Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The circus was in town.

Maybe that was what started the whole thing. Dick didn’t really know, and he didn’t care either. He remembered lying awake the night before, tangled in the soft blue sheets of his twin bed, the words of a half-remembered song echoing in his head and the thought of papers on Bruce’s nightstand making his heart jump anxiously. It was why he was so tired the next morning sitting at the Manor breakfast table, hands clasped around a cup of orange juice, blearily staring at the back of the newspaper covering everything of Bruce but his hands. Dick had his elbows on the table, which was probably sloppy of him; he half-expected Alfred to raise a scolding eyebrow from his place at the head of the table, where he sat sipping a cup of tea. He was too sleepy to care too much about it. 

Still. His muddled brain could piece together the image on the back of Bruce’s newspaper. It cut through the sleepy fog like a sharp knife. One Week Only, the brightly colored advertisement declared. Kirkfeld Circus Comes to Gotham.

Well that’s a dumb name for a circus , was Dick’s first petulant thought. It wasn’t simple and attention-grabbing like Haly’s was. Kirkfeld sounded more like a stuffy New York law firm or something, not a place for caravans and tents.

The second thought was panic.

“Dick?” Bruce asked curiously. It took Dick a minute to realize his guardian had lowered the newspaper so his face was visible again. He was looking at Dick like he expected something of him.

“Huh?” Dick asked, rubbing at his left eye. “Didja say something, Bruce?”

“I asked if you were all right,” Bruce said, reaching for his coffee mug. “You looked a little faraway there, chum.”

“Oh.” Dick leaned his head on one of his elbows that wasn’t supposed to be on the table. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking about how I have to go to school today while you have all the fun at W.E.” He topped it off with a lazy grin. 

Bruce gave him a raised eyebrow and a wry smile. “I wouldn’t call it fun, Dick.”

“Well, it’s gotta be more fun than Mrs. Gorbenstein’s class. It’s awful, B, it’s just terrible!” He threw his arms up in the air. It was true. Mrs. Gorbenstein had hated him ever since he had crumpled up his blank Spanish test to make a throwing star, and when scolded, had said I’m already fluent in six languages, Mrs. G! Why do I need another one?

It had seemed logical enough at the time.

“Mm. I’m sure you’ll survive to the end of the term. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in meetings all day. So I can’t feel too bad for you.” Bruce folded up the newspaper and laid it in front of him, reaching over to ruffle Dick’s hair as he stood up from the table. “Have a good day, Dickie. I’ll be home around six, probably.”

“Later, alligator,” Dick said brightly. It was a normal morning. A good morning. They woke up and ate breakfast together before Dick had school and Bruce had work, and Bruce read the paper while Dick complained about school, and Bruce ruffled his hair before he went. It was normal. It was what happened every day.

Dick pushed away his plate of untouched toast with a twisted feeling in his gut. He glanced around; Alfred had disappeared into the kitchen a few moments ago. Swallowing a lump in his throat, Dick reached across the table and snatched the newspaper before shoving it into his unzipped backpack that was leaning by his chair. 

“Ready for school, Master Richard?” Alfred asked, entering the dining room.

“Sure thing, Alfie,” Dick said, putting on his most winning smile.

It was a normal morning. Dick felt normal. Totally, positively normal.

It was a dumb name for a circus, anyway.

***

There was a song Dick’s father used to sing. It was something about rain and the flowers it grew and the pretty girls who picked those flowers. It didn’t translate very well into English. His mother called it silly, and simple, nothing more than a children’s nursery rhyme, but it was Dick’s favorite. He would ask his father to sing it for him every night, and John Grayson would grin and start to croon the words while Mary shook her head with a chuckle. The circus’s strongman, Jorje, had a cheap old guitar that he kept in his trailer and sometimes Dick’s father would snatch it when it wasn’t being used and strum the chords of the melody.

The verse Dick remembered the most was the one his mother always rolled her eyes for. Something about…a girl who was ‘barefoot with the red, red ribbon in her dark, dark hair.’ “That’s not how it goes,” Mary would grumble, giving her husband’s shoulder a teasing shove. 

“It’s the version I like best,” John would say with an adoring smile.

It took Dick until he was seven years old to realize his mother had been wearing a red ribbon when they had first met.

***

Dick could feel the newspaper in his backpack like a weight on his chest all through the school day, a second heart beating away in his locker. When lunchtime came, he retrieved the whole backpack and brought it with him into the grimy middle school bathroom. He locked himself in the big stall, hung the bag on the hook, and unzipped it so fast it felt like ripping off a bandaid.

The newspaper was tucked behind his folder and notebook. Dick tugged it out and stared at the front for a minute, filmy paper clenched in two little fists. All he had to do was turn it over. It wouldn’t be so hard. It was just an advertisement.

He closed his eyes and hugged the paper against his chest. “You have to do it,” he whispered to himself. “You have to look.”

Dick inhaled a shaky breath. He was Robin. This was the same as any other information-gathering mission. He could do it, because he was Robin, and he wasn’t afraid of anything. 

The names surfaced in his mind then, unbidden. They were as familiar as Dick’s parents, as familiar as the red wool blanket that used to spread over his bed in their caravan, as familiar as Zitka.

Dick ripped off the last page of the paper and crumpled it mercilessly into a wadded-up ball. He squeezed it in his right fist, so tight he couldn’t see it at all, and dropped it, left it rolling on the bathroom floor. He unlocked the stall door and hurried out of the bathroom, dropping the rest of the newspaper into the trash as he went.

***

“Jeepers, B,” Robin exclaimed, performing an exaggerated yawn. “This guy sure is taking his time, huh?”

“Hush,” Batman reminded in a low voice. He had been crouched in the same exact position at the edge of the roof for the eight billion years they had been waiting for the bad guy to emerge from his car across the street. Meanwhile, Robin had fidgeted and spun and cartwheeled the whole length of the roof at least three times- out of the bad guy’s sight, of course. He wasn’t that sloppy. 

“Batman,” Robin asked, ignoring the request to be quiet. “Why’ve you been so quiet tonight?”

He did not take his eyes off of the car. “Quiet?” Batman said. Robin could picture the wry raised eyebrow under the cowl.

“I’m not saying you’re not always focused, B,” Robin clarified, sitting down criss-cross applesauce and playing with his cape. “But you’ve been extra-extra focused tonight. You’ve barely said anything to me, even mission-stuff.”

“Have I,” Batman replied, barely any inquisitive inflection in the words. Robin rolled his eyes. 

“Well if you’re gonna ignore me, Batman, at least don’t pretend to listen to what I’m saying. Humph.” Robin squatted down next to the hulking black figure, peering out at the bad guy’s car. 

It was quiet for a moment. Then Robin heard Batman take a deep breath in.

“There was something I wanted to talk to you about,” Batman said quietly. He still wasn’t looking at Robin. “After patrol.”

“Oh.” Robin leaned his chin on his hands. “Well, okay.” This was unusual for Batman, who usually had a strict capes-talk-only rule during their nightly patrols. For him to even mention it meant it had to be important. 

What did Batman want to talk to him about? Robin amused himself by thinking up possibilities. Maybe they were moving to Australia on a whim. Maybe he was going to change his costume to be bright pink as an experiment in stealth. Maybe Alfred was finally insisting Dick do his own laundry.

It wasn’t about the stack of papers on Bruce Wayne’s nightstand. It wasn’t. That was a conversation for another day, pushed far into the future, and it would never happen, really, because neither of them wanted it. Robin’s stomach was squirming with half-baked panic so he shoved the thought deep, deep into his mind and locked it up with an iron key. He hadn’t even seen them. He didn't know. If he didn’t know, then they didn’t have to exist, and the conversation Batman wanted to have that night could be about anything at all.

“Robin!” Batman was shouting, and Robin realized he had been buried in his own thoughts while the bad guy had stepped out of his car. 

“Okay, B, let’s get this clown,” he said with a grin, and leaped from the rooftop.

***

It was sometime past midnight and the sheets on Dick’s bed were blue, not red. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all, and Dick reminded himself of that every night he climbed under the covers. 

The conversation hadn’t happened, mostly because Dick had loudly announced he was exhausted and had a huge math test tomorrow that he had forgotten about, and playing the school card always worked with Bruce. He had run off to bed as quick as he could, pretending to have lost all recollection of whatever Bruce had wanted to talk to him about.

Dick had always been good at wriggling out of things. His mother had called him the most slippery boy in the world.

“The red, red ribbon in her dark, dark hair,” Dick hummed to himself as he tugged the sheets up to his nose. Except he wasn’t humming. There was no melody to be found. He just spoke the words out loud, haltingly, as if it was a poem.

(He dreamed that night that he was alone in Haly's arena. An invisible voice from the audience kept calling down to him, "Kásko san tu? Kásko san tu?" Whose son are you? And Dick was silent. He did not know how to answer.)

***

It wasn’t that Dick didn’t want to know what had happened to everyone. That wasn’t it at all. It was just that thinking about it made him antsy for some reason, like he was itchy all over and couldn’t quite breathe deep enough. Haly’s had disbanded after…after, and the last Dick knew the man himself had taken a job managing a theater in Pennsylvania. It was natural that the other performers and staff would get absorbed into other traveling circuses nearby, continuing their old positions. Dick wanted to see them, really he did, or at least know where they had all ended up. They had been like family at some point, hadn’t they? It was just that his whole brain shut down whenever the thought arose, like a kill switch, and sometimes he’d start shaking so bad he dropped things.

***

It was a Wednesday; a terrible, godawful Wednesday. It was freezing. Dick had forgotten his sweatshirt in the back of Alfred’s car, again, and the classroom seemed to be about negative three thousand degrees. The room was dark, the video projector whirring along the front wall accompanied by scratchy audio. 

Dick had been torn between squeezing his eyes shut for the duration of the documentary and staring unblinking, absorbing everything he could. He compromised by pretending to fall asleep, only lifting his eyelids when he couldn’t help himself.

The documentary Mrs. Gorbenstein had put on for them that day was called European Cultures. It talked about all sorts of different peoples, but there were multiple mentions of a group that started with a G and ended with a Y. Dick had squirmed in his seat the whole time.

Dick’s parents had left their families when they were still young, coming to the States by boat long before Dick was born. He hadn’t grown up in Hungary, with his people, with their music and their cooking and their language. All he knew was the circus, where most people were just as different as the Graysons anyway. Everyone could speak English, of course, but everyone had different skin colors and mother tongues and backgrounds. The circus was just like that, full of a little bit of everything. 

So it wasn’t Dick’s, not really. He spoke the language- worse now than he could before, which made him weep to think about- and he had his mother’s stories and his father’s songs and that was it. It wasn’t something that belonged to him, but to his parents, who weren’t here anymore. It wasn’t something for him to claim.

But oh, god, looking at the faces of those people on the projector, he wanted to bundle it all up in his arms and hold it close to him for a long, long time. If only it had called them by the right name.

The boy who sat in the desk next to Dick was named Ronny. He had an older brother who was the meanest boy in the ninth grade, everyone said, so people tended to avoid him.

He leaned over to Dick when Mrs. Gorbenstein flipped the lights back on. “I like when we watch movies like that in class,” he whispered with a giggle. “So we don’t have to actually do work.”

“Yeah,” Dick agreed flatly. “It’s nice.”

“I wish we could watch something fun, though,” Ronny sighed. “Like, Power Rangers or something. The history movies she puts on are always boring. I dunno why we have to learn about gypsies anyway.”

There was a firecracker popping in Dick’s chest. He held himself steady. Calm, Robin, he told himself, You can’t get angry, not now. “You shouldn’t call them that,” Dick said as coolly as he could, crossing his arms and staring down at his desk. “That’s not their name.”

“Huh?” Ronny asked absently. “Whaddya mean?”

“They’re not…” Dick bit his bottom lip. “They’re called the Roma. Romani people.” It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t have mattered to him, but Dick just wanted to stop hearing that word. 

“Like a tomato?” Ronny shrugged. “I’ve never heard of that.”

Dick was going red in the face. “That doesn’t matter. It’s still their name.”

Now Ronny was getting angry in return. “Why do you care?” he asked defensively. “Are you a gypsy?”

He froze. Dick said nothing in response, mouth half open, at a loss for what to say. In his silence, Ronny looked at him curiously. And he found something there, in Dick’s skin, or his features, or his trapped expression, and a horrible sort of recognition flitted across Ronny’s face.

“You are, aren’t you?” he asked, a little bit amazed. 

There was a pause, and Dick felt terribly opened up. Exposed, ripped at the seams, left for all to see. 

“If you’re- uh, Romani- how come you’re here in America?” Ronny asked, plowing forward. “Aren’t you s’posed to be in the desert somewhere? You don’t look like the people in the movie did. Like their clothes and everything.”

“That doesn't matter,” Dick snapped, not really knowing what he was responding to. “It’s none of your business. Just leave me alone.”

“You don’t have to be mean!” Ronny said in a hurt voice. “I was just asking!”

“And I said to leave me alone, Ronny.” Dick’s heart was racing. He just wanted the other boy to stop talking. It was too much. This was a part of him that wasn’t for anyone else, a private part, a sacred part, something he didn’t even talk about to Bruce and Alfred. It was the part of Dick that had died a little with his parents, the thing that tied him to them, the part that made him Dikhel, to see, to see, to see-

“Boys, what are you two fighting about back there?” Mrs. Gorbenstein’s harsh voice sounded from the front of the room. “Settle down, please.”

“Dick’s being mean ,” Ronny scoffed, crossing his arms with a huff. “For no reason .”

“I didn’t say anything,” Dick defended quietly. “I just said to leave me alone.”

Mrs. Gorbenstein looked at the two of them quizzically. Though Dick was often branded a ‘troublemaker’ by teachers irritated with his endless chatter, everyone knew Ronny took after his older brother sometimes. “Okay, calm down. Ronny, why don’t you come sit up here next to Beth today.”

Furious at being blamed for the situation, Ronny gave Mrs. Gorbenstein an incredulous look and stood up with much grumbling. “ Fine,” he snapped. “Dick’s just mad because I found out he’s a gy-”

Dick stood up and swung his fist at the other boy’s face.

***

It was silent in the waiting room outside the principal’s office while their parents were called- well, guardian in Dick’s case. Ronny sat in the chair on the other side of the door, looking like a skittish animal. 

No one had managed to find out what exactly had happened. Ronny, who glanced over at Dick every now and then with something like fear in his eyes, had mumbled something incoherent to Principal Jenkins when asked for an explanation. Dick had said nothing but yes, sir, and no, sir, and I’m sorry I hit him, I know it was wrong.

It terrified Dick a little to discover that he really wasn’t sorry for it. You’re Robin, he tried to tell himself. You know better. You can’t just hit other kids like that. You could have hurt him. But it had been worth it, he thought, to shut the other kid up. To keep that word off of his lips.

But when Bruce appeared in the hallway, dwarfing everything around him with his presence like he always did, Dick wanted to melt into the floor. All of a sudden he felt incredibly small, nothing but a petulant little kid with a bad habit of losing his temper. He wanted to cry. Dick stared at the floor, wanting to do anything in the world that wasn’t meeting Bruce’s eyes. 

Bruce was going to yell at him. He was going to demand an explanation. He was going to tell him what a mistake it had been taking Dick home from the circus, how he didn’t want to have to take care of Dick anymore, how he monumentally regretted the stack of papers that had been sitting on his nightstand for weeks now.

“Dick,” Bruce said calmly, kneeling next to the office chair. “Will you look at me, chum?”

Dick swallowed, blinked back tears, and did as he was told.

Bruce was looking at him with sadness in his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked seriously.

Dick nearly blanched. Am I okay? he thought. You’re getting it wrong, B, I’m the one who hit someone! He just nodded, silent.

“Okay,” Bruce repeated evenly. He took a deep breath in before standing up, slowly. “Let’s go,” was all he said. 

Dick said nothing as they walked all the way to the parking lot. He stared at the ground the whole way. “You didn’t have to come,” he mumbled, climbing into the safety of the backseat. “I know you were busy today.”

“I’m your guardian, kiddo,” Bruce said. “This is my job.”

“Sure,” Dick murmured, leaning his forehead against the window. 

The car ride was silent for ten minutes, maybe. For once Dick wasn’t squirming with nervous energy. He just felt…empty. Tired.

“You know you have to be careful about fighting kids your age,” Bruce said, finally, halfway to the Manor. He said it like it was a fact, like it was necessary, not disappointed or patronizing. “They aren’t trained like you are. You could seriously hurt them.”

It was exactly what had gone through Dick’s head two seconds after he had punched Ronny. He almost smiled a little bit, realizing that the thought had been Bruce’s.

“I’m sorry, B,” Dick said miserably. “I know. I wasn’t thinking. I won’t- I won’t do it again.”

“Good,” Bruce said simply. He seemed to believe Dick. 

It was quiet for another minute. “It would help me understand the situation if you told me what happened,” Bruce said.

Dick chewed on his bottom lip. He couldn’t explain what had happened. Not to Bruce. He just…couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to force the words out in a way that made sense. It made his stomach churn just thinking about it.

Bruce glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Did this other boy say something to upset you?” he asked.

Dick swallowed. “Yeah,” he answered, noncommittally. “Kinda. I guess.”

Bruce breathed in. “Dick,” he said, the tiniest bit of frustration creeping into his tone, “I can’t help if you won’t tell me what happened.”

“I don’t need you to help,” Dick snapped. “It’s over. There’s nothing you can do. It’s no one’s business anyway!”

“It is my business if you’re violent out of costume, Dick,” Bruce shot back, heat finally entering his voice. “If I can’t trust you at school, how can I trust you as Robin?”

That cut at Dick, right in his chest. He was probably right. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. Dick knew this type of arguing; this was Batman and Robin arguing. They’d done it a billion times before, when Dick didn’t follow orders or Dick did something stupid or when Bruce was a hypocrite, which was most of the time. Dick was tired. He didn’t want to fight with Bruce, not right now.

“He said something about my family, okay,” Dick huffed, burying his face in his hands. “That’s all. That’s what happened.”

Silence.

It was true. Technically true, at least.

“I appreciate you telling me,” Bruce said, which was an asshole thing to say but Dick knew Bruce meant it sincerely.

“Yeah,” Dick mumbled into his hands. “Yeah, sure.”

It was silent the rest of the ride home.

***

Madame Krisha had been in charge of all of the costumes and props at Haly’s, and she was Dick’s favorite. The walls of her trailer were covered in hanging silk and dresses and fabric of all sorts, a tapestry of colors and sequins. Dick called her Auntie Krisha, and she would let him sit on her lap while she worked a needle through whoever’s costume needed patching up that day. “You’re as sweet as sunshine, little one,” she would always say, and he would grumble in mock protest and she would plant kisses on his forehead while he squealed with laughter. She had started teaching him how to sew when he was six, and Dick’s father had laughed his head off when he started mending their clothes himself, because Dick’s mother had always been completely horrid at sewing. 

Jorje was their strongman, built like a brick wall, and he was the most joyful man Dick had ever met. He had the happiest smile in the world, and Dick thought his rumbling laughter sounded like the ocean.

There was Lillian, the fiery redheaded artist who painted the customer’s faces, and liked to prank Dick by painting elephants all over his costume when he wasn’t looking. There were Eve and Yusef who took care of the animals and let Dick feed Zitka while riding on their shoulders. There was Mitchell the juggler who was famous for his lemon meringues. There was Haly himself, who Dick didn’t see much, but slipped him chocolate coins when no one was looking. There were the dancers and the musicians and Lori who could breathe fire and Anya the fortune-teller and the cooks and the ticket-takers and…

Dick recited their names in his head, over and over again, everything he could remember about them. They were his family. They were a part of him, the way his parents were a part of him, and he was terrified out of his mind that one day he would start forgetting their names and their faces and what their voices sounded like.

Dick wouldn’t forget them. He refused. He would think about them every day, for the rest of his life, even if they had all already forgotten him.

***

He’d been suspended from school for the rest of the week, but Bruce said nothing else about it after the car ride home. Dick wasn’t grounded, or banned from cartoons, or punished at all- he hadn’t even been benched from patrol. It was almost like it had never happened, and Dick was monumentally grateful, even if he didn’t deserve the discretion.

It was Saturday morning, now, and Bruce was set to leave for a business trip in approximately three hours. Dick skipped down the Manor upstairs hallway, humming along to the grandfather clock that was striking five times. Alfred had sent him on a very important mission; one he didn’t intend to fail.

Dick opened the door to Bruce’s bedroom with a noisy creaking sound, but the lump on the king-sized bed didn’t stir. It was nearly pitch-dark in there, which was very Batman-like. Dick glanced furtively at the nightstand as he crept inside, but the dreaded papers were nowhere in sight. He breathed out in relief, and set his sights on the ginormous bed.

Dick crouched, got a running start, and pounced.

“Wakey-wakey, Bruceman!” Dick landed on splayed on Bruce’s chest with a resounding oof! “The sun’s not up yet but you have to be!” 

Bruce cracked one eye open and slowly rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Dick,” he said, in that monotone tone Bruce had mastered. “What is it.”

Dick laughed and shook Bruce’s shoulders once more for good measure. “You’re headed to Europe, remember? You’ve got a P-L-A-N-E plane to catch! Alfred sent me to wake you up. He’s got breakfast ready.”

Bruce did not seem impressed by this explanation.“ And what are you doing awake?” he asked. “It’s a Saturday.”

Dick rolled off of him and sat up on the bed, shrugging a little. “Well, you were leaving, B! I wanted to say goodbye before it was too late.”

He nodded to himself. It was that time of morning where Bruce was groggy and half-awake and not prepared to have emotional conversations, so he let his hands speak for him. With closed eyes, he reached out to ruffle Dick’s hair and then grasped his wrist, gently tugging him down to be enveloped in Bruce’s strong arms. 

“Tell Alfred,” Bruce murmured sleepily, “That the flight is not until eight. I can have a few more minutes.”

“ Bruce ,” Dick giggled, pounding at his chest with little fists. He was certifiably trapped on the bed, head smushed against Bruce’s collarbone, encircled by Batman arms far too strong to break free of. “Let me go, you big monster!”

“Mm. I’m asleep. I can’t hear you.”

“You’re such a bully, B.” Dick gave up the pretense of trying to escape and snuggled into Bruce’s chest. “Are you going to miss me while you're in stupid Europe?”

Bruce chuckled into Dick’s hair, a deep, rumbly sound. “Hn. Depends. On how much trouble you make while I’m gone.”

Dick let out a scandalized gasp. “Bruce! I can’t believe you. You are the worst guardian ever. I thought Batman was supposed to be against cruelty.”

“He is. But I’m just Bruce right now.”

“Oh, brother. ” 

They lay like that quietly for a few minutes, content to just be in each other’s presence. Dick smiled, happy to be safe and warm in his foster dad’s arms. Bruce wasn’t always the most affectionate, so Dick soaked up everything he could get. He was going to miss Bruce while he was away on that dumb business trip. Dick would have badgered Bruce and Alfred into letting him tag along, but being on a plane for sixteen hours straight sounded like torture.

“Dick,” Bruce said suddenly, rubbing circles into his shoulder blade with a thumb. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Dick’s heart dropped to his toes.

“Yeah?” he said lightly, feeling his blood freeze over. They hadn’t been on the nightstand…had they? Had he missed them, in the dark? Or maybe they hadn’t been moved to the back of a drawer somewhere at all, but were sitting on Bruce’s desk, ready to be signed… “Well, can it wait till after you get back from good ole Europe, B? Alfred’s gonna kill me if your breakfast is cold by now.” Dick tried to make his voice as bright and easy as ever. 

There was a pause. “Yes,” Bruce replied eventually, shifting on the bed so Dick’s head was tucked into the side of his neck. “Yes, that’s fine.”

Dick tried to hide his exhale of relief.

Bruce rubbed a hand over the top of Dick’s head and lightly kissed his temple. “I lied before, chum,” he said softly. “I will miss you.”

“You better,” Dick said, and for some reason he wanted to cry.

Chapter Text

The first part of the story was that Dick hadn’t taken any of his parent’s things with him from the circus. After the fall, there had been nothing but screams and people flocking to the exits and sirens and Dick had quickly been ushered away from the tents and taken to the police station. He didn’t even get to keep the clothes on his back, because the youth center he’d been taken to had thrown them away after giving him their standard outfit. They hadn’t allowed him to go back to Haly’s at all after that night, and the circus had shut down shortly after anyway, so he never saw his lifelong home or fellow circus performers ever again. Sometimes he wondered what had happened to the red wool blanket that had been on his bed since he was a toddler, or his mother’s silver jewelry, or his father’s old records. Had they been thrown out, like garbage? Had they been seized as evidence? Had Auntie Krisha or Lillian or Jorje taken it with them, to remember the Graysons by? He hoped it was that last one.

Dick had come to the Manor with nothing but his mother’s eyes, his father’s skin, and bloody knuckles. And since then, in the past three years, it was like there was nothing at all that tied him back to them; nothing but his name. Without the Grayson, he could have believed his parents had never existed at all. And at some point, when he had settled into his new bedroom, when he had been enrolled in school, when he had become Robin…at some point, family had started being Alfred-Bruce-Dick instead of Mary-John-Dick. 

Dick had nothing from his parents but his eyes, his skin, and his name, and sometimes he wailed into his pillow at night knowing he had left them behind. He had failed them, and failed all of his ancestors, abandoned everything that had created him, to live in a mansion and play at being a billionaire’s son. It was sickening. 

So Dick clung to his name, when he had nothing else. Grayson. He was a Grayson because his parents were Graysons, and that would never be taken away from him, by nothing and no one. It was his backbone. 

(If he signed his name on that line, it would scrub the Grayson away forever. It would disappear, float away, blur until no one could tell it had ever been there. It would sand off Dick’s edges, erase his childhood in one fell swoop. He would be Richard Wayne, perfect little heir to the Wayne fortune, and Dick’s skin rippled with revulsion. No. They would never take his name from him. He was his Mama and Tati’s little one, born with his father’s blood on his swaddling and the red string around his neck, and they would never erase that part of him.)

(He would not sign the Grayson away. Not even for Bruce.)

***

Dick lay cradled in the silver metal arms of the chandelier, foot propped up one of the eight frosted glass lights. He was studying the ceiling; cream-colored panels, patterned with swirls and fleur-de-lis. The ceiling of the entryway was the highest in the whole Manor, and it was Dick’s favorite climbing place. He was always comfortable when he was up high, whether that be swinging from a trapeze, leaping across Gotham skyscrapers, or nestled in a Wayne chandelier. 

“Master Dick.” Alfred’s long-suffering voice traveled up from the floor. If this had still been the first year of Dick’s stay in the Manor, the man would have been alarmed, but now both Bruce and Alfred only sighed when Dick got into places he shouldn’t be. “Would you be so kind as to return to the ground.”

“Aww,” Dick said in exaggerated disappointment. “It’s fine, Alfie. I’ve been up way higher than this before. I won’t fall or anything.”

“So you have said, dear boy, and yet somehow the sentiment does nothing to ease my mind.”

“Fine, alright, alright.” Dick chuckled, and started the process of returning to the floor: it involved hanging from the chandelier by one hand, swinging onto the nearby banister, and from there doing a double somersault through the air to reach the hardwood floor of the Manor entryway. Alfred watched him with keen, wry eyes the whole way.

“Must you always challenge an old man’s heart rate?” Alfred asked in amusement, as Dick did two dramatic bows.

“Hey,” Dick laughed. “I’m not as bad as Bruce.”

“That, Master Dick, is a true statement.”

Alfred started making his way back into the kitchen, and Dick skipped after him happily. “D’you think Gotham will survive with Batman and Robin while Bruce is gone?” he asked.

Alfred chuckled. “I do believe our city will manage for these three meager nights, yes.”

“I dunno, Alfie, we sure do get a lot of criminals- oh, hey Alfred, you don’t have to do that! Let me help!” Dick snatched his abandoned lunch plate from the table right before Alfred could reach it. “It’s my mess, I should clean it up.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow as Dick determinedly marched into the kitchen and set his plate in the sink. “It is my job, Master Dick,” he mused. “I believe you have lived here long enough to recognize the duties of a butler.”

“Yeah,” Dick whined, “But I have two hands! I can help out sometimes!” 

“Mm. Indeed you do. In that case, there is nothing stopping you from drying the dishes while I wash them.”

It was meant as a joke, but Dick nodded seriously and grabbed a towel from a kitchen drawer. Alfred started running the water and began washing the pile of dishes next to the sink. “See?” Dick said, picking up a bowl and scrubbing it furiously with his towel. “I’m so helpful. I’m way more helpful than Bruce.”

“Indeed.”

“Aw, Alfred, you’re not supposed to agree, it’s not fun that way!”

They were quiet for a minute, Dick focusing on drying the dishes as fast as he could and storing them in their proper cabinets. It reminded him of Haly’s, a little bit; he used to help his parents out with chores, as well as all the other performers. They didn’t have permanent washing machines so the whole company would camp out in the grass when a pretty day came around and wash their clothes by hand, together. It was where everyone got the best gossip, and stories from the week. Dick had probably been too young to really help, but his mother had let him rub soap into their shirts and splash around in the water bucket when he got bored.

It was strange to think that most people hadn’t grown up like that. Dick couldn’t imagine it.

“I’m just saying, the police are there, but B and I do a LOT of work for them. What if something terrible happens and they need us tonight? What if Arkham explodes? What if-”

Alfred listened to Dick’s tirade without looking up from the sink. “I’m sure Mister Gordon could handle matters,” he said evenly. Because Dick had lived for three years with the world’s greatest detective, he could sense the barely detectable bit of disapproval in Alfred’s tone. Dick knew he had some…misgivings, about Dick being allowed to don a costume and fight crime- he’d never expressed this to Dick himself of course, but, what could he say, Dick could be nosy sometimes. He’d lived in the circus, for crying out loud, nothing was private there. Bruce and Alfred had engaged in a major disagreement about the situation for months when Dick first came. Dick thought it was silly. It wasn’t Bruce’s fault. Sure, fighting crime wasn’t safe for kids, but this was Gotham, which wasn’t safe to begin with. And Dick wasn’t just a kid. He was Robin, he was a Flying Grayson, and there was nothing Alfred or Bruce could do to stop him from going out there and getting justice for the people like him who’d been hurt by Gotham’s criminals and villains. It was his choice.

“I guess you’re right,” Dick said with a sigh, attacking a coffee mug with his now-very-wet towel. “It would be kinda funny if something huge happened, though. Because then Bruce would get home and we’d have to tell him he missed all the fun while he was doing dumb stuff in Europe.”

“Hilarious, Master Dick,” Alfred said dryly, handing him another plate. 

“Deep down somewhere, Alfred, you think I’m funny. I just know it.” Dick grinned while he returned the plate to its rightful cabinet. “I miss him, though. I hope his stupid business trip hurries up already.”  

It was quiet for a minute, while Alfred washed a handful of silverware. The older man seemed to be deep in thought. After a lengthy pause, he inhaled and turned to look at Dick. “Have you noticed,” he asked slowly, “That Master Bruce has been wishing to have a conversation with you, for some time now?”

Dick blinked, feeling like someone had thrown a rock at his forehead. “Huh?” he said intelligently.

“Master Dick,” Alfred repeated simply.

“I dunno what you’re talking about, Alfie,” Dick insisted. He felt discombobulated. “I mean, we have conversations all the time!”

“Yes,” Alfred replied. “So you do.” He turned back to his silverware, rubbing the dishcloth over them methodically. Dick swallowed, suddenly feeling terribly guilty.

He just…he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. 

Alfred passed him the silverware. Dick dried them, and stuck them in their drawer. He came back to the sink and leaned his elbows on the counter, staring at the wall instead of Alfred.

“It scares me, Alfred,” he said, so quietly he doubted the butler could hear him.

For the briefest second, there was a gentle hand placed on his shoulder, leaving soapy water behind. “It scares him as well,” Dick thought he heard Alfred say, and then the old man was back to doing the dishes.

***

The other part of the story was that Dick loved Bruce Wayne so much that sometimes it felt like his chest was being crushed. Though it hadn’t been a flawless beginning, and it had taken them time to learn each other, and they hurt each other, often- Bruce had been there when Dick had nothing. When he was all alone in the world, feeling like he had been opened up and emptied of everything inside of him, a hollow void of rage and hurt, when he was nothing but his bloody knuckles. When Dick was drowning with every breath, there was Bruce. There was a home and a bed and Alfred and regular meals and Robin and patrols and bedtimes and school and two steady hands on his shoulders through it all: You’re alright, chum, I promise. You can stay here as long as you want.

‘As long as you want’ turned into forever. At least, so far it had.

There was a part of Dick that wanted Bruce to sign that paper so bad his organs were twisting in on themselves for the shame of it.

There was also the fear. The gasping, heart-stopping fear. It sang that Bruce didn’t want Dick, not really, Dick was a pet project to him, a charity case, nothing more. Dick was just a circus brat who had been lucky enough to be orphaned in a way that struck an empathetic cord in Bruce’s heart, who took him in on a whim. Dick was the living testament to Bruce’s guilt, to his endless drive to do the right thing, to clean up the messes nobody else would, to be good. Bruce had those papers in his study because that was what people expected of him, what Dick expected of him, and Bruce didn’t want to let anyone down. Obligation; what an ugly word. Guilt, guilt, guilt. 

Dick didn’t want to be Bruce’s guilt. He didn’t want to be here because of Bruce’s morals. Because of Bruce’s penitent for swooping in to save poor, disenfranchised orphans from a heartless world. He didn’t want to be Bruce’s obligation, Bruce’s burden. He wanted to be Bruce’s partner, loved being Bruce’s partner- he knew his value there. If Bruce didn’t really want him as a son, then Dick didn’t want it either.

So Dick was afraid. And he kept that fear tucked inside his fluttering heart. Deep inside. Bruce didn’t have to know about his stupid, childish wants. Bruce didn’t have to know anything about it.

***

It was another Wednesday. Of course it was.

Bruce had gotten back from his business trip the day before, and Dick had tackled him the minute he walked in the door. B, you’re back, you’re back, you took forever! How was Europe? How was the airplane? Did you miss me like you said you were going to?

Bruce had just chuckled and returned the bear hug. They patrolled that night, and Dick had never been so thrilled to be back in costume. It was only three nights, but Robin was a part of him, and forcing it down for so long had made his skin itch. He wasn’t himself when he wasn’t flying.

But that was Tuesday, and now it was Wednesday. Dick was proud he remembered a sweatshirt and a coat, because Gotham Academy was always freezing. It was near the end of lunchtime, and Dick had just gotten up to toss his styrofoam tray in the garbage when he had the unmistakable feeling that he was being followed.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He glanced to the side and used his peripheral vision to spot a tall, lanky kid coming up behind him. Swallowing, Dick threw his tray into the large trash can and started back across the cafeteria.

“Hey, you,” a voice said, a few feet behind Dick. Dick paid no heed, simply continuing to walk. Maybe the kid wasn’t talking to him. Maybe Bruce’s training had just made him paranoid.

“I’m talking to you, brat,” the boy spit out, footsteps speeding to catch up with Dick. The Robin training activated in his brain: lead opponent away from bystanders and civilians. Dick kept walking, but not back to the table he sat at with friends, but towards the entrance to the cafeteria, a good distance away from any other tables or milling students.

Dick paused before finally turning around. “What?” he asked, facing his stalker.

The boy turned out to be a tall kid with ruddy brown hair and a calculating stare on his face. Dick recognized him as Ivan Morris- a ninth grader, Ronny’s older brother. Dick’s mind screamed a litany of curses in Kalderash. Everyone knew you didn’t mess with Ivan Morris. He was the meanest kid in ninth grade, everyone said so.

Ivan clenched one fist and cocked his head to the side. His eyes were narrowed in a way that made Dick’s head scream danger. “I heard you hit my little brother the other day,” he said, in a low enough voice that no one could hear him but Dick. He blew air through his nose. “And that’s not alright by me.”

Dick swallowed. Maybe he could be diplomatic about this, despite how it made his stomach twist to remember the incident at all. “I-” he began.

Ivan took a step towards him. “No. I’m talking now. I bet you think you can do whatever you want, living in that big house with that Wayne guy, so I’m here to tell you what you really are.”

Dick was too stunned to say anything at all. Ivan had held up a finger and jabbed it against Dick’s shoulder, once, twice. Dick didn’t even flinch. 

“It doesn’t matter how rich Bruce Wayne is,” Ivan growled, quietly. He was close to Dick’s face now. Dick could feel the other boy’s hot breath on his face. “You’ll never be anything other than gypsy trash. I’ve heard my parents talk, and Gotham doesn’t like your kind of people. You don’t belong here.”

You don’t belong here.

***

When the wire had broken with a sickening snap and Dick’s parents had gone tumbling, there had been an arm crushing Dick’s forehead into a black coat, and a voice saying “Don’t look, don’t look.”

It had taken ages for Dick to break free of that grip, for him to shove his way through the crowd down to the arena. Everyone was screaming, the audience was flocking to the exits, and Dick tore his way to the bodies, wailing for his parents the whole way. There were sirens, then, and police officers and people in white coats, and they were kneeling by his parents, and Dick wanted to throttle every last one of them.

“DON’T TOUCH THEM!” Dick remembered screaming, his vocal cords straining as much as possible. Someone had grabbed him, then- a circus performer, he thought. Had it been Auntie Krisha, maybe? “DON’T TOUCH THEM!”

You weren’t supposed to touch the body of a Rom after they were dead, not with your bare skin. It made you marimé- impure. Contaminated. It opened the door for the spirit of the body to come back and haunt the living world, doing evil deeds. You had to take their things away, too; all of their belongings, burned or sold to the gadje, to protect the tribe from the world of the dead. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t let Dick go back to Haly’s, because he didn’t know if he would have had the strength to burn his parent’s things.

But on that night, staring at the police with the bodies of his parents, all Dick could think about was his mother’s stories about death. They were touching his parents and they couldn’t do that, it wasn’t allowed , marim é , marimé, marimé-

He had stood there, outside the arena, Auntie Krisha holding him to her chest, wailing so loud he swore the ground shook.

***

The rage was blinding, white-hot and all of a sudden it was everywhere. Dick took a step forward until he was dangerously close to Ivan’s sneer.

He hissed, “ Say that again.”

It didn’t seem to phase the older boy at all. Ivan’s eyes scrunched up with a chuckle. “You’re funny. You’re an orphan too, right? A little circus orphan? I bet your parents deserved what they got.” He leaned in very close to Dick’s face, emphasizing every word with a vicious snarl. “ Bunch. Of gypsy. Freaks .”

Dick was going to hit him. All of his Robin training was flashing in his mind. He knew exactly how he would do it: slam his fist into the other boy’s jaw, kick him in the stomach so that he doubled over, take his legs out from under him. Claw at his face until blood came, like the animal he thought Dick was- prove him right . Pummel him, over and over, stomp on his hands so the bones shattered, break his legs, break his nose, break him in half-

The fire in Dick’s chest was a screaming, roaring thing. It was outside of him too, spreading across the floor, licking up the walls, uncontainable, a holy vessel of rage that was going to latch onto Ivan Morris and burn him away until there was nothing but scorched bones. It wasn’t going to stop. It wasn’t going to be merciful. 

His mother. His father. Mama and Tati, his whole life, a broken, mangled pile of limbs. Don’t look, don’t look. 

There were words in his head, then. Words of his parents, his ancestors, his people whom he had never known. They shouted at him, raged, demanded he respond.

Kásko san tu? (Whose son are you? )

Che fyal Rrom san? (What kind of Rom are you?)

Katar aves? ( From where do you come?)

And in his head, he said back, roared, with all of his might: Me bushov Dikhel. Shêlé Gazhêndar chi daráva. 

My name is Dikhel. I am not afraid of a hundred non-Roma.

He was going to do it. Dick was going to hit this kid until there was nothing left of him.

He ran.

***

It was panic that propelled Dick out of the cafeteria and down the school hallways. He couldn’t breathe. His feet were taking him, lightning-fast, in any direction so long as it was away from Ivan. As far away as he could get. I was gonna hurt him, Dick’s thoughts raced, jumbled and gasping with fear. I was gonna hurt him, I was gonna kill him maybe-

There were people shouting after him but Dick didn’t stop. He just had to get out, had to get away, had to- to- to run as fast as he could until he couldn’t think anymore. Someone might have been chasing after him, but Dick knew he would never be caught. He was fast, faster than wind, agile as a dancer. He was Robin.

He barely felt the cool metal bar of the door bang against his shoulder before he was outside. Dick took a deep, shaky breath, tearing across the grassy school grounds, not daring to stop. They were going to come after him. They were going to sit him down next to Ivan Morris and make him explain, make him sit still, make him tell the story- he- he couldn’t, Dick couldn’t , he just needed to get out of there.

The icy November wind streaked across his skin as he ran, the scenery nothing but a blur around him. Dick wondered briefly I wonder if this is what the Flash feels like before realizing the blurriness was mostly because there were tears clouding his vision. The sidewalk pounded under his feet, and then the road, and Dick didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know where he was, the school was far behind him now but he couldn’t stop. There were buildings rising around him, skyscrapers, he was dodging people and skidding around cars- he was sprinting deeper into the city now, central Gotham. His lungs were burning for air, muscles straining- Bruce’s voice in his head, You’re pushing yourself, Robin, don’t get sloppy- and Dick finally resolved to slow down. 

When he came to a stop in the middle of some sidewalk or another, Dick covered his face with his hands and breathed in and out, shallow gasps of air. He was choking. There was a lump in his throat the size of the Batcave’s giant penny, and it wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he tried to swallow it down. 

Dick looked up and glanced around wildly, trying to take stock of his surroundings. It…it was like his brain was eight miles behind his body. He couldn’t think straight, he…he was in a billion different places at once. 

There were noises all around him. Tires squealing, cars honking, people shouting. The wind was cold against his cheeks, the motion of people and cars was streaking across his vision in all directions, and Dick couldn’t take it. It was too much. He balled two fists into his hair and yanked, hard, the way he used to when he’d first come to the Manor. But Bruce wasn’t there to gently uncurl his fingers and drop them down to his sides this time. 

“I have to get out,” Dick mumbled to himself, throwing his head back to face the sky in a vain attempt to escape from the noise and motion of the city street. “I have to…”

Get out where? What could he do, right then, that could make it all stop? The sliver of gray clouds against the Gotham skyline called to him like a breath of cool air. He had to get up there. He had to climb.

Dick tore down the sidewalk, making for the nearest brick building with a rusty metal fire escape attached. He leaped several feet in the air and caught the bottom of the platform with one hand, heaving himself up the rest of the way. There was a logical part of his brain screaming wildly at him as he clambered up the fire escape, pulling himself onto the roof: You aren’t Robin right now! It was crying out, like an alarm. You’re just Dick Grayson! You can’t go climbing up buildings, people will see you!

Dick didn’t care. He just knew he had to go up. 

His feet were propelling him higher, higher. Dick sprinted across the brick building’s roof and hoisted himself up onto the roof of the adjoining building, hardly registering that he was close to hyperventilating. The gravel-covered roof of the next building cut his palms as he hurtled through the air and caught himself with splayed hands. You’ve gotta stop! the voice insisted. You don’t have gear or anything! You could fall and break your neck on the sidewalk! But Dick was a Flying Grayson. Dick had never been afraid of heights, not once in his life. Dick had wings. 

He lost track of how many buildings he covered, winding up and leaping through open air before landing the next one over on crouched ankles. Sometimes the gaps were wide enough that he just barely made it. Sometimes the next building over was taller, so he had to throw himself onto the side and crawl up with the assistance of window sills and crumbling bricks. Dick didn’t think about any of it, not for a second. He just had to keep going, as fast as he could. A flurry of motion. The slipperiest boy in the world.

Dick only found that he could breathe again when he reached the top of a tower that was the tallest building nearby. He didn’t know what it was; a bank or something, maybe. The roof was made of gray cement that had crumbled in places, weeds pushing up from the jagged cracks. Dick propelled himself right to the edge, staring down at the city far below him and then up at the blissfully open sky. He leaned his head all the way back, closing his eyes, and took three deep breaths right in a row. 

Dick stood still for a few minutes, standing on the edge of the roof. There were tearlines streaking down from the corners of his eyelids. His heart was pounding mercilessly against his ribcage, incessantly, like a jackhammer. He gulped down tears and saliva, entangling two shaking hands in his snarled hair. When had his hands started shaking? Why was his heart beating so fast? What- what was wrong with him?

“You’re stupid,” he cursed to himself, jumping back from the roof’s edge in one panicked motion. He shook his head back and forth, over and over again. What was he doing? This isn’t Haly’s, Dick! the logical voice wailed. You can’t just go running off from school! What’ll Bruce think?

What’ll Bruce think? Dick’s pulse seemed to stop dead. How…how could he explain? What would the school tell Bruce? Dick hiccuped, tearing at his hair. He couldn’t face his foster father, not then, not ever again. He was a mess. He was Dick Grayson, hothead, runaway, circus trash…

Circus trash. Dick swallowed. What else had Ivan called him? A bunch of stuff nobody would ever want to be called. The memory of it made anger reignite inside of him, pulsing in his veins. Little circus orphan. The words echoed in his mind, ruthless, pressing down on a bruise. I bet your parents deserved what they got. Bunch of gypsy freaks. 

Horribly, there were tears gathering in Dick’s eyes again. Desperate, angry tears. He took a step back and then another, dragging the soles of his shoes against the cement roof. They were living in his mind: the images of his parents, their voices, their laughter. I bet they deserved what they got. His mother’s silver necklace, his father’s wool coats, the old dishes with enough chips in them to cut your finger, the table in their trailer Dick had nicked with a fork when he was three, his mother’s perfume and the guitar his father stole from Jorje and his parents, his parents-

(“Sing my song for me, Tati? I’ll be asleep before you even finish the first verse, dav swáto.”

“Aye, Dikhel, I don’t know. You know how your Mama feels about that song.”

“Oh, hush, you impossible man. Sing the song for him before I send you to sleep outside.”

A smile. “If you insist, my love.” Then: A soft, crooning melody, about the rain that fed the soil that gave birth to flowers in spring. 

“Hm. That’s the end of the first verse. Does he look asleep to you, Miri?”

“I’m not sure.” A grin, a finger tickling his nose. “Are you asleep, little Robin?”

Mumbling, from beneath the blue wool blanket. “Yes. I’m sound asleep. A Rom always keeps their promises.”

His mother’s hand, sweeping the hair from his forehead. Proud. “Right you are, baby.”

“Since he is asleep, I suppose I can’t go on singing. It’s a shame. I was almost to my favorite part, about a beautiful young girl with a ribbon in her-”

“János.”

“What? It’s a good song, that's all. I am the only one who appreciates good music in this family.”

“I like it too, Tati.”

A warm laugh. A kiss pressed to his temple. “That’s good, then. We just have to get Mama on our side.”

When the heavy hands of sleep were pulling him into blackness: “I like the song, János.”

“I always knew you did.”)

Dick fell to his knees on the rooftop and wailed. The song. He couldn’t remember the song. It had been three years and no amount of coaxing had awakened his old memories. The words were there, the verses and chorus, but no matter how many times Dick recited them under his breath, the melody never came. He couldn’t sing it. He couldn’t remember how his father’s voice had sounded when singing it. Dick’s song, the one about rain and spring that was actually about how his parents met, his song, the one his father sang to him at bedtime or whenever Dick was sad, it was gone. And somehow it was unbearable, un thinkable, that Dick had lost this part of him, that it was gone from him, that he could never have it back. It felt like a piece of Dick that had belonged to his parents had been excised from his heartstrings, without him even knowing it. He was hollow at the center. He was Dikhel, empty boy, lost boy, wingless bird-

His palms were splayed open on the roof, the knees of his pants dirty with gravel dust. He cried, so much that his throat was thick and full of water, his face plastered with salty tears. He hadn’t been Dikhel in so long. He hadn’t been his Mama and Tati’s little boy in so long. It hurt so bad Dick thought if he couldn’t hold his parents’ calloused hands in his, right then, that instant- if he couldn’t leap into his father’s arms, if he couldn’t bury his tear-stained face into his mother’s chest- he was going to die. His heart was going to give out and he was going to die, right there, collapsed onto the rooftop.

The world didn’t give him the pleasure of stopping his heart. Dick fell, curling onto his side, cheek pressed against the cool cement. My parents are gone, he thought numbly, tears leaking from the side of his eyelid onto the roof beneath him. My parents are gone and I won’t ever see them again. I will never go home. Me dikhlem êkh chirikliórri, núma nas godya chirikliórri. Sas gódya múrri deyorri thai woi rovélas sav d’aswênsa, sav d’aswênsa ratwalênsa. All tears of blood, all tears of blood…

Home had been Haly’s. For so long. His whole life. Dick squeezed his eyes shut and pictured them: Madame Krisha with her colorful skirts and graying hair, Lillian with her red curls and freckled smirk, Jorje with his brown eyes and booming laugh, Eve with her dark braids and gap-toothed grin, Yusef with his swooping tattoos and soft smile. Family. Dick’s family, just like his parents were. And in the secret place in the back of his heart that no one knew about, Dick cried with anger. Because he had waited in that Youth Center, for days, clad in thin cotton clothes that didn’t fit him and avoiding adults that shot him untrusting looks they thought he couldn’t see. He had sat in that center knowing in his bones that any day, one of his family from the circus would come for him. Maybe it would be Auntie Krisha, or maybe it would be Eve and Yusef who had nieces and nephews they adored, or maybe it would be the whole circus. It would go like this: the social worker would say Richard, someone’s here to see you, and Dick would run to them and jump into Auntie Krisha’s arms, and he would bury his face in her neck and say Auntie, I hate it here, I hate it here, and she would say I know, baby, I’m so sorry it took so long, we’re here to take you home with us, and Dick would hug all of them so tight and he would hold Jorje’s hand as they walked out of the center and back to Haly’s. Haly’s, where he belonged.

It hadn’t happened, though. When someone finally came for Dick, it was Bruce Wayne, who he had never seen before. Haly’s disbanded and he never saw any of them ever again.

It wasn’t just his parents he had lost on that day. It was his whole world. 

Dick didn’t know why none of them had come for him. He tried not to think about it too much, because when he did, the anger and sadness bubbled up until all he wanted to do was scream as loud as he could. 

He hoped to Devla that none of them were a part of Kirkfeld’s Circus, in Gotham, One Week Only. He didn’t know what he’d do if he saw them again. 

Dick curled in on himself even tighter, pulling his knees to his chest. The sobbing had lapsed into short breaths and hiccups, nausea settling in his stomach. He never wanted to get up again.

He felt pathetic, and childish. Were his teachers worried about him? Would he be expelled for this? What about Alfred and Bruce? Dick was a horrible ward. He couldn’t seem to stop disappointing them, hurting them. He remembered the flash of guilt in Bruce’s eyes when Dick dodged his question for the fourth time, or the weary pain in Alfred’s when Dick had confided in him. Dick couldn’t do anything right. He was miserable. The papers-

Dick rubbed at his face with both hands. The papers had also been lodged in a secret place in the very back of his heart. Thinking about it just made him jittery, like an anxious bird. It- it was fine, though. It wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t a problem if he ignored it, if he kept putting it off until-

And so what if Bruce wanted to adopt him? Dick didn’t deserve to be adopted. He was a pathetic little runaway, he was ungrateful, he was awful in every way. Besides, he didn’t want to be adopted anyway! Did he? What did those papers even mean? Would it make him not a Grayson anymore? Would it spit on his parents’ graves? Would it mean the circus wasn’t in his blood anymore, mean he would never speak Kalderash with anyone again, mean Dikhel had never existed at all? Dick didn’t know. He felt sick.

Ángla mánde dui drômá thai chi zhanav savo te lav. Wôrka o drôm o Rromano, wôrka o drôm o Gazhikano. It was from a Kalderash song- Two roads before me and I don’t know which to take. Either the Romani road, or the non-Romani road. Dick felt like his road had been chosen for him. The Rom in him had been taken long ago.

There was a buzzing against his stomach that jolted Dick’s heart like a jackknife. His full body reacted, springing up from the roof, scrambling at his pocket before throwing the offending object to the ground. It was- oh. Dick stared at the gray object that had bounced onto the cracked cement. It was just a phone. The little emergency flip phone Bruce made him carry on him at all times, just in case they needed to track him. It was ringing.

Something in Dick went white and cold as ice.

He…it…it could track him. The phone had a tracker in it. Bruce could track him. Bruce knew where he was. Bruce was calling him- if Dick picked up the phone from the rooftop, right now, he would answer it and hear Bruce’s voice. 

Panic flurried through his nervous system, in fits and starts, like butterfly wings. The earlier fog rose in Dick’s mind, clouding his thoughts. For some reason knowing Bruce could show up at any minute made his veins feel like lead. He couldn’t face Bruce, not now, not like this. Not when he had bolted from school for no reason, not when he had disobeyed every part of his training to leap rooftops as a civilian, not when he was a crying mess, not when he couldn’t even tell Bruce why… his hands were shaking again, staring down at the ringing phone like it was a bomb about to go off. Bruce, with his hard face and stoic pose and eyes that could see straight through a person, through everything they were trying to hide. Would he look at Dick and see everything that had raced through his mind for the past- how long had it been? Would he see a pathetic, miserable little boy who couldn’t get over the fact that his parents were dead? What would Bruce see, if he looked at Dick right now? What would he say if Dick picked up the phone?

And Dick found that he would rather die right there on the roof than face Bruce Wayne in that moment. He wanted to hide. He wanted to be so far away that Bruce would never find him. He wanted to fly away, run away, crawl away, just so he wouldn’t have to feel the inevitable shame that would drown him when Bruce looked at him. Oh, it was horrible, it was disgusting. Dick was the most miserable boy to have ever been born. He didn’t deserve Bruce. He didn’t deserve Robin. He- wanted to disappear, he wanted it all to go away, he wanted the phone to stop ringing-

Dick stomped on it with his right heel, wildly pounding the phone with so much force that the plastic cracked. He picked it up and threw it back down against the cement, hurled it, and when it skidded to a stop he kicked it off the roof onto the street below.

He froze.

What?

Dick stumbled several steps backward. A shocked sob forced its way from his throat. 

Oh god. Oh no, no, had he just…what? What was he thinking? That was the emergency phone, the thing it had been burned into his training to always have with him , the last resort, a gift from Bruce, a- a- he had just smashed it. And if he had thought Bruce would be disappointed in him before- 

Dick’s mind was a whirlwind of half-developed thoughts. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He didn’t know how he had gotten here. He didn’t want to do anything but scream at the top of his lungs, for as long as possible.

All he wanted was to disappear.

Not thinking of anything past the next moment, Dick leaped from the tower rooftop, and he ran, and he ran, and he didn’t look back.

***

No thoughts rose in Dick’s mind except for the inescapable urge to go away as far as possible. He didn’t know where he was. He had gotten back to the ground at some point, and kept going, and kept going. There had been a wallet in his sweatshirt pocket by the flip phone, and there were buses, and trains, and the world was moving so fast beside him he couldn’t take any of it in. There had always been an itching under Dick’s skin, eased only by soaring through Gotham as Robin, or swinging from a trapeze: no matter whether it was as Dick or Robin there was that need for motion, that restless energy, that unconquerable urge to never stop, never stop. He felt like that now, except devoid of thought or reason. Dick Grayson was perpetual motion, a blur of limbs and pumping blood. There was nothing to him but the drive to go, go, as fast as you can, an ever-churning engine of speed, mindless sustained movement. Dick ran off of momentum. He ran off of it and it alone for a long time.

***

It was cold. His shoes were soaked through from trudging down snow-heaped sidewalks. When had it snowed in Gotham? Yesterday? He couldn’t remember.

***

It was dark now. Hazy street lights blinked at him from above the empty pavement. There was no one else at the bus stop except an older man with a raggedy backpack and a fleece hat. He glanced over at Dick with sadness in his eyes. “Hey, kid,” he said. “Where are you headed?” Dick did not reply.

***

He was drowning. He couldn’t keep his head above water. The blackness was threatening to swallow him whole. Dick stumbled, pushed himself up, stumbled, crawled, fell in an exhausted heap. This would be his grave. He was never going to move again. 

***

There were hands on his shoulders, warm hands. A voice shouting something at him, but it was like the words came from a million miles away. Dick’s body took time to respond. When he finally opened his eyes, he knew he was dreaming. Hands on him, shaking him, someone saying his name…Dick turned away, pushed at the hands, “Don’t tell Bruce,” he managed to choke from his dry throat, “Don’t tell Bruce, don’t take me back…” The energy died, and everything was dark again.

Chapter Text

When awareness finally returned to Dick, the first thing he noticed was the soft tapping of fingers on a keyboard. The second thing was that it smelled different. Like someone was baking something, a pie, or a pastry. There were lemons in there too, and grain, and soil. It didn’t smell like the Manor. It wasn’t his bed, either; these sheets were a different material than his own, and there were two pillows under his head for some reason. Dick squirmed a little bit, whimpering as consciousness slowly came like a sunrise in his groggy mind. 

He opened his eyes. The ceiling was wooden, made of connected planks. Not the Manor.

“What happened,” Dick said thickly.

“Heya, kiddo,” Clark Kent replied from his rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom. 

Not the Manor indeed.

Dick squirmed himself into a sitting position, leaning against the fluffy pillows behind him. It was a small bedroom, with nothing but a lamp, a nightstand, and the wooden rocking chair Clark was sitting in. The window to Dick’s left was cracked open, pouring soft morning light into the room. He could hear birds chirping through it. 

Clark closed the lid of the laptop he’d been typing away at and leaned both elbows on top of it, resting his chin on his hands. “How d’you feel?” he asked, words laced with the accent he never let slip as Superman.

Dick grappled with how to respond to that question. He glanced down at his palms: scraped to no end. He was pretty sure his knees were too. His chest felt like it had gotten hit by a truck, and his neck and upper back ached fiercely. Plus he was so hungry he thought his stomach was going to start devouring itself. “Um,” he said, looking nervously at Clark. “Bad.”

Clark nodded to himself, leaning back in the rocking chair. “I thought so. Don’t worry, though, you’re okay. Nothing but scrapes and bruises. You had me worried about pneumonia or frostbite for a minute there, but you got lucky.”

Dick swallowed. He tried to think about how he had gotten here, but the past day or so blurred together like watercolors. He also found that he really didn’t want to remember any of it. “Where am I?” he asked quietly, getting the obvious question out of the way.

“Smallville,” Clark answered patiently, almost apologetically, rocking slowly backwards and forwards. “The farm. I, uh, figured Gotham might not be the best place for you right then.”

Dick’s eyes widened. He- he was- “You took me to Kansas?” he blurted out, looking at the room around him with fresh wonder. He knew Clark had grown up on a farm in Smallville, but he’d never been there, and as far as he knew Bruce hadn’t either. Why…why would…

Dick balled his fists up in the covers and stared down at his lap. “Is Bruce here?” he asked, very softly.

“No.” Clark was looking at him with something unreadable in his eyes. “No, I told him to stay away.”

Mentally, Dick missed a step going down a staircase. “Huh?” he asked, head snapping up to fix Clark with a confused squint.

Clark shrugged, a bit sheepishly. “I told him it might be better if he gave you a little bit of distance, for now.”

Dick’s jaw dropped of its own volition. Bruce? Surrender control? Keep himself away from the action? Stay out of the way while Superman took Dick to Kansas? In what universe? “And he agreed ?” Dick squeaked in astonishment.

Clark laughed a little. “Oh, believe me, it was not easy. Not easy at all. It was one of the worst conversations I’ve ever had. I had to really put my foot down, if you can believe that. If he didn’t know I had super hearing and could tell if he so much as started his car, I’m sure he’d be halfway here by now. Walking the whole way, if he had to.”

Dick absorbed all of this with a glazed-over expression. He felt like he was trying to catch up to the plot of Grey Ghost when he was seven episodes behind. He…he was in Kansas? With Superman? And without Bruce? How had he gotten here again?

“Uncle Clark,” he said, swallowing. “Um. What happened?”

Clark was looking at him with big, mournful eyes behind his glasses. “I was hoping you could tell me that, kiddo,” he answered.

The scrapes at Dick’s hands were throbbing with a dull kind of pain. Why were his hands scraped? Oh, right. The roofs. Flinging and landing and launching and flinging and landing again. Bricks and concrete and shredded, ruined skin.

It all came back to him, like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. Ronny’s older brother, right up in his face, the nasty curve to his mouth. Running from school into the city, onto the rooftops, smashing the emergency phone…everything after that was a blur of bus straps and snowy sidewalks.

Dick wanted to throw the covers of this bed over himself and hide forever. He didn’t want to…to explain. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, anyway. 

Still. There was sunlight bathing the room in a warm, lazy glow. There was birdsong coming from outside the cracked window. Someone was baking a pie. Against all odds, Dick felt…safe. At ease. So removed- at a distance- from Gotham and Bruce and all of his problems that he couldn’t help a shooting feeling of relief traveling up and down his spine.

I figured Gotham might not be the best place for you right then. Dick silently poured heaps of gratitude upon Clark for taking him here.

Clark was just sitting in his rocking chair, calm, casual. Like he would wait patiently for Dick to talk all day, all week, as long as it took. Dick was very grateful. He didn’t know if he was ready to talk yet. Or if he would ever be ready to talk.

“Maybe you could tell me your side of the story?” Dick asked, feeling very, very meek. He wanted to shrink down under the covers and disappear from sight. 

But Clark just nodded and leaned back, stretching his arms behind his head. “Sure. Sure, I can do that, no problem.” He cleared his throat, using his feet to gently rock forwards and backwards. “Your dad called me yesterday. He…well, I could tell he was worried. He said that you’d run away from school and smashed your tracker and no one knew where you were.”

The guilt clawed its way up Dick’s insides, icy and unbearable. He shouldn’t have worried them. He shouldn’t have run. He shouldn’t have smashed his phone. ( Foster dad, was the other inescapable thought. A panicked, desperate insistence. He’s just my foster dad, Uncle Clark!)

“So,” Clark continued, as calm as ever. “I asked if he needed any help searching, and he said he’d like that very much. I flew over near Gotham and couldn’t find a trace of you, but I listened for your voice as hard as I could and managed to zero in on your heartbeat once I was close enough.”

Dick nodded. Inwardly, he felt so awful he wanted to weep himself into a coma. He had pulled Superman away from important things to come looking for a miserable little runaway. How would Bruce ever trust his judgment again after this? “You didn’t have to do that,” he burst out hurriedly, waving a frenzied hand back and forth. “It was really okay, Uncle Clark, you didn’t need to drop everything to-”

“Dick,” Clark interrupted. He was suddenly very, very serious. “When I found you, you had gotten all the way to Pennsylvania and were passed out in a snow drift outside of a convenience store.”

Frostbite, Clark had said earlier. Pneumonia. Dick swallowed thickly. 

“Pennsylvania?” he asked roughly.

Clark nodded. 

Dick couldn’t honestly remember much about what had happened after he destroyed his phone. He just knew he had to keep going, as far as he could. Apparently, ‘as far as he could’ had been a Pennsylvania convenience store. 

“And…well, then I brought you here,” Clark continued. He reached down to set his laptop on the floor beside him, and patted his hands against his lap a few times.

“Why here?” Dick asked, almost a whisper. “Why not Gotham?”

Clark’s blue eyes looked very sad as they stared at Dick. “When I found you asleep in the snow, you were…pretty out of it. Once I got you awake you just kept saying… ‘don’t tell Bruce, don’t take me back there.’ So. I didn’t.”

Dick’s eyes got very wide. Oh no. That…didn’t sound very good. It was pathetic, to be honest.

He watched as Clark stood from the rocking chair and traveled over to the bed, sitting at the edge by Dick’s feet. Clark looked him in the eyes, expression incredibly gentle. “I’m going to ask you a question,” he said. “And I want you to know that right now, I’m not Superman, I’m not a journalist, I’m not your dad’s best friend, I’m just your uncle.”

Dick sniffled. “What’s the question?”

Clark rubbed his hands together for a minute before saying, “Did Bruce do something to upset you?”

Oh. Dick shook his head back and forth, lightning fast. “No,” he choked out, insistent. “No, he didn’t, I promise. It wasn’t anything Bruce did, Uncle Clark. It was just…it was just me.” It was important to Dick that everyone knew that. It wasn’t Bruce, it wasn’t Bruce at all, it was just…a lot of other things.

Clark, blessedly, didn’t question this response. He just nodded, accepting it, taking what Dick said at face value. He rubbed idly at the bed’s comforter with one hand. “Okay,” he said simply. “Dick. Do you think, maybe, you could explain what did happen to me?” 

Explain . Explain, explain. That ugly word. Dick unconsciously cringed away from it, his whole body reacting with revulsion. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the words, he never would. It was wrapped up inside of him, private and interior, not meant to be brought to light. I don’t want to, the childish voice in his head whined. 

But Clark had noticed the way Dick had flinched at the last word. He instinctively held up two placating hands, almost seeming nervous- “Woah, hey, Dickie, it’s okay. It’s okay, don’t worry, I won’t make you do anything, I promise it’s okay.”

And the words were like a balm on Dick’s rapidly firing neurons. It occurred to him, right then, that for the last twenty-four hours or so his body had entirely been running on panic - a never-ceasing roil of churning panic at the center of him. Panic that raised his heart rate to a terrified fritz, drove his limbs onward without thought or reason, made his hands shake and his lungs contract and never, ever let him surface for air. It had felt like it would be that way forever, that Dick was now stuck in a perpetual state of hyperventilation, that exhaustion would always be playing tug-of-war with icy-fingered fear in his veins. 

But Clark had said It’s okay. He had said Don’t worry. He had said I promise. 

Dick trusted Clark Kent. He was safe. He was really, actually okay.

For some reason this was so relieving that a wet sob tore its way through Dick’s chest. He could breathe again, and his hands weren’t shaking, and there were exhausted tears making his vision blurry. He gasped and gasped, breath hitching, and his face was wet, and Clark was saying “Dick! Shh, shh, it’s okay- can I touch you? Is that alright?” and he was nodding and then Dick’s head was pillowed against Superman’s neck. 

Clark had climbed up next to him by the headboard and had wrapped a strong arm around him. There was something extremely solid about Clark Kent, in a way that had nothing to do with the super strength, and Dick leaned in to that feeling. “Sorry,” he choked out in between sobs, feeling utterly pathetic but not minding so much. “Sorry, I’ll explain, I just-”

“You’re fine, Dickie,” Clark mumbled, rubbing a gentle hand through Dick’s hair like Bruce did all the time. “You’re just fine. Take all the time you need.”

So Dick cried. And it wasn’t for his parents or Haly’s or Bruce, it was just for himself, for the scared little boy from the circus. He clung to Clark’s plaid jacket with two hands and cried for as long as he needed. 

Several minutes later, the sobs lapsed into gasping and hiccups, and a few moments after that Dick’s breathing evened out altogether. He stayed still with his head buried against Clark’s collarbone for a little while longer, just breathing, listening to his heartbeat slowly start to ease back to a normal rate. Dick lingered there for perhaps long enough that it was selfish, or at least self indulgent- but feeling Clark’s arm settled on his shoulders, breathing in the lemon and flower laundry detergent of Clark’s shirt, just being for a minute tucked soundly in his uncle’s embrace gave Dick renewed strength that he sorely needed.

Eventually Dick opened his eyes against the flannel. “I think I’m ready,” he whispered, pulling back to see Clark’s face. He felt bad for leaving wet tear smudges on the man’s shirt. “I think…I’m ready to talk about what happened now.”

“Alright,” Clark replied, giving Dick a smile that was so incredibly gentle it was almost hard to believe. “Alright, if you think you’re ready. Oh! And I almost forgot, I meant to ask, is there anything you need? Are you hungry or thirsty at all?”

Dick suddenly remembered that his insides were eating themselves. “Uh,” he said, with an awkward laugh that turned into a hiccup. “I’m pretty hungry, to be honest, Uncle Clark.”

“That makes sense. I’m sorry, it was stupid of me for not asking earlier.” Clark squeezed Dick’s shoulder with one hand and grinned at him. “How do you feel about pie?”

Chapter Text

Ten minutes later Dick was sitting cross-legged on the bed, with a fork in one hand, a glass of milk in the other, and a plate full of steaming apple pie settled on his lap. He had tried to tell Clark that he could just go eat in the kitchen, but the man had zipped there and back and insisted that breakfast in bed was the least he could do. Clark himself was lying across the bed with his head propped up on one elbow like he was a teenage girl at a sleepover, one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee containing so much cream it almost looked like milk. That was funny to Dick, for some reason. He would tell Bruce about it, when he saw him next.

The apple pie was delicious. He would have to thank Ma Kent later on. Dick piled it on his fork and chewed and swallowed and gained a considerable amount of strength from the first few bites. It was sweet and tasted like cinnamon and made Dick feel ready for the story he was about to tell.

He carefully set his glass of milk over on the nightstand beside the bed and looked down at his plate, licking a bit of sugar from the edge of his lips. “Um,” he said, a bit lamely. “I dunno where to start, Uncle Clark. It’s kinda complicated. I don’t know if you’d understand.”

“That’s alright,” Clark assured, blowing gently on the rim of his mug. “Just…start wherever you want to. I’m a journalist, I’m used to piecing together scattered stories. I’ll catch up.”

This was comforting to Dick. He swallowed, and set his fork down on his plate. “It wasn’t really even about one big thing,” he said, a bit quietly. “It was like a bunch of little things happened at once, and, I dunno. I kinda lost it.”

“Okay,” Clark said, nodding. “That makes sense. I can understand that.” 

Dick cleared his throat. “I, uh…I guess it started with this fight I got into. Well- it wasn’t really a fight, I just punched him once, and…” he winced, knowing how that sounded. “I know it was bad, Uncle Clark, and I shouldn’t have done it, but- there was this kid, he sits next to me at school, and he…well…he made me angry.”

Clark was watching him thoughtfully. “That’s okay, Dick. Anger can be a big thing to control sometimes. Was this other boy being a bully? Was he provoking you?”

Dick shook his head miserably. “Not really. He just…it’s…hard to explain.” His stomach was churning with discomfort. How could he explain what he’d felt in that moment? It would be like ripping his skin off, he thought. That’s what it would feel like.

Or ripping off a bandaid. And that wasn’t so bad.

“You know how my skin’s kinda darker than most people’s?” Dick asked, very quickly, all in one breath. 

He wasn’t even sure if Clark had understood him, but the man nodded and said, “Yes. I’ve noticed.”

Dick’s heart was racing, and it was stupid, it was a stupid thing to be anxious over, why was he so incapable of talking about this? Rip the bandaid off , he thought, just like that.

“Okay,” Dick continued. “Well. I look like that because my parents were Romani. That’s- well, it’s like gypsies, except that’s not their real name, just what other people call us.” He looked nervously at Clark, but he only nodded attentively.

“Um. Yeah.” Dick felt awkward. He felt like squirming, vibrating out of his skin, smothering himself under a pillow. It’s just Uncle Clark, he told himself fiercely. Just talk to him.

“Well, I don’t really talk about it very much, because it’s…private, you know?” Dick shrugged a little helplessly. “It’s not something…for anyone else. It’s part of who I am, but it’s kind of weird for me to think about since my parents are gone, and I was born in America so I’m…I don’t know, it’s just…” Dick twisted his hands together, staring down at the half-eaten slice of apple pie. “It’s just complicated, I guess.”

“That’s completely understandable,” Clark said firmly, with something hard in his expression. “And Dick, I hope to God that you’re not about to tell me that this boy-”

“He didn’t say anything bad!” Dick answered the unfinished question. “Not really, at least! ‘Cept, he sort of figured out that- that I was. A Rom. And for some reason I really, really didn’t like that he knew.” Dick swallowed. “And he, uh, he was about to tell everyone. The whole class. Just say it out loud, to everyone, so I panicked and that’s when I punched him.”

There was a sort of understanding making its way across Clark’s face. His lips were parted slightly. “Oh,” he said simply.

“Yeah,” Dick added awkwardly. “So that wasn’t good. And I kinda sorta maybe liedtoBruceaboutwhatthefightwasabout. And I think that’s where everything started.”

Clark, blessedly, didn’t push him on the lying-to-Bruce point. “I’m sorry that happened, Dick,” he said very sincerely, and part of Dick was angry. You shouldn’t be sorry for me! a voice in his head was crying. You and Bruce both! You should be mad! I hit someone, I screwed up, why can’t you just be mad at me?

Dick thought maybe some part of him would feel better if someone would yell at him. Maybe some of the terrible guilt would ease, just slightly. But he was here, in Kansas, in Clark’s childhood home, and there was no one there to yell at him. He would just have to get over it.

“Yeah,” was all he said. “It’s fine. It was my fault.” Dick coughed a little bit, feeling miserable. “And it would have been fine. Except…well, the kid, he has a big brother. He’s a ninth grader. No one likes him that much ‘cuz he’s mean.” Dick started feeling antsy. This part of the story made his chest seize up; he didn’t want to remember it. He didn’t want to think about it at all. 

But, well, he would just have to get over it. Band-aid. “Um. Ronny must have told his brother everything that happened,” Dick continued. “Because he came looking for me at lunch yesterday. To…well, he was pretty mad at me. For, you know, hitting his brother and everything. Which I understand.” Dick picked up his fork and pushed the leftover bits of pie around on the plate.  

“Dick,” Clark said quietly, seeming to sense something else was coming. “What happened then?”

“He said things to me,” Dick forced the words out, looking staunchly down at the plate in his lap. He did not look at Clark. “He said…well, bad things, I guess. About my parents. And how they were bad and deserved to die and how I was just like them.”

These words seem to hurt Clark physically. His grip tightened around his coffee mug- Dick was a little worried the thing would shatter completely- and his eyebrows did a complicated movement of discomfort. “He said that to you?” Clark asked, a little disbelieving. “Another kid at your school?”

Dick laid the fork down. He leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “Yeah,” he said, looking up at the ceiling.

He felt…he didn’t know how he felt. There was anger and horrible, weeping sadness and a numbness covering it all up. He wanted his mother’s Sah Hai Mas and stuffed peppers. He wanted to let out a scream so loud it leveled buildings. He wanted Bruce to gather him up in his arms and carry him home. He wanted someone to sing his song to him.

Clark pushed himself upright and sat up on the bed, criss-cross applesauce. He rested his mug on one knee. “Dick,” Clark said with a serious note in his voice. “Can you look at me for a second, please?”

With what seemed like great effort, Dick turned his gaze to match his uncle’s.

Clark’s eyes were, again, very sad. “I am so sorry that happened to you,” Clark said slowly, like the words had weight. Like they were important. “That boy should not have said that to you. You deserve better and so do your parents. You were completely justified in being upset.”

Dick stared, and then nodded minutely. That last phrase struck a chord, deep within him. You were completely justified in being upset. That meant he hadn’t overreacted. That meant Dick was allowed to be upset, even if it was stupid and childish. It meant Clark understood, even in some small way.

He swallowed heavily.

“Thank you,” Dick said earnestly. “And I really mean that, Uncle Clark. Thank you for saying that.”

Clark gave him a small, wry smile. “You’re very welcome, kiddo.”

There was silence in the room, for a moment. Dick breathed in and breathed out a few times. He realized he had stopped in the middle of the story.

He scratched at the back of his neck. “Anyways, um. That’s what got me upset. That’s why I ran away. I just wanted to get away from that other kid. And I was- I was so angry, Uncle Clark, I was just so mad at him, I knew if I stayed there I would hurt him. Like, really hurt him. And that scared me. I just…I kept running and I didn’t look back, like I was half out of my mind, and I just never stopped.”

Clark was looking at him thoughtfully. “You did well, Dick. Anger is a part of us, and it can be a tricky thing to control. I’m proud of you for recognizing that.”

Dick’s heart did something complicated. “Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.” His teeth worried at the corner of his bottom lip. “Uncle Clark, that’s not exactly the whole story. I mean- that’s the important parts, but. There’s more to it, I’m not explaining it very well, I-”

“It’s alright, Dick, it’s fine. Just take your time.” Clark sipped his coffee while Dick nodded to himself and tried to find the right words to say.

“I guess,” Dick started hesitantly, “It just made it worse because I was already thinking about my parents a lot. And…well, missing them. It’s been three years now and it’s felt like I’m losing them a little more every day, lately. I can’t speak our language as well anymore, since I don’t have anyone to speak it to, and sometimes I can’t remember what their voices sound like, and…I just miss them, I guess.” Dick scrubbed at his forehead miserably. “That sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Clark assured gently.

“I guess not,” Dick conceded. “But…well, Uncle Clark, it hurts all the time, how much I miss them. And there’s this song my dad used to sing to me all the time, a special song from when he was little, and he wrote his own verses and…” Dick realized with shame that there were tears pooling in his eyes yet again. He hadn’t planned on mentioning the song until the words came. He inhaled sharply. “And it was just my song. It was a part of me. And I can’t remember it.”

“You don’t remember the words?” Clark asked sympathetically.

“No, I remember the words. But not the melody. The tune. How it sounded, you know. It’s just gone.” Dick’s mouth was twisting, the corners of his eyelids leaking water. “And it’s not like I can just ask someone, Uncle Clark. It was in Kalderash- my parent’s language, and you can’t just find other people who speak it in Gotham or Metropolis or anywhere, I don’t know any other people like me.” He was babbling now and he knew it. Mewling like a child, like a little baby, and Dick didn’t care. “And I feel like I lost a part of them I can’t get back, not ever, and I miss my dad Uncle Clark, I miss my Mama-”

Dick was sobbing again before he could stop it, his hands automatically raising to cover his face, his muscles contorted in sorrow. There was a strong hand laid across Dick’s knee then, and Clark was cupping the back of his neck with his palm and gently touching Dick’s bent forehead to his own. 

“I’m sorry,” Clark was saying, voice full of pain, “Oh, kiddo, I’m so sorry.”

They stayed like that. The sobs crested and fell and faded eventually, like they always did. Dick forced air into his lungs, forced his chest to expand, forced his eyes to dry out. He swallowed thickly.

“Uncle Clark,” he whispered, so quiet he could barely hear himself. “I think Bruce wants to adopt me.”

Silence.

Clark drew back a few inches, looking Dick in the eyes. His hand didn’t leave Dick’s neck. 

“He does?” Clark asked, the words carefully neutral.

Dick felt exhausted. Strung out, worked to the bone. He lost a battle in his head and fell forward, head collapsing into Clark’s chest. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I saw the papers sitting on his nightstand.”

“Oh,” Clark replied, one hand rubbing circles into Dick’s back. He cleared his throat. “And…is that something you want?”

Dick squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know, ” he bemoaned. “I don’t know at all. I love Bruce, Uncle Clark, you know I do. I love living with him. I love being Robin. I think I would be okay with being his son, too.”

“But?” Clark prodded gently.

“But,” Dick answered, “What if he doesn’t really want me? What if he’s only doing it ‘cause he thinks he has to? Because he feels guilty? What if I’m just another obligation?”

Dick thought it shouldn’t be allowed for someone to feel childish this many times in one day. But the words also felt good, in a way; like a relieving of pressure. It was good to say them out loud, to someone else.

Clark wrapped an arm around him and chuckled into his hair. “Okay, Dickie, listen to me for just one second. I’m going to promise you something, on my word as Superman: you don’t have to worry about any of that. Not even as a possibility, not one teensy tiny little bit. You never have to worry about that, ever. Okay?”

Dick was confused. His eyebrows shrunk together. “How do you know?”

Clark hummed under his breath. “Because I know Bruce.”

It was a simple answer, and it was also iron-hard. It felt true, somewhere in Dick’s whirlwind of thoughts and feelings.

“Okay,” he said, accepting it. “I guess you’re right.” Dick sniffled. “What about my parents?”

It was the question he had been asking himself for weeks. He still had no idea what the answer was.

Clark continued rubbing his back. “You mean, you feel like Bruce would be replacing your parents? If he adopted you?”

Dick nodded. That was exactly it. “I love Bruce,” he hiccupped. “I do. He could be my dad, I don’t think my parents would mind. But. Uncle Clark, I don’t want to stop being a Grayson. I want to be a Grayson always, forever, until I die. I don’t want to…sign a paper and make it go away. I want my parents to be with me, even if they aren’t here anymore.”

Clark nodded along and was quiet for a moment after, thinking. “Dick,” he said, very seriously. “Far be it from me to try and influence you on this decision. But. I…I don’t think you would have to give up your last name. No matter what.”

Dick inhaled sharply. “But I’d be his now, Uncle Clark,” he protested. “If B adopted me I’d belong to him. I’d be a Wayne, not a Grayson. That’s how it works, right?”

Clark’s lips worked in a funny motion. He seemed to be thinking very hard. “I don’t think it’s that simple, kiddo,” he answered eventually. “I mean- you could hyphenate. Some people do that. You could be a Grayson-Wayne. Or changed Grayson to be your legal middle name, or- you might not need the Wayne at all, I’m not sure.” He gave Dick a hesitant look. “Have you…talked to Bruce about this at all?”

Dick’s stomach flip-flopped with guilt as he shook his head. “No,” he said, a bit ashamed. “He- I don’t even think he knows that I know. I’ve kinda been…” he trailed off. Avoiding it. Ignoring it. Making any excuse to pretend it doesn’t exist because it scares me so bad I think I’m never gonna breathe again.

Clark nodded like he understood. “Well, then…again, it’s fully your decision. But you might want to talk to him about it, and tell him how you feel. I’m sure he would understand wanting to keep your last name.”

“You think so?” Dick asked meekly. He wrung his hands together in his lap. He tried to picture saying those words to Bruce- telling him how he felt- and it made him squirm even more. Dick knew Bruce and his guilt. What if he took it the wrong way? What if he thought that meant the idea of being a Wayne, of being tied to Bruce that way, disgusted Dick? What if it became one of those things that weighed on the two of them, settled in the air between them, and was never, ever spoken about aloud?

“I know so,” Clark said with a friendly wink. He chuckled at himself. “I know this is a big deal, Dickie, and it can seem scary. But I can promise you that Bruce will respect your wishes. And it won’t change anything between you, no matter what choice you make, especially if you tell him the truth.”

Dick stared down at the forgotten pie plate that was balanced precariously on his left knee. “You promise?” he whispered.

“Promise,” Clark said firmly. “And if he’s a moron in any way about it, I’ll just have to give him another stern talking-to.”

A snort escaped Dick’s mouth before he could stop it. “Wow,” he said, giggling a little. “My hero.”

“Hey, anything for my favorite nephew.”

Dick laughed and leaned his head against Clark’s shoulder. He breathed in and out a few times, just to prove he still could. Clark’s words bounced around in his mind, carefully, gently, like if he studied them too hard the hope would disappear. I don’t think it’s that simple, Clark had said. There were options. Other solutions. Maybe…maybe he could be Bruce’s son, and still be a Grayson. Maybe he could find a way that calmed the churning storm of emotion in his chest. The thought was tentative and full of awe and Dick held it in his mind like a frightened bird. If he was honest with himself, Dick had never stopped to think about any of this, mostly because he had been too busy shoving the thought out of his mind the moment it entered like it was a parasite. He had been running away from the half-glimpsed papers for so long, like they were poison, like they were going to kill him. But it was okay. Clark had promised. There was a relief settling over Dick’s harried mind like a cloud.

“Thank you,” Dick said a bit hoarsely. He buried his forehead in Clark’s arm. “Thanks for…you know…all this.”

“Of course, Dick.” Clark squeezed his shoulder. “Do you feel better?”

Dick hiccupped. “Yes,” he said, and it was the truth. “Yeah. I feel a lot better.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet for a few moments, Dick still trying to soak in the newfound calm that was slowly replacing the panic in his veins. “Hey, Uncle Clark?” he asked eventually.

“Yeah?”

Dick rubbed at his forehead with one hand. “I made Bruce super worried about me, didn’t I?”

Clark cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “Maybe a little bit, yes.”

Dick sighed. He really hadn’t meant to hurt Bruce when he ran, not even the littlest bit. It had just all…happened. In the blink of an eye. He thought maybe he would never stop being guilty.

“What happens now?” Dick asked quietly. 

Clark shifted so they were face to face. “Whatever you decide, kiddo,” he assured. “If you need some more time, then that’s all good. You can stay here as long as you like. I’ll tell Bruce he needs to give you space until you’re ready. But if you want to go home, then, of course I’ll take you right there.”

Dick nodded. He idly tugged at a string from the comforter with his right hand. What do I want? he asked himself. He did feel better; a lot better, after laying out his whole story to Clark. He didn’t feel so ashamed any more. The panic had successfully been quelled by Clark’s gentle assurances. But…Dick looked around, at the quiet farmhouse. The wooden floors and the fresh-baked pies and the birdsong. It scared him a little, to think about leaving it. He wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet.

“Maybe I’ll stay a little longer,” he said softly. “Just…for today. If that’s alright?”

“Of course it’s alright,” Clark replied. He smiled. “Ma will be thrilled. You should be careful, though, she might not let you leave.” 

Dick giggled. With pie as good as this, he might not mind staying here forever.

Clark slapped his knee and stood from the bed, half-empty mug of coffee in one hand. “Okay, kiddo. There are some of my old clothes in the closet that should fit you okay if you want to change into something clean. The bathroom’s down the hall on your right; there’s towels and an extra toothbrush in there if you need it. Make yourself at home in every way possible.” He smiled. “I’m going to go call Bruce and let him know you’re alright, if that’s okay with you.”

Dick nodded quickly, shoving down the flicker of anxiety that arose with Bruce’s name. “Wow,” he said with a grin. “I feel like a Kent already.”

“That’s how she gets ya,” Clark said with a wink.

Chapter Text

Forty minutes later, Dick emerged from the bathroom feeling like a whole new person. His curls were damp and springy from the shower, and he was swallowed in loose-fitting clothes that had been Clark’s when he was around Dick’s age. It felt strange to be wearing Superman’s hand-me-downs, but the blue cotton shirt also made Dick feel safe.

He tiptoed down the hallway and peeked into the kitchen. Ma Kent was bustling about and humming to herself. Pa was somewhere outside working, and Clark’s voice could be faintly heard from the back of the house. Dick tried not to think about how that phone call was going.

“Is that you, young man?” Ma asked, turning towards Dick with a warm smile. 

“Um, yes ma’am,” Dick said, awkwardly stepping through the doorway. “Hi. Thanks for letting me stay at your house.”

“Well of course dear,” she replied brightly, walking over to rest a hand on his shoulder and guide him toward the kitchen table. Dick followed, climbing into one of the wooden chairs. 

“I’ve been so excited to meet you,” she beamed, leaning her elbows against the back of another chair. “Clark has told us lots of stories about his brave little nephew! I’m very glad to get the chance to see you, whatever the circumstances.”

Dick smiled at her. Martha Kent was probably the most maternal person he had ever met, and the most hospitable. After spending all morning feeling like his tongue was swollen, he found it was easy as anything to talk to Ma. “I’m…very glad to be here too,” he said quietly. And he meant it. “Thank you for the pie. It was delicious.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, the wrinkles on her face folding into a soft, kind expression. “No wonder Clark likes you. Sweet as syrup.”

“Sweet as your pie,” he interjected with a cheeky grin. Now he was feeling a bit more like himself.

“Flattery and jokes,” she chuckled, lightly pinching his cheek with one hand. “You’re just the whole package, aren’tcha.” She wandered back over to the kitchen and bustled about, sliding a plate from a cabinet and piling it high with food from the stove’s resident steaming pot. “Now I hope you’re hungry, Mister Grayson, because while you did have a couple bites of pie, it is well past two and you need some more nutrients in you.”

A part of Dick recoiled at well past two (was it that late? How many hours had it been since he had seen Bruce? Too many and not enough.) But he nodded along politely when Ma set the plate in front of him; potatoes and stew meat and vegetables. The steam rising from it smelled heavenly. “Ma’am, you can bet your boots I’ll eat anything you put in front of me,” Dick assured, already reaching for a fork.

“That’s enough with the ‘ma’am-ing’, now.” Ma raised an eyebrow. “I’m Ma to Clark and I’m Ma to half this town and I’m Ma to the whole world, really. I’m certainly Ma to nice young men who compliment my cooking.”

Dick took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Ookay,” he said, testing it out in his head. “If you say so…Ma.”

She grinned at him. “There you go. Now eat up. I want to see that plate clean and shining by the time you’re done.” Ma stepped towards the stove, then seemed to hesitate and turned back to him. “But- don’t make yourself sick, honey. I’m mostly just joking.”

Dick gave her a wink and a thumbs up before heartily tucking in. The food was good; and more than that, it almost reminded him of meals his mother used to make, which tugged at Dick’s heart in a complicated way. He was also just ravenous. The few bites of pie hadn’t been enough to stave off a whole day’s worth of hunger.

Ma tidied up the kitchen while Dick ate. She flicked on the radio and hummed along to the lighthearted song it was playing. She wiped down surfaces and rinsed pans and tossed vegetable ends in the trash can. Dick ate, and at one point he started humming too.

It was quiet, except for the radio and the humming and the birds outside. It was nice.

Dick had all but licked his plate clean when there were footsteps coming down the hallway, and then Clark leaned against the doorway. He looked pensive. “Hey, Dick,” he called.

Dick swung around in the chair to face him. He cringed a little, gripping the edge of the table tightly. “How’s it going?” he asked, a bit afraid of the answer.

“It’s alright,” Clark said wryly, and it sounded more like awright. “I…he really wants to talk to you, kiddo. I told him I’d ask and call back. And I told him if you didn’t want-”

“I’ll talk to him,” Dick said automatically, the words blurted out before he realized he was saying them. Clark looked at him with surprise, and Dick bit his lip with a swallow. “Um. I think. I think I’m fine with that.”

There was a black hole in Dick’s mind that kept warping around the shape of Bruce Wayne. He never wanted to see Bruce again, he missed Bruce so much his chest was going to cave in. He was afraid of Bruce’s reaction, he wanted to scream to Bruce’s face everything he had been feeling. He never wanted to explain to Bruce the things he had explained to Clark. He did. He didn’t.

There was the radio and birdsong and sunshine. Clark had promised. Dick was okay. Right now, in this moment, he was okay. And he could talk to Bruce without falling apart.

“If you’re sure,” Clark said gently, and Dick slid out of his chair to follow him out of the kitchen.

Clark led him to the sitting room in the back of the farmhouse, a cozy-looking little room with extremely cushy patched-up furniture. “The phone’s there,” Clark said, raising a finger to the coffee table beside them.

Dick blinked at it. Then squinted. “A phone with a chord, Uncle Clark? Really?”

Clark chuckled, a bit sheepishly. “It’s an old house, Dickie. You do know how to use one of those, right?”

He rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah, I bet I can figure it out.”

“And you know Bruce’s number?”

“Uncle Clark.”

“Just checking!” Clark gave him a tiny smile and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Well…I’ll give you some privacy, kiddo. Holler if you need anything. And, you know, feel free to hang up on him for dramatic effect if you feel the need.”

Dick let out an involuntary snort. “Yeah, okay, Uncle Clark. I’ll do that.”

Clark gave him a two-fingered salute and withdrew back into the hallway.

Dick drew in a very long, deep breath. He climbed into the armchair next to the coffee table and curled up with his legs tucked under him, squishing down about two full feet into the cushion. He reached a hand out over the phone resting on the table and hovered there, waiting.

You can do this, he told himself. It’ll be easy. He was Robin, and Robin wasn’t afraid of anything.

Dick Grayson was no coward either. His parents had raised him better than that.

Swallowing, Dick lifted the hefty phone from its bed and punched in the phone number he knew by heart. He settled it against his ear, listening to the dial tone, heart thudding against his rib cage.

It wasn’t three seconds later that the other line picked up. A very familiar, gravelly voice said, “Hello?”

Dick sat still, phone pressed against his ear with one hand. He stared at the paisley patterned rug on the sitting room floor with wide eyes. He felt paralyzed.

Say something! His mind was screeching. You gotta say something!

Dick swallowed again. He coughed a little into his other hand. “Hiya, B,” he said so softly he thought maybe it wouldn’t be heard.

It was. He could tell by the hitch in Bruce’s breathing. 

“Dick,” said the voice on the other line, and there was emotion behind the word, but Dick couldn’t tell what kind. 

“That’s m’name,” Dick said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“I- What-” There was a pause. He seemed to make an audible effort to compose himself: “You’re okay?” 

“‘Course I’m okay,” Dick said gently. “I- didn’t Uncle Clark tell you?”

“He did,” Bruce admitted. “But…”

But a part of me didn’t believe it until I could hear your voice. Dick’s mind filled in the blanks automatically. It was funny, that he knew Bruce well enough to tell what he was thinking. The Batman wasn’t really so unknowable after all.

Bruce trailed off into silence, so Dick cleared his throat, guessing it was his turn to talk. “Mm. Well, um, I’m fine. Obviously. I’ve just…been here, at the farmhouse. And- B, you shouldn’t blame Uncle Clark for anything. Not that you would, but- he was just doing what I wanted.”

“I see,” Bruce neutrally. “Dick. Why-“

“Don’t ask me,” Dick interrupted quietly. He was gripping the phone tightly with his left hand. This was the question he had been dreading. He couldn’t. Not then, not over the phone. “Just don’t…ask me that yet. Please?” He gulped down unshed tears. “I…can’t. Not now.”

Bruce was quiet, for a minute. Dick could hear him take a few deep breaths, in and out, as if debating something in his head. Eventually, he simply said, “Alright.”

Dick blinked a few times, a little surprised. “Oh,” he hiccuped. “Did Uncle Clark really bully you that much, B? I thought you were supposed to be the unstoppable Batman. Now you’re just rolling over and taking it?”

So it was a jerk thing to say. It was also very par for the course in their day-to-day rapport. Dick leaped for that normalcy like it would keep him alive.

Bruce made a deep sound in his throat, an ‘mmmm’ Batman-ish sound. He could have imagined it, but Dick swore there was relief in that sound. “I have been told Kal-El can be a fearsome negotiator,” Bruce insisted, and Dick burst into a fit of hysterical giggles interspersed with the hiccups.

He missed Bruce. He missed Bruce. He wanted everything to be over and also to repeat Clark’s words over his heart again and again and also to bury his forehead in Bruce’s chest and also to stay in the peace of the Kent farmhouse until the end of time. Why couldn’t Dick ever figure out what he wanted? He was going to start crying again, and Dick was so sick of crying, he had cried so much he had no water left in him. “Come get me,” he blurted out, before the inevitable tears made his voice useless. “Come get me? I…I want to see you, I can’t go back yet, just come get me, Bruce, please,” he spouted incoherently, not caring if it fell into childish babbling.

It was all true. He didn’t want to leave yet. He couldn’t go back to Gotham and…and pretend nothing had changed, or be forced to lay out his explanation to Bruce like a dentist pulling teeth. Either one made panic squeeze his heart. He needed Clark and Kansas and the farmhouse, and he needed Bruce too.

“Dick, you need to breathe, chum,” Bruce said, his voice level and calm. 

He forced several large breaths in and out of his body, mostly for the benefit of Bruce’s hearing. “Will you come get me,” Dick choked out again, for some reason needing an answer.

“Of course, Dickie,” Bruce assured, and it made something in Dick feel solid again. “I’ve been packed since yesterday.”

Since yesterday. Since the moment Dick ran off with no explanation. A wave of guilt and shame crashed over him. What was he doing here? Hiding? Abandoning Bruce, then shutting him out? Oh, he was awful, he had made so many mistakes, he…

Dick squeezed his eyes shut and remembered the things Clark had told him. Remembered the peace he had felt, the rightness. He was okay. He would be okay.

“I miss you,” Dick said abruptly, because he was tired of his mind running itself in circles. “Tell Alfred I miss him too?”

“Of course,” was Bruce’s reply. “Dick, I-”

“Bruce,” Dick whispered miserably, talking over whatever words he had been about to say. “I’m sorry I smashed my tracker. I know it- I know it was a stupid thing to do.”

Bruce hummed a noise of assent. “It’s alright, Dick. Though I…would prefer if you wouldn’t do it again.”

“Me too,” Dick agreed. “This has sucked. I’m never going to do anything stupid ever again, B, promise.”

A startled, rumbly laugh came from Bruce’s end. “Ever?”

Dick smiled into the phone speaker. “You callin’ me a liar?”

“Yes.”

“B! You traitor!”

“I was only being honest. Alfred tells me it’s a virtue.”

Dick giggled, scuffing his socked feet against the rug. It was like normal, suddenly; he felt all warm inside. Some of the dread and squirminess calmed. “Okay, Bruce,” he said. “Um. Thanks for, you know. Calling and everything.”

“Thank you for answering,” Bruce said, quite seriously, and Dick swallowed. 

“See ya later,” he said, and laid the phone back into its bed.

***

It occurred to him, after, that Dick hadn’t actually asked how Bruce would get there. When they were all gathered in the kitchen, later, Clark squinted as if focusing very hard on a cabinet door and then grinned. “His plane just took off,” he announced, winking at Dick. 

Dick snorted. “And you could hear it? The plane he’s on? Aren’t there, like, a billion airplanes taking off right now? Oh! Do they all sound the same or can you tell which is which? Like, do planes from different airlines have different-sounding engines? Can-” Dick broke off, clearing his throat awkwardly. Clark looked like he was in a daze.

“Ooh. Sorry, Uncle Clark. It’s the Robin training. Gotta know all the details, see?” Dick gave him a stunning grin. Clark just raised his eyebrows and laughed to himself.

“I think they’re very important questions,” Ma said, pulling up a chair at the kitchen table. She blew on the top of her cup of tea. “How do you tell which plane he’s on, son?”

“Well,” Clark laid a hand out on the table, “I can tell with him because of how well I know Bruce’s heartbeat. From there, I can find him and focus on the surrounding noises. Which happened to be a plane engine.”

“Ahh.” Ma snapped her fingers. “That old heartbeat trick. Feels like cheating.”

Clark looked scandalized. “Ma!”

She grinned at him. “Only joking, baby. Oh, Jonathan! Come say hello to our young friend here!”

The screen door slid open and Pa Kent stepped inside, scraping his boots on the mat. He raised a hand in greeting when he saw Dick, closing the door behind him and stepping into the kitchen. “Hello there, son,” he said, giving him a nod. “Nice to have you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dick replied politely. He’d never met Jonathan Kent before; the man had been outside working farm tasks all morning. 

“Go wash up, hon. And be quick about it- we’re going to find a game to play.” Ma stood from the table and beelined for a nearby closet door.

Pa smiled, one eyebrow raised. “We are?”

“Of course!” She opened the door and started scanning its contents. “We have to, while Dick’s here. It’s what kids do.”

“Kids…play board games?” Pa asked.

“Of course they do! Don’t you remember being younger than eighty, Jonathan? Hm, guess not. We were both born around that age, and we haven’t even made it there yet. Alrighty then, let’s see what we’ve got in here…go on, Jonathan, shoo, Dick’s father could be here soon! We haven’t got any time to lose!” 

Pa raised both hands in surrender and retreated to the back of the house. Dick watched this exchange with fascination.

“Yes, they’re like this all the time,” Clark said, leaning over to whisper in Dick’s ear. Dick giggled, shaking his head.

“Dick, honey, what games do you like?” Ma was still scrutinizing the closet like it contained the secrets of the universe.

“Um,” Dick thought, “The kids at my school like Pictionary.”

“Pictionary! I know that one. We’ve got that in here somewhere.”

Twenty minutes later, the kitchen table was piled with assorted pieces of paper, pencils, and pens. The Kents did not have Pictionary anywhere in the house, despite Ma’s recollection, but she had insisted they find some way to play it anyway. Dick, Clark, and Ma took their seats around the table. 

Pa emerged from his shower and frowned at the sight of the kitchen. “I thought you said we were playing a game.”

“We’re playing Pictionary,” Ma informed.

Pa blinked at the table. “That’s…not Pictionary,” he observed.

“It’ll be Pictionary today,” Ma declared. “Sit down. You’re on Clark’s team, I’ve got the young blood on my side.”

“How do we know what to draw?” Dick asked, reaching for one of the pens.

“Um,” Ma pondered. “Just…make something up. Whatever you want. Let your imagination run wild.”

Dick tapped the pen against his temple. “Ookay,” he replied. “I guess I get it.”

“We’ll see how this goes,” Clark said with a mischievous smile, and Ma kicked him under the table.

Dick actually considered himself a fair artist, and Ma wasn’t half bad either. He was extremely confident in their odds against the other team at first. The problem was Clark and Pa kept picking the easiest objects to draw on the face of the earth, while Dick and Ma tried to be more creative and risky. 

“Now that is just ridiculous,” Ma accused when Pa’s drawing of choice was an extremely simple tree. “That should not be allowed.”

“Ma,” Clark protested, gesturing with his pencil. “You said it could be whatever we wanted. You said we could let our imaginations run wild.

“I can certainly imagine a tree,” Pa added helpfully.

To this, Ma simply said, “Hmph. We’ll get ‘em next round, Dick.”

“A car!” Dick shouted enthusiastically, when Ma scribbled furiously on her paper. “Ooh, a boat? A-”

“Time’s up!” Clark shouted abruptly. Ma gasped and dropped her pencil, shooting him a death glare.

“Hey! We haven’t been keeping time, Uncle Clark!” Dick protested, laughing.

“I’m instituting a new rule. Ma has been abusing the no-time-limit policy.”

“I can’t believe this. My own son, treating me and my arthritic hands like this.”

“Very rude,” Dick agreed, nodding sagely. Clark lifted a hand to mess up his hair.

In the very last round, which they decided would be a tiebreaker, Clark thought long and hard for what his drawing should be. “You better be quick about this,” Ma warned, wagging a finger at him. “Since you have been so unfairly cutting my time short. You only get…hm…twenty seconds.”

“Hmm.” He tapped his pen against his chin. “Okay, fine. I’ll make that work. Everyone ready?”

“Go, Uncle Clark, go!”

In one single sweeping pencil stroke, Clark held up the paper expectantly for Pa’s eyes.

“That,” Pa said, taking a long drink of his coffee, “Looks quite a lot like a circle to me, son.”

“Yes!” Clark tossed his paper to the air in triumph. “We win!”

Dick sat still for a moment, and then doubled over in his chair from laughing so hard.

“ Hey! ” Ma shouted in protest, failing to stifle her own laughter. “Clark, that is-”

“Completely within the realm of the rules we set,” Pa finished with a smile.

“It was a damn CIRCLE!”

“It counts!” Clark grinned sheepishly. “Technically! It definitely counts, Ma! And you definitely raised me better than to be a sore loser, didn’t you?”

Ma stared at him, open-mouthed. “CLARK JOSEPH KAL-EL KENT!”

Pa was laughing so much he had to set down his coffee mug, and Dick had his head resting on the table, tears pooling in his eyes. “Best- game of Pictionary- ever ,” he wheezed, in between shuddering laughs. “You won with a circle-”

There was a knock on the front door.

Ma, still glowing with laughter, shouted “Come on in, hon! Door’s open!”

The handle twisted and the door opened. Bruce Wayne stepped inside, wrapped in a black coat. 

“Oh, it’s you!” Ma exclaimed in surprise. “Hello, young man. It’s-”

“Bruce?” Dick interrupted quietly, laughter forgotten. The Batman stood still in the farmhouse entryway, awkwardly nodding in greeting. Dick stared at him.

Bruce’s eyes found his, and Dick saw them get very wide. “Dick,” Bruce said, and his voice broke on the word.

Dick sprang out of the chair. He raced towards Bruce and catapulted into his stomach, throwing his arms around his waist.

Bruce fell into a crouch, gathering Dick to his chest. Dick grabbed handfuls of Bruce’s shirt in his fists, burrowing into his neck. It smelled like Bruce. His chest constricted in one monumental squeeze, and water clogged Dick’s vision. 

“I’m sorry,” Dick gasped, throat choking up in a sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

Bruce said nothing. He breathed in deeply, cupping the back of Dick’s neck with one strong hand. He was holding him so tightly, like he thought Dick would fall apart in his arms if he let go. Dick thought he might. 

He cried unashamedly into Bruce’s shirt. Dick’s eyes were squeezed shut, chest seizing up in shuddering sobs. Bruce was here. Bruce was here.

“You came to get me,” Dick heaved, swallowing wet tears. “Oh, B, I- I messed up so bad, I’m so sorry-”

Bruce separated from him, pulling apart just enough that Dick could see his face. He stared at Dick, hard, and cupped his face in both hands.

“You’re okay?” Bruce asked seriously, his voice thick with emotion.

Dick could do nothing but cry and nod into Bruce’s hands.

Bruce looked at him for a long moment, and then used his thumbs to wipe the tears from Dick’s cheeks. He nodded once, seemingly to himself, and then stood up.

Dick swiped furiously at his eyes and scrambled to his feet as well. He grabbed Bruce’s hand and turned back to the kitchen table, where the silent Kents were watching with empathetic expressions. 

Bruce cleared his throat, squeezing Dick’s hand in return. “Clark,” he said, voice deep and gravelly. “Martha. Jonathan.”

Clark gave him a little wave. “Hello, Bruce,” he said, a sad smile on his face.

Dick heaved in huge breaths, trying desperately to pull himself together. He’d been laughing at Pictionary two minutes before! He was Robin, he could talk without crying!

“Uncle Clark took real good care of me, B,” he said with a sniffle, tugging Bruce closer to the table. “Everyone’s been awful nice.”

Bruce nodded at that. “I am grateful,” he said simply, directing the words to the whole table of Kents.

“ We’re grateful to have had him in the house,” Ma insisted, smiling over her mug of tea. “He’s such a delight, your boy. I haven’t had so much fun in ages.”

“You hear that, B,” Dick whispered, giving Bruce a watery grin. “I’m a delight. ”

“Mmph. We’ll see about that.” And Bruce gave Dick a tiny little smile, and Dick beamed back up at him, and Dick knew both of them could breathe again.

It was quiet for a moment. Dick leaned his head against Bruce’s side. “Uncle Clark,” he asked, forcing his words to stay even, “You think there’s someplace we can go to talk?”

Clark looked up at the two of them and seemed to find something written in Dick’s expression that made him relax. He nodded, pushing up from the table. “Of course. I can take you out to the back porch.”

“Thanks.” Dick sniffled again, leading Bruce by the hand as Clark took them to the back of the house. He opened a sliding door for them and gestured outside.

“There’s a few chairs you can sit on. Though, um, the wicker one does tend to poke you.” Clark laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Take as long as you need. And, um, yell if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Uncle Clark.” Dick gave him a smile and stepped out onto the porch. Bruce followed, and Clark slid the door shut behind them.

They stood there for a minute, motionless. Neither of them quite knew what to do. Eventually Dick sighed and stuck out a finger. “You get the wicker one,” he ordered, and watched as Bruce sat himself down into the wicker chair with a hmph sound.

Dick plopped into the rocking chair across from it. He perched on the seat, rocking back and forth, blinking at Bruce in front of him. Bruce was just…sitting there, looking at him, and Dick rubbed his hands over his face. “Umm…no, I don’t like this. I’m just gonna…” Dick trailed off, making an executive decision. He stood from the rocking chair and unceremoniously climbed into Bruce’s lap.

Blessedly, Bruce said nothing, and shifted an arm around Dick. Dick knocked his head against Bruce’s shoulder, letting out a tiny sigh. “I can’t do this if you’re looking at me,” he said quietly, eyes staring out at the rest of the porch. “I…sorry. I feel weird. I’m just gonna talk now.”

“I’ll listen,” said Bruce.

“Okay,” Dick said, his voice half-breaking. He could feel his eyes getting watery already. This was going to suck. “P-promise you won’t get mad when I’m done?” he asked, a bit pathetically. “I…Uncle Clark said nothing would change if I told you and I don’t think he would lie to me but I don’t know, it’s like I don’t know anything, I…promise me you won’t get mad?”

“Dick…”

“Just promise.”

“All right. I promise.”

“‘Kay,” Dick hiccuped. He leaned into Bruce’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “Wanna know why I ran away?”

All he could hear was Bruce’s slow breathing. “Yes,” Bruce said eventually.

“I freaked out,” Dick said eloquently. “Some kid…made me mad. I was going to use my Robin training to hurt him. I got real scared, B, so I just ran and kept running and I was scared you’d be mad so I smashed my tracker.” Dick swallowed. It was a simple version of the story, but it was the truth.

Bruce seemed to sit with that for a minute. “All right,” he said simply, after a lengthy pause. “And what-”

“Bruce,” Dick interrupted, reaching a fist around one of his shirt buttons, just for something to do with his hands. “I’m gonna ask you something.”

“I…all right, Dick. What is it.”

Dick took a deep breath in. “Have you ever felt like you were losing your mind?”

Bruce was quiet. “All the time,” he murmured. Hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Can I tell you a secret, B?” Dick’s voice quavered. “I think I’ve been losing my mind, for months.” 

Bruce stiffened under him.

Dick let out one little hysterical giggle. “S’okay, Bruce. Don’t be mad you didn’t notice. You can keep the world’s greatest detective title. I was real sneaky about it.”

Even with closed eyes, Dick could see the cogs turning in Bruce’s head.

 “The fight,” Bruce said after the pause. 

Dick swallowed. Sometimes Bruce was so smart it wasn’t fair.

“Yeah,” Dick said simply.

“That…was part of it.” It wasn’t a question.

“I kinda lied to you about it,” Dick whispered guiltily. “I mean…just a little bit. The other kid, he- he didn’t exactly say something about my parents.”

“He didn’t?”

“No,” Dick sighed. He pressed a finger to his left wrist, lightly feeling his pulse, the way his mother used to do. Sas gódya múrri deyorri thai woi rovélas sav d’aswênsa, sav d’aswênsa ratwalênsa. “Bruce, do you have any of your parents’ things that are important to you? That are, like, special? And you would get really mad if someone tried to take them away?”

“I suppose,” Bruce said, which was a typical Batman non-answer that Dick could see straight through.

“I don’t have anything,” Dick said into Bruce’s shirt. He pressed his forehead into the soft fabric. He never talked about his parents to Bruce or Alfred. It just didn’t make sense to. It hurt Dick and it hurt them so why do it? He had to now, though. He had to get it out now or he never would.

“I don’t have anything that was theirs. It all got left at Haly’s. It’s just me. Just me, it’s always just been me that’s left of them.” Dick’s eyes squeezed up against the inevitable tears. “Just me , Bruce. So I try to remember everything I can. I made Robin, for them- their colors, their name for me. I remember their language. And I…I try to remember their heritage.”

Bruce tightened his arm around him. Bruce knew, of course, because he knew everything. But Dick had never, ever, not once, spoken about being a Rom to Bruce. It was so far buried inside of him.

“Did you know they were from Hungary,” Dick said, feeling delirious. “Did you know that? I’ve never been. I wish I had. Romani people have all kinds of languages, but my parents spoke Kalderash. I used to know it almost like English, but- but not anymore, so much, and sometimes it eats away at me inside.” Dick sniffled, trying to stem the tide of a heaving sob. “Do you think if they stayed in Hungary they wouldn’t have died? 

“Chum,” Bruce said, voice wavering, like it was full of dread. “What happened in the fight?”

“Nothing at all, really,” Dick answered faintly. “It’s just that he found out. What I am. And he was gonna tell everyone. So I hit him.” 

It felt like a less eloquent version of the one he had told Clark.

“I see,” Bruce said. Always a man of few words.

“I told you I was losing my mind, didn’t I?” Dick mumbled against his shoulder. “I wasn’t okay, B. I couldn’t stop thinking about my parents. About how I’m forgetting them, and their stories, and their songs. I couldn’t stop thinking about Haly’s and everything I’ll never have back again. I was mad at them, Bruce, if you can believe it. I’ve been so mad at them, for months. How come none of them came and got me? How come they…they left me behind, like that?” Dick’s tongue felt as loose as it had ever been. He didn’t care if he was rambling. “The only one who didn’t leave me behind was you.” He swallowed. “And anyway…that’s what I was thinking about. When Ronnie’s brother came to find me. That’s why I ran.”

Dick was monumentally glad he had not been able to see Bruce’s face for any of this. All Bruce did was take deep, steady breaths, and hold Dick against his chest. “Ronnie was the boy you got into a fight with?” Bruce asked neutrally.

“Yes,” Dick said. You’re putting the pieces together, he thought.

“And his brother…was the one you almost used Robin training on.”

“Yes.”

Bruce took a breath. “Dick,” he asked seriously. “What did this boy say to you?”

Dick turned his head until he was staring at the Kent’s backyard. “You’ll never be anything other than gypsy trash,” Dick repeated dully. The words had been echoing and ricocheting around his brain since he’d heard them. He didn’t have any trouble calling on them now. “Gotham doesn’t like your kind of people. You don’t belong here. I-”

“Dick-” Bruce interrupted, horrified.

“-bet your parents deserved what they got. Bunch of gypsy freaks.” Dick’s eyes stared out at nothing. He was terrified there was a part of him that would always want to beat Ivan Morris until he couldn’t move.

Bruce was quiet. He reached both arms around Dick, cradling Dick’s head to his chest.

The sob finally broke from Dick’s throat. His tears fell onto Bruce’s shirt. “I almost hurt him,” he cried, banging a halfhearted fist against Bruce’s chest. “I almost hurt him bad .”

Bruce’s palm pressed Dick’s temple into Bruce’s shirt. Hard, like he was trying to single handedly hold Dick together. The pressure felt grounding. “But you didn’t,” Bruce whispered.

Dick sobbed. His chest spasmed, but Bruce held him in place. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t,” Bruce repeated. He touched his forehead to the top of Dick’s head, just for a moment. “Good boy.”

Dick cried. Every time he thought he was done, the tears just started again. He burrowed his face into Bruce’s shirt and thought he would never come out again. 

“I was so scared,” he hiccuped. “When I ran, I didn’t…want you to see me like that. I thought you would yell at me and tell me to go away and that I couldn’t be Robin anymore. I thought you wouldn’t like me anymore.”

I thought you wouldn’t want me to be your son anymore, he was saying, just beneath those words.

Bruce stroked his hair with a gentle hand. “You thought that?” he asked in a deep voice.

“Yeah.”

Bruce exhaled. “Well,” he said. “You were wrong.”

Dick’s face contorted. “I was?”

“You were.”

The words were steady and firm, like a rock. Dick gasped in air, his throat full of tears. His hands were shaking.

“You’ll still like me, B?” Dick asked, in a meek, small voice. “Even if I mess up and do dumb things and cry all the time?”

Bruce frowned. “You’re a child, Dick. All of those things are normal.”

Dick was quiet. He closed his eyes against Bruce’s tearstained shirt. 

It was silent, for a long moment. Dick knew Bruce could see right through him, like he always did.

Bruce swallowed. “Dickie…you know, when I’m hard on you, in the field, it’s because if you’re less than perfect you could die.”

“I do know that.” He did know that. Sometimes. Mostly. He nuzzled into Bruce’s neck. “It’s…nice to hear you say it, though.”

Bruce was quiet. “I am…not always so good with words.”

“Gee, who knew? Not like I’ve lived with you for three years or anything.”

Bruce smirked down at him. “Brat.” 

Dick pouted. “Aw, B, how could you say that about your favorite Robin?”

“It is possible for my favorite Robin to also be a brat.”

“Wow. Harsh. At least I’m still your favorite, though.”

“Mm. For now.”

“ B !”

They stayed there for a while, Bruce sitting in the wicker chair, Dick curled against his chest. Dick just rested there and breathed, content.

“Remember when you came to get me,” he mumbled eventually. He felt good. Better, at least. He also felt like he had run a marathon and needed to sleep for a long time.

Bruce hummed. “From the social worker?”

“Mhm.”

“Yes. How could I forget?”

“I didn’t think it would be you,” Dick said sleepily. “I had thought…I had kept thinking I’d go home with one of them. That I’d see a group of them walk through the front door.”

Bruce idly stroked Dick’s curls. “You mean,” he said carefully, “The others from the circus.”

“Yeah,” Dick whispered, barely a sound. “They were my family, you know? Everyone at Haly’s. How…how come they didn’t come get me? How come they left me there? Was…was I not worth it to them? Did they forget about me?”

There was a thumb stroking his elbow. “I don’t know,” Bruce said quietly. “I don’t know what happened. What I do know is you are the only thing that is worth it.”

If Dick’s mind didn’t feel fuzzy and half-asleep he might have cried again at that. Instead he just wriggled his arms around Bruce’s middle and held tight.

When the darkness of sleep was threatening to overtake him, Dick breathed evenly, content. “Bruce,” he asked. “What did your mom smell like?”

Bruce rubbed a hand along his back. “I…can’t remember.”

“I can’t either.”

“Mm.”

“Sometimes I wish I died with them,” Dick murmured into Bruce’s collarbone. A secret.

“Sometimes I wish the same thing.”

“B?”

“Yes?”

“I’m very glad you didn’t.”

“I,” Bruce said, “Am glad you didn’t either, Dick.”

Sleep took him.

***

They left the next morning. Ma was thrilled to feed Bruce at least one meal, and cooked a breakfast that would go down in history. Dick looked around the kitchen. The sunlight spilled in from the windows, the smell of lemon soap permeated through the house. It was so nice. He should come visit more often, he thought. With Bruce as well.

When Bruce had said his goodbyes and went out to start the rental car, Dick gave everyone hugs. Pa gave him a smile and placed a worn baseball cap on his head, something Dick knew he would treasure forever. Ma kissed his forehead and promised he was welcome back anytime. When he came to Clark, Superman knelt down so he was at eye level with Dick.

Clark looked him in the eyes. “Are you ready?” he asked, very seriously.

Dick nodded firmly. He was sure. 

Clark smiled at him. “Thanks for stopping by, kiddo,” he said.

Dick tackled him in a hug. It was Superman, so he didn’t go very far, but Clark laughed and held him tight.

Dick squeezed back as tight as he could. “Thank you,” he said, mouth squished into Clark’s shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved my life.”

Clark cupped the back of his head in one hand. “Anything for my favorite nephew,” he replied. 

Dick pulled away and grinned at him. Clark chuckled.

“And Dick,” he said more seriously. “I’m…really glad you’re okay.”

“All thanks to you,” Dick answered, and it was true.

He waved again, and shouted his goodbyes, and left the house to start the journey back to Gotham.

***

The plane ride back was nice. Dick slept for most of it. The first thing he did upon returning to the Manor was throw open the front doors, sprint inside, and ambush Alfred in a particularly violent hug.

“Sorry if I scared ya, Alfie,” he apologized. “Everything’s A-okay.”

“It’s quite alright, Master Dick,” Alfred said, and Dick knew he was lying through his teeth. He patted Dick’s shoulder, which was the most overt kind of affection the man ever bestowed on anyone. “I…daresay, though, it is good to have you home again.”

“Good to be home,” Dick replied, and that wasn’t a lie.

There was no patrol for him that night. Bruce expressly forbade it, no matter how much Dick had whined in protest. He really only did it as a joke. He did miss Robin, though. Hopefully Bruce could be cajoled into letting him back on the streets in a week or so. Dick got antsy when he went too long without flying.

He felt…strange. A good strange. Like there weren’t so many things bottled up inside him fighting for attention anymore. He could just exist in the Manor, and go to school and help Alfred in the kitchen and bother Bruce in the evenings and pester both of them into watching movies and Dick felt lighter than he had in a long time. It wasn’t hard to breathe anymore.

That week after returning from Kansas was maybe the most normal week Dick had ever spent in the Manor. He was just a regular kid living a regular life, no vigilantism to speak of. It was almost funny. When the next Friday rolled around, Dick felt at ease. He felt rested, and ready for things to go back to normal. Being a regular kid was nice, but it also wasn’t him. It got boring.

He knocked on Bruce’s study door that Friday night. “B!” Dick shouted, pressing his mouth against the keyhole. “I don’t care if you’re doing important work stuff, can I come in?”

Dick heard the unmistakable sound of an amused chuckle. “Come in, Dickie,” Bruce’s voice called, and Dick swung the door open. “Glad to see you are appreciative of the important work Wayne Enterprises does,” Bruce said from behind the desk with a little smirk.

Dick plopped into the armchair across from the desk and giggled. “It’s not more important than me ,” he insisted sagely. “Plus you don’t appreciate it either. I’ve heard Mr. Fox begging you to come to meetings.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Have you.”

“It’s okay, B. If I were you I wouldn’t want to go to any boring meetings either.” Dick leaned two elbows on the desk, resting his head on his arms. “So I wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s convenient,” Bruce said, stacking a pile of papers. “I also wanted to talk to you.”

“Really?” Dick squinted. “About what?”

Bruce looked down at Dick. “I was going to tell you that if you’re ready- and only if you feel you’re ready- I will allow you to resume patrols.”

Dick pumped two fists into the air. “ Yes! Watch out, Gotham! Robin is finally back!”

Bruce’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “I’m sure everyone will be terrified.”

“Duh. I’m the scariest, B. Everyone knows that.”

“Of course. Well, I- I felt it was time. If…you feel up to it.” Bruce cleared his throat. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Dick grinned. “That you should let me be Robin again.”

“Mm. I suppose we were on the same page.”

“We always are, Bruce. I’ve got to go tell Alfred! He’ll-”

“Wait.” 

Dick paused, halfway out of his chair. “Hmm?”

Bruce was holding up a hand. He had a tense expression on his face, like there was something he just couldn’t decide. “Dick. I…”

Dick stood, drumming on the chair’s armrest with one hand. “B?”

It was quiet. Bruce looked pained.

“Nevermind.” Bruce flipped his hand, turning his attention back to the stack of papers on his desk. “It’s nothing. I’m sure Alfred will be unhappy with me.”

It was funny, that a moment could feel so similar to so many others. Dick felt like he was watching it happen from far away. In a way he had lived this exchange a dozen times in the past two months, and it was still happening, and it would cycle through again and again. The only difference was this time it was Bruce saying nevermind, Bruce waving him off, Bruce shutting down the conversation before it could begin. It’ll keep going like this, Dick realized, standing motionless in the study. It’ll keep happening and we’ll never, ever say the words.

Dick didn’t leave. He didn’t grin and nod and scamper off after Alfred. There were some things that hung between him and Bruce, like a guillotine, things that loomed there just out of sight that both were aware of and neither acknowledged. There were too many. This one had to end.

Dick was Robin, and he wasn’t afraid of anything. 

Instead of leaving, Dick tiptoed around the desk to where Bruce was sitting. He nudged Bruce’s arm with his own, leaned against his shoulder. He pretended to look down at the papers Bruce was sorting. 

“Dick?” Bruce asked absently, picking up a pen and scribbling down notes on one of the pages. Why are you still here?

“Bruce,” Dick echoed, looking down at the woodgrain of the desk. He wasn’t afraid, but…he still couldn’t look at Bruce’s eyes for this. Dick took several deep breaths. “Do you want to…ask me something?”

The pen clattered onto the desk.

“B?” Dick asked faintly. His heart was hammering. Bruce’s face had gone nearly white. He was just staring, straight ahead at the wall. Dick’s stomach churned, twisting around on itself. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything, maybe he should’ve just let it lie, maybe he’d just made a mistake so monumental it would change his life forever-

“You knew,” Bruce said hoarsely, turning to look at Dick with searching eyes. 

Dick stared back. He tried to say Yes. He tried to say Yeah, I’ve known for months, and I’ve never been so scared of anything else in my whole life. He tried to nod. He tried to open his mouth to deny it. He couldn’t move.

Bruce’s gaze was pinning him. Dick’s heart thundered against his ribcage. Bruce was looking at him, and his tongue wouldn’t budge, and this was- this was too important to-

Dick took a few staggering steps back and fled the study. He raced down hallways, beelined for the staircase, and sprinted upstairs. 

“Dick!” Bruce’s booming voice called after him. “Where are you-”

Dick kept running, and banged open the door to Bruce’s bedroom with his palms. He skidded to a stop and collapsed in a heap in front of the nightstand, next to the bed. He reached up with two hands and clutched the stack of legal documents. 

He stared down at the papers. Eyes wide, scouring them. These were the papers he had avoided for months. The ones that had made his heart flutter and jump like it wanted to escape his chest. They said a lot of things. He didn’t understand most of it. But he did see his name, and Bruce’s.

“Dickie,” Bruce’s voice came from the doorway. Dick didn’t look up from the papers.

“I,” Dick began, the words dying on his tongue. “I…

Bruce was kneeling down next to him, then, and laying a hand on his shoulder. “The papers,” he said neutrally.

Dick squeezed them in his fingers. “Sorry, B,” he whispered. “Batman’s supposed to be able to trust Robin, huh? What a lousy job I’ve been doing.”

“Dick?”

“I…I just…I saw them a while ago. By accident! And I got real scared and didn’t talk about it ever.”

Bruce’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “Scared?”

Dick sniffed. “You kept tryin’ to talk to me about it and I...I kept running away. Robin’s not supposed to be scared of anything, Bruce. But I was. I was scared. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Bruce said. He exhaled, following Dick’s line of sight down to their two names. “I was scared too.”

“Ha. Batman, scared?”

“It is not uncommon.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it, B.”

“Hm.” Bruce gently took the stack of papers from Dick’s hands. “May I ask. Why they scared you?”

Dick shrugged, squirming a bit. “I dunno. It’s so…big. I didn’t know if- I mean- my parents…” Dick swallowed. “I didn’t want to- feel like I was leaving them behind. And I just didn’t know if I believed that you really were asking me that.”

Bruce, who had been solemnly nodding along, frowned at that last statement. “If I was…really asking you?”

Dick buried his face in his hands. It had been one thing voicing these thoughts to Clark; it felt like quite another actually saying them to Bruce’s face. “You know,” he mumbled miserably. “I didn’t think you really wanted me to be…yours. Like that. I thought maybe you’d just ask me because you thought you were supposed to. Because you thought you had to.”

Bruce’s arm was around him. The papers were set on the floor. “Dick,” Bruce said, his voice deep and rock-hard and so very Batmanish. “That wasn’t why I decided to ask you.”

“You haven’t asked me anything yet.”

“Mm. I suppose that’s true.” Bruce breathed evenly. Dick spread his fingers apart to peak at Bruce’s face. It was pensive. 

“Dick. I’ve kept these for so long, because…well, there hasn’t been a good moment. But I didn’t want to push it. Your parents will always be your parents. I didn’t want to overstep.”

Dick’s hands fell to his lap. He watched Bruce with wide eyes. 

“It’s been three years. We’ve proven excellent partners- in the field. I wasn’t certain, if being my…my...”

Dick held his breath. “B?”

Bruce seemed to make a visible attempt to compose himself. “I wasn’t certain if being my son was something you wanted as well.”

Oh.

(Kásko san tu?)

(It was strange. Dick hadn’t been anyone’s son since he was eight.)

“Your son,” Dick hiccuped, laying his forehead on Bruce’s chest. “Your son.”

Bruce laid a careful hand on the back of Dick’s neck. “You don’t have to say yes.”

“You wanted me to be your son,” Dick whispered thickly. He took a deep, shuddering breath in. “I think I’d like that, B. I think I’d like that.”

Bruce wrapped two arms around him, and Dick melted into his chest. 

“When I ran I thought you’d take them back,” Dick said, choking on tears. “I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

Bruce did nothing but hold him tight. “Never.”

“Promise?”

“Promise, chum.”

“‘Kay. I believe you.”

Bruce took a breath in. “I keep making you cry,” he lamented hesitantly. 

Dick laughed a wet laugh. “Not your fault, Bruce. Jus’ me. I…” he swallowed. “You really mean it? You’d really…” The A-word hung heavy on his tongue. He said it very quietly. “Adopt me?”

“Yes,” Bruce said.

“You really want to adopt me? As your son? Just…just me, Dick, not Robin?” Dick didn’t mind if he sounded pitiful. He wanted the assurance.

“Yes,” Bruce whispered. “Robin doesn’t even enter this equation, Dickie. This is…you and me.”

Bruce and Dick. Not Batman and Robin. It felt weird. It felt…nice.

“Well,” Dick mumbled into Bruce’s collarbone. “I accept your generous offer, Mr. Wayne.”

And Bruce laughed his rumbly laugh, and everything was okay.

“I talked to Uncle Clark about it,” Dick murmured, after they had sat on the floor together for a while. “He said…he said I could keep the Grayson. If I wanted.”

“Yes.”

“And I…I do want that, B. I’m a Grayson, forever, whatever else gets added on.”

Bruce nodded. “There are ways, Dick. We can talk about it. We’ll do whatever you want.”

“That’s good.” He hiccupped. “I…think they would’ve liked you, Bruce. You know that?”

Bruce was quiet. “No,” he said. “But I am honored.”

“Yeah,” Dick mumbled. “They would have liked you a lot.”

Na dara! His mother was saying in his head. Volisar! Volisar! Volisar!

Don’t be afraid. Love! Love! Love!

***

Dick’s father used to sing him songs. He would sing dikhav la shukarya raklya - I see the beautiful girl. He would always sing that line while looking at Dick’s mother. Dick couldn’t remember the melody anymore.

Dick had nothing left of his parents but his eyes, his skin and his name, except that wasn’t really true. They were always with him. Even as he grew up and had none of their things and forgot what their voices sounded like. Even when the memories faded, the love was still there. It was always humming just beneath his skin, growing with him, shaping him. His Mama and Tati loved him and that was one thing Dick would never forget.

They were gone now, and it hurt so much Dick sometimes thought he would never breathe again, but now there was Bruce to lean against when it was too much. Now there was Robin, to make sure no other kids had to grow up without parents. Now he could breathe, sometimes.

Dick’s mother would always say ‘kon ródel, arakhel.’ He who seeks, finds. Dick had lost his family in the blink of an eye, and gained a new one almost as quickly. He knew now that his parents would be happy he found Bruce. Isn’t that what every parent wants? For their kids to be taken care of by someone who loves them? There was no division of Dick’s love. It only multiplied.

***

“Dick?” Bruce asked solemnly, waiting with his hands in his coat pockets. “Are you ready?”

Ándo báro wêrsh me zhav kána phúrdel e balval. Me akharav núma tu chi aves. Beshav me akana kai le chirikle chi gilaban. Kothe me beshav kai rovav.

Me akharav núma tu chi aves.

(I call you, but you do not come.)

(Dick had called and no one had come.)

He clenched his ticket between sweaty fingers. Dick’s breath made foggy swirls in front of his face; his feet were rooted to the ground. He needed to go inside. He couldn’t. He had to.

“Dick?” Bruce prodded.

Dick was an orphan. His parents were dead. He still had family walking the earth, though. It was time to call for them.

Dick pressed a hand against his fluttering heartbeat. He didn’t know if they would be here. If anyone at all would be. He had to try, just in case.

“Not really,” he whispered. “But…let’s go inside anyway.”

Kirkfeld’s Circus, One Week Only.

***

Me sim sar tu, lulug í yo. Dur katar e z é leni mal, merav. (I am like you, oh flower. Far from the green field I die.)

He was Dikhel and Dick. A Grayson and, just maybe, a Wayne as well.

He was Robin, the slipperiest boy in the world. And he was loved.