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Dick Grayson is the quintessential boy next door.
He helps old people cross the street and picks litter up off the sidewalk. When a kid is absent from class, he’ll check how they’re feeling, send them his notes, and offer to help them with the homework. He’s on the championship gymnastics team but makes time for his friends’ track meets and chess tournaments—and he’s always cheering them on from the front row. He brings apples to teachers, shovels the neighbors’ driveways, entertains little children with his juggling, makes sure no one sits alone at lunch, rescues kittens from trees, offers his jacket in the winter, and cried the first time he held a chinchilla.
Dick’s radiant smile and confidence make him the most popular guy in school, but he never lets the attention get to his head. He’s funny without putting others down; he’s intelligent but not a show-off; lying and cheating to achieve something never crosses his mind.
He constantly talks about his family. Only he forgets to use people’s names. Ever since freshman year, there’s been a running bet on how many siblings Dick has. Donna and Kory both think it’s just one; Wally says twenty. Barbara places her guess somewhere in the middle. As fondly as he talks about them, Dick had never invited classmates over because it’s, quote-unquote, “more chaotic than leaving Wally alone in a physics lab”.
Barbara can go on listing everything she loves about him later. Right now, there’s a hundred-point biology project to work on.
She’s only been to Wayne Manor one other time, but Dick was home alone that day, so she didn’t meet anyone besides the pets and the family butler. They were supposed to work on their final presentation at the library, but Dick called apologetically to take a raincheck because his dad’s going on a date, his butler’s in England, and someone needed to babysit. Since it’s due on Monday, Barbara figured it’d be more efficient to bring the materials to him instead of rescheduling.
Barbara rings the doorbell.
There’s a crash. And another. Followed by a muffled: “Duke, pick up your LEGOs. Cullen, turn down your speaker. Steph, save some for the rest of us.”
The door swings open.
Dick is there, holding a baby in his arms while a redheaded toddler clung to his legs. His hair is askew and his shirt is rumpled, but nonetheless, he smiles. “Babs! Come on in. I just finished feeding Damian. We can work in the kitchen.”
He pries the toddler off his leg and leads the way. As they pass the living room, a little African-American boy darts in front of her wheelchair, forcing her to brake abruptly.
“Duke!” Dick chides. “You need to be more careful.”
“Sorry,” says Duke, “but Dinosaur Train’s almost on!”
Dick glances at the living room, where a thirteen-year-old lays across the couch with a laptop inches from his face. “Cullen, I gotta work on a school project. Can you please take Damian?”
“Sure.”
“And no watching Supernatural—it’ll give him nightmares.”
Cullen rolls his eyes. “Do babies even get nightmares?”
“I don’t know and I don’t think Dad will be happy if we try to find out.”
As soon as the baby leaves Dick’s arms, he starts wailing. Barbara covers her ears instinctively.
“Okay, looks like he’s staying with me.” As soon as Damian’s back in Dick’s arms, he goes silent. Though Barbara swears the baby is judging her.
The kitchen table is clear save for a middle school–quality fruit bowl in the middle. As she pulls her books out, she spots a blonde girl climbing a teetering tower of oddly placed step stools and boxes, tiny arms stretching toward a cookie jar.
Barbara taps Dick’s shoulder. “That doesn’t look safe.”
Dick whips his head around. “Steph!” He scoops the girl in his other arm right as the stack topples to the ground. “Both you and Duke need to be more careful. I don’t need you cracking your skull over a snickerdoodle.”
“Can I have a cookie still?” Steph asks. “Please?”
He says, “No, it’s almost dinner.”
“Pretty please?”
“No.”
“Pleease?” she asks. “I’ll keep annoying you until you say yes. Please please please please please—”
“Alright, fine. But you gotta split it with Duke.” He hands her a cookie.
Damian reaches for it, opening and closing his tiny fist.
Dick boops Damian’s nose. “Sorry, Dami, you need at least five teeth for that.”
Damian slaps Dick. Barbara stifles a laugh.
Bouncing Damian on his hip, Dick pulls up a chair. “Alright, I’m sixty-five percent sure we’re good now. Where should we start?”
Barbara opens her laptop. “Donna said she’ll format the references and embed all the videos, and Wally and Kory are doing the part on the South American grasslands, so we need to put together the slides for the North American prairie ecosystem.”
“I think it’s the documentary we saw in class today,” Dick says as Damian tugs fistfuls of hair. “We should start with the geographical features since being landlocked plays a big role in the climate and—”
Damian switches to knocking on the side of Dick’s head. Barbara snickers. “Sorry, but I think someone wants your attention.”
Dick scoffs fondly. “Someone needs to learn to use his words.”
“Goo!”
Barbara says, “If you’re too busy right now, we can always FaceTime later. I just bought an espresso machine so I’m all set for all-nighters.”
Dick shakes his head. “It’s fine. As I was saying, we should start with a broader scope and—”
A boy around seven years old appears by Barbara’s wheel, startling her. Out of all the kids she’s seen so far, this one looks like a ghostly apparition out of a horror movie.
“Hi.”
“Uh, hi?” Barbara says. “I’m Barbara.”
“You’re pretty.”
“Thanks?”
“Tim, can you please cut to the point? We’re kinda in the middle of something,” Dick says.
Tim doesn’t take his eyes off Barbara. It unsettles her.
“Wanna see the alien I found?”
Dick chuckles. “He’s really into aliens and conspiracies. It’s probably just a drawing or—”
Tim holds up a naked mole-rat.
Dick scrambles back. “Where did you find that thing?!”
“Cass found it in the yard. I think his spaceship crashed so me and her are digging for the parts to put it back together. Can we keep him?”
“First, that’s not an alien, it’s a rat,” Dick says. “Second, put that back outside, you don’t know what germs it carries. Third, stop digging before you burst a water main or something.”
It doesn’t help that Damian’s trying to reach for the animal. Barbara can’t contain her laughter.
Dick groans. “I’m sorry, babe. I swear I’ll get this sorted out. Can you hold Damian for a sec?”
“What if he cries?”
“I’ll be a minute, tops. We’ll survive.”
Damian doesn’t start crying as Dick places him in Barbara’s lap.
As Dick wrangles his siblings, Barbara holds the baby up to eye level and starts talking. “I take it Dick’s your favorite sibling?”
Damian blinks.
“Not much of a talker, eh?”
He stares blankly at her.
“Oh, I get it,” she says. “You want Dick all to yourself, and you think I’m stealing your spotlight. I don’t blame you—he is pretty cool.”
He blows a snot bubble from his nose.
“Don’t worry, Damian. Dick’s got a big heart. No doubt there’s room for both of us.”
He yawns.
“Oh, so it’s got nothing to do with Dick. I’m just boring. I see. Well, what kinds of things are you into? I saw you trying to touch that mole rate earlier. You like animals?” She wraps her arms around him and gently bounces him. “Your brother and I are working on a science project where we gotta talk about different animals living in a type of landscape.”
“Moo!” he says.
“Exactly. Middle America is full of dairy pastures.”
“Moo!” He points behind her.
She turns to see Dick wiping his hands on his jeans. He takes Damian from her. “I trust you guys got along?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s the most intellectual conversation I’ve had all day,” she says.
“I’m glad,” Dick says. “I told Tim the birds work for the bourgeoisie, so he’s hiding in a blanket fort in his room. That should keep him busy ‘till dinner. And I told Cass to do her homework.”
“Speaking of homework…”
“Right, yep.”
The next thirty minutes fly by with minimal interruptions as they put together the power-point whilst occasionally making funny faces at an unamused Damian. When Donna sends them a script, they split it in two to review it.
Dick winces. “I dunno, looks a bit complicated to me. Any way we can pare it down?”
Barbara thinks for a moment. “My mom always said a smart person can explain a complex concept using simple language.” She looks around the house. “If I order pizza, would that be enough to get everyone in the same place?”
And so one pizza delivery later, they gather all the kids around the boxes on the living room floor (except Damian, who never left Dick’s arms). Barbara thought she met everyone, so she’s a little surprised to see a blue-haired freshman and a grumpy twelve-year-old joining the audience.
Dick clears his throat. “For your dinner entertainment, we present you: The Ecosystem of the American Midwest!”
“Lame,” says the twelve-year-old.
“It’s gonna be fun, Jason. Trust me,” Dick says. “Babs, take it away!”
Steph raises her hand.
“Yes?”
She points to Barbara. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Yes. Any other questions before we start?”
“Why are we here?” the blue-haired girl asks.
“Harper’s got a point,” Cullen says. “I could be writing my Destiel fanfic right now. I’m at the part where Castiel is surrounded by an army of bloodthirsty vampires and Dean has to—”
“Let’s just start the presentation.”
Barbara flips through her index cards and clears her throat. “Who knows what an ecosystem is?”
Tim raises his hand. “It’s when all the planets travel around the sun.”
“That’s the solar system,” she says. “An ecosystem is a natural environment with both living and nonliving things. The kind we’ll be talking about is the prairie.”
“Ooh, I know that!” Carrie says. “It’s like Little House On The Prairie.” (Though with her baby lisp, it comes out as “it’s wike Wittle House On The Pwaiwie”.)
“Exactly,” Dick says. “Does anyone know why the prairie looks the way it does?”
“Aliens!” says Tim.
“Not aliens.”
“Dinosaurs!” says Duke.
“Close,” Dick says. “It’s because of the location and weather. You see, there’s this thing called being landlocked…”
Aside from Jason’s snide comments, it went pretty well in Barbara’s opinion.
It’s almost ten o’clock by the time the kids finish their food and she and Dick finish their project. Barbara yawns and rubs the tiredness out of her eyes. Damian mimics her.
“Guess it’s time to put this one to bed,” Dick says. “Isn’t that right, Lil’ D?”
“Lil’ D?” she asks.
“Yeah, ‘cause I’m Big D and Duke’s Medium D. It’s kinda like a filing system.”
Damian yawns again and nuzzles his face in Dick’s shoulder.
“He really likes you, huh?”
“He’s a special one,” Dick says. “Our little miracle brother.”
She cocks her head. “Miracle as in…”
“Tim likes to make the alien test-tube baby reference—he doesn’t understand the concept of preemies. There was a time we weren’t sure if… but that’s in the past. Right, Dami?”
Damian slaps Dick, as though to say, “Stop being sentimental and read me a bedtime story”.
Barbara chuckles. “You’re a great brother, Dick.”
He gestures upstairs. “I’ve had practice. Sorry for all the chaos today, though. Next time we’ll just use the library.”
She slips her things in her knapsack. “Actually, this was fun. We should do this again sometime. I’d love to get to know your family more, especially this little guy.” She ruffles Damian’s hair, much to the infant’s chagrin.
Dick smiles. “Sounds like a date. A weird, unconventional date, but still a date.”