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Dick grew up in a family of circus acrobats. It meant that he was quite good at aerial tricks, of course, but it also meant that he was used to an abundance of casual touch. His family's whole act necessitated touching and holding on to each other, even climbing over each other. And it wasn't like their trailer had a surplus of space, either. Frequent, affectionate contact was an integral part of their relationships.
As a result, Dick was an extremely tactile child.
Bruce and Alfred were—not to put too fine a point on it—decidedly not.
At first, Dick didn't notice too much. The first week or so, he was too deep in anger and grief to want hugs from two basically-strangers. (He wanted hugs from his parents, but he would never have that again, because they had fallen, and while Dick may not have fallen along with them, he was broken all the same.)
Soon enough, though, Dick had cobbled enough pieces of himself back together to act like a functional person. The anger stuck around, lingering at the back of his mind and driving him to hunt for Zucco at night, but he could shove it further and further down during the day.
Around the same time, he also began sporadically hugging his new guardians. He needed the sense of normalcy that came with clinging onto someone. And he needed them to believe everything was going well, that he was recovering and moving on.
He kept the hugs brief, mostly because Bruce and Alfred were still kinda-strangers. Almost every time, his guardians were too surprised for too long to hug him back, though Dick didn't blame them. He had said some vicious things in the first few days about how neither of them was his Dad, or even family. It made sense that they didn’t want to hug him all that much.
Then, Dick learned about Batman. Suddenly he had a perfect opportunity to get vengeance for his parents’ deaths, just as soon as he could convince Bruce to take him along on patrols. He began surprising his guardian with longer and more enthusiastic hugs as one way of wearing him down.
Dick knew very well how to act the part of adorable child; he was a seasoned performer, thank you very much. Even his parents, who had known well that Dick’s puppy dog eyes were a deliberate strategy, usually caved when faced with him clinging to their chest. His mother would laugh and ruffle his hair when she gave in, lamenting the fact that they had ever let Miss Ilona—the carnival’s fortune teller—babysit and teach him the tricks of getting his way. Dick would laugh with her and neglect to tell her that while Miss Ilona had taught him a lot, it had actually been Harry the Clown who had given him this particular tactic. Dick’s father meanwhile, when faced with a clinging, wide-eyed child, would tickle and tease him mercilessly to try to get him to break character. Successful or not, he would still hoist Dick up on his shoulders and head off to fulfil his request.
Bruce, in stark contrast to Dick’s parents, tended to stiffen up and hesitate to reciprocate with even so much as a hand on his hair or a pat on the back. Dick wasn’t thrilled; by this point he did genuinely want to hug Bruce out of affection most of the time in addition to wanting to get his way. Dick figured that the man, like Dick’s parents, was just aware that the hugs were a calculated strategy and was fighting not to give in. So Bruce not hugging back hurt, a little, but Dick kinda got it.
But then Dick won. Bruce let Robin come to be. (It was the ultimatum that did it in the end. Good thing, too. He was running out of ideas on the ‘relatively harmless’ list.)
The problem was that Bruce would still barely hug Dick back, never mind initiate one. And for the life of him, Dick couldn't think of a single possible reason why. Dick wasn’t trying to deny anymore that Bruce was a… parental figure. (Not his dad, never his dad, but guardian, sure). Dick wasn’t trying to convince him of anything, or manipulate him even a little. When Dick hugged Bruce now, or Alfred, it was only because he liked them and wanted them to know it. He wanted to make them happy. But neither of his guardians seemed interested in hugging him in return. Even little touches, like ruffling his hair or patting his shoulder, were few and far between.
Bruce was stiff and hesitant. He never seemed to know what to do when Dick touched him. Alfred was somehow both indulgent and disinterested. The butler would let Dick hug him easily enough—though excessive enthusiasm was usually met with mildly chiding comments. But Alfred pulled away from those hugs far too soon for Dick’s liking, and routinely brushed off prolonged contact with the excuse of his household duties.
Dick wasn’t dealing with it well, though he tried not to let it show. The lack of familiar affection made him... nervous. Untethered. Off-balance.
Dick hated feeling off-balance.
But all he could seem to do was keep reaching out, half-way to falling, hoping that someone would catch him before he shattered on the ground.
It came to a head about three weeks into Robin training. He and Bruce were sparring on uneven ground in the cave when Dick placed his foot wrong and stumbled, falling and smacking his knee into the ground at a bad angle.
He could have screamed.
Not from the pain—it did hurt, but Dick had had worse—but because he had been an acrobat his entire life. He knew how to fall so that he didn't hurt important things like his knees. He had been taught better. His parents had taught him better.
He wanted his parents, but all he had was Bruce and Alfred and their hesitant, cold distance.
Bruce, movements fast and almost jerky in concern, knelt at Dick’s side and reached out as if to touch his shoulder.
Then he hesitated and drew back and Dick stopped holding back that scream.
He wasn't entirely conscious of what all he yelled at Bruce, lost in pain and fear of rejection and the itchy nerves that had built up over two months of basically no grounding touch. He was pretty sure he accused Bruce of not wanting him, of taking him in as a charity case or a pet circus freak. He knew he made some comparison between Bruce's parents' deaths and his own. (He hoped, in retrospect, that he had slipped into Romani early enough that Bruce didn't realize just how low Dick was aiming his blows. Unfortunately, he could recall—with painful crystal clarity—hurling the words, "you’re just an empty shadow of a person!" in Bruce's face.)
Bruce looked devastated, but Dick couldn’t bring himself to apologize, just fought back angry tears as he yelled at his guardian and hissed in time with the throbbing of his knee. Bruce made some strange noise that just sounded like pain, and eventually choked out, “I do want you."
"THEN WHY WON'T YOU TOUCH ME?" Dick screamed.
There was a moment of shocked silence.
Luckily for both of them, Bruce could never stay shocked for long. He wrapped his arms tightly around Dick's shaking frame. Dick collapsed into the embrace, clutching Bruce's shirt, burying his face into the crook of Bruce's neck, and breaking down into sobs. Bruce hushed him and ran fingers through his hair. Some of Bruce's shadows even spun themselves gingerly around the boy's legs.
"I'm so-rry," Dick said when he had calmed down just enough to speak. His fist tangled further in the fabric of Bruce’s shirt. "Please, don't let go."
Bruce didn't. He skipped patrol that night, and Dick fell asleep in his arms.
Things got a bit better after that. Bruce wasn't good at showing affection, but Dick was reassured enough by his sheer determination to try that he didn't mind quite so much. He learned that even if Bruce wouldn’t initiate contact most of the time, Dick was allowed to tuck himself into Bruce's side whenever the mood struck. The man would get with the program and hug back eventually. Dick could also climb up on his shoulders, or drape himself over his lap, or even take a flying leap into Bruce’s arms, which was about the fastest way of getting a hug in return.
With his new-found confidence, Dick couldn't quite help the stink eye he made when he noticed that while Bruce's human body no longer hesitated so much with touch, anything and everything other than human stayed resolutely away from him.
And that just wouldn't do.
Dick remembered the first time he snuck out, how the Bat’s shadows engulfed him and carried him home. It had been really, really comfortable, like curling under the covers between his parents in the little bed in their shared trailer. Now that Dick knew the Bat and Bruce were one and the same, he wanted to be held like that again. He couldn’t help but contextualize the shadows as extra limbs with which Bruce could be hugging him (from a distance, even) and yet wasn’t.
On a slightly less bitter note, he also remembered from that first meeting that the Bat had claws. On top of wanting to know how that worked when Dick had seen Bruce’s carefully trimmed, very human nails, he kind of really wanted to know if the claws would feel good brushing through his hair.
So, fueled by curiosity and armed with every shred of advice Harry and Miss Ilona and all the others at the circus had ever seen fit to bestow upon him, Dick hatched a plan.
He initiated his plan just after breakfast one day. (After, because Alfred had a Rule about other things at the table, and Dick was already well aware that one did not simply ignore Alfred's Rules.)
The night before had been one of far too little sleep for Dick, one nightmare early on ruining his whole night. Batman had been (regretfully) too tied up in destroying a smuggling ring to come home just to watch over him. Alfred brought him tea, but it wasn't the same, and Dick’s stupid, broken brain had been completely unable to get back to sleep until it was almost time for breakfast anyway. Which meant that this was the perfect time to make a point.
Dick guided a bemused Bruce to a comfortable, plush armchair in one of the sitting rooms and sat him down. Then he curled up comfortably in Bruce's lap. When he felt Bruce wrap his arms around him in return, Dick smiled. His guardian was learning. It had only taken him about three seconds this time.
Step one was complete. Time for step two.
Dick stretched, yawned a yawn that was only barely fake, and tucked himself just a bit tighter to Bruce's chest. Then he put on his best puppy dog eyes and whined, "It's too bright in here to sleep. Can you make it dark for me?"
They stared at one another for almost a full minute, Bruce's eyes wide with shock, and Dick's growing steadily more faux-dejected and real-sleep-heavy. Then shadows crept over the windows enough to dim the room down to night-time levels.
Dick almost rolled his eyes, but that would have ruined his whole performance. "Bring them closer?" he prodded. "I'm cold." Dick had learned, the first time he met the Bat and on the few occasions afterwards when one of Bruce's shadows had brushed by him by maybe-accident, that they were just as warm as Bruce himself. To be perfectly frank, Dick wanted to submerge himself in them like a warm bath, so the way Bruce was keeping them at a distance was really frustrating.
"I can get you a blanket," Bruce said.
Dick looked up at him, unamused. He then cuddled closer, pointedly, and closed his eyes.
The sensation of soft fabric being laid over him made Dick’s eyes spring open once more in exasperation. He caught sight of a tiny smile on Bruce's lips as he—also pointedly—tucked the blanket tighter around him. But the shadows Bruce must have used to retrieve the blanket lingered nearby, and after a minute they slowly layered themselves around Dick on top of the fabric.
Dick let out a happy little hum against his guardian's chest. This was a good start. He'd take it.
He pried one hand free of the blanket so he could tuck it directly underneath one of the surprisingly tangible shadows, all of which were holding very very still. They would work on it. Dick would get Bruce to relax eventually.
He was out like a light less than a minute later, safe in Bruce’s warmth.
Dick woke several hours later in his own bed. Disappointingly, Bruce was nowhere to be seen, but some of his shadows had remained, standing guard at the windows to block out the brightest beams of sunlight. Dick tentatively categorized the operation as a partial success.
Dick was optimistic about Bruce’s progress, but Alfred was another story. He was a tough nut to crack. Dick had initially tried a similar strategy to the one he employed on Bruce: namely, just hugging Alfred as the mood struck him and holding on until Alfred hugged him back. It wasn’t nearly so effective on the butler, maybe because he was busy enough to have good excuses and old enough that Dick couldn’t quite climb all over him the way he could Bruce.
Alfred would hug him back—Dick suspected that Bruce and Alfred had had something of a talk after Dick’s breakdown in the cave—but Alfred’s touch was always light and fairly brief. Whereas Bruce’s reticence had seemed like it came from not really knowing how to touch Dick, Alfred was less nervous. No, Alfred just didn’t seem to want to touch Dick.
He was the same way with Bruce, at least, so Dick doubted it was about him, specifically.
Dick knew, in theory, that some people just didn’t like to be touched. It seemed absolutely crazy to him, and he’d never met someone like that in real life, but he was aware that that kind of person supposedly existed. Maybe Alfred was one of them.
Or maybe Dick could convert him. He couldn’t dislike all touch, right? Maybe he just wasn’t a fan of hugs specifically. Dick could... begrudgingly, accept that.
Dick changed tacks.
Alfred, Dick knew, handled a large amount of shopping for the household personally. Errands weren’t Dick’s ideal choice of outing, but he would take what he could get at this point. The next time Alfred mentioned needing to take a trip to the stores, Dick volunteered to go with him to keep him company.
Alfred accepted his offer graciously, and soon the two pulled up to a local farmer’s market just outside of Bristol. Dick only fidgeted a little bit as he waited for Alfred to fetch some cloth bags from the trunk and consult his list.
“Right then, Master Dick. Let us begin with some fresh honey.”
Dick agreed easily, spotting the correct stand almost immediately. Then, as nonchalantly as he could manage, Dick took the bags from Alfred and replaced them with his hand. He didn’t give Alfred any time to comment on the switch, marching off briskly in the direction of the honey while babbling excitedly about all the different craft booths they walked by.
Alfred came along with an air of amusement, and though he made no mention of Dick’s hand in his, he did interject his own two cents into Dick’s chatter. Several times he prompted Dick to consider directing one of his questions to the creator of a particular item. Once, he also suggested that Bruce might enjoy receiving a bat charm complete with wide googly eyes for the downstairs car. That comment earned him a delighted grin, and Dick made a note to himself once more that Alfred was truly devious underneath his British poise.
Over the next hour or so, the pair made their way around the market, picking up different items as they went. Dick held Alfred’s hand every moment he plausibly could. He thought maybe Alfred figured out what he was doing by the two minute mark, but the butler continued to allow the contact without comment so long as Dick released him long enough to complete the necessary transactions.
Dick was thrilled. And then they turned around to the last corner and Dick caught sight of a woman wearing a deep green skirt and a blouse covered in rose designs.
She looked like his mother. For just a moment, a moment that lasted far too long and should never have happened, he thought maybe-
But no.
Dick didn’t realize he had frozen, his idle chatter stuck like a knot in his throat, until Alfred called his name quietly. It took him several seconds after that to move again. He took a deep breath. Then he gave Alfred a smile that even he could tell didn’t quite reach his eyes, and gestured to a stall filled with crocheted handbags, attempting to restart his rambling analysis of the whole event.
But even knowing it wasn’t actually his mother, Dick couldn’t stop his eyes from straying back every few seconds. The woman wasn’t old, but she wasn’t young either. She had dark hair, kind eyes, and strong hands. She stood behind a stand selling vegetables; root vegetables, leafy greens, tomatoes, and peppers almost overflowing from the stand. He also saw beets and cabbages among the bounty. Out of the blue, he was hit with a desperate yearning for borscht, like his father used to make. For the second time in as many minutes, Dick stopped in his tracks and choked on his words.
“Is there something in particular that interests you over there, Master Dick?” Alfred asked, no doubt aware of where Dick’s attention had gone if not the reason why. “Perhaps you would like to add something to our list?”
Dick opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out around the knot in his throat. Heat climbed behind his eyes, stinging as though the sharp, broken parts of him were trying to break free. The sensation was unfortunately familiar after these last few months.
He furiously rubbed at his eyes, unwilling to cry here. Not now. It was so stupid. He couldn’t break down every time he saw his parents’ colors. And borscht had never even been a meal he was especially fond of. It certainly wasn’t one he would ask for on special occasions, so it was stupid to crave it so desperately now.
This was stupid. He was stupid. Today was a good day, he shouldn’t be breaking down out of nowhere in the middle of a public market.
Dick pulled his hand away from Alfred’s in his quest to stop the tears. His plan to get more affection from the butler was maybe the farthest thing from his mind. Or it was, until Alfred’s hand landed steadily on his shaking shoulder.
The shock of Alfred initiating contact actually broke him out of his grief. He looked up to find Alfred’s sympathetic and concerned eyes perhaps a foot from his. The older man had bent down slightly to get closer, and he had actually touched Dick first for once.
There was only one thing Dick could do in response. He fell into Alfred’s arms.
“Oh, my dear boy,” he heard above him.
Alfred patted his back and it felt wonderful, but it also made the tears push all the harder to escape, and Dick still wasn’t on board with that turn of events.
“Are we almost finished?” Dick asked, voice breaking.
“We are. In fact, I believe we have everything we need today.”
Dick knew for a fact that there were at least three more items on Alfred’s list. He almost asked if Alfred was sure, but in the end he just nodded. If Alfred was willing to leave now, Dick would take him up on it.
When Alfred took his hand once more and pulled out of the hug, Dick didn’t complain. At least Alfred hadn’t made him break contact entirely. They walked in silence back to the car, where Dick reluctantly let go to climb into the backseat while Alfred loaded the groceries into the trunk.
Dick didn’t speak for most of the car ride home. Only when they were a few minutes away did he take a breath to speak, hesitate a moment, and then say, “Alfred? Have you ever had borscht?”
“Indeed I have, Master Dick. Several times, in fact, though I must say it has been a few years. What makes you ask?”
Dick opened his mouth. He paused for a moment as a hundred different explanations wrestled to escape. But in the end, he flashed Alfred a false smile and responded, “Nothing. Nevermind.”
Alfred hummed, and left it at that.
Dick thought that would be the end of it, but when he came down to dinner the following night, he found the table set with steaming bowls of borscht. Dick’s head immediately snapped around to look at Alfred.
Ostensibly occupied with pouring glasses of water, Alfred did not look back. Instead, he spoke up mildly. “I thought I would try a slightly different cuisine tonight. I do hope you find it to your liking.”
Dick’s throat felt thick, but he nodded and put on a smile as he sat down. Bruce, clearly suspecting something was going on, looked between the two of them with narrowed eyes from his seat at the head of the table. Unfortunately for him, Alfred’s poker face was impassable, and Dick was very good at pretending he didn’t notice the glances.
The borscht didn’t taste the same as his father’s. But as Dick caught sight of Alfred’s eyes twinkling at him from behind Bruce’s back, he realized it kind of reminded him of Alfred’s hug.
Dick would still prefer the actual hug, but this? This wasn’t so bad.
So events with Alfred had somehow gone better than Dick had dared to hope, but he still had a ways to go with Bruce. One morning nap in the embrace of shadows was not nearly enough, in his opinion.
He didn’t think the same tactic would work twice. (Or, it would, but Bruce would know for certain it was a tactic, and Dick would really prefer he didn’t realize for a while longer.) So Dick had to come up with something else. Maybe a different angle entirely; he could appeal to Batman rather than Bruce. Maybe he’d go for something more blunt too. It was always good to keep your opponent guessing.
Yeah. That sounded like fun.
Dick waited until Bruce was alone at the dining table, sipping his morning coffee and reading a newspaper.
“So when are you going to train me to work with your weird shadow monster powers?”
Bruce nearly choked on his coffee. “Wh-at?” he coughed.
Dick resolutely pretended he didn’t notice anything wrong with his phrasing, and kept speaking. “Yeah! I mean, you said that since we’re partners we have to know how to work together in a fight. And you’re training me to fight with you as a human—you know, with all the martial arts stuff—but you’re not just a human. So when will we train with your shadows?”
“I don’t-”
Dick really wasn’t finished. He had a good point, even if he also had an ulterior motive. He might have let Bruce speak if that sentence didn’t sound like the start of a refusal, but it did, so Dick kept talking.
“‘Cause it would be so cool if I could just duck out of the darkness, punch someone in the nose, and dive back in and vanish. And I know you can bring me along with the teleport-y thing if you’re holding me, but can you still do it when you’re not? Could you let me jump through a shadow and land on the other side of the room? Or up in the rafters? Then I could really get my voice to come from all over the place.”
“Those are definitely good questions, Chum, but-”
Dick waved his arms animatedly, once more steamrolling over Bruce’s objection. “I mean, I’ve already gotten pretty good at getting my voice to echo, but just imagine if I could get close enough to whisper in someone’s ear only for you to immediately teleport me away and suddenly my cackle fills the room from every direction. That would be so cool! So, shadow training?”
Dick could keep rambling. His list of ideas of how Robin and the Bat could work together was very, very long. But Bruce currently looked like Dick had told him Alfred brought home fast food for dinner. He probably wasn’t actually going to hear anything Dick said until he had finished reconciling whatever had failed so badly to compute. So instead of enumerating half a dozen more potential maneuvers, Dick perched himself on the table next to his guardian and swung his legs as he tried to wait patiently.
“They- I usually scare people,” Bruce said eventually, which wasn’t an answer to any of Dick’s questions. Nor was it news; Dick had gone out with the Bat several dozen times by now, so he’d seen firsthand the fear his guardian could create. Robin was scary too, but the whole point he was trying to make was that Robin could be scarier if they took better advantage of Batman’s scariness.
Dick spent a few moments staring at Bruce blankly before it clicked that the man was concerned about scaring Dick.
Idiot.
“B,” Dick said, making sure his face was schooled into as unimpressed an expression as he could possibly make, “you scare people who think you’re some sort of eldritch vengeance demon from the depths of Hell. I’ve seen you almost knock over a lion figurine at four in the morning and then apologize to the ‘kitty’ and pet its mane.”
“That was-” Bruce cut himself off. There was a long pause as he narrowed his eyes at Dick. “What were you doing up at four AM?”
Yeah right. As if Dick was going to just admit to his crimes. He had just convinced Bruce that the concussion he’d had that night had made him misremember the situation. “Who said I was up at four AM?” he asked innocently, then waved the question away, “Better question: can I help you brainstorm code names for new maneuvers?”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed further at the evasion, and Dick mentally crossed his fingers, even as he let an innocent, excited smile split his mouth. Maybe Bruce would just let it go?
“Dick…” Bruce said warningly, dashing all of Dick’s hopes, “did you eat the last chocolate chip cookie?”
Dick immediately switched his expression to ‘perfect angel who can do no wrong,’ and said, “...no?”
Bruce growled. Dick ignored Bruce’s irritated call as he fled the room cackling. He did enjoy the chaos, but in the privacy of his own mind he cursed himself. It would seem that convincing Bruce to train with abilities was going to have to wait a little longer.
Or a lot longer, as it turned out, because it was in fact the very next day that Dick discovered he had an ability of his own. He could admit he got a little too side-tracked figuring out his own new limits to pester Bruce about his shadows. Besides, now that Dick had powers too, he needed to update his list of ‘Batman and Robin team maneuvers’ to account for all the new possibilities.
Now, he’d like to be working on that list with his partner in crime-fighting, but Bruce was still being cagey about using his powers around Dick anywhere but when they were actively in the field. Despite Dick bringing up the topic of training powers together nearly every night, Bruce wouldn’t give in. He shut down Dick’s attempts really, really quickly each time.
Dick waited through about a week of Bruce running tests on and experimenting with Robin’s new skillset in training (while stubbornly avoiding displaying his own). Then he decided enough was enough. It was time to pull out the big guns.
“Alfred?” Dick asked timidly, standing just inside the doorway to the kitchen.
The butler looked his way, but did not stop stirring the pot on the stove. “Is there something I can do for you, Master Dick?”
Dick made a show of hesitating, then slowly looked up at Alfred with widened eyes. “You don’t think- B isn’t- He’s not gonna try to stop me being Robin again, is he?”
That brought the rest of Alfred’s attention firmly in Dick’s direction. “No, lad,” he assured. “No, I truly don’t believe he is. What makes you worry about that?”
Dick fixed his eyes on the wall to his left and shrugged a single shoulder. He picked at his sleeve, shifting his weight nervously.
Alfred waited.
When a good ten seconds had passed in silence, the butler returned to the stove. “Would you care for some tea, Master Dick?”
Dick finally looked back at Alfred, giving him a sullen nod. Alfred directed him to a seat at the kitchen island and prepared a fresh kettle. The silence stretched.
“It’s just-” Dick started, then started over. “We’re partners. He said we’re partners, but-”
Alfred placed a cup of tea on the counter in front of him, causing Dick to interrupt himself to thank him.
Alfred hummed and sipped on a cup of his own. He didn’t speak.
Dick took a deep breath and kept talking. “He says it’s important that we know each other’s abilities, as if I don’t know that. With my- When I- At the circus, you had to know exactly where your partner would be at all times or bad things happened. But he’s been running so many tests on my new powers and he’ll barely let me talk about his. He’s so fixated on the things that have changed about me, and what if he doesn’t-”
Dick froze. Oh. Oh no. Abort. Way to go Dick, stumble into real fear territory, why don’t you. Stupid broken little Robin, can’t keep it together for a simple conversation.
He was going to stay silent after that, really. But Alfred prodded gently with a “What if what, lad?”
“What if he doesn’t want me like this?” slipped out of his panicking mouth, shortly followed by: “What if my powers are too much for him?”
Dick should have bitten his stupid tongue. He didn’t want to ask that. Sure, Bruce had said he wanted Dick. Once. But that was before Dick had been given a power of his own. Bruce hadn’t wanted Dick to go out as Robin in the first place. Surely he would be even less happy now that being Robin had changed him.
Besides, Dick was under no illusions that he wasn’t a handful even before he got his ability.
Dick had belonged in the circus, and he had been vaguely aware that the show was a home for those who didn’t fit anywhere else. His people weren’t really meant for the outside world except in short doses, in carefully practiced performances. Living in juvie had turned that from a vague awareness to an acute understanding. Being abnormal was ‘difficult.’
Dick knew that Bruce wasn’t exactly normal either—it was hard to miss—but Dick wasn’t like Bruce except in the abstract sense that neither of them were entirely like humans. What if he was too different for Bruce to keep?
The click of Alfred’s teacup against a saucer broke him out of his thoughts, and Dick’s fearful eyes met the butler’s resolute ones.
“That is most certainly not the case. You needn’t worry about anything of the sort,” he said firmly. “Master Bruce cares for you deeply. And even if for some ridiculous and unfathomable reason he ceased to do so, you would still have a place here as my charge.”
Dick couldn’t help it. His mouth dropped open and he stared. He knew Alfred was a steady, caring presence in the manor, and he wasn’t blind to the fact that Bruce was ‘master of the house’ only in the barest technicality, and it was Alfred who really ruled the roost. That said, Dick would never have guessed Alfred would go against Bruce like that.
Alfred’s eyes lit with something like fond humor. “I dare say you would not be any more difficult to care for than a boy who can disappear into the shadows whenever he wishes to avoid me.”
Despite himself, Dick giggled at the mental image. But then his smile dropped. “Ok, but, what about Batman and Robin? It won’t be safe if he- if we don’t learn how to work together, right?”
“It’s not particularly safe, even so,” Alfred said, tucking himself away once more behind his ‘proper butler’ face. It was maybe even a bit disapproving.
“Ok, but you both want it to be as safe as possible, right?” Dick rolled his eyes, then caught himself and quickly molded his face into his best puppy-dog-eye expression. “Will you talk to him? He listens to you.”
“He listens to you too, my boy. You must know that.”
“Not about this,” Dick insisted. “Please, Alfred?”
Alfred sighed, but nodded. “Alright, Master Dick. I shall at least make a mention of the issue.”
Dick grinned. “Thank you, Alfred!” he chirped.
The following night when he went downstairs to train with Bruce, Dick was prepared. He was absolutely sure Alfred had had time to work his magic, and Dick had a few more plans of his own now that Bruce had hopefully been at least halfway convinced. He would definitely make progress on Operation Shadow Hugs today. He wouldn’t tolerate anything less.
Dick waited until they’d been practicing ambush tactics using his walking-on-air ability for nearly an hour. Bruce had just given him a proud look, because Dick had managed to truly topple him by coming in from above. Both of them were in a good mood, so this was the perfect time.
“Can we do some practice with your abilities now?” He asked, turning hopeful puppy-dog eyes on his guardian while Bruce checked over the grapple guns he’d just grabbed for the next exercise.
“Hnng.”
Ok, not a great start. That was Bruce’s ‘absolutely not’ grunt. It was stronger and grunt-ier than his regular ‘no’ grunt. It was the one he used when he was saying no for the gazillionth time and he was running out of patience for being asked.
Too bad. Dick was running out of patience too.
“Why not?” he asked, trying very hard not to whine. He had really thought Alfred’s intervention would have softened him up more. “I really want to know how to work with them.”
Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, expression turning into a blank expression Dick hadn’t quite figured out how to read yet. “You don’t need to know,” he said.
Dick’s mouth dropped open, feeling like Bruce had slapped him with a fish. “I don’t- of course I need to know, B! Why wouldn’t I need to know?”
“It’s my job to protect you.”
“Ok, sure,” Dick conceded, rapidly developing an urge to strangle his stubborn guardian, “but it’s my job to protect you, too. You protect me, I protect you. You can’t just decide that I’m not allowed to know something like this for some stupid reason that doesn’t even make sense.”
Dick saw Bruce take a controlled breath, probably in effort to keep his voice as infuriatingly soft and even as it was. “You’ve already been through so much, Robin. You shouldn’t have to worry about-”
“No!” Dick burst out. No, Bruce wasn’t allowed to start pulling him back. Dick didn’t need to be shielded, he needed to be involved. “You don’t get to decide how much I can handle! I-”
Bruce cut him off. “Like it or not, I am your guardian, which means I absolutely can decide not to let you handle certain things,” he said sternly. His tone only raised Dick’s hackles even more.
“I’m not some tool in your belt that you can tuck away when you’re not using me,” He spat back heatedly. “I have a mind of my own. We’re partners, B! You’re not supposed to keep secrets like this from your partner. We’re talking about your capabilities in the field, not some gruesome murder case!”
“You’re still very young, Dick. You don’t need to deal with this.”
Dick’s fingernails bit into his palm, fury boiling inside his chest. That was just more excuses. From what Dick knew, Bruce had been dealing with his own powers when he was even younger than Dick was, which made him such a hypocrite.
“I already saw my parents die, Bruce! Why do you keep acting like me learning about your powers would be just as bad?”
Bruce’s mouth opened, but no retort emerged. He closed his mouth again and stayed silent, just kind of staring. He looked stunned.
Huh.
Dick’s anger retreated, just a little; just enough for curiosity to come creeping forward. Clearly he had hit upon the right question, since he no longer seemed to be talking to a brick wall.
“They really don’t scare me, you know,” Dick pushed, wondering if it was the right move with Bruce looking as close to vulnerable as he ever seemed to get. Dick made a concerted effort to push down the rest of his anger, at least for now. This wasn’t the time for brute force. “They’re part of you, and you can’t scare me.”
Bruce still couldn’t seem to find words, but Dick didn’t think that he was reacting badly. Not really. He took a deep breath and decided to be a little bit vulnerable himself, letting the fury retreat further. “You know, I really kinda like being in your shadows. They’re warm, and I know you’d never let anything hurt me. Which is why it’s so ridiculous that you refuse to train me to really fight with you.”
Dick took a deep breath. It looked like Bruce was actually listening now, unlike the last twenty-six times Dick had brought it up. Guess he better press his advantage while he had the chance. He steamrolled ahead.
“This—Batman and Robin—it would be so much more effective and so much safer if you actually acted like we were a team. You don’t have to like that I’m so broken already, but you know I’m gonna be out there anyway, and so both of us need to know what kind of tricks we can pull off in an emergency.”
Bruce was frowning. It wasn’t the frown Dick was expecting, where Bruce was just considering his argument. It wasn’t even the frown that meant Bruce was getting ready to pick apart his logic. B looked worried, for some reason, and Dick frowned in return, wondering if maybe there was something he didn’t know about Bruce’s powers that made them actually dangerous in a way Dick’s weren’t. But Bruce was just about the most disciplined person Dick had ever met. If Bruce’s powers were dangerous, he wouldn’t stop until he could control them. And even if he somehow failed, why wouldn’t Bruce just tell Dick that? Why the complete refusal to talk about them?
“Dick,” Bruce said slowly. “You aren’t broken.”
It was Dick’s turn to gape wordlessly. He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t realized that he’d admitted to what he’d been feeling for months. Now that he’d said it out loud, though, it hit him all the harder. His breath hitched, like the truth of it was biting into his lungs.
“Well I’m not whole,” he whispered, voice breaking.
“You aren’t broken,” Bruce repeated insistently. “You’re changed. Gotham-”
Bruce seemed to struggle to find words. He spoke slowly, like this was something he knew so instinctively, it had never occurred to him to try to explain it to someone. Dick hung on every word, because this sounded very much like Bruce opening up. “Gotham is fierce, possessive, and even generous, but she isn’t... kind. She loves people for how they can fight and break and reforge themselves from the pieces. You’ve already done that. Maybe you broke, but you’re not broken. You’re healing. And you’re becoming something new.”
The words hit Dick right in his soft, wounded core, and a sound escaped him that was somewhere between a whimper and a full on sob.
“I can see it. And,” Bruce continued, as if this wasn’t the most he’d spoken to Dick in one go... ever, at least outside of lectures. “I’m... proud, of how far you’ve come, and how brightly you burn. You are so strong, Dick.”
Dick stared at Bruce, uncharacteristically frozen, even as tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks. Somehow, Bruce looked steadier now than he was a minute ago. A mountain standing unshakable, ready to shelter Dick against gale force winds. Dick thought he’d gotten pretty good at reading between the lines with Bruce in the past few months, and he was pretty sure that that speech was littered with ‘I love you’s.
Somehow, even despite feeling like he was seeing more of B than ever before, Dick couldn’t bring himself to move closer. His hands trembled by his sides, half-lifting and then lowering again in a shaky, indecisive cycle. He sobbed once, then again, and curled in on himself where he stood, breaking down completely.
For once, maybe he wanted B to reach out first.
He heard footsteps approaching slowly, and crumpled further under the knowledge that Bruce was intentionally telegraphing his presence for him. Then B’s arms carefully curled around Dick and picked him up off the floor. Bruce carried him across the Cave while he cried. He settled them both in the Batchair, rubbing Dick’s back in smooth rhythmic motions that were so comforting it made Dick sob harder.
He cried for a long time; long enough for the bats that made the Cave their home to return from their early evening hunting trip. (Long enough for the tears to fill the hole inside him until it became a lake—still a hole, but not empty, not a gaping wound.)
Eventually, the sobs tapered off, and left Dick draped over Bruce’s lap, utterly exhausted, but reveling in the quiet after... that.
Dick broke the silence after a long moment. His voice was still raw and wet from crying, but his lips still curled up in a half-hearted smirk. “Don’t think you’ve gotten out of training your powers with me.”
Bruce snorted, which turned into a quiet laugh, which got Dick laughing until they were both emotional wrecks curled together in a giant cave.
“Ok,” Bruce sighed when they had calmed back down. “Ok. I suppose I should know better than to try to fight both you and Alfred at once.”
“Mhmm,” Dick answered, face still tucked against Bruce’s chest. “It’s really setting yourself up for failure, B.”
Bruce hummed. One of his hands hesitantly drifted into Dick’s hair. He only made one pass through it before settling his hand back on Dick’s shoulder, but it was still a step forward. Dick was too tired to be as delighted as he should be, but it still made him smile.
Bruce didn’t need sleep. He hadn’t needed to sleep since he was younger than Dick was now. He hardly had time these days even if he wanted to, between his day job, his night job, and the time he spent with Dick. These days, Bruce’s bedroom was mostly just a prop to support his Brucie persona.
Dick knew this.
And yet, when he dragged Bruce upstairs that night, both of them wholly wrung out from all that had happened in the Cave, it was Bruce’s nigh unused bed he crawled into. He hardly even hesitated in the hallway. It just felt right, crawling into B’s bed, just like he used to curl up with Daj and Dat after a long day.
B looked surprised and a bit awkward, being pulled into his own bedroom by his ward. He was frowning just a little, like he was confused about why they were there, but he obligingly trailed after Dick, tucked him in, and said good night. Except then he turned to leave, and something inside Dick threatened to shatter at the idea of being alone in the wide gulf of the enormous bed.
“No, don’t-” Dick’s voice cut out, his courage faltering. This was real, unrehearsed. He had no plan, and his only supporting argument was the fact that he wanted it. That might have been enough for his parents, but... would it be enough now? For something this big?
Bruce stopped moving away. His eyes met Dick’s and he waited patiently for him to find the words.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Dick said quietly. He stared at the subtle geometric pattern on the bedspread, unable to watch Bruce’s face while he spoke. “I- will you- could you stay here tonight? I know you don’t sleep, but I just- I used to sleep with my Daj and Dat, and I want-”
Dick paused and swallowed. “Just- Stay? Please?” So quietly it was barely a whisper, he ventured, “Hold me?”
There was something indescribably soft in Bruce’s eyes when Dick dared to glance up.
Then B turned away. Dick felt his heart crack, until he noticed that Bruce had only gone as far as his dresser. He pulled out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, both of which looked old and worn and very soft. Then he disappeared into the ensuite for less than a minute before reappearing in his new clothes and climbing into the bed next to Dick.
Dick wasted no time burrowing into his side, and B let him prod and pull at him until they were both settled to Dick’s satisfaction. Dick ended up with his head on B’s shoulder and his nose almost in B’s neck. Both of Bruce’s arms were wrapped around him, warm and heavy and strong.
“Shadows too?” Dick asked quietly.
Since he was basically using Bruce as a body pillow, Dick was able to feel the minute tensing of his muscles at the request. Still, ever so slowly, shadows crept out from the corners of the room and grew from under the bed to wrap around the pair of them. They were warm and soft and safe, and Dick relaxed into them.
Dick knew he wouldn’t be able to have this every night. But getting it now was something he had needed desperately. And B gave it to him. He didn’t negotiate or try to back out or anything like Dick was afraid of. He just... held him tight; held him together.
Dick fell asleep to his slow breathing, and for the first time since his parents fell, it felt like he had not just a guardian, but a home.