Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He's made the foolish, foolish mistake of thinking other people are like him, hasn't he? But he can't quite be blamed for that when the context is so similar.

The parallels make themselves— a kid barely out of 2nd grade sees his parents killed and wants revenge, with only scraps of the life he used to live in hand; a high flyer with a wide smile and bright eyes, with clever ideas and energy beyond containment, retreats into himself; a father that isn't his takes him in before he ever really gets the chance to agree to the adoption. All of that is the same.

Bruce, sue him, expected never to see that bright smile again. He expected Dick to stop standing on his toes like he was ready to take flight at any moment. He had nothing to fly for now. He expected that the little giggle he'd heard coming from the rafters of Haly's Circus would be silenced for good, because that was a giggle that came from John's teasing.

He expected wrong. Dick Grayson is nothing like Bruce Wayne, not really. Or Alfred. Or John and Mary, truth be told.

The few occasions Bruce had met John and Mary made the contrast obvious. John and Mary (from what Bruce knew, given their acquaintance consisted of convenient run-ins in spots frequented only by circuses and assassins), were quieter people. They were built for the stage, but in a different way. The performers took their masks off when they touched solid ground. They didn't make the world their stage the way their son did. Dick was part Haly's as much as he was part John or part Mary.

And that was something different about Dick. Bruce couldn't put that mask on. John and Mary were supposed to be the ones to teach him to take it off. They were the ones he'd met in Krakow eight years ago, John asking him quietly about real estate in the States while Mary fretted about not taking to the ropes that night ("Morning sickness.")

And what was Bruce supposed to say to ease John's fears, when Bruce knew no other way of living that perform-perform-perform? ("I don't want him to grow used to the road, not at the beginning. He deserves a place he can come back to again and again. We've never had that; but he won't know that life.")

Every time Haly's was in town, or he was near Haly's, or the universe collided just so and they were nearby, Bruce pretended he didn't see the wide-eyed toddler in the stands, held by a clown, or a ringmaster, or a magician, or a fire-breather. He didn't look at the little boy looking in awe at his parents.

Bruce never said anything, but just before the end, John had taken him aside and thanked him for that conversation eight years ago, said that if Bruce needed anything ("Not that I'd know what you'd need that I could give you!") he'd need only to call. Thirty minutes later, Bruce found that he'd never have the chance to pick up the phone.

In a way, Bruce supposes now, John gave him the only thing he needed.

But how could Dick, their child, laugh again? How, when even the one-off meetings that made Bruce happy are gone? How could someone live through the loss of such excellent people with such a constant presence, and still laugh?

He just doesn't understand it.

"Master Bruce."

Bruce looks up from the budgets and charts scattered across his desk. "Yes, Alfred?"

"Master Richard would like to see you." Alfred gives him a look, the one that promises he'll heavily judge Bruce, unless he corrects himself at once. "If you can find the time."

He could do with a break. This is going nowhere, and he isn't going to punch his way into the black. "I'll go see him now."

He follows Alfred into the living room, not that he needs the guide. The loud sounds of Dick's laughter serve as direction enough.

He can't obviously see the kid in the living room. Which means he's in the chandelier. "Dick…"

And he's met with a smattering of high-pitched laughter and a head of dark curls hanging upside down from the chandelier. The kid gives him a wave before miming a sign with his hands.

"Not talking yet?"

"Not a word, Master Bruce."

"Alright." Bruce has no time to sign yes before Dick flips off the chandelier and straight towards Bruce.

Bruce is happy to catch him, but they'll have to talk about not doing a quadruple straight into his solar plexus. Or a triple. Or anything with too much momentum and too little kevlar.

He wouldn't have minded though. Not when he had an armful of smiling kid as a result. Dick was a veritable octopus about it, finding all the strangest ways to get his limbs around Bruce and not let go. Or maybe a jellyfish, given his habit of nuzzling his head into Bruce's neck when he did this.

How does this kid fit so much emotion in such a small space? Bruce could never bear it. It would crush him to have so much.

Maybe that's how Dick does it. He pushes it all out so it never builds up within.

It just impresses Bruce, how much the kid can say without saying a word. Another drop of similarity in an ocean of difference: Dick makes just as many inconsequential sounds as Bruce, maybe more, but he translates them perfectly. The sounds have range. They mean clear things, not just frustrated contemplation.

The kid's like a bird. Like a very energetic, very angry, very intense bird. He likes being up high. He walks on his toes and perches on the edges of every surface he sits on. He never says a word, but his laughter fills the whole house. When he's not laughing, he's barely there. He could make his way around the Manor on sound and touch alone. Dick Grayson, in truth, doesn't need his eyes to be so talented. (But Bruce thinks he looks, sometimes, like he has a little bird's eyes— a bit too dark and a touch too big and far, far too sweet.)

More than once, Bruce has seen him almost falling off a counter, shoulders angled and hands pressed perpendicular to the counter edge, the balls of his feet pressed to the cabinet beneath it, like he's ready to take flight at the slightest provocation. Freedom. He wants to fly. Bruce understands.

Dick taps Bruce's back once before he pulls back in his hold. Bruce is reminded even more of the way the kid looks like a bird when Dick tilts his head and stares at his face for a minute.

And he feels Dick tapping at random points on his back with half-muttered sounds out of his mouth to match. It takes him a moment to realize the sounds are numbers. He's counting. He's counting in about six different languages.

"How many languages are those, chum?"

Dick pauses, frowning like Bruce has deeply bothered him by breaking his concentration. Finally, he holds up seven fingers. He's eight. That's almost one language for each year he's been alive.

"Which languages?"

Dick taps Bruce's mouth, meaning English, then his own mouth, which (given what Bruce knows of John and Mary) probably means he knows a Roma dialect. He waves his fingers next—signing. The others he shrugs about. He has no words for them.

"Which one's your favorite?"

Dick's brow furrows in that 'you made me lose my focus, Bruce!' way he likes to do, but then he breaks into a gap-toothed smile that Bruce has no right to see. He puts his thumbs and index fingers into a diamond shape with the point facing Bruce open, before he breaks them apart and away from each other.

Sign language it is.

Bruce pokes him in the belly. Dick lets out an absolute litany of giggles—birdsong.

Chapter Text

He has, of course, prepared a complicated enough setup that the Bat will be at least slowed down before he reaches the meat of the operation. The riddle should buy his men enough to move a substantial amount of the cargo to a place where it's no longer their responsibility. With any luck at all, he'll get off with a "we did what we could, but this is Batman we're talking about. If anything, we saved you product."

He looks at his watch and motions for his men to move out. The cargo is in their hands, and their only job is to move it as swiftly as possible. If someone has an issue with that, well, they shouldn't have routed narcotics through Gotham.

Maybe it's his penchant for making up creative new riddles that tunes him into his environment, or maybe it's just the stress of being on high-alert, but he swears he hears someone breathing in the emptying warehouse. And that wouldn't be odd, but riddle him this, what kind of person could breathe unlabored while hauling crates bigger than his head?

And then—

Then it changes. And his men need to move, because that's not a breath; that's a giggle. That's a child. And only one child laughs like that.

It's a school night. That brat should be in bed! He even checked the testing schedules— that kid should be studying algebra!

He motions for his men to hurry it up even more. The plan hinged on the Bat being alone. He'd have to solve the riddle, but if he had someone who could move on ahead—which he wasn't supposed to have—then it was all for nothing. He's just handed over everything, and his men are going to get slapped with charges.

He dares look up. And sure enough, balancing on the support beam is the little bird that haunts Gotham's underbelly. He's strolling along, on top of the world, balancing on one foot and swinging the other out, then back in.

"Haha!"

His men need to move it! Faster, faster!

"Hahaha!"

He can feel the bird boy's eyes on him. He doesn't need to see the yellow of the kid's cape to know he's staring. That child is unnerving.

He turns anyway. Buys his men some more time. "Robin."

Robin is flipped upside down over a railing, yellow cape fluttering back and forth behind his head. He wiggles his fingers at Eddie.

Hi, Riddler.

Robin wiggles his fingers and stares. Is that kid human? He's got those huge eyes that are dark despite being blue, and they look too…owlish.

But owls have talons. Robins only have songs.

But if he keeps the bird boy engaged…

"Riddle me this—" He just has to ask a riddle that Robin can answer without speaking. That's all. His men are almost done in here anyway.

"I love to perch and watch from above.

I sing sweet melodies that people love.

What am I?"

Robin gives him a smile. It's a cute smile. Half his teeth are missing and the other half are in varying stages of growing in. A normal kid would've celebrated with a couple bucks under their pillow.

Robin celebrates with seizing a couple tons of drugs.

The boy points at Eddie and taps his thumb to his pointer once, twice, three times. Peep-peep-peep. Just like a little bird. Then, the kid points at himself. It's a Robin.

"Correct." The boy smiles, and Eddie is unnerved. More than he already was. He can feel the little shift in the boy's posture. The way he's preparing to pounce.

Robins don't have any natural defenses. The run and hide and make more robins in the hopes that the others will be killed instead of them. They are tiny and fast and they chatter on and on and on. Every morning, the entire dang Eastern Seaboard wakes up to little robins chit-chatting away about nests and chicks and food, and every morning, he's reminded of the kid Batman decided to drag along with him to fight crime.

The kid flips back over the railing, back onto the ledge, and if he wasn't staring at the kid already, Eddie couldn't have told a soul where he went. The yellow vanishes into the shadows. It's all the warning he gets. The Bat is coming.

"Clear out!" They've got their product. Now they need to go.

Glass rains down, and something far more sinister than a songbird drops with it.

"Hee hee!"

Does he think this is a comedy special? Someone could die and that boy would be off his rocker with laughing.

But Eddie doesn't have time to think about that. The Bat is moving towards him fast. And then it's a fistfight. No time to birdwatch when he's getting mugged.

It's a mistake. He pulls back from the Bat for air, smears the blood away from his mouth and ignores the pain throbbing out from what was the bridge of his nose.

The room is empty, littered in broken glass. The wind brushes it to and fro, the noises an irritating accompaniment to the cacophony of chirps and coos the little bird is making from the corner.

Not the corner. No, not the corner, he's gone. Where's the bird?

"Haha!"

One walkway up, there's a little bird in yellow, hands tucked by his ankles, grip reversed on the railing. Ready and willing to flip through the gap and use the railing like half a set of parallel bars. Those eyes are practically black in this light. The kid tips his head to the side while he looks at Eddie.

And then he smiles, and Eddie is going to hate mornings for the rest of his surely short life. Unsettling? This kid is insane! That's not a cute kid smile, or an 'I got the right answer' smile! That's a 'I'm going to eviscerate you' smile. That kid has a far worse bite than bark.

He notices it a second too late. The bird carries blades.

And Robin laughs when he lunges.

Chapter Text

Stupid Batman. Even her dad would let her go out for this. It's just a robbery! And it's not like she'd have to fight anyone. She could just…observe from a distance. Find a nice rooftop or something.

But no, Barbara has to be on research duty. Because a couple of smashed windows and some stolen jewels are just too much for her young eyes. Won't someone think of the youth!

At least Robin is benched with her. He makes good company—quiet company, but Barbara doesn't need a lot of chatter. The Cave feels a little more open when he's around, even if he's just doing homework.

"Batman is being a total square, you know that, right?" she asks.

Dick snorts from somewhere behind her. "Sure do." Ding!

PM - User R_01 (aka "Boy LOSER")

Boy LOSER: "He does that."

Boy LOSER: "Don't take it personal."

Boy LOSER: "Probably wants to see how much you can find about the case before getting into the fray."

Boy LOSER: "Cuz if he turns someone over to the cops, he has to have an idea of the charges. In case WE needs to cover the legal bills."

Barbara grumbles. "I'll show him charges…"

She's not using the Batcomputer. She's using her computer—the one Dad made her get when he found out she was working with the Batman. The one she's not allowed to use for anything else, and therefore the one that she and Dick have spent months souping up. This thing could make a satellite book a dinner reservation. It holds a three-day-long charge, is as durable as the Nokia Mr. Pennyworth still uses, and is neon pink because she insisted. If she's going to have a Crimes Laptop, it better be pretty.

She is not using any of the fancy tools on it. Out of spite. And because she has her own fancy tools she intends to build onto her Crimes Laptop.

"Hey, check this out."

Dick scoots over and shoves his chin onto the armrest of her rolling chair. Weirdo. "Hm?"

She switches tabs to show Dick a report about a burglary in the Narrows, then in Robbinsville, then another in the Diamond District. "A pawn shop,"—air quotes very intentional— "A seafood restaurant, and a jewelry store. All broken into in the past two weeks. Stole different stuff every time."

"Like?" Dick asks.

Barbara switches tabs again, this time to a spreadsheet answering this exact question. "Watches. Silverware. And diamonds, duh."

"Ha-ha, very funny." Dick rolls his eyes. Then he motions to her laptop, which she tilts his way. They've done this way too many times—Barbara isn't well-versed enough in sign language, much less when that sign language usually translates to "On DD MM YYYY, 01:23, B & R investigated Warehouse ABC at the corner of Somewhere Street and Whichway Way. Upon entry, B & R found two (2) men bound with rope in the center of the room. No other hostages. Kidnapper unknown. No explosives."

So Dick just uses her sticky notes app to write out his message instead.

"Pawn shop my eye. Can you put that down under human trafficking rings? Cuz B has been tracking them for a while, but he hasn't been able to get any names to go after. The restaurant…maybe illicit goods smuggling? But Superman always checks for natural materials when he flies over, and he hasn't said anything yet.

"Well, maybe they aren't smuggling natural components."

"What I mean is, not meth or something."

"That is not how meth works."

Dick gives her a look and huffs out a laugh under his breath. Grumbly.

"You know what I mean! Not drugs or people, or anything that breathes."

"Superman wouldn't see jewelry or money, yeah? Well, money, maybe, since it's made of linen, but you get what I mean."

"That makes one of us."

Now it's Barbara's turn to roll her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Boy Bummer. And the jewelry store?"

"Probably just Catwoman."

"No way. That's too easy. Look, Catwoman doesn't just steal jewels for the sake of stealing jewels. She usually has a reason."

"So does every kleptomaniac."

"Yeah," Barbara says, twisting a lock of hair around her finger while she thinks. "But Catwoman is Catwoman. She has reasons. Good reasons—like when she found out that one guy was a creep and got to his documents by pretending she was robbing…him…"

Dick's eyes go wide, and he starts laughing to himself. Barbara thinks she knows where this is going. He stands and goes to the whiteboard Alfred uses when he thinks they're doing too much crime fighting and not enough sentence diagramming.

"I think," he says, "that the pawn shop…is in the Narrows. Which has a high enough robbery rate that the owner would not be surprised to find he was robbed. And the seafood restaurant has reason to have people at the docks, and has reason to be shipping containers in and out. And that's where the diamonds would need to come in."

"And the jewelry store?" Barbara asks. But she thinks she knows the answer. It's flashing on her screen. Two new Gotham Gazette articles.

Narrows jeweler outed for selling twelve thousand dollars worth of forgeries.

Restaurant owner arrested for aiding in human trafficking scheme.

"I have a theory," Dick says. Barbara nods and lets him talk. He doesn't do it that much.

He turns to the whiteboard again and writes 'PAWN BROKER, RESTAURANT, JEWELRY STORE' in a triangle. Barbara spins in her chair and watches him draw lines between the three and mutter to himself—occasionally interspersed with tiny huffs of laughter.

Is this what getting high looks like? Should she get the Narcan?

"Okay," Dick says, "I think…the jeweler had the restaurant manage his shipments of diamonds. Then the jeweler sold the real diamonds under the table to the pawn broker, who used them to bring in clients, but specifically women who can't afford a jeweler. The pawn broker kidnapped the women for the seafood restaurant in exchange for the restaurant controlling jewelry transport."

Barbara keeps twirling her hair. "A triangle. Closed loop. The restaurant controls the port. The jeweler manages the money. The broker secures the goods."

"But what about the forgeries? They needed something, but a pawn broker buying the entire contents of a jewelry stores raises red flags…why not mix real diamonds in with fakes?"

"Money laundering, duh." Barbara can see how that would fit.

"But you know who would know those were fakes?" Dick asks, bouncing on his toes and grinning. Man, she's never heard him say so many words so fast.

Barbara mimics his smile. "Catwoman."

Dick paces the length of the board. "Right! And she'd want to know why!"

"So she'd go to Batman…" Barbara adds, and Dick, partner in crime and persistent annoyance, picks it up without fail.

"…who'd find out that they were trafficking women and children…"

Barbara scratches down a note about sticking it to Bruce later. "…and keep Robin and Batgirl off the case as a result!"

"Yes!"

Barbara smiles and laughs herself. This is how they work—they pick up each other's pieces. He's so annoying. She can't stand him. But he's got her back, and she's got his. But when he talks, he's got it, and that means she's got to put her part together. And when she starts typing, he knows it's time to crack down and start sifting through public records. When she's picking locks, he's watching her back, and when he's swinging them across the city's skyscrapers, she's the one making sure nobody's gearing up to shoot them out of the sky.

They've got this. They've definitely got this. She can tell by the amount of pings she's getting from Dick.

Channel #1 - Active Investigations (Weekly)

R_01: "B. B. B. Look at this. [Attachment]."

BG_04: "You should look at the company shipping the jewels. Affiliates have a huge interest in drug profits."

B_00: "Yes, the jeweler is a problem. We're running out of time tonight. We won't be able to go after all three."

R_01: "The restaurant. Go for the restaurant. The owner already got arrested."

R_01: "And you need to cut off their ability to ship across the sea."

R_01: "If you do it right, you might be able to catch the traffickers while they're transporting people to the docks."

BG_04: "Seconded."

B_00: "We'll look into it. Stay online, put your analysis together."

R_01: "Keep us posted."

BG_04: "Restaurant is bugged to high heaven, by the way."

BG_04: "Try not to tip off the DEA."

B_00: "Batgirl. How do you know that?"

BG_04: " :) "

Dick raises an eyebrow. She stares back at her computer screen.

"I just know," she says.

Dick snorts into his hot chocolate.

Boy LOSER: "He's going to kill you."

"Oh, no. I'm so scared. Surely, Batman will turn on me, a teenage girl, with malice and cruelty," Barbara says, flat as Kansas.

Boy LOSER: "Or the President. That too."

Barbara spins in her chair. "I could fight the President."

Dick laughs. "Uh-huh."

"I could. He'd probably offer me a job. I could be a valuable asset."

Boy LOSER: "Yeah, except that you regularly threaten national security all the time."

"Which is why he'd wanna hire me, Dick. Keep my out of his hair."

Boy LOSER: "You're gonna get us all killed."

"Yeah." Barbara looks at him. "For the nation."

Dick's shoulders twitch.

"Is everything well, Miss Gordon?" It's getting late-late if Alfred is calling after them. Wonder where Bruce is.

"Oh, yeah."

"No violence, I hope."

Barbara gives Dick a huge smile when she calls up. "Sorry, Mr. Pennyworth! It's my civic duty to murder him."

Dick laughs so hard he nearly destroys his laptop with the mess of his hot chocolate.

Chapter Text

He can hardly believe it. The boy is graduating. Alfred wasn't convinced Bruce would make it this far—figured he'd be swallowed by his grief or found dead on the streets—much less that Richard would make it to adulthood, but here he is. And valedictorian to boot.

"You must be quite excited."

Richard briefly glances at him in the mirror, lets out a cross between a laugh and a sigh, and returns his gaze to his speech. "Yeah," he mumbles.

Alfred drags a comb from the vanity and begins dragging it through the boy's unruly hair. "You'll be quite alright, Master Richard."

The boy glances back at him again, catching his eyes just a bit longer than before, and nods. "I know."

Alfred goes back to fixing the boy's hair. Richard has never spoken much—three words is more than he said in the first six months he lived at the Manor. There was a time where three words were a miracle—something only achieved when Richard was Robin, or Mister Kent was on TV.

Now, it's quite commonplace. Now, he's giving an entire speech. Doctors said that was almost certainly impossible— a combination of damage to Broca's area, development verbal dyspraxia, and the consequences of a traumatic life. A medical miracle.

"Is your speech ready?"

Richard thumbs the corner of the pages in his hands. They're worn beyond belief. "Yeah. It's good."

"Has Master Bruce screened the jokes?"

Richard glares at him through the mirror and snorts. "Bruce wouldn't know a good joke if it slapped him in the face with a fish."

Richard has always been a fan of a particularly evocative kind of imagery…

"I will not object to that. Has Miss Gordon screened the jokes?"

"Nah, she wrote them." Richard stops flicking the corner of his speech.

Better Miss Gordon's intentionally bad puns than Richard's exceptionally detailed metaphors for a valedictorian's speech. Oh, dear.

Alfred puts the comb away. "We'll all be in for a treat, no doubt. Are you ready to go?"

Richard takes a deep breath and lets out a shaky little laugh. "I think so. Thanks, Alfie."

"You'd best go see Master Bruce before we go. He'll want to see you in the suit before you put the robes on."

A small divot appears between Richard's brows, but it vanishes faster than it appeared. The only indication it was ever there are Richard's careful, measured chuckle, and his choice to cast his eyes briefly to the window. "Yeah, okay."

Alfred tidies the room a touch more. It gives Richard some time of his own in the hall.

Alfred has raised one stubborn orphan to adulthood. He is watching someone else raise another. He knows where this is going. Richard's "gap year" is a smokescreen for his plans with a few other vigilantes. He's growing up—and he's going to make his own way. Bruce has never been ready to admit that.

Alfred does not know what goes on beneath the Manor after the car has left the Cave. When needed, he travels downstairs to assist with communication and research while Batman and Robin are on the ground. Lately, Miss Gordon has begun taking over more and more of that role, and Alfred has only come down to clean when Bruce and Richard are away at work and school.

Alfred comes down when asked and minds his business above. He's not the sort of person who does well with floating about. He must always be preoccupied, and unlike Bruce, his hobbies do not take him to Wayne R&D for high tech gadgets and gizmos. He quite likes seeing the sun.

Alfred does not ask what goes on in the Cave if nobody's bleeding or screaming. Alfred is also aware that Richard has more tension in his shoulders, and that his face has slowly become a careful, careful mask in the past year or so. He can see how Bruce's brows are almost permanently furrowed. Richard has spoken less and less as himself, but more and more as Robin.

Alfred goes out for groceries and hears about "that jokester Robin!" and "sick burn, dude!" and "oh, he's clever too!" and "sharp wits don't usually come with a body like that." Alfred puts on his best disdainful face at such comments. They're entirely inappropriate, even when directed at grown adults.

Richard is tired, and Bruce is frustrated. But Richard is not Bruce. He does not choose to play some sexualized part; he cannot make the choice to be—he is still a boy.

Whatever arguments the father and ward get into, Alfred doesn't know. He sees only the aftermath, and he does not wish to drive more wedges into the relationship. But Richard's reputation—that, Alfred does see. And he knows Bruce does not. Bruce tailors his public and online appearances to the degree that he avoids both as much as possible. He does not hear what Alfred hears at the doctor's, the library, the grocery store, the opera, the bank, the gallery, the park, the schools…

He could go on. He won't. It's enough to make a better man scream. It was enough to make Miss Gordon quietly reduce her time patrolling not so long ago.

Alfred breathes in deep. The boy is graduating. There's no time to ponder the social situation. The boy is graduating— the rest can wait.

He hears Richard laughing as he makes his way back down the hall— polite, practiced, perfect. A rising star with happy affect. Alfred doesn't need to see him to know the mask is firmly in place.

He's exactly what people expect of the Wayne successor. He'll never tell the truth again.

Chapter Text

Many actions are suspicious—entering a house through the window, speaking to a billionaire's son, knowing said billionaire's son well enough that he has dibs on your guest bedroom, and knowing that your fiancée is probably going to jump off a bridge later this week are all very suspicious. Especially for a journalist barely making rent.

But hosting a friend while researching a story? Especially when that friend has connections to police academies across the Eastern seaboard? Not suspicious, not for a journalist.

Which is good, considering said friend is standing on the doorstep drenched in rainwater and clearly bleeding. "Dick. What happened?"

The kid just stares at him, and Clark can almost see the way his thoughts are moving at the speed of molasses. He can definitely see that the kid has a couple bruised ribs and a nasty bruise to his ankle. Did he walk here?

"Come in."

Dick nods and follows Clark in, still polite, still taking his shoes off and placing them near the door despite the wince that comes with the action. Clark spares his pride and goes to put the kettle on. "Lois should be here soon. I'll let her know you're here."

"I can go," Dick croaks, and when Clark turns around, he has one hand frozen next to his shoe, balancing all his weight on his busted ankle. Gosh, he sounds like he's been swallowing knives. Does he have a fever? He needs to sit down.

"No."

"If you're busy, I don't—"

"You're staying. And don't try to ask Lois. She'll be worse than me about making you stay." Dick lets out a thorny little rasp of a scoff, like he thinks Clark is lying. Does he?

He taps out a message on his phone before Dick can protest again. The responding blip rings through the apartment. "She's bringing food, okay? Now sit down and let me look at your ankle."

Dick stares up at him, bleary-eyed and swaying, and Clark wonders what happened to him. He's nineteen and the ward of Bruce Wayne. How'd he get here? How'd Bruce let him? He'd never let his son leave in this state if he knew. Robin, giving Batman the run-around? Not like this.

It takes him a second to get Dick to the couch, mostly because the kid is so hot he burns to the touch, and his normal nimble footing has been replaced by him slumping against Clark's side and having to be physically dragged.

"I'm going to get our first-aid kit, okay?"

Dick gives him a slow nod. "'kayy…don' take…t'long."

What happened to him? Clark debates calling Bruce about the matter, but that will take up more time than he has, and the man's almost certainly been incapacitated to let Dick make his way to Metropolis in this state. He'll call later, when the boy isn't delirious with fever.

He comes back out to the living room with a first-aid kit and a spare sweatshirt, where Dick is little more than a lump settled on top of the couch. Clark helps him out of the drenched zip-up he's wearing and barely manages not to wince as he sees the cuts and bruises all up his arms. All superficial, all clearly from a scuffle of some kind, but…cuts and bruises are cuts and bruises.

"'m cold…" Dick mumbles, head pitching forward into Clark's shoulder while Clark swabs his arms with an antiseptic. Definitely a fever.

"I know, kiddo, I know. I've got clothes for you."

It takes a significant amount of maneuvering to get the hoodie on, but they manage it just as Lois gets back. She sets the food on the counter and joins him in taking a glance at Dick. "Hey, Dick. What's going on?"

Dick doesn't move an inch from Clark's shoulder, clinging and tensing and hot. Too hot.

"Lois, can you check—"

Lois doesn't need to be asked about this. She knows he has a terrible baseline for human temperature. It's supposedly endearing, and apparently saves them money on oven mitts. But it isn't good when people are sick.

She also has a very gentle touch when it comes to sickness. Clark can attest. But the minute she pushes Dick's hair back and presses her knuckles to his forehead, her eyes go wide. Dick can't see this, and Clark is grateful.

"Can you look at Lois, kiddo? She's got medicine to help you out."

Dick does so, abnormally pliant as Lois spoon feeds him a few spoonfuls of a fever reducer and decongestant.

"There you go. We'll take a look at your ankle in a minute, okay? Get you comfortable first," Clark mutters. Dick makes a noise that is every bit a protest.

"Ankle's fiiiine," he slurs out.

Clark's laugh hinges on deliriously freaked out. "No, it's not."

"It's only sprained," Lois says after a thorough inspection of the joint. "We can ice it and set it in no time."

"No ice. T'cold."

"Set it first, get you ice when you're warmer," Lois considers.

Clark assumes Dick dropping his head fully back into his shoulder is meant to be a yes. "Okay, sweetheart. Let's get you on the couch."

Lois disappears to go get blankets and pillows, while Clark begins the slow process of moving Dick into a position he'll be comfortable in. The boy is a koala when he's like this. It takes too long to get him laid out on the couch.

He's so pale. Too pale.

"What happened?" Lois asks when he enters the kitchen, grateful for the plate of takeout she pushes his way. "He's on death's door!"

"I have no idea. He showed up soaked to the bone. He's been in a fight, I think."

"A fight or a pharmaceutical factory? He's burning, Clark." Lois tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear. "He should be at a hospital."

"You know that's not an option."

"We're not all Kryptonian. That's a life-threatening fever."

"And we aren't all the child of Bruce Wayne," Clark whispers. "Or…as prolific, as he is."

Clark agreed not to tell Lois who Robin was. It was a deal he'd struck with Bruce when the superhero gig was getting centralized. Between the League, the Planet, and the more frequent Gotham trips, they'd agreed Lois should know who Batman was. She'd kept Clark's secret, dragged him back from the brink of death more than once, and she just…well, Clark wasn't going to marry her without trusting her. He didn't need Bruce's trust, but he very much wanted to have it. And she needed to know who to call.

Part of the deal with Bruce included keeping Robin out of the picture. That was his kid, and therefore not Clark's to tell.

Lois probably knows. She's no idiot. So for right now, to keep his promise, he's going with prolific. And Dick really is—nobody wants to have "Wayne heir hospitalized with severe contusions" plastered on the front page.

"I know," Lois says. "But don't…if he gets worse, we may have no other choice."

"We could call Bruce."

A strangled sound comes from Dick's direction. Clark steps around the wall to look at him. "What'd you say?"

"No…no Bruce…"

Oh, goodness. What happened? "Okay. No Bruce."

"Your parents?" she asks.

"I could fly Ma in, yeah," he says. "I'd like not to, but I can."

"Let's start with making it through the night. I'd like to know what happened to him first."

Clark nods. "I'll go set his ankle."

Lois gives him a concerned look, but decides to busy herself with washing the dishes instead of commenting.

"Hey, Dick. Gotta set your ankle now, okay?"

"No ice."

"No ice. Just bandages." Perks of X-Ray vision—he can get a pretty precise idea of how bones need to be maneuvered to heal quickly. "How'd you sprain it?"

"Fell," Dick mumbles. He sounds more alert, but he's so very quiet. Clark isn't used to it. Nor is he used to hearing that the ever-nimble Dick Grayson fell. "'s all."

Clark is grateful Lois steps into the room when she does. It gives him a reason to not show Dick just how concerned he is. Lois comes to a rest on the carpet, face roughly level with Dick's.

"That is a lie," she says. It's not an accusation, or a demand, or a gotcha. There's no sarcasm or quip following it. It's just a statement of fact. An observation.

And Dick says he knows that, and he's sorry, and he doesn't know what else they want him to say.

Clark finishes setting his ankle and shifting Dick into a half-sitting position before he answers. "How about the truth?"

Dick is snuggled in nearly every blanket Lois owns, and then some of Clark's. Given that she runs cold and Clark finds unweighted blankets comparable to tissues, it's a significant amount of weight. It's the sort of thing Dick loves. But now he looks like he wants to run.

"You're welcome to leave if someone picks you up," Lois tells him, "But I'm not letting you leave on your own. You're staying the night, minimum."

Dick turns his eyes to Clark, a clear plea for help. Clark shakes his head. "Lady's house, lady's rules."

"We have a secure phone line. We'd be happy to call Alfred, or Bruce if he's off work."

And there's the worst thing Clark's ever seen. The thing he never wants to see again. The thing that is going to haunt his nightmares whether or not he asks.

Dick flinches. Dick flinches hard. Hard enough that he'd have jammed his shoulder into the back of the couch were it not for the blanket mountain.

Contusions. Scrapes. A busted ankle. The fever.

Clark is not going to think about that right now. His first priority is helping Dick.

"Okay," Lois finally says. "No Bruce. How's a movie sound?"

"Dumbo."

"Okay." She repeats the word like she's a broken record. "Okay."

They end up on the couch, watching Dumbo, then Sleeping Beauty, then A New Hope, Dick slumped heavily against Clark's side.

Lois, on account of being human, avoids catching whatever he's got by making up the spare bedroom in the meanwhile. By the time nobody knows which droids they're looking for, she's given him another dose of medicine, plus a slightly stronger decongestant.

"You want to take watch on him, or should I?" he asks.

"I don't think you've got a choice," she tells him, "but I'll join you boys out here anyway. Make it a real sleepover."

"Yeah." Sleepover. Yeah, that's—that's what this is.

She leaves to go get ready for bed just before the medicine kicks in and Dick goes boneless. "Cl'rkkkkk…"

"Dick." He runs his hand up and down Dick's back. "Feeling okay?"

"Mmmmm…guess so…got'n a fight. With Bruuuuuce…"

"I know." Clark barely bites back the smile creeping over his face when Dick starts giggling.

"He—" Uncontrollable fit of giggles. "Y'know, h-h-h-he took—" More giggles. "R'bin."

"He took Robin? What do you mean by that?"

"Hahahaha…haha." Dick's head rolls onto Clark's shoulder. There's nearly no blue left in his eyes. How high is he?

"Lois, love of my life, heart of my heart, light of my anxiety attacks, what did you give this boy?" he mumbles.

"He said…he said I coul—hic—couldn't be R'bin anymore. Cause I got hurt. An'then we had a fight, an'then I left, 'cause he took R'bin, and he di'n need me, an' 'm an adult now."

This is even more bewildering, but Dick carries on. "Buh…buh R'bin's my ma…mama's. Mama said 'm R'bin, not Bruce…n he took it…"

Clark lets Dick snuggle in tighter. He doesn't know what to do. What does he do? He should—he should call Pa. Pa would know what to do.

"Robin?"

Lois is back. How long has she been back? Long enough to hear enough, judging by the look in her eyes. Angry.

Will…will Dick be in trouble now that Lois knows? Surely not, he's an adult. He can make his own decisions, especially given that Lois is someone Bruce trusts with his own identity.

"Noooo," Dick responds, "some other kid now…not fair…haha. Hey, Clark. Clarrrrrk. Clark, your walls are purple."

"What did you give him?" Clark mouths.

Lois holds up a regular strength decongestant. Despite the absolute horrors spilling from Dick's mouth, it's hard not to laugh at how high he is.

"No, they are not," Lois says, hopping onto the armrest of the couch and patting Dick's back.

Dick immediately starts giggling again, absolutely losing it when Lois starts tapping to a rhythm Clark can't quite parse. In another context, it would be deranged, a sure sign of the Joker's presence, but here it's just a kid with a fever, loopy and happy.

By the time Dick falls asleep, Clark's heart is actively breaking. Lois looks ready to kill.

"What is happening in that house?" she hisses.

"I don't know…I haven't seen or heard anything like this before. I don't know what to do."

Lois is blinking back tears, almost certainly of frustration. He can see it even this late. Clark extends a hand. "Hey, c'mere. He'll be alright."

Lois shifts to sit on the ottoman just across from Clark. He takes her hand. "I'm gonna call Pa in the morning," he says. He isn't sure who else could possibly help.

"Sounds like he was kicked out."

"Or he left." Clark runs his thumb against the backs of her knuckles. Lois tightens her grip. Not stress or nerves, but anger, pure hot anger that Clark doesn't think he'll ever understand.

"We'll help him, yeah?" she asks. It's not a question, not really. Even if Clark said no, an event he thinks is impossible, this is Lois's apartment. She can host anyone she likes.

Dick makes a sound in his sleep, a weird, weird mixture of a high-pitched giggle and the beginning of a snore. Lois laughs.

Clark nods and ruffles Dick's hair. This was a forgone conclusion. Clark would let the kid use him as target practice for Kryptonite bullets if he really needed it.

"Honestly, Lois," he mumbles, staring at the ceiling, "I get the sense that if we don't, nobody else will."