Work Text:
When Dick was young, his parents fell while performing in the circus. Right after that he was taken from the circus to be placed in juvie.
It was loud and people kept making fun of him and screaming whenever he didn't go along with whatever type of bullying they wanted. The night marking the first week of his parents death, something changed.
×××××
Dick wakes up comfortably and immediately notices that something is off. The juvie he's stuck in doesn't have comfortable beds. When he complained, they said that they didn't have money to buy better ones. Dick knows that they lied. But that also means that he knows that they would never give him specifically a better bed.
Throwing his eyes open, Dick scrambles to sit upright. This isn't juvie. The room has space for four of his rooms to fit into it and there's even a door to a bathroom. If that wasn't enough, the whole room is made of old, and fancy looking furniture and big black drapes over the sides of his bed, and giant windows.
Decidedly freaked out, Dick decides that he's been kidnapped and that he has to escape. He slides out of the bed and runs to the door. A big double door that could fit his parents standing on top of each other. There is burning in his eyes, but now is not the time.
The door is heavy, but not enough to be a problem, and makes him realize that he's in a sleep dress rather than his t-shirt and shorts. A shiver runs through his body, but he starts walking. He can think about this later. The first thing he notices is that the hallway is gigantic and there are lots of fancy windows with fancy cravings.
He's been kidnapped by a rich person. That doesn't matter. Except that maybe he'll never escape.
He doesn't even get to the end of the hallway before a voice asks, "Master Richard?"
Freezing, he slowly turns back. Behind him is an old man wearing a very fancy suit with brooches and weird fabric. At this point he has to wonder if there's anything that isn't fancy in this building. Or castle. Maybe he's in a rich people castle.
"Master Richard," The man repeats, "It's unbecoming to walk around in your nightwear."
All he can think about is saying, "Dick."
The man blinks. "Pardon me?"
"My name," He clarifies. "It's Dick."
The man takes a moment, then sounds almost apologetic when he says, "I'm afraid that it doesn't do for a butler to call a prince by anything other than his titled name."
Now it's Dicks turn to blink, because- "You're a butler?"
He gapes. He didn't know that butlers were real! He was so sure that they were like princesses in fairy tales.
Now the man, the butler, frowns in concern. "Yes. I introduced myself as such when we met. Are you feeling alright Master Richard?"
Dick has to be dreaming. That's the only way that any of this makes sense. But he doesn't feel like he's dreaming, so instead he asks, "Why do you call me 'Master'?"
The butler nods his head and slowly walks over to him. "It's common courtesy to address the members of the household that one is serving by the title. Of course, for anyone below the post of personal attendant, the correct title is either highness or prince."
"Prince," Dick squeaks. Why is his dream making him a prince?!
When the butler reaches him, he slowly places a hand on his shoulder. "How about you go change and ask any questions that you may have while having breakfast?"
His head being filled with nothing but confusion, the only thing Dick can do is nod.
During his weird dream he meets Bruce, the King of Gotham, and his new adoptive father. (Fuck juvie for having him dream of replacing his parents.) The butler is named Alfred and for some reason they're just as confused by him as he is by them. After a few hours of exploring, Dick becomes tired and asks Alfred to go back to his room and sleep. The butler agrees and Dick is out like a light.
When he wakes up, he's back in juvie.
×××××
A few months later, he has that weird dream again. This time a few months passed there too, he's been formally named First Prince Richard Wayne Grayson of Gotham, which is a stupidly long name.
He also interacts with a few other servants and guards (he didn't notice them last time) and comes to an easy conclusion. Everyone hates him. Not even for something he did, they just want him gone. Bruce adopting him and Alfred being nice is the only reason that they aren't being mean. It sucks and he's happy when he wakes up in juvie. That's a lie. At least in his dream he could lock himself away in his own room.
A few months later, he dreams of this place again. For some reason, noble people come to visit the castle and he has to stand there to greet them. He does a flip whenever he walks behind a decorative curtain.
One of the adults bumps into him on purpose and he crashes down on a vase. His hand starts bleeding on the shards. While people start to get a bit frantic to get him help, Dick can't stop staring at his hand. It hurts.
Alfred takes him to another room and takes a look at it before he bandages the cut. Dick's head is swimming, unable to understand what's going on. He shouldn't be in pain when he dreams. Imagining pain, yes, but not actual pain. Not this sharp. Dick falls asleep before he gets to a conclusion.
×××××
Time passes again, Dick is ten and dreaming of that place, because as long as he doesn't have proof of otherwise, he's sticking to it all being a dream.
He discovers that the people think that he fell into the vase because he's a troublemaker. People look down on him, and they suck. But Dick has lessons he has to go to, so even though he hates school, he goes and he learns as much as he can. He can't sit still, the teacher looks like she wants to hit him but can't. Dick falls asleep in his third class.
When he dreams three months later he isn't surprised. From what he's seen, his dreams are getting somewhat regular between three to four months. He goes to class and learns for as long as he's awake. The time after, he skips classes and follows Alfred to ask questions.
And when he's back again, things have changed once more. People look at him weird and he doesn't know why. Everything is confusing.
Prince Richard has just turned 11 when he asks Alfred to get him a diary. Dick opens the first page and starts to write. His entire stay is spent writing everything that he knows about this place, what he learned, the people around him and what he did every time he woke up here.
When he wakes up the following time, the diary has been written into. It's his own handwriting. Flabbergasted and a bit afraid, Dick goes through what's been written. It's filled with short notes about what he's learned in classes and in which books he finds information. There are details about the people he interacted with and how they behave around him. Short snippets of conversations that seem important, and things that he liked versus disliked.
It's everything he wanted to do with this diary. But the only weird thing besides not him being the one who wrote it, he wasn't even here?!? is the stilted way it's written. There's no feelings or personality to it. Just notes.
There's knocking on the door and Dick goes to open it. Alfred stands on the other side, where he looks as composed as always with only his eyes flickering in recognition. "Good morning Master Richard."
Dick is pretty sure that he noticed that he's different today. If the book is anything to go by, the person who's here while he isn't dreaming isn't anything like him. They go through Dicks morning routine as usual. At the last moment, he takes his diary with him and writes down the most important things of his day.
He is awake for an hour longer than before.
×××××
Prince Richard is 16 years old, when he gets thrown out of the house. Not actually, turns out being royalty makes that kind of thing a political issue, but he gets sent away.
At this point, Dick dreams of Gotham about once a month. When he wakes up to the announcement, he throws the biggest tantrum any of them have ever seen from him. Dick screams and throws pens and stops towards Bruce, because how dare he. He's the one who adopted him. He's the one who made him into a show pony prince to be seen and never heard, not even to have casual conversations with. So how is it fair that he throws him out for what he told him to be?
Bruce argues that he's just going to a school to meet with peers, but they both know that's a lie. Dick isn't useful and the two argue every time he's in the body. Well, fuck him. Dick goes to the academy.
On the plus side, he spends the first day (the one day of the month he's supposed to be at the castle) making new friends. He immediately hits it off with Wally, Donna is awesome, Roy is as disgruntled about being there as he is, and Garth is both the most serene and chaotic person he's ever met. It's awesome.
When he gets tired in the evening, he tells them that most of the time he's different and that he only gets like he is about once a month. Dick falls asleep writing into his diary, but he forgot to read the previous entries.
The next time, he goes along with his friends being confused about his personality shift but they're vibing. They comment about how much touchier he is.
"You have an actual personality," Roy marvels. Donna elbows him in the guts for it.
Dick has fun with his friends and is relieved to discover that he can remember most of the school material after reading it once. He pointedly ignores that it's probably the other him that already learned it.
He finally reads the diary and pointedly skips the part that reads about having had a witch scan him before he was sent away from Gotham, and how she said that his soul wasn't tethered like it should.
Things are good. He writes Alfred whenever he's over, has friends, learns a lot about the world (and is confused when supernatural comes into play. Why does it matter that Dick doesn't know swordsmanship? Why is elemental magic a thing? Who the heck made shape shifters a thing? And most importantly, why didn't anyone tell him that he has wind powers???)
×××××
Dick Grayson is 18 years old, freshly kicked out in the mockery that is his foster care system, working three jobs a week to keep himself afloat.
Prince Richard is 18 years old, owns the city dukedom of Blüdhaven, is seen as crazy or possessed by most people and he hasn't spoken to his adopted father in two years.
That's when he learns that Bruce has freshly adopted a second boy.
Dick goes back to Gotham and demands an explanation as to why he had to discover that through his friends. Why was there nothing sent to tell him? All Bruce has to say is that he's never in Gotham. An accusation. Like it's his fault that he isn't allowed back without permission of the king. Like he isn't about to be taken out of the castle whether he wants to or not. A violent burst of wind throws the office in disarray. Dick storms out and barely gets a glimpse of the new boy.
For once he's relieved to be back in his shitty studio apartment.
It takes him about two other trips to decide that ignoring the kid his father adopted isn't fair and that he should probably make a move towards his new part-time little brother. So he writes his first letter to Prince Jason Peter Wayne.
Dick Grayson is 18 years old when he discovers that he's terminally ill.
×××××
All things considered, this new illness is confusing and no expert that he can afford has any idea what's going on. The only thing pointing towards the terminal diagnosis is that his body is shutting down.
Not even in a very obvious way, but slowly the functions are becoming less and less efficient until one day it won't be working enough to keep him alive. It sucks.
After crying, Dick decides that it's a sign and quits one of his jobs to become a gymnastics teacher for kids. Because if he's not going to live for more than ten years anyway, then he's going to at least have fun with it.
(And maybe he takes comfort in the fact that his other body won't be crippled like that in the meanwhile.)