Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The city was broken in half.

On one side: spires of white steel and flickering neon, floating railways that purred like lullabies, polished glass that didn’t reflect the dirt beyond the walls. That side was clean. Quiet. Watched.

On the other: rust-choked alleys, leaning buildings blackened by fire and time, and gutters that steamed like infected wounds. The air here was heavier. The people here walked like prey.

Bruce Wayne moved through the filth like he belonged.

A long coat flared around his boots, stained in the same colors as the dust. His face was cloaked by a scarf, beard grown in just enough to disguise his jaw. He passed stands made of scrap and bone, where vendors screamed for coin over rotting meat, rusted tech, and knockoff meds.

He ignored them. His eyes scanned the crowd.

This place was familiar. He hadn’t been here in years—not since his father died. But the underground fighting pit he inherited still thrived beneath the cracked earth of the Old Terminal.

He came to watch. To check in. But that’s not what caught him.

It was a blur.

A kid. Skinny. Fast. Like a whisper caught in motion.

The boy slipped through the bodies like smoke—barefoot, baggy shirt slipping off one shoulder. He darted up beside a vendor wagon and, with the ease of a ghost, lifted two loaves of bread in one motion. No wasted movement. No second glance.

He was gone before the merchant could yell.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed.

He followed.

Through tight alleys and sideways ladders. The boy was fast—but Bruce was patient. He didn’t chase. He observed. The kid wasn’t running for himself. No panic. No desperation. Just determination.

Down a broken stairwell, through a collapsed tunnel. He was deep in the Burn Zone now, the part of the district even the gangs avoided. The scent here was different. Stale water. Rot. Something worse beneath it all, something like death.

Then he stopped.

The boy crouched in front of what looked like a large wooden crate buried in tarp and debris. The thing barely had structure, just four warped walls held together by wire and faith. A nest in the middle of nothing.

Bruce stayed in shadow.

The boy didn’t eat the bread.

He knelt beside the crate. Whispered something.

Then, two hands, small, trembling, reached out. A pale face, smudged with ash, peeked into the light. Another head followed.

They couldn’t be older than six or seven.

The boy tore the bread in half and gave it to them. Not a bite for himself. He just sat beside the box and kept watch, legs crossed, gun hidden at his hip.

That was all Bruce needed to see.

He stepped into the open.

The sound was subtle, just a foot over loose gravel, but the boy heard it.

He spun around instantly, and the gun was up before Bruce could blink.

Rusty revolver. Worn barrel. Steady hands.

The boy’s eyes were sharp blue, unreadable, and fearless.

The kind of eyes that had seen too much too young.

“You followed me,” the boy said.

Voice dry. Not afraid. Just stating a fact.

“I did,” Bruce answered calmly.

“Why?”

“I wanted to see where the bread was going.”

“You gonna turn me in?”

“No. I don’t turn in people who feed kids.”

The boy didn’t lower the gun.

Bruce slowly raised his hands.

“I’m not a cop. Not a patrol. I run a place. My name’s Bruce.”

“Don’t care.”

Fair enough.

Bruce kept his voice level. Quiet. Like approaching a cornered wolf.

“I’ve got food,” he said. “Not scraps. Real food. Protein, clean water. Enough for all three of you.”

Still, the boy didn’t move.

Bruce reached into his coat, slowly, and pulled out a sealed pouch. He tossed it gently on the ground between them.

The boy’s eyes darted to it. Then back to Bruce. His grip on the gun never wavered.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to make a deal.”

The boy tilted his head, ever so slightly.

“A deal?”

“I protect all three of you. Food. Shelter. Medicine for the one who’s coughing. No strings for them. But you…”

Bruce stepped closer, stopping just within reach of the streetlight bleeding through the smoke.

“…you fight for me.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed.

“No.”

“You're already fighting. Every day. Stealing. Running. Carrying a gun. It’s just killing you slower.”

“I’m not dying.”

“No. But the one in the box is.”

That landed. The boy’s shoulders tensed. His lips pressed together.

Bruce continued.

“You’ve got skill. Control. The way you moved through that market—cleaner than most grown men in the pit. I can make sure you don’t waste it.”

“And what do I have to do?”

“You fight in my ring. Two weeks from now. One match. Just one.”

The boy’s eyes flickered.

“And then?”

“You stay with me. All three of you. Safe. Fed. Trained.”

The boy hesitated.

“What’s the catch?”

Bruce reached into his coat again and pulled out something small. He didn’t toss this one.

A strip of paper.

A design.

A bat.

“You wear this,” Bruce said, “tattooed on your neck. Right side. No covering it. No hiding it. Everyone in the pits needs to know who you belong to. That’s non-negotiable.”

Silence.

Even the city around them seemed to pause.

The boy’s jaw twitched.

Then, slowly, carefully, he lowered the gun.

“I pick the artist.”

Bruce nodded once.

“And I pick who sees my brothers.”

“You have my word,” Bruce said. “They never see you fight.”

The boy looked back to the crate.

The smaller child, coughing, barely awake, had eaten some of the bread and fallen asleep against the older one, who looked up now with cautious eyes.

“They have names?”

“Jason,” the boy muttered. “The sick one. Tim’s the other.”

“And you?”

A pause.

Then—

“Richard.”

But his voice was harder when he added:

“You can call me Dick.”

Chapter Text

The Ash District breathed smoke. Even on good days, the air tasted like ash rubbed raw into the back of the throat, and every corner carried the echo of fires that never really died.

Dick had learned to stop coughing. Jason hadn’t.

He sat now in the corner of their room, not a real room, just a half-finished chamber in one of Bruce Wayne’s safehouses, knees pulled to his chest, hacking until his ribs shook. Tim hovered beside him, trying to hold the cracked water flask steady.

“Drink,” Tim ordered, though his voice was too soft to sound bossy.

Jason shoved the flask away. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Tim muttered.

Dick knelt in front of them, brushing Jason’s messy hair back from his damp forehead. “You’ve been sick for weeks,” he said quietly. “You have to let us help.”

Jason scowled, eyes flashing. “I don’t need—” He broke off with another fit of coughing.

Bruce’s voice came from the doorway, calm, deep, unyielding. “You need medicine. And rest.”

The boys all turned. Bruce didn’t move further into the room, but his presence filled it all the same. His gaze flicked from Jason’s pale face to Dick’s tense shoulders, then to Tim, who hadn’t stopped staring at him since he arrived.

“I’ll send for what you need,” Bruce said simply. “But you follow my rules if you want to live here. All of you.”

Jason muttered something under his breath. Tim nodded at once. Dick said nothing, though his hand stayed on Jason’s shoulder, steady.

----

The Pit

Weeks later, Bruce brought Dick to the pit for the first time.

The noise hit him first. Thousands of voices pressed together in a single roar, drowning in liquor and rage. The air reeked of iron, blood, always blood, soaked into the dirt, baked into the wood of the barricades.

Dick didn’t flinch when the crowd howled as a man twice his size collapsed in the ring, teeth spilling red across the floor. His jaw only tightened. His fists curled where no one could see them shake.

“This is what it is,” Bruce said quietly, standing at his side on the platform above the arena. “You fight. You win. You eat. They live.”

Jason. Tim.

Dick’s throat burned, but he forced himself to nod.

Below, the victor raised bloody fists to the crowd. Coins flew. The loser didn’t rise again.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a slaughter.

----

Brothers

Life under Bruce was strange. Safer, yes, they had food, water, shelter. But survival here carried its own chains.

Jason tested every boundary, sneaking out of bed, trying to follow Dick into training sessions, coughing up blood but still demanding to fight. Tim watched Bruce with sharp, quiet eyes, memorizing how he spoke to guards, how he counted winnings, how he moved in the Clean City.

And Dick — Dick tried to hold them together. He became the one who wiped Jason’s face when the fever broke, the one who pulled Tim away from asking too many dangerous questions, the one who carried the weight of Bruce’s promises.

“We stick together,” he told them one night, huddled on thin mattresses in their corner of the safehouse. “No matter what he makes us do. We don’t leave each other behind.”

Jason, half-asleep, grumbled, “Yeah, yeah.”
Tim whispered, “I promise.”

Dick stared at the ceiling until the smoke stung his eyes. He didn’t know if promises meant anything in a place like this. But it was all they had.

----

The Lesson

On the third month, Bruce walked them to the edge of the Burn Zone.

The fires still raged there, devouring buildings long since abandoned. The air was molten, hard to breathe. A single wrong step on the cracked streets could mean a fall into fire.

“This is your world,” Bruce said, his voice steady over the crackle of flames. “Weakness gets you killed. Mercy gets you killed. If you want to survive, you learn. You fight. You endure.”

Jason’s eyes reflected fire. Tim’s were wide, calculating.

Dick stood between them, fists clenched at his sides, and for the first time he understood what Bruce was trying to carve into him.

Not survival. Not even strength. Ownership.

And Dick swore to himself, right there on the edge of the Burn Zone, that no matter what Bruce claimed, his life, his fists, his name, Jason and Tim would always be his.

Chapter Text

Years later

The Ash District never stopped breathing smoke, never stopped screaming. Even at night, the alleys glowed orange from distant fires, and the smell of burnt metal and rot clung to every brick. Dick had learned to move through it like it belonged to him because it did.

He crouched on the edge of a collapsed rooftop, knees pressed tight, eyes scanning the streets below. Below, the scavengers and fighters went about their night, oblivious to the shadow above them. Dick didn’t just observe. He calculated. Every step, every turn, every risk. Survival wasn’t instinct anymore; it was instinct sharpened into precision.

“Quit staring like a ghost,” a voice said from behind. Tim. Always Tim, always calm. “You’re going to give yourself away if you’re thinking too hard.”

“I’m thinking,” Dick said, barely moving his head. His gaze stayed on a figure darting between alleys. “Observing is different.”

Jason snorted from the edge of the rooftop. “You’re obsessed, Dick. Relax. You’re getting old before your time.”

Dick shot him a look. Jason only grinned, shoulders hunched like he didn’t care. But Dick knew better. Jason always cared — just not in ways that were easy to read.

The morning came with ash and grit in every breath. Bruce was already waiting.

“You move slower than I expected,” Bruce said, voice low and even, as he watched Dick run through a series of parkour maneuvers across crumbling walls and twisted rebar. “Precision is nothing without speed. Anticipate the unpredictable, or it will kill you.”

Dick landed on a steel beam, dust coating his boots. “I anticipate.”

“You anticipate like a human,” Bruce said, and then walked away. But Dick heard the tone, warning, challenge, expectation.

Jason and Tim were beside him. Jason bounced on the balls of his feet, itching for combat. Tim kept careful notes, watching Bruce’s instructions like a hawk.

Dick knew their roles: protect Jason, guide Tim, survive himself. And sometimes, survive Bruce’s expectations.

The pit wasn’t far, that arena where the Ash District bled every night. Dick had fought there as a boy. Now, he walked in as a teen, older, faster, sharper. And he understood something he hadn’t before: the pit didn’t just measure strength. It measured control. Control over fear. Control over pain. Control over the instincts screaming to kill before thinking.

Dick stepped into the ring that evening. The roar hit him before he saw the crowd. The barricades creaked, coins flew, blood soaked into the dirt. He breathed in slowly. He didn’t flinch at the smell.

His opponent, a wiry boy with scars and fire in his eyes, circled. Dick mirrored him. Every movement was calculated. Every feint, every step, every strike came from hours of training, not just with Bruce, but from years of living in these streets.

The fight was brutal. The crowd cheered as Dick dodged, countered, and struck. He wasn’t the fastest, but he was smarter. When the opponent lunged recklessly, Dick used his momentum, flipping over him, landing behind, and delivering a precise, non-lethal strike that sent the boy sprawling.

The crowd cheered, some confused, some impressed. Dick raised his fists, but he didn’t gloat. The thrill was brief; his mind was already scanning the exits, already planning the next fight.

Later, back at the safehouse, Dick cleaned his cuts. Jason leaned against the wall, smirking despite a bleeding knuckle.

“You always win clean,” Jason said. “Always thinking. That’s not fair.”

“You think I want fair?” Dick muttered.

Tim looked between them, eyes calculating as always. “Bruce would say it’s about efficiency. Survival, not style.”

Dick rubbed at his brow. “Yeah. And that’s why I don’t fight like the others.”

Jason snorted. “You’re such a goody-two-shoes.”

Dick glared. Jason grinned. Tim, ever the tactician, just shook his head. And for a moment, in that smoke-choked, ash-stained room, the three of them were just brothers, bound by survival, blood, and Bruce.

Weeks later, Bruce led them to the border of the Burn Zone. Flames still licked abandoned buildings, the air molten and acrid.

“This is your world,” Bruce said, voice calm, carrying over the roar. “Weakness gets you killed. Mercy gets you killed. If you want to survive, you learn. You fight. You endure.”

Jason spat on the ground. “You’re insane.”

Tim just stared, measuring everything.

Dick clenched his fists at his sides. For the first time, he understood: Bruce wasn’t just teaching them to fight. He was teaching them ownership. Ownership of pain, of fear, of life itself.

And Dick swore to himself that no matter what happened, the pit, the Burn Zone, or the Clean City above, he would protect his brothers, and he would survive.

Later that night, Dick perched atop a rooftop. Smoke curled around the neon-glass skyline above. Somewhere in the Clean City, someone had noticed him. Someone who would change everything.

And for the first time, Dick realized that survival wasn’t just about the Ash District anymore. It was about a world that wanted him and his family to die.