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It’s a brand new day in Wayne Manor.
“Richard,” Damian says. “Get off the chandelier.”
Dick peers over the side of the chandelier at Damian. It’s nice to be the one looking down, for once. Damian’s a lot less scary when there’s a good few feet of distance and the advantage of high ground between Dick and him. Dick almost feels safe enough to poke his tongue out at Damian, but he doesn’t, because it’s Damian.
Instead, Dick asks, “Do you think I’ll grow taller than you in the future?”
Standing next to Damian, Jason snorts. “Fuck no. Look at yourself.”
“Jar,” Cass, who is standing next to Jason, says.
It’s nice to be able to look down on all of them, standing their with their arms crossed and confused expressions.
Jason sighs and looks around until he spots one of the many swear jars Alfred keeps around the house.
Dick watches with wide eyes as Jason pulls out a coin, narrows his eyes, and pinpoint tosses it into the jar. Jason whoops. Cass gives a few hearty claps.
Damian rolls his eyes.
Dick asks, “Where did you learn to do that?”
Jason looks at him. Dick can see the consideration on his face.
“If you come down,” Jason says, shooting a glance at Damian, “I’ll teach you.”
A most tempting offer. Dick knows all sorts of tricks outside of acrobatics: knife juggling, regular juggling, walking on his hands, some fire eating, basic contortion, but he never got to learn to throw. It had been next on the list, before he had… left the circus.
Jason would make a great knife-thrower. Dick can see it now. They could be a two part act, Grayson and Jason, and Dick would wow the audiences with his many skills before Jason took over the show. They could tie somebody up to a wheel of fortune and let Jason loose. It would be perfect. The next great hit.
Dick’s head is running a mile a minute, and he’s always known that he’s on a different level to everyone else, it just slips his mind, so it’s probably not his fault when he forgets that he has to fill people in on his thoughts.
Making grabby hands at the coin Jason now has in his outstretched palm, Dick says, “Jason, let’s tie Damian up to a wheel and throw stuff at him!”
Damian makes a choked noise in the back of his throat. “What the fuck?” he asks,
Cass pokes him gently in the side. She doesn’t even have to say anything; Damian’s already scowling at her and digging around in his pockets.
According to Cass, whoever contributes the least to the jar every month gets to have all of it. Dick’s been gaming the system by swearing in foreign languages. It’s still pretty risky, because he’s discovered that, collectively, the people in this house have a freakily high knowledge of languages, but he’s been getting by. He’s got big dreams for the end of this month. Icecream freezers to last the ages. Chocolate fountains around every corner.
… Gymnastics equipment, maybe.
Like he said, big plans.
When Damian emerges with a coin, he meets the eye of everybody else in the room: Dick, Jason, Cass, and the ever-present ghost of Alfred, and walks over to the jar. Slowly. With purpose.
He puts out his hand. Deposits the coin into the jar. Turns around.
“Boo,” Dick calls.
“Boo,” Jason echoes, nodding.
Cass shakes her head and gives an emphatic thumbs down.
Damian scowls. “I despise all of you.”
“Don’t lie in front of the kid,” Jason says with a grin. Dick assumes he’s the kid, which is true, but is also annoying. He pokes his tongue out at Jason. It’s safe to do so, because Jason doesn’t wield wrath and destruction like Damian does.
Honestly, he’s pretty nice. Everybody here is nice, actually, except Dick doesn’t really know what to think about it. He still doesn’t really know any of them; back in the circus, every person was a person he had grown up with. Here… he was the odd one out.
He didn’t like that. He liked being up high, and icecream, and knife juggling, but he really didn’t like being the odd one out.
Dick’s leaning over the side of the chandelier a little more now, making it swing under his weight. He can tell that it’s stressing Damian out, because Damian has started to scrunch up his noise, so Dick swings a bit harder for good measure.
“Richard,” Damian bites out. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” he asks, throwing his body weight back.
Damian closes his eyes. He stays like that for a few seconds, and he’s so perfectly still that Dick thinks he might have turned into a statue. Hello, Statue-Damian. Nice to meet you.
Then, he opens his eyes, and returns to motion. He looks like he’s calmed down a lot. Dick’s kinda impressed, honestly. He wishes he could just close his eyes and then turn off his emotions. It seems to work so well for Damian.
Damian says, “Please get down from the chandelier. You are a safety hazard.”
“That’s no way to talk about a kid,” Jason teases, but he’s eyeing the supports and wires in the light as well. Cass just looks at him and holds out her arms a little. Honestly, what a bunch of party poopers.
Dick sighs. He likes being up here. He misses the circus, where he could sit on the roof of the caravan whenever he wanted to, or hang up on the rigging of the tent, or balance on top of his father’s shoulders. Here, at Wayne manor, there’s no part of the roof that’s accessible, and there’s no gymnastics equipment, and everybody treats him like a feral cat. They care, sure, they probably want to see him happy and healthy and fed, but they give him a wide berth, like they think he’s not used to humans yet. He spends half of his time wandering alone, and the other half watching the other residents wander alone. It’s boring, and it sucks, and he’s tired of it.
He lets himself go boneless, basically hanging off of the structure of the chandelier. He says, “But I want to stay up here,”
Damian scowls again. Cass puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder, and even though Damian doesn’t acknowledge it apart from closing his eyes again, the familiarity makes Dick feel weird. Bad.
“Do you want to do something together?” Cass asks.
Dick eyes her. Cass is nice, just like everybody here is nice, and there’s a lot of pictures of her doing things like dancing and jumping around the house. It would be cool if they could do something together. Dick misses moving, truly, properly moving.
Plus, he’s pretty sure he once saw her climb through a window.
Leaning down, he asks, “Will you teach me how to climb through windows? Don’t lie, I’ve seen you do it already.”
Hearing that, Cass looks… surprised. She turns to look at Jason, who looks just as surprised, and then Damian, who seems more… appraising. Her gaze lingers on Damian, and they seem to have some sort of conversation silently. Jason watches them as well, and he seems to get what they’re saying; it annoys Dick, but he’s too curious to be that mad.
Finally, Cass looks back at him. She’s smiling.
“Deal,” she says. “Show me how you got up there?”
Dick rolls his eyes, but he guesses it is fair. A secret for a secret.
He stands up, placing his feet carefully long the prongs of the chandelier. He eyes the floor.
Everybody else in the room eyes him.
“Wait,” Jason says, narrowing his eyes at Dick. “How are you getting down?”
Dick gives him a judgemental look. “How do you think?” he asks, because come on, Jason seems pretty smart.
Jason turns to look at Damian. Damian’s got his eyes narrowed too, watching the way Dick stands on the chandelier with an analytical look. They’re both realizing. Dick can see it. And considering the way they seem to act about his safety, he’ll bet anything that they’ll try to stop him.
Time to take the leap, he supposes.
At the same time that Damian says, “Richard, wait—”, Dick braces himself, and then leaps off the chandelier. The ceilings at Wayne Manor are delightfully high, so he gets a good amount of air time, twisting his body into a flip as soon as he’s clear of the light.
Jason honest-to-god yells. Dick had decided to jump off of the side that was away from the other three, so there’s a distance they have to cover, and all three of them try to. Cass, Damian and Jason all rush forward, though Dick has no idea what they’re trying to do, because he doubts that any of them, even with their coin throwing skills or window climbing, can catch him in midair.
He never finds out what their plans were anyway, because as all three of them move towards his falling body, they run into an obstacle. Namely, each other. Dick lands perfectly in position, knees bent and arms braced, just as Damian, Cass and Jason all collide into each other under the chandelier.
“Dick!” Cass says, just as Jason snaps “Fuck off,” and Damian yells, “Out of my way!”
There’s a thud. Jason topples to the ground under the force of Damian and Cass’ vying, and threatens to drag the other two down with him.
It’s… hilarious to see. Dick, standing up straight, extends his arms out and bows towards each corner of his perceived crowd. Then, he looks at the three people in front of him, in their state of chaos.
Dick crosses his arms. “What’s your problem?” he asks.
Jason, previously sitting up, flops onto his back. “Ten dollars on him finding out about you-know-what in a month,” he mutters. Dick gets the feeling he wasn’t quite meant to hear it, but he’s right here, and he’s not an idiot, so of course he hears it.
“You-know-what?” Dick asks. “What’s you-know-what? What do I know?”
Cass turns to look at Damian, salutes him, and then drops so that she’s lying on the ground next to Jason. “Your move, big brother,” she says. Then, adds, “Twenty dollars. Two weeks.”
“Deal,” Jason mutters.
Damian stands up straight. Straightens out his clothes and runs a hand through his hair. Closes his eyes. Says, “Both of you, shut up.” He looks at Dick, and then shakes his head, as if in defeat. “Richard, come with me. I will show you the gym.”
Dick exclaims, “You had a gym all this time?” and runs to Damian’s side.
Cass, on the floor, looks over at Jason. “Shouldn’t have let me raise.”
Jason sighs and covers his eyes with an arm. “I should never bet against you in the first place, Cassie. Come on. Let’s see where this goes.”
Dick still has no idea what they’re talking about, and still feels a little left out, but, oh well. He’s got a gym at his disposal. His days of boredom are over. He can work on the bonding and friendship stuff later. He’s sure he’ll figure out what’s up with the people living in this place eventually.