Chapter Text
“Mary, please,” Dick hears his dad plead for what has to be the dozenth time, raising his voice to be heard over the emergency services murmuring and arguing. John tries again, “Please, Mary. You have to listen to me!”
Dick wraps his arms around himself and shivers pathetically, even with the blanket some emergency worker had shoved at him. It’d be warmer in the middle of the Big Top, but Dick isn’t allowed any closer, not with the police officers swarming the middle and the lady arguing with Pop Haly making the decisions. The lady had clocked him and sat him down on a seat close to the entrance.
A wordless shriek from the middle of the tent sends another chill up Dick’s spine, and Dick can’t help but curl further into the blanket. He doesn’t think anyone else hears it, but based on the grimaces on the officers’ faces, they must feel something.
“Mary!” Dick’s dad cries again.
Dick can’t help his numb, grim curiosity. He turns to look at the mass of writhing blackness where his parents' bodies used to be. Dick’s dad doesn’t give up trying to approach the mass, rebuffed every time he gets close.
The mass must not be physical, as emergency service workers pass through it without issue. But to Dick, there’s a storm centered on where his mom had just been. Dick can feel it even this far away, pulsing as it tugged at the edges of the air, lashing out every time John got close enough to touch it.
“Mary, please, please listen to me,” Dick dad calls. It sounds like he’s crying. “Please.”
Another wordless shriek, this one louder and more piercing than the first. Dick flinches.
“Stop,” Dick whispers through numb lips. His voice trembles harder than his body does. “She’s not listening. Stop.”
His dad doesn’t hear him, because if he’d had, he would have listened. But the Big Top is named that way for a reason, and John is some forty feet away, surrounded by officers who walk through him and will never notice his shouts.
He doesn’t listen to his son, who is sat staring at what his parents have become.
Dick is just a lost little boy, sitting on the edges of a crime scene, shivering in shock because he’d just watched his parents fall to their deaths. And then he’d watched his mother become something else.
His mother can’t hear him. His father isn’t listening, too concerned with his mother. The only other people he’s ever called family aren’t allowed to speak to him. The lady and Pop Haly are arguing about him. About the fright he’d spoken about when the police officers had pulled him away from the middle and his mother’s rage grew and grew and grew.
And is still growing. Even now, John is being pushed further and further away.
For the first time in Dick’s entire life, he’s alone.
He can’t help the sob that rips from his chest. He doesn’t reach out. No one is listening to him, anyways. The darkness amassed in the middle of the tent, it isn’t anything close to resembling her, and yet, all he wants is—
“Mom,” Dick hiccups out. “Mom.”
The darkness rages on, Dick’s dad doesn’t hear him, the officers pay him no mind. Dick gives in.
He curls into himself, and he cries.
Dick has always believed in impossibilities.
Warm summer nights after a show were spent outside with his large circus family as they told tall tales and enchanting fairytales. Despite how unrealistic they seemed, Dick would still let himself get caught up in these impossibilities.
Up until he was eight years old, one of the only children in the circus, he hadn’t found anything about believing these tales to be strange. It had been as easy to believe as breathing. Just simple truths in his world.
Practice is every morning at dawn and leprechauns steal your socks. His mother’s hair is red and Auntie Djal can use magic and predict the future. His name is Richard John Grayson and ghosts are as real as he is.
The biggest truth that he’d believed in is that the Flying Graysons would never be grounded.
Now, Gotham is doing its best to try and kill his belief in the impossibilities. It’s being crushed underneath the disbelieving stares of the adults on the other side of the room. Dick’s eyes flit from person to person. It’s a little crowded in the small room, and Dick hates it, because it isn’t the circus, just some dingy police lounge with muted colors and upturned noses of the people who are trying to take him away from his home.
But he looks around the room and meets gazes, and he sees nothing but pity in everyone except—
“It’ll be okay, Dickie,” Dick’s father says, his white irises glowing against the gray of the walls, so different from his usual brown. No one in the room reacts to his statement. Because why would they?
Even at a whopping eight years old, Dick knows they don’t believe him or the impossibility crouching kitty corner to him.
The only man who isn’t treating Dick like he’s one word short of shattering into a million pieces of fragile glass is Commissioner Gordon. He doesn’t look like he believes Dick, either, but that sadness in his eyes isn’t like the others’. It looks more like Dick’s dad’s eyes do, just without the coloring of the dead.
Dick decides that he doesn’t hate him, not like he hates everyone else in the room.
“He clearly needs to be medicated,” a woman is snapping at a man, the same woman who’d been arguing with Pop Haly just hours earlier. Dick hadn’t caught their names, and he isn’t going to ask now.
“He’s pretending,” the man murmurs back, seemingly unaffected by the woman’s tone. “Give it a few days and he’ll recover from the shock and denial.”
Commissioner Gordon sighs sharply, rubbing an eye tiredly underneath his glasses. He turns towards the duo discussing Dick’s mental state right in front of him. “I think it’d be best if you take this conversation outside. Now.”
The woman, who had opened her mouth to snip something at the man again, closes it, clearly startled—and offended—by the Commissioner’s words.
Then, “I have a right to be here!” she snarls. “This is my job!”
Dick, his dad, and Commissioner Gordon all watch her as she straightens up and marches a few steps towards the couch opposite Dick’s, where the commissioner is hunched over with his hands resting on his knees.
Commissioner Gordon raises an eyebrow. He looks tired. Dick understands. He feels tired, too. All he wants to do right now is find his mom and go back to their trailer, so they can sleep. It must be late.
“This woman is terrible,” Dick’s dad grumbles.
At the same time, Commissioner Gordon speaks as well, talking right over Dick’s dad. “I didn’t realize your job was to talk about a traumatized child while you were in the same room as him. Do your job somewhere else.”
The woman’s face goes red. “Now, you listen here—”
“Leave,” Commissioner Gordon says. “He’ll be placed in Child Protective Services soon, but as of right now, he’s in the custody of the GCPD.”
The woman’s mouth snaps closed. She whirls out of the room in a huff. The other man follows soon after.
“I like him,” Dick’s dad says. Dick turns his eyes to meet his father’s again, who is looking over at the Commissioner. “He’s looking out for you, kid.”
Dick doesn’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t get someone yelling about him being medicated again, so he says nothing. His dad’s eyes flicker back to meet Dick’s, and he smiles sadly, like he understands. When he tries to pat Dick’s knee, it goes right through.
“Sorry you had to meet her,” Commissioner Gordon says after a moment of silence. “She’s always been a piece of work.”
It’s just the two of them—well. Plus Dick’s dad. Through the open door of the lounge, he can still see the woman fuming, the other man trailing after her awkwardly. Dick hopes he never has to see her again, but he’s not sure he’s that lucky.
He tilts his head back towards the commissioner, who is still looking at Dick with those kind, sad eyes. Dick bites his lip, contemplating momentarily before quietly asking, “What’s Child Protective Services?”
Commissioner Gordon’s eyes grow sadder, if possible. He sighs, leaning back into the cushions behind him. “They’re the organization that’s in charge of placing children and checking on their well-being.”
Dick blinks. “Placing?”
Dick’s dad sighs, but of course Commissioner Gordon doesn’t hear him, continuing, “When kids don’t have a place to go back to, CPS—Child Protective Services—does their best to find a good home for the child, if possible. Foster care, orphanages.”
“Okay,” Dick says, brows furrowing, “but why was that CPS lady here? I have a home to go back to.”
“Pop Haly is trying to negotiate it, but they’re saying the circus is too dangerous,” Dick’s dad says.
“Wait,” Dick says, cutting off whatever Commissioner Gordon had been about to say. He swings a wild look at the commissioner, breath stuttering in his lungs. “I’m not going back to the circus?!”
Commissioner Gordon closes his mouth. Opens it, closes it again. Sighs through his nose.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” The commissioner does sound sorry. “You witnessed someone very dangerous commit a murder. For now, until we catch the culprit, you’ve been placed in protective custody by the city.”
Dick’s heart stops. His breath wheezes out of his lungs as if they’ve been squeezed, and he can’t help but look to his dad, in full blatant view of the Commissioner. He doesn’t care if he’s going to be called crazy or if they all think he’s pretending. He needs his dad.
“I have to stay here?” Dick whispers incredulously.
“I’m sorry, Dickie.” Dick’s dad tries to cradle Dick’s head like he’s done a million times before, passes right through, and Dick can’t help but burst into tears.
“I don’t wanna leave the circus,” Dick sobs.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” Commissioner Gordon says, unintentionally echoing Dick’s dad.
“Pop Haly will figure it out,” Dick’s dad tries to reassure him, giving Dick a wobbly smile. “Give him a few days. Let the police do their job, and then I’m sure everything will work out.”
“Are you sure?” Dick asks, hiccuping.
Commissioner Gordon inhales sharply, but says nothing. Lets Dick talk to what he surely thinks are delusions.
“No,” Dick’s dad tells him, because he tries not to lie to Dick. “I’m not sure. But I have faith in our family of misfits. Why don’t we figure out what the plan is until you’re back with them, yeah?”
“What’s gonna happen to me now?” Dick hiccups after his tears have started to slow. He rubs at his face, the drying tears starting to itch his cheeks.
“Now?” Commissioner Gordon says, “We’re going to make sure you’re safe until we catch the guy who did this. That, I can promise you.”
“But where’m I gonna sleep and stuff?”
Commissioner Gordon grimaces. “CPS is placing you in a secure facility for the time being until a safer location opens up.”
Dick’s dad’s eyebrows furrow. He asks, skeptically, “Secure facility?”
Dick echoes his father’s question, with more confusion.
“Gotham Youth Center,” Commissioner Gordon tells him. “We’ll have you stay here tonight, and then we’ll head back to the circus to gather your things. After that, I’ll help you get situated at the GYC.”
“How long will I be there?” Dick wonders, eyeing his dad’s frown. The more the commissioner talks about this place, the more unhappy Dick’s dad starts to look. “Is that lady gonna be there, too?”
“She has to accompany us, yes,” the commissioner says. “She’s your assigned social worker, so she’ll be in charge of looking in on you until we can complete the investigation.”
“I don’t like her,” Dick says bluntly.
“I don’t really like her, either,” Commissioner Gordon admits. “But unfortunately, neither of us really have a choice when it comes to working with her.”
Dick brings his legs up, curling his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around his shins. His lip wobbles dangerously again, and he can’t help but bury his face in his knees. The tears start up again, quieter this time, wetting the fabric of his costume tights. He doesn’t want this. He just wants to go home.
“I want my mom,” Dick murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” Commissioner Gordon says quietly. It’s not the answer Dick wants to hear.
“I know I’m not mom,” Dick’s dad says after a moment, and Dick’s arm grows slightly colder with another imperceptible touch, “but I’m here for you, Dickie. I’m right here.”
You’re not, Dick doesn’t say. Right now, Dick’s dad is another impossibility that no one else believes in, but he’s not the impossibility Dick thinks he needs.
Dick’s parents are dead, and he will never be able to fly with them again.
“It’s been so long since there was a circus here,” a voice says, and Dick stops before he can show Auntie Djal another handstand trick, towards where a man in a long overcoat is wandering the grounds. Dick has never seen him around before, so he turns to Auntie Djal.
“Who is that?” he asks.
Auntie hums. “See someone you don’t recognize?”
“That man, over there,” Dick says, gesturing at where the man is chatting the new strongman’s ear off. The strongman isn’t paying the man any mind, so the man must be allowed to be here, surely.
“Are you sure he’s there?” Auntie asks.
Dick cocks his head. “Is he not?”
“Not for me,” Auntie says. “But I believe you when you say you can see him.”
“Oh,” Dick says, and maybe the strongman can’t see him either, and that’s why the strongman is ignoring him. “Should I ask him to leave? I don’t think people are supposed to be over by the trailers.”
“Hey may not know,” Auntie says. “Do you want him to leave?”
Dick shrugs. “I dunno. I think I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Dick,” Auntie calls, before Dick can sprint over to the man only he can see. “He may just be lost, but he might also be tied here. We intruded on him, not the other way around.”
“Oh!” Dick says. “Okay. I’ll go introduce the circus and ask if we can stay.”
Auntie laughs. It’s crackly and old and fierce, in a way that Dick has only heard Auntie sound. It reminds him of the sharp snap of the tarot cards as it’s flipped, revealing and mystifying in turn.
“You do that,” Auntie says. “Please, let me know what he says.”
Dick grins and does a cartwheel, springing into a run, yelling over his shoulder, “I will!”
Dick doesn’t sleep very well.
When morning comes, Dick’s eyes are burning from the aftermath of tears and a restless night. His dad had been there every time Dick stirred, but it didn’t do well to sate Dick’s desire for his father’s arms to hold him close and never let go.
His dad can’t do that right now. And will never be able to again.
Dick shoves the thought away. If he lets himself think about it, he doubts he’ll be able to move ever again.
Commissioner Gordon and the CPS lady drive him to the circus to get his things. John is never further than a step away from Dick at all times. Dick is grateful for the small comfort his dad gives.
Their arrival at the circus is lost in the amount of police cars still there. Dick is helped out of the back of the Commissioner’s car and led towards the trailers. He can see Pop Haly arguing—again—with a man in uniform. There are a few other members of Dick’s circus family scattered about.
Auntie Djal spots Dick first, and approaches them, just as the Commissioner sighs and jogs over to Pop Haly and the cop he’s arguing with. The CPS lady stays with Dick, even when Dick stops walking.
“Dick, thank goodness,” Auntie says, her raspy croak competing with the creak of her knees as she crouches in front of Dick and holds his cold hands in hers. “You’re home.”
“Not for long,” the lady sniffs, and Auntie switches her gaze to the CPS lady. Dick still doesn’t know her name. He’s not sure if she even introduced herself. “We’re here to pick up Richard’s things.”
“He’s not staying,” Auntie says, grimacing. She doesn’t sound surprised. “Where will he go?”
“It’s classified,” the lady says. “He’s a witness in the investigation, so we can not give out the location of his new residence.”
Auntie sighs. “We will wait for you, Dick. Yes?”
Dick nods. “Yes.”
The CPS lady sniffs again. Dick tries to ignore it.
Auntie pats his cheek lovingly. Her smile is sorrowful, but she doesn’t look angry like some of the other circus members do. She holds Dick’s gaze and says, “You’re a good boy, Dick. We will fight for you to come back. We will see you again, yes?”
Dick nods again. There’s a lump in his throat. He whispers, “Yes.”
Auntie pats his cheek once more. She gives him a significant look as she says, “Now, tell me, have you seen your parents?”
The CPS lady splutters. “You want a child to see the bodies of his murdered parents?! Are you crazy?!”
Dick knows that’s not the question Auntie is asking. So he nods slightly, and tells her, “Dad.”
Auntie hums. “I see. He has been with you?”
“Auntie Djal,” John says, wide-eyed. “She knew you could—”
“Since we left last night,” Dick answers, cutting off his dad’s words. His lips tremble, and he doesn’t care much that the CPS lady can hear him. He can’t handle hearing John say the words out loud, even if only Dick can hear them.
“I’m glad,” Auntie says, “that John is with you. Your mother?”
Dick shakes his head, thinking of his dad’s plea for his mother in a mass of darkness that had lashed out at everything and anything, even if it couldn’t affect them. There’s a sinking in his chest he doesn’t know how to articulate.
So, instead, he says, “I don’t know.”
“You can’t seriously be enabling this,” the CPS lady sneers. “I understand that Richard has lost his parents, but indulging in the denial of his parents’ deaths is—”
“The child is not hallucinating,” Auntie says firmly. “I know this boy. I’ve seen how he shines when others are hurting. Call it whatever you like, but Dick has a way of lighting the dark for those who are lost, and I will never deny him that.”
The CPS lady doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that. Neither does Dick’s dad.
“Auntie,” Dick says, voice wobbling.
Auntie clucks her tongue, “Come here, child,” and pulls Dick into a hug. The first one he’s gotten since being whisked away from the chaos of the night before. Dick grabs on tight to Auntie’s shawl and clings. One of her hands cradles his head, and Dick doesn’t want to let go.
He’s about to be torn away from this for who knows how long.
“You are a brave little boy,” Auntie murmurs into his ear. “You will be alright.”
“I won’t,” Dick says. His world is crumbling around him, and Dick doesn’t think anything will ever be alright ever again. “They’re gone.”
“Yes,” Auntie says, never one to deny the truth. “But you’re here, and they will live on in you, even after their spirits move forward.”
John makes no noise as he crouches, and Dick can’t feel the touch of his hand placed on Dick’s shoulder, but the weight of his gaze is heavy, the grief he’s radiating even heavier.
“I’m not leaving you, Dick,” John says. “I promise.”
But—
“You did,” Dick tells him, eyes burning as he meets the white eyes of his dead father. “You already did.”
Dick doesn’t often tell people about the things he sees. Only Auntie Djal ever really believes him whole-heartedly, anyways.
So when a man comes into the big top, Dick doesn’t react. When the man inspects the lines, Dick doesn’t tell anyone. Dick isn’t close enough to see the man’s eyes, but he sees strange people do strange things all of the time.
They’d set up on a place that used to do rodeo shows, once, and there was a man who would go around all of the circus animal pens and treat each like they were horses he was readying for a show. Even the elephant.
Dick had giggled at that one.
So a ghost inspecting something doesn’t really pop on Dick’s radar as odd.
It’s not until Dick is in costume, only an hour before the show, that he sees that same man arguing with Pop Haly in the distance.
Dick can’t hear what they’re arguing about, but he pauses long enough that his mother starts ushering him forward, towards the back of the Big Top, where everyone else is readying themselves.
Distracted, Dick forgets about the man.
That is, until his parents are falling to their deaths.
They pass by the Big Top as they leave, and it isn’t until John says, “Don’t look, Dickie,” that Dick realizes he’s stopped at the entrance. The CPS lady is still walking, talking on her phone. She doesn’t even seem to notice that Dick is no longer following.
The whirling mass of inky blackness is still there in the middle of the tent, somehow larger than it was last night. No one else is in the tent. Even looking at the angry darkness makes Dick want to curl up into a little ball and cry his heart out.
“How do we help her?” Dick whispers, looking desperately at his dad.
John looks impossibly tired, but he still kneels down before Dick. His smile is faint, trying for reassuring and missing by a mile.
“I’ll figure it out,” John tells him. “For now, let’s get you set up at the Youth Center.”
Dick swallows, glancing at the spot of darkness and then back to his dad. He nods.
They catch up to the CPS lady.
It hasn’t even been a day yet, and Dick decides that he hates the Gotham Youth Center.
He’s given a dorm room with two other boys that feels almost like a prison cell. One of them is fourteen and ignores Dick with every fiber of his being. The other, older than Dick by a few years maybe, sneers at Dick and shoves him toward the top bunk once the staff has left him alone with his two new roommates. Dick decides to avoid the boy who shoved him.
The walls of the center are white and bare. The bedding is scratchy. None of the kids are in uniforms, but everyone’s clothing is raggedy and worn, too small or too big.
The school rooms are much the same as the rest of the facility. All of the furniture is bolted down. There’s nothing to write with. Nothing but well-worn text books on the desks to write on. And the only kid Dick saw sneaking a pencil in to doodle in the textbook got in enough trouble that it’s scared Dick off from even thinking about it.
Dick is eight, so the room he’s led into for school has kids from seven to ten all grouped together. Apparently, there are only three other rooms, one for all of the kids younger than him, and the other two for those older than ten.
Dick has never been to school before, but the teachers don’t even try to keep anyone on track. Most of the kids are messing around or chatting. Dick’s teacher looks haggard. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
The Youth Center is also crowded.
Not with kids, but with adults. Adults with bright glowing white irises. Kids walk through the adults like they aren’t even there, and the adults don’t seem to even notice.
Dick’s never seen any ghosts like these before, and it terrifies him into keeping quiet when any come around.
Some follow kids around, like they’re watching over them. Some wander, lost and aimless. Some don’t even do that much.
Dick’s first lunch is nothing like his circus meals. There’s no fire to sit around as Auntie tells her stories or they laugh about the show the night before. The meals are served on trays, eaten on metal tables bolted down, with a few staff members talking quietly at the back of the room. Every couple minutes, one of them surveys the room distrustfully.
Dick isn’t alone at his table, but the other kids his age are ignoring him, talking with each other, giving him side glances. Dick doesn’t really have a mind to care all that much.
It’s while he’s sitting there that he sees her. The woman is standing in the corner. She looks like his mom’s age, maybe. Definitely not as old as Auntie. She’s pretty, with dark, braided hair. Her white eyes glow against her dark skin.
All of the other ghosts skirt away from her, and the other kids seem to realize that something’s up, too. The table closest to her is empty.
Towards the end of lunch, a ghost accidentally gets a little too close, and—
The woman screams.
It’s haunting. Piercing. Dick drops his fork to slam his hands against his ears.
The other kids stop talking to stare at him, but Dick doesn’t have eyes for anything but the woman in the corner, agitated from the proximity of the other ghost. The other ghost scrambles away, spooked. The woman stops screaming immediately.
Dick lowers his hands and keeps staring at the corner.
“Theo says you’re crazy,” one of the other kids at the table says suddenly, leaning into Dick’s space.
Dick flinches back, eyes flitting back to the other kid.
“What?” Dick asks, heart still thundering in his chest from fright. “What are you talking about?”
The girl who’d talked to him sits back, raising both eyebrows. “Theo says he overheard your intake. Your social worker said you might hafta get crazy pills.”
“I don’t know who Theo is,” Dick says. “And I’m not crazy.”
The girl shrugs. “Mally was on crazy pills. She said she heard voices. D’ya hear voices like Mally?”
Dick glares. “I’m not crazy.”
“But ya do hear voices?” another girl asks. “I think only crazy people hear voices.”
“Just leave me alone,” Dick mutters, picking his fork back up.
The first girl giggles. “Good luck with that. You’re on Theo’s radar. Better make friends quick if you wanna avoid him.”
“I don’t know who Theo is,” Dick says again, lost and overwhelmed and a little angry.
“He’s your roommate,” the second girl tells him. “He’s an asshole and nobody likes him, but if ya mess with him, his brother’ll shank you, so everyone listens to him.”
The boy who’d shoved Dick towards his top bunk comes back to his mind. Theo, apparently.
“Is his brother here, too?” Dick asks, nausea building in his stomach.
The first girl shakes her head. “He aged out last month, but mosta his friends are still here. If Theo tells his brother, his brother’ll tell his friends, and you’ll get stabbed anyways. It’ll just take longer.”
She doesn’t seem overly worried about Theo, despite her words.
“So, crazy kid,” a boy asks, scooting into the conversation. “You gotta name?”
“It’s Dick. And I’m not crazy.”
“Why do you talk weird?” the boy asks. “Did you go to some fancy school or somethin’?”
Dick’s cheeks feel hot. He’s not sure what the other kids are talking about. He doesn’t think he sounds weird. His dad is American, and he knows he doesn’t have the same accent as his mom when he speaks English.
But Dick talks weird, apparently.
“I’ve never been to school,” Dick murmurs, tapping his fork against his tray. He avoids the other kids’ eyes. “I’m from the circus.”
“Like with clowns and stuff?” the first girl asks.
Dick shrugs. “They didn’t come with us this season.”
He fields questions like that throughout the rest of lunch, the corner lady forgotten. It’s once they’re finished and on the way back to their school rooms that he is shoved from behind, making Dick stumble a few steps forward as Theo stalks passed, sneering at him as he goes.
Dick, finally, for the first time since he’d started lunch, looks at his dad.
John isn’t looking at him, but at the kids around Dick as they file out of the cafeteria, more than half with ghosts of their own trailing behind. He looks sad.
When John meets Dick’s eyes, he gives Dick a small smile. “We’ll figure it out, Dickie. I promise.”
His dad is making a lot of promises that Dick doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep.
Dick nods anyway.
“I’m not crazy,” Dick scowls.
Seated across from where Dick’s sitting on a threadbare couch in a barebones office, is the CPS lady. Apparently, her name is Ms. Crane. Dick thinks that CPS lady sounds better. Next to her is a doctor, who introduced himself as Dr. Langford.
“It’s just an evaluation, Richard,” Dr. Langford says, smiling slightly. “There have been a few concerned comments from the staff, and we just want to double check everything is okay.”
Nothing is okay, and only part of it has to do with the fact that he sees ghosts whenever he’s awake. He hasn’t seen one adult who works in the center who has had a smile reach their eyes. It speaks to the soul-sucking nature of the entire place.
“I’m fine.”
“One of the staff reported that you were talking to the wall,” the CPS lady says. Her sharp eyes look even less welcoming than they had when she’d dropped him off a few days ago.
Dick looks away, picking at his jeans.
He’s not sure how to cover for that one. He’s never had to hide something like this before. He's never been in an environment where he’s had to, but he doesn’t want to go on medication for something that’s not an actual problem.
Yesterday, he’d gotten turned around trying to find the showers, so he’d called to an adult he’d seen down the hall, only for an actual staff member to turn the corner and catch him talking to someone he’d only just realized was dead.
He’d brushed it off, but it must have gotten back to the CPS lady, if she dragged him to what the other kids called, “the crazy room”.
“The other kids say I talk funny,” Dick says when he realizes neither adult is going to let him go if he doesn’t answer something. “I was trying to practice.”
The smile on Dr. Langford’s face becomes a touch more pitying. The CPS lady’s sneer just becomes more pronounced. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t like him, and Dick has decided the feeling is mutual.
Dr. Langford clears his throat. “I see. That makes sense. I’m sorry the other children are giving you a tough time, Richard.”
Dick shrugs and says nothing more.
They let him go back to the classroom soon after, but Dick now has even more whispers following him.
“Dad?” Dick whispers one day, a week after he’d first arrived. He’s careful to keep his voice lowered and his lips hidden from view.
He’s sitting against the wall of the courtyard during what he’s learned is “outside time”, his thin sweatshirt not doing much for the cold of the overcast spring air. He misses sunshine. He misses a lot of things. He’s always so cold now.
John sits next to him, his head leaning against the brick wall as he stares out over the rudimentary playground that looks like it’s one jump from falling apart.
“Yeah?” John asks.
“Am I going to be here forever?”
“No,” John says. He sounds exhausted. Dick knows he’s been splitting his time between Dick in the center and the circus, trying to figure out how to calm down Mary. Dick doesn’t think that’s been going well. “Pop Haly is still working on it.”
“They have to move on soon,” Dick says thickly, because he grew up in the circus and he knows that without a show, there’s no money. And no money means no food. “If they’re gonna be able to finish the season.”
John doesn’t say anything.
Dick closes his eyes and buries his head into his pulled up knees. He knows he’s right.
“Grayson,” a voice calls as the classroom door opens. Every eye swings towards the gruff clerk that barely interacts with any of them. The man catches Dick’s eye and roughly waves him over. Dick stands up and scurries over to the man.
The man says nothing else, just leads him to the front desk, where Dick had done intake with the CPS lady. John isn’t with him again today. Dick thinks something is happening with the circus, because his dad has been frowning and distracted a lot more in the past few days.
He can’t believe he’s only been here for two weeks. It feels like a lifetime ago that he’d been prepping for his first big performance with his parents.
Just as Dick crosses the threshold to the intake office, he catches sight of Commissioner Gordon.
“Commissioner?” Dick wonders, catching the man’s attention.
“Hello, Richard,” the commissioner says. He still looks tired and sad, but Dick has a feeling that there’s very few instances where he doesn’t look like that. Dick has learned a lot of things about Gotham while staying at the GYC, and he knows now that Gotham is a violent city and the cops can’t quite keep up with it all.
He’s also heard rumors of some weird guy called Batman, but he’s not sure he actually believes that one.
“Hello,” Dick says back. “Um, did you need me for something?”
Commissioner Gordon sighs. “Follow me,” he says, before leading Dick down the hall into a room not unlike the crazy room he’d been escorted into a few days into his stay at the GYC. As soon as the door opens, Dick catches sight of two men.
“Pops,” Dick says in a small voice.
“Hey, Dickie,” Pop Haly says.
The man kneels down and Dick can’t help the sob that rips from his chest. Dick smashes into the other man at a run. It’s his first hug since Auntie Djal’s two weeks ago. Pop Haly wraps his arms around Dick just as tightly, and they hold each other.
This is his family.
Dick doesn’t want the hug to end.
“You’re leaving,” Dick whispers into Pop Haly’s jacket, the words slightly muffled by the material.
Pop Haly heaves a heavy sigh, pulling back from the hug just a bit, and that’s when Dick knows he’s right. Pop Haly cradles Dick’s shoulders like Dick is something precious, and Dick can’t help the heat gathering behind his eyes. Tears fall, one after another.
“Yes,” Pop Haly says. He sounds defeated. “I wish we could take you with us.”
“I know,” Dick says, pawing at his face. His breath hitches. “I wish you wouldn’t go, but I know you hafta.”
Pop Haly’s expression is heartbroken, matching the feeling in Dick’s chest exactly. He knocks a soft fist against Dick’s chest. “You come back to us, alright, Dickie? As soon as you’re able, either you find us or we’ll find you. We’ll be waiting for you. I promise.”
“That’s what Auntie Djal said,” Dick says with a sniffle. “She says we’ll meet again.”
Pop Haly shakes his head. “I still don’t know how that woman does it, but she knows things us mortals could never predict.”
Carefully, aware of the eyes of the two other men on him and Pop Haly, Dick murmurs, “Did she tell you about mom? At the tent?”
“She told me,” Pop Haly says. There’s a furrow in his brow as he looks Dick over. “If it hadn’t come from her, I would have dismissed it. But it makes sense, considering how much trouble we had taking the Big Top down.”
Commissioner Gordon clears his throat. “What’s this about the tent? And your mother?”
Dick shares a glance with Pop Haly, who shrugs. The man says to the commissioner, “Not sure you’ll believe me, Commissioner Gordon, but us circus folk have some superstitions. Our fortune teller believes that Mary Grayson has cursed the grounds where we set up the Big Top.”
“I see,” the commissioner says slowly.
“Cursed?” the third man asks, curiously.
Dick finally turns his attention over to the other man in the room with them. He’s tall with dark hair and gray eyes. He looks younger than both Commissioner Gordon and Dick’s dad. He’s wearing what Dick clocks as a very expensive watch, which means this guy is probably like a lawyer or something. He definitely has money.
Just, Dick’s not sure why he’s here.
“Yes,” Pop Haly says to the third man. “Again, I don’t expect you to believe it, but if Djal says it’s true, I believe her. She’s hardly ever wrong, after all.”
“Have you been having any other trouble? Something to corroborate the claims of a curse?” the third man asks.
He seems genuinely concerned, which Dick is a little surprised to see. Not many people with money tend to look at circus people who aren’t performing with anything other than disdain.
“What’s Bruce Wayne doing here?” a new voice asks, and Dick can’t help but jump at the suddenness of his father appearing in his peripheral.
All three of the other men clock it, and Dick is suddenly pinned by all of their gazes. Commissioner Gordon looks at him with pity. Pop Haly with confusion which then dissolves into understanding.
The third man’s gaze is calculating. Dick doesn’t know how to feel about it, so he ignores it.
John moves a little so Dick doesn’t have to look away from the three men in front of him. In the two weeks since Dick has been at the GYC, they’ve learned that’s the best way to keep Dick from being questioned about his habit of needing to look at people who are talking to him.
“Sorry, Dick,” John says, cringing a bit. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Dick doesn’t respond.
“You alright there, Dick?” Pop Haly asks.
“Yeah,” Dick says. “Thought I heard something.”
Pop Haly nods, and then he moves on. Dick relaxes, though he doesn’t remember tensing up.
“Right,” Pop Haly says. “You were asking about the curse, Mr. Wayne?”
Mr. Wayne nods. “Just wondering if there was any other trouble in the name of a curse, or if you were still in danger of being targeted.”
Pop Haly scowls. “No, they’re definitely unrelated.
“Bruce,” Commissioner Gordon says, and it sounds like a warning.
Mr. Wayne holds his hands up in mock surrender, his smile something self-deprecating. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I just have a…history with something like this, and I worry.”
“Right,” Pop Haly says. He looks like he’s swallowed something sour. “I apologize, Mr. Wayne.”
“No need,” Mr. Wayne says, lightly. “You know me, can’t ever keep my mouth shut.”
Dick recognizes the airs Mr. Wayne is putting on, as he’s seen it a hundred times when anyone at the circus has to deal with outsiders. Dick wonders why he’s gone from calculating to kind of air-headed, though, instead of just polite. It’s a weird switch up.
“In this case,” Commissioner Gordon says, an odd note in his tone as he looks at Mr. Wayne, “you’ll need to make sure you keep your mouth shut, Bruce.”
Mr. Wayne sobers immediately. “Of course, Jim.”
Dick feels very out of the loop. Instead of trying to figure it out, he looks back to Pop Haly.
“Are you just here to say bye?” Dick asks, biting his lip.
“Sort of,” Pop Haly says. “I also asked to be here so I could meet Mr. Wayne in person.”
Dick blinks in confusion. “What?”
“Mr. Wayne has requested to meet you because he would like to foster you,” Commissioner Gordon says. He sounds almost defeated. “And wouldn’t take no for an answer from Social Services. Mr. Haly wanted to meet Mr. Wayne to reassure those in the circus that you’ll be safe.”
“You know as well as I do that the GYC is an insane place to place a child who just witnessed—” Mr. Wayne cuts himself off, and then continues in a calmer tone, “Who went through the experiences that Dick has. “Wayne Manor is more secure, and he’ll want for nothing there.”
Wait. Dick throws a cautious look at his dad, who is staring at Mr. Wayne with suspicion. Dick is starting to get an idea of what the adults are talking about. The other kids at the GYC have thrown around the word “foster”, but Dick hasn’t really fully understood it completely.
“I’m going to be living with you now?” Dick asks incredulously, looking up at Mr. Wayne. “But I don’t know you.”
Mr. Wayne is quiet for a moment, the air-headedness he’d put on before seemingly vanished. His gray eyes are sharp, and Dick knows this guy is smart. But behind the sharpness, there’s a kindness that Dick has seen in only one other adult since he’d been swept away from the circus.
Mr. Wayne kneels down, seeming to not care that he’s getting his fancy suit dirty on the gross GYC floor.
“Do you prefer Richard or Dick?” Mr. Wayne asks him softly.
“Dick,” Dick murmurs shyly. No one has asked him that the entire time he’s been here. “Richard’s for when I’m in trouble.”
Mr. Wayne cracks a slight, genuine smile. “I see. Well, Dick, my name is Bruce, and I went through something similar when I was your age.”
Dick’s eyes widen in alarm. “Your parents died?”
“They were murdered,” Mr. Wayne says simply. “You remind me of myself.”
And suddenly Dick gets it. There’s an instant connection as they stare at each other, where Dick can see the genuineness of Mr. Wayne’s statement. Mr. Wayne really isn’t lying anymore.
So Dick asks, “Do you prefer Mr. Wayne or Bruce?”
And Mr. Wayne cracks out a laugh that seems to surprise everyone else in the room. There’s a twinkle in his eyes as he says, “Just Bruce. Mr. Wayne is for when I’m in trouble.”