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“Whatcha doing?”
“Grading essays.”
“That’s boring.”
“Noted.”
Dick sighed as he watched the famous Doctor Bruce Wayne, billionaire heir and college professor at Gotham University grade a stack of papers. He ‘taught’ criminology or rather detective work, but some of the time when Dick had been sitting in during lectures he went off about history as if he lived it, poetry as if he wrote it, and oddly why bananas were the best fruit (And why pears were the worst).
“Can you play with me?”
“I played with you before dinner, I need to get this done, and you,” he said while making unblinking, unnerving eye contact “Need to go to bed.”
Dick pouted he was getting nowhere.
“Can you at least tell me about the stars?”
Bruce was silent before he stood up “Ten minutes”, and with that he scooped Dick in his arms grabbing a blanket on the way out, and the duo made their way up to the roof.
They sat down in the chair placed up there on the landing. Bruce bundled up Dick, and the child looked around at the gardens, the fountain, the tennis court, and of course, the stars.
“Where to next?” The Doctor asked, a playful tone bleeding into his sentences.
“There! That looks pretty!” Dick pointed up to a cluster of stars, they were very numerous and he could tell that he was going to get an amazing story out of those ones. With only ten minutes he had to make each moment count.
“Ah the Ood Sphere, good choice!” Bruce got this wayward look on his face, it happened every time he made up wonderful stories about far away places.
“The Ood Sphere is home to the Ood, telepathic humanoids, and objectively one of the most trusting species out there. Actually their apart of your galaxy, the Mutter’s Spiral-”
“Milky Way.”
“Mutter’s Spiral, and in the 39th century the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire will enslave them along with the Andromeda Galaxy.”
“Enslave? But they’re nice!”
“Yes they are, actually that’s where I met Alfred, but,” He paused looking for the right words “Humans learn and learn and learn. You make mistakes but there are always good people fighting the good fight, no matter where you go there are good, kind people. Even though it may look glum, it doesn't mean there’s not something worth saving.”
Dick turned back to the stars, memorized, Bruce had a way with words that was downright magical. The world seemed still and as Bruce talked in his low, smooth, voice about the Ood rebellion and he found himself falling asleep.
The night dragged on as Bruce carried Dick back to bed, taking coffee from Alfred, and setting out for a long night of grading papers. He took one last look from the sky and imagined himself in his work office, The Tardis next to him. ‘If only.’ He mused.
He missed the stars.
_
“Hey B?”
“Yeah Dick?”
“How come you don’t grow?”
Dick Grayson, Nightwing and First Boy Wonder, looked at the Doctor. This incredible, amazing, madman who in all the years Dick had known him, never aged a day. There were rumors at the university that Bruce had worked for over 75 years, and it made him wonder: Clark didn’t grow and Diana was hundreds of years old, so it was safe to say his caretaker wasn’t human.
“Moisturizer.” In every other instance, Dick would have laughed. But not now, he wanted, needed, to know.
“Are you human?”
“I’m as human as Alfred.”
“Are you from space?”
“No.”
Dick didn’t know why it was so important for him to know, but after all this time he still felt as if he didn't know who he was dealing with. He loved Bruce, god how he cared for that doof of a man, but above all he was curious about him. All those stories, all that knowledge about the stars.
It was one of the first times he’d gone off world, and he saw this pink humanoid tentacle thing and so he asked his first question to his first (In a manner of speaking) alien.
“Hi there bud, I’m new, which planet are you from?”
The alien put his hands out around Dick’s head, barely touching his temples. With a go-ahead from Dick the alien placed their hands on Dick.
“I am Ood Runk from the Ood Sphere, pleasure to meet you.” A calm and pleasant voice echoed in his mind.
“No one’s from space, I’m from a planet like everyone else.”
And with that the man walked away, leaving more questions in Dick’s mind than helpful answers. This was going to be a long day.