was, and how he promised to keep him safe.
Dick pretends not to cry.)
Its there, when he's given his parents the best burial he could, when Tony Zucco has been sent away for a very, very long time, when Dick's room in the manor starts feeling more like home, that Dick starts to relax.
He still grieves. Never let it be said that it just stops, but its less.. sparks of violent anger, and more nightmares and creeping melancholy.
And Bruce expects this. He knows intimately the experience of feeling like your strings have been cut once your parents murderer is finally put away, when you're finally out of danger and you're allowed the grace of childhood again.
What he doesn't (but should, honestly) expect, was Dick to continue to insist to join Bruce out on the streets.
Endlessly.
Relentlessly.
At every hour of the fucking day.
At breakfast. "Bruce-"
Lunch. "heyyyy Bruce-"
The times Dick shoves various snacks into his hands. "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea-"
From the bannisters. "Bruce, really-"
In the medbay. "Y'know this wouldn't happen if-"
It took every ounce of self control not to snap at the persistent child. Because that's what he was. A child. and Bruce wouldn't dare be caught willingly letting a 10 year old out onto the streets of fucking Gotham, under supervision or no.
It comes to a head when Bruce comes across a tiny, acrobatic eyesore beating the shit out of one of Penguin's lieutenants.
Specifically, one of Penguin's lieutenants that Bruce had been looking for the night before.
With Dick on comms and cameras, helping him.
Bruce decidedly wants to bash his head into the wall. Repeatedly.
He doesn't. Because if he does, then nobody is going to pull the walking-talking ass-beating traffic light off of a gangster that underestimated him.
Bruce lands at the end of the alleyway silently, drawing himself up to his full height and stalking nearer to Dick and the lieutenant.
"You," The Bat growls, "are supposed to be in bed."
Dick perks up, not startled in the slightest, and grins over his shoulder at his gaurdian, ill-fitting domino plastered against his cheekbones.
Cheeky little shit.
"Hey, B! Was wondering when you'd get here. Look! I found him!"
Bruce's eye twitches under the cowl. "You're not supposed to find him." he hisses, pacing closer to the progressive horror to the gangster behind Dick.
The guy's- one of the twin bouncers it looks like- hand twitches. Bruce watches in his peripherals as Dick peacocks and the twins panic rises.
"But I did! And all by myself, and without your or Agent A's help, and without getting hurt at all,"
The hand darts foreward toward the inside of the man's jacket, whipping out a 1911 and pointing it square at Dicks head, and Bruce lunges foreward and-
He makes it, pulling Dick away just as the gun goes off right where the boy's head had been.
Heart in his throat, he strikes the man unconcious before he can do anything else, kicking away the firerm as if it were red-hot. Perhaps the amount of force he used was innapropriate, but this was real, honest-to-Gotham panic and whether or not the bastard's concussion was a tad more severe is between him and God.
He's barely expended himself so much, yet he's breathing so hard it's as if he's run straight across Gotham, from island to island. That was close, too close- Bruce can't image what would've happened if-
Except he can. He can imagine it. Vividly and extensively. Because he's seen it, but Dick's still alive, still there-
He turns back to Dick, shaking beneath his armour, because he needs to see it, see him alive and breathing.
And yes, Dick is alive. He's breathing. But he's shaking, eyes welling up with tears, and Bruce's heart breaks all over again.
"Oh, Dick." he breathes, catching him when his little knobbly knees fail.
He cuts the night short, cradling the circus bird to his chest as the 10 year old sobs, every hitch tearing straight through Bruce's heart.
He keeps the boy close even as they get to the cave, met with Alfred's panicked fretting and the familiar screeching of bats.
It's later, when the both of them are in more comfortable clothes, and Alfred has provided the three of them with warm tea, that Bruce finally speaks.
"That is why I haven't let you join me." He whispers to the boy tucked into his side, under the blanket draped over both of them.
Dick buries is face in Bruces side.
Bruce clutches him a little closer, raking a hand through his curls as if to remind himself that Dick was still there. He was warm, still full of life and energy, but if he'd been a bit slower..
Dick would be a corpse. Like his mother and father had been. Like those who got caught in the floods had been.
It hits him, as Dick falls asleep on his chest, his little hands vice grips on his shirt, that Bruce can't protect him forever. That Dick is going to keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, will always find ways to sneak out and do what he thinks is right with no regard to the danger of it.
Because Dick is just like him, in that way. Twin sufferings, twin fires, twin stubbornness.
Dick's a trapeze artist. He's an acrobat, a daredevil at heart. He'll chase that rush with a fervor even Bruce finds exhausting at times, and no matter how Bruce tries to keep him in and keep him safe, it'll never work.
he'd never clip Dick's wings.
So, he'd have to teach him how to catch himself, if ever Bruce wasn't there to keep him close.
The next day, Dick sticks by his side relentlessly, hand balled up in his pantleg, or his shirtsleeve, or his coat, or his hand. Eyes following his face, little face scrunched up in thought.
Bruce doesn't say anything about it. He keeps him close too, a hand on the boy's back, or shoulder, or head a near constant whenever he's not physically carrying the 10 year old.
(And isn't that a headfuck, going from little to no positive physical contact, to this child who willingly attaches himself to Bruce constantly? Bruce still has to keep himself from flinching whenever Dick decides to jump on his back when he's not looking. Three years on the streets, plus his training with the League have taught his hindbrain that unexpected contact means danger, but he'd gladly unlearn it bit by bit, if only so he'd be unafraid of Dick's affection.)
Bruce doesn't go out that night, and Alfred doesn't ask. He just hovers while Dick and Bruce idle in the newly-christened Bat-cave, restocking and keeping the medbay in check.
Bruce is hunched over his bike, making some modification that he'd not had time for until now. It's busy-work, mostly, just to keep his hands moving and his brain clear. He thinks best when he's doing work like this; the planning stage always takes much more intellectual effort, the testing phase has him focused on the performance and potential problems, but putting it together? That lets his brain wander a bit, meditation for the mechanically enclined.
Alfred says it's the closest he gets to peace. Bruce doesn't know how to feel about him being right.
Dick has decided that his shoulders are a perfect perch, precariously balanced over the metal guts of Bruce's bike. Bruce bears the weight with effortless humility. He'd rather have aching shoulders than not know where Dick was wandering. Plus, the physical weight as a reminder was, dare he say, soothing. Kept him grounded.
"Bruce?" Dick pipes up, sliding down from his shoulders onto the metal worktable. Bruce is struck by an irrational stab of panic when the boy's meagre weight dissapears of his shouders, but he tamps it down by keeping his eyes on the little bird.
"Dick," He answers, setting down his tools and reaching for a stray rag to wipe the oil off his hands.
Dick watches him, face still in that pinched thinking expression.
Bruce lets him put his words together. Gotham knows he needs to, most of the time. Words are fickle things and for a man who knows so many of them, Bruce Wayne isn't the best at using them.
"Train me."
Bruce stills. He breathes, one long inhale, on long exhale. He'd been expecting this.
He looks at Dick. Really, honestly looks at him.
He's determined. Sincerity, hardness he had barely seen since he'd brought Dick back in from the streets lining his face, eyes flinty in the flourescent lights. There's gravity on his shoulders now, and Bruce aches at the thought that he might've had a hand in putting it there.
It's a conflict he's been having ever since Dick started asking, and made it known that he's never going to stop. Who the hell is Bruce, letting another man's child go out in the middle of the most dangerous city in the Western Hemisphere, fighting crime of all things?
But Bruce hasn't done that. Hasn't let Dick do any of that, hasn't let him accompany Bruce. He ended up there anyways.
And something tells Bruce that he always will. Just like how Bruce had. Just like how Bruce will always find himself in Gotham's streets.
Bruce closes his eyes, if only to momentarily stave off the migraine scraping up his spine.
"Okay. Yeah." He whispers, lacklustre and barely a breath, but Dick hears regardless, lips twitching into a victorious grin.
"But," Bruce raises a hand, before Dick's excitement can get too much. "I choose when you're ready to go out. And if we do go out, you will answer to my orders," He tallies on one hand, curling in a finger with each instruction, "You will run when I say run, you will stick to the shadows, and you will not engage in direct combat."
Dick's grin hasn't dimmed, that glimmer of childlike enthusiasm coming back regardless of the rules being set. Or maybe because of them. Bruce doesn't rightly know.
"Understood?" Bruce finishes, leaning back in his stool and staring down the 10-year-old, as if Bruce had any intimidation that worked on the boy in the first place.
Dick puts out his little hand. "Clear as crystal, B."
Bruce sighs, and takes the hand. He's most certainly gonna regret this.
But, he thinks with fondness as he watches Dick run off to harass his poor butler, he isn't quite as lonely as he was without little Dick Grayson.
It's a little later, when Dick's training is in full swing, that he brings up an… interesting idea.
They're taking a break between spars, sitting next to eachother on the mats with their respective water bottles, that Dick pipes up about it. He'd clearly been thinking on it ever since he got Bruce to accept him as a student, time not spent training or doing schoolwork was spent bent over his little notebook and muttering to himself.
Whenever Bruce had enquired what he was doing, he'd be waved away with an impatient "it's not done yet." And Bruce, who's had those weeks of brainstorming and hyperfixating, simply let him be and reminded him to eat. He got to return the favor of the boy trying to feed him, and Bruce might be a little smug about it.
Now, though, Dick finally brings it up.
"Y'know that project I've been working on?" Dick says, still a little bit breathless from the unfamiliar exhertion. Fighting was a different kind of workout than acrobatics and gymnastics, not too dissimalar, but different enough to be tiring.
"How could I not?" Bruce says back, a little smile tugging at his face. "You hardly put the notebook down."
Dick scrunches his face at him, sticking out his tongue. Bruce returns the favor, like the responsible 25-year-old he is.
"Hold on, I'll go get it. I've gotta show you." Dick says brightly after he's done mocking Bruce.
Bruce huffs out a sound that Dick would call a laugh, and watches as the boy scurries off then scurries back with his red notebook in hand, in record time.
He slots right back in the space he left, putting his hands out as if illustrating some grand idea. Which, Bruce is honestly expecting it to be.
"Okay okay okay." Dick starts. "So, I've been keeping track of the rumors Gotham starts around you."
Bruce tilts his head. "…which kind..?" he asks worriedly. The media doesn't have many… age appropriate opinions on Bruce Wayne.
Dick snorts, reading his mind. "The Bat kind, B! Yuck." He sticks his tongue out, yet again. Because he's ten.
"Yuck." Bruce agrees. "you were saying?"
Dick's enthusiasm comes back full force, his smile just this side of manic that made Bruce a little wary.
"Did you know," he says, with the utmost gravity, "That over half of the city still believes you're a demon of some kind?"
Bruce blinks, then nods slowly. "Yes. Thats half of the strategy, using their-"
"-using their fear against them, yeah yeah yeah, I know, but the thing is-" He says, flipping open his notebook to a page of messy sketches and notes in a messier french cursive that was wholley Dicks. Bruce ducks his head to get a better view, eyebrows knitting together in thought, as Dick continues.
"-I think you should lean into it even more."
Bruce's eyebrows shoot up at the detailed designs, additions and brand new facets laid out in paper and pen.
Bruce looks back at Dick's face, grinning.
He takes the notebook slowly, flipping through the designs. Most of them are just conceptual, Dick not having quite taken to Bruce's mechanical engineering prowess as he had his software and digital skills, but the logic was there, the basics for details that, if worked correctly, would give him an undeniable edge in the never-ending mindgame that was Gotham.
It was dramatic. It was almost far-fetched.
It was genius.
And, if it worked, it'd be hilarious and infamous.
Bruce's mouth stretched into a grin that shows this side of too much teeth, the one he'd never flash at reporters because it'd always make them flinch.
"I like the way you think, Chum." He murmurs to Dick, mussing up his hair with enough energy to send his head bobbing back and forth like a bobble-head.
Dick squacks like the little bird he is, and starts attacking his arm in retaliation.
The project is forgotten in favor of a playfight that resembles two wild animals barely holding themselves back from tearing the other apart. Later, when their muscles shake with exhertion and they're showered and dry, they'll talk logistics with Alfred, who barks out a laugh at the audacity that comes with such a project.
For now, the notebook sits open on the edge of the sparring mat, and Bruce and Dick dance around eachother with barely reigned violence and cackling laughter.
Harvey Dent is of the distinct opinion that when you've known Bruce Wayne long enough, it's hard not to fall in love with him.
Harvey would know, too. He's known Bruce since he was tiny and carefree, although no less shy.
And how tiny little 6-year-old Bruce Wayne had been. When Harvey had first seen him, he couldn't believe that the shrimp with the biggest, wettest blue eyes had been the heir to the Wayne fortune.
But then he'd turned his wide eyes onto Harvey, and asked him if he liked The Gray Ghost of all things, and Harvey was gone.
Any chance he had to escape his fathers house, Harvey would take it, and as it stood Victor Dent would do anything to climb a few rungs in the Gotham social ladder. Those rungs, in his mind, involved foisting off his son onto Gotham's most beloved family.
Harvey's happiest moments in his childhood had been spent in the penthouse of Wayne Tower, running about with Bruce, entirely smitten.
And now, nearly two decades, an unfathomable amount of grief and abuse of both of them later, Harvey was just as gone for the man Bruce had become.
Shy little Brucie had become Bruce Wayne, active CEO and philanthropist and apple of Gotham's heterochromic eye. He'd blossomed beautifully, too, if you asked Harvey; Broad shoulders, muscled, lithe figure, long legs, a pretty face with pouting lips… He could go on.
Although, perhaps he wouldn't say that quite so loudly. And especially not where Bruce's sharp ears could catch him.
But in the sanctity of his own brain.. He'll allow himself the rare luxury of honesty.
"you'll never be completely honest to yourself." something familiar hisses in his brain. Harvey pretends not to notice it, picking up a glass of champaigne from a server on the move.
It's another gala, another night of uncomfortable opulence. This time however, it's Bruce who sets the tone, his third charity gala since the Riddler nearly killed him.
He doesn't look any more pleased to be here. But, it's evident he's trying his best- Weak smiles that look strained on his pretty face, shifting eyes that look more suited on a prey animal than the richest man in gotham.
And getting richer every day, Harvey muses drily, watching as Bruce attempts to keep up with a model's incessent chattering. He'd been keeping an eye on the outlook of Wayne Enterprises, and every day with Bruce in the public eye was a day stocks soared and money was earned. Bruce was getting a cut of all of that, and as a result, was getting even more rich. Miserably rich, but still.
But surprisingly, Bruce was brighter than Harvey had ever seen him. It made something ache in the dark pit of his chest, the difference that one singular child can make on Harvey's oldest friend.
"You're jealous, Harv~"
Shut up.
It'd be stupid to be jealous of a child, anyways.
"Doesn't stop you."
Harvey will ignore it anyways.
Besides, little Dick Grayson is impossible to be mad at.
The kid is bright, and sharp, and looks so much like Bruce did at his age that it hurts. It's insane that he just so happened to adopt a child doppelganger of himself, but if anybody would do it on accident, it'd be Bruce.
And Harvey has been hearing about little Dick Grayson non-stop, calls and coffee dates filled with Bruce agonizing and preening and complaining about the tiny humanoid hurricane that was Dick Grayson. It'd be insufferable if it wasn't adorable. Harvey had even met him a few times, and it was hard not to love the little bugger.
So, yes, Harvey was slightly jealous, but even more, he was terribly fond and terribly happy. His best friend was finally smiling again, and smiling at him, and all of Harvey, no matter how torn apart he could be sometimes, was undeniably ecstatic at that.
Harvey's eyes wandered as he mused, instinctively looking from Bruce's stress-filled social floundering to where his ward was supposed to be.
Only he wasn't there.
Harvey frowns. "That ain't good." hisses the voice. And for once, Harvey is inclined to agree.
Dick, for all that he enjoyed clinging onto Bruce, was also just as likely to wander off. And when he wandered off, trouble always followed. "The little shit."
he's a good kid.
"still a little shit."
Okay, yeah. But still. Harvey is attached to said little shit. All of him is.
"yeah yeah, shut up and look for the kid before Brucie starts panicking."
Twice in one night, Harvey agrees.
He kicks off from where he's leaning against the column he's been lurking around, and starts a circuit around the room with a calculative ease, chatting idly and making excuses for his movement along the way.
He hates this. Schmoozing and boozing and talking up the wealthy(-that aren't Bruce-) to keep his social standing and sociatal pull. But it's neccesary if he wants to bring actual change to this city. Play by their rules, at least at first, then flip the script. That's how Harvey's been doing it, and it's gone pretty good so far.
"But I'd prefer to crack some heads, personally."
Harvey spots Dick's head of shiny hair by the dessert table and he relaxes reflexively.
That is, until he takes in Councilman Eckhart looming above the 10-year old, a vice of a hand clamped down on his shoulder restrictively.
He was close to the boy.
"Too fuckin' close."
The Councilman's hands wander. He whispers something in Dick's ear, Dick's posture stiff. He's trying to push a drink into the kid's hands.
Harvey wants to tear his arms off.
He doesn't get a chance. Because someone beats him to it.
The crowd parts for Bruce Wayne, and never has he looked more like a vengeful wraith.
"He's beautiful."
Harvey's never seen him stand so straight. Never seen him wound so tight, so ready to snap at any second.
Councilman Eckhart doesn't notice until he's being physically wrenched off of Dick by the man himself.
Harvey pushes foreward, catching Dick's eye and gladly pulling him under his arm, clutching the boy by the shoulder as tight as he dared, but being careful. He had a hunch that grip the Councilman had was bruising.
"Y' alright, kid?" he murmurs down to Dick.
"Shoulda let me at em'." Dick grumbles back viciously despite the tears in his eyes, clutching onto Harvey's starched shirt with fierce abandon, eyes trained on his gaurdian.
His gaurdian, who was staring down the potbellied councilman with pure vitriol behind his wide, peircing eyes.
People were recording. People had been recording since Eckhart had Dick in his clutches.
Good.
"It's a simple question." Bruce says, deceptively quiet. A quiet that spoke of control. It sent something odd and electric down Harvey's spine, and he has to flex the hand not holding Dick.
"Did you, or did you not," Bruce looms, "Lay hands on my boy?"
Eckhart only knows half the danger he's in. "Well- Well no need to get violent now, Wayne, I-I mean, it was only a bit of fooling ar-"
Bruce's strenuous patience snaps. He strikes so fast, so hard it's like seeing a bullet-train collide into a crossing car at top-speed, and if Harvey blinked he'd have missed it completely.
Eckhart's head snaps back, nose spurting blood, bent painfully wrong.
Bruce's hands are shaking. This time, the reelback is painfully obvious, this time with his other fist. This time the crack is from Eckhart's teeth, lips splitting open. The whole front of the man's shirt is irrevocably ruined, stained with evidence of his humiliation.
Bruce's hands are bloody. His knuckles are split. His expression is thunderous.
Harvey has never been so attracted to the man in his life.
Hot- "-Damn."
Bruce snags the front of Eckhart's shirt, yanking him up to his ear to mutter straight to him.
"I know what you've done. Try anything, and you'll see just how well I can fuck up your life."
He shoves the councilman back, taking a step back himself. He superficially fixes his tie, purposefully making eye contact with every phone camera and person recording.
Blood stains his black silk tie.
A message is sent.
"C'mon, lets go home." Bruce murmurs to both Dick and Harvey. He carefully wipes his hands clear of blood before picking Dick up, letting the boy cling to his torso as tight as he wants.
Harvey comes home with them. He greets Alfred like the old friend he is, shakes his hand with a silent promise to look after Bruce tonight.
And he does. He holds Bruce, late in the night, after Dick has finally found enough peace of mind to go to bed. When Bruce breaks in Harvey's arms, it's quiet and momentous, like Bruce. His hands still shake, clutching and scraping at Harvey's shoulders as he embraces his oldest friend, nails bitten and torn.
"Y' did good, Bruce." Harvey whispers. "Next time, lemme get a hit in, eh?" He tries to joke, no matter how the back of his brain hisses malice and spits bloodlust at the thought of a next time.
This late night breakdown was a mirror to a dozen similar but distinctly different scenarios that'd happened ever since Bruce and Harvey were just small, broken kids. Bruce, grieving his parents and forced under the 'care' of Phillip Kane, and Harvey, who still suffered as the son of Victor Dent, both of them seeking solace after another gala forced upon them, where eyes with far too mature intentions and wandering hands followed the both of them. More often, Bruce was the one they always watched.
So they learned to protect eachother. Harvey learned to protect Bruce.
They learned to get through it.
They were just kids, though. Even when Alfred got custody of Bruce back, there was nothing he could do about the public eye. Nothing anybody would do, for poor, pretty little Bruce Wayne. He was always so 'mature' for his age, people getting bolder year after year. Those years before he'd run off on a tour of the world were the worst, when he was 15, 16, 17. Young and beautiful, a doll for the upper crust of Gotham to devour at their leisure.
Bruce had plenty of Counsilmen Eckharts in the past. He'd never had anybody to defend him from them.
And now Bruce could protect Dick from those evils. Now Harvey could protect Dick from those evils.
It doesn't stop the tears, though.
So they cry together. They keep out of the alcohol, because old Phillip Kane and Victor Dent had been too fond of drink when their emotions got too high, and Bruce and Harvey would never be like them. They mourn the death of their innocence, when two little boys had been forced to become something more for the sake of their own survival and sanity.
But there's something lighter there, too, because they'd been able to do something this time.
The grizzly, dark buzzing is quiet, with Bruce tucked into his side.
As Bruce falls asleep, tears staining his beautiful face, he whispers something.
"He'll never end up like us."
It's a promise.
Harvey clutches him closer.
"No, he won't." both voices of him answer in kind.