Chapter Text
The boy shifts nervously at Bruce’s side. Bruce knows the Cave is probably not his favorite place in the world, given how damp and chilly the air is. Plus, he’s sure the quiet occasion screeching of the bats far above them is more irritating for someone with enhanced senses. At least the lighting is generally dim enough not to hurt his sensitive eyes.
But Bruce needs him here. He has to show him. Finally, after nearly three months of searching, he can give this child back something precious that has been ripped away from him: his name.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.” Bruce apologizes. He’s met with confused, unblinking yellow eyes. “But I finally found out who you are, chum. I know your name, what you used to be called. Would you like to know it?”
The boy stares and stares, gaze piercing Bruce’s soul, but Bruce forces himself to keep smiling back gently. He waits, as long as it takes for the decision to be made. It’s not Bruce’s to make after all.
Slowly, the boy nods. “Yes,” he whispers. “Please.”
Bruce nods back immediately. “Of course.”
He spies cold and anxiously twitching fingers and slowly reaches out to take one small, small hand in his. The child clings back fiercely. He’s strong, and so brave. Bruce places the feeling in his chest as unmeasurable pride.
“Richard John Grayson,” Bruce says, pressing a button on the computer keyboard. An image of a younger but very similarly-sized child fills the screen. The child Bruce knows is ten now, the boy in the picture must be seven or eight, before his two years with the Court of Owls. This version has darker skin and rosy cheeks and he’s beaming from ear to ear, his parents on either side. “That’s your mom and dad,” he explains. “John and Mary Grayson. They died before the Court got to you, I’m so sorry. I don’t know if the Court was involved, but I swear I’m looking into it, Richard—”
“Dick,” the boy interrupts softly, and Bruce startles. Richard rarely speaks as it is, so that is wildly out of character.
“I’m sorry?” he asks, truly too bewildered to be upset in the slightest.
“Dick,” he repeats, voice wobbling slightly. “Not Richard. They— No one called me Richard. I was… I was Dick.”
Oh. A nickname. A horribly old fashioned one, but if that’s what he wants to be called then who is Bruce to deny him? There’s not a chance in hell that he would look at this child and strip him of the one fragile piece of his identity that he has left.
“Dick,” Bruce says, trying it out. The boy relaxes minutely, something tense and terrified unfurling from the set of his shoulders and purse of his lips. “Sorry. It’s very nice to officially meet you, Dick Grayson.”
Dick flinches back slightly. “Gray Son,” he parrots, the word disjointed in his mouth. “They—they stole that too.”
“What do you mean, kiddo?”
“The Court. Called me Gray Son.” He points his finger at the slightly blurry picture on the screen. His other hand still holds fast to Bruce’s. “Took them from me and twisted our name.”
“Do you remember them?” Bruce asks. That he knew about his nickname had been shocking, but maybe the picture sparked a whole flurry of lost memories.
But Dick shakes his head. “No,” he half sobs, eyes glassy with frustration. “But I—I assume. They must have. The Court took our name and our memories and—” His eyes suddenly go very wide and Bruce has the horrible, gut wrenching feeling that he’s remembering something else. “Do you have a mirror?” he croaks.
Startled by the sudden change in subject, Bruce nods and guides the boy to the Cave showers, a steady and hopefully comforting hand on his shoulders as they move.
Dick stands on his tiptoes, leaning his face close to the mirror. He grimaces briefly at his reflection, then starts tugging at the skin below his left eye. The skin there is rough and dimpled just slightly, a very faint scar that must predate his talonization for it to have stuck. He whines slightly, then startles Bruce by whipping around and hiking up the back of his shirt to look at his back in his reflection too. Between his shoulder blades is a similar and larger version of the same scar from his cheek. The one on his face Bruce had spotted before, but this one is new.
A sudden tear rolls down Dick’s face, clinging briefly to his chin before falling to the Cave floor.
“Hey, hey,” Bruce rushes to soothe, dropping to a crouch in front of Dick as the tears begin to fall faster, the child’s gaze growing far too distant for Bruce’s comfort. “What’s wrong?” He takes both of Dick’s hands in his. “Dick, chum, talk to me. What’s wrong? What are you seeing?”
“They—“ Dick swallows, jaw working as he struggles to find the words. “I was scared. And hurting. They’d already started taking my memories, but then they took more. They took everything.” He twists his head and looks at the mirror. “They burned them off. They burned my parents’ marks away. They burned them off and took everything from me.”
God, no. Bruce’s heart sinks below his stomach, below his toes even. It’s gone, buried somewhere deep beneath the Cave. “God, Dickie, I’m so sorry. That is beyond cruel. That is—“ He swallows the broken glass lining his throat, at a loss for words in the face of Dick’s truly horrifying revelation. “I’m so sorry.”
He thinks of the photo of the Graysons, of warm smiles and a truly happy family. He thinks of Dick, barely physically smaller than he is now but still younger. He would have been eight or nine, depending on how soon after he was taken the Court decided to burn off a child’s soulmarks. The inhumane cruelty that would take is unfathomable.
“It took three tries,” Dick says, voice so broken it hurts to listen to, the shards scraping at Bruce’s heart. “Or maybe four, I can’t remember. They didn’t even try to wipe those memories. I did that all on my own.”
He says it like it’s something to be guilty about, as though anyone with a single ounce of compassion could blame a child for repressing such a horrible, tragic event in his memory. As though Dick—grieving and alone and surrounded by blank masks robbing him of his memories, his humanity, his free will—is at all at fault for forgetting about his kidnappers repeatedly searing off his very last connection to his parents.
“Dickie…” he says, the nickname slipping out once more without a second thought. It rolls naturally off his tongue even though he’s only known that Dick goes by Dick for the past five minutes, and Dick sinks into it like it feels just as natural for him as it does for Bruce. “That is not your fault.”
“I chose to forget,” Dick whimpers. “I chose to forget them. I must have been such a horrible son.”
“No,” Bruce insists. “No, kiddo, no. No one could possibly blame you for that. I know your parents would never blame you for that. And you, I’m absolutely sure, were a fantastic son. There’s not a doubt in my mind. You’re simply too good of a kid for me to think otherwise.”
Dick’s face twists and crumbles as he tries to hold back his tears. He’s unsuccessful, and moments later gives in to the violent sobs that shake his whole body and rob him of the ability to do anything but fracture into pieces.
But Bruce is here, and if what Dick needs is to fall apart a bit, he’ll be right here to catch the pieces and help him put himself back together again. He kneels in front of Dick, cataloging his movements carefully as he reaches up to take Dick’s face in his hands, brushing away the tears as quickly as they come. After a moment of frozen hesitancy, Dick leans into the touch, further breaking Bruce’s heart.
“I’m so sorry,” Bruce says. “You never should have had to go through that.” Dick shouldn’t have had to go through anything he’s gone through in the past two years. “I am so, so sorry, kiddo. Breathe, chum. Deep breaths, in and out. Here.”
He holds Dick’s palm, the blue stained one, against his own chest, letting him feel the rise and fall of his chest. Dick valiantly struggles to follow his lead, and it takes several minutes but eventually his sobs taper off into hitching breaths and trembling hands.
“You’re alright,” Bruce says, no shortage of relief in his voice. “You’re okay, chum. Hey. You did great, I’m so proud of you.”
He is. He’s so ridiculously proud of this child just for breathing through his panic and grief. Maybe that seems like a silly thing to be so proud of, but Dick just does something to him. Bruce is overwhelmed every time he looks at him, feels like he could do anything in the world every time he sees Dick crack even a hint of a smile. He would give anything, do anything, for this boy. And goddamn it, Dick deserves that. He deserves everything Bruce has to give and more.
Bruce is… He’s pretty sure he’s never loved a person more. And it is love, he realized that just two nights ago, while carrying a boy whose name he hadn’t even learnt yet at that time up to bed, his face finally relaxed in his sleep, curls missed and sticking up at all angles. He’d tucked that slumbering child into bed and realized suddenly, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loves him.
He knows Dick Grayson was a wonderful, absolutely adored son because he knows. Because Dick is a wonderful, absolutely adored son now.
And Bruce won’t say those words, won’t speak about the feelings squeezing his heart in a vice, not while Dick is grieving like this and maybe not ever, if that’s not what Dick wants. But that won’t stop Bruce from loving this child the way he should be loved—cherished and supported and protected from everyone and everything that tries to tear him back down.
His son who isn’t quite his son, but is in all the ways that matter, who carries his soulmark, the color rich and deep and so, so important, only confirming the feelings in Bruce’s heart.
“I’m proud of you,” he says again, smiling gently in the face of Dick’s disbelief. “You did so great.”
“Bruce?” Dick asks quietly.
Bruce tucks a curl behind Dick’s ear. It slips free almost immediately. “Yes, Dick?”
Despite everything, the corners of Dick’s mouth tick up just slightly at the sound of his name.
“Do you… do you know where my parents are now?”
“I don’t,” Bruce answers honestly. He only knows they’re dead, more concerned with the how and the why than the where at the time. “But I’m sure I could find out for you.”
“Do you think, maybe, I could visit them? Maybe not now,” he says hurriedly, and Bruce understands. Dick hasn’t left the manor once since being brought home weeks ago, partly because of his own terror that the Court would find him again. “But someday?”
“Of course,” Bruce says, trying with that same unruly lock of hair once more with only mild success. “Whenever you’re ready, chum. Just say the word and we’ll go.” Maybe it’s not the safest idea in the world, but Bruce is Batman. He’ll figure something out, even if he has to call in a favor from Clark or something.
“We?” Dick parrots.
Bruce stands with creaking knees. “Sure, unless you don’t want me to come. That’s alright too.” He’d understand if Dick needs some space, some time alone with them. “Whatever you need. I won’t be mad, promise.”
Watery golden eyes stare up at him. “No, I—I want you to come. I mean, please, I mean—"
“Then I’ll be there. I promise, kiddo, whenever you’re ready, we’ll go together.”
“Thank you,” Dick breathes and then he lurches forward to wrap thin arms around Bruce’s middle.
Bruce gives him just a moment to settle into the contact before moving, wrapping his arms around Dick in return, strong and steady without holding Dick so tight he feels restrained or trapped. Dick often seems unsure about initiating or receiving physical affection, but it’s clearly some long buried muscle memory for him, because even in Bruce’s unpracticed hold he just feels right, the missing piece to Bruce’s soul slotting right into place.
And there’s more on that still waiting computer screen, more information on who Dick was before the Court, who he is inside repressed memories and electrum veins. But all that can wait for another time.
The whole damn world can wait when he has Dick here, safe in his arms.