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“It’s Gram’s birthday,” his dad says. “Why aren’t you dressed yet?”
He glares at the dress laid out on his bed and shrugs. They’re already late for dinner, his parents both wearing something nice for the occasion, but he just—can’t. Won’t?
His mom strides into his room, her head tilted so she can slip a hoop earring in as she goes. “Baby, we have to go. What’s wrong with the dress?”
Sighing, he shrugs, averting his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Over his head, his parents exchange a Look.
Gently, his mom says, “You know, it’s almost as important to know what you don’t want as it is to know what it is you’re really looking for.”
He can start with that. “I don’t want to wear the dress.”
His mom hums. “Okay. And what are you looking for?”
“I don’t know,” he says again, miserable, because he doesn’t.
“A different dress?” his dad suggests, and he’s shaking his head before the question is all the way out.
“Not another dress.” He looks up at his parents, and neither of them look upset at him even though he’s making them late, even though he doesn’t know what he wants. His gaze slides from their faces, understanding and sweet, down to their outfits.
His eyes hook on his dad’s tie, the clean knot, the starchy collar it rests underneath.
And he knows what he’s looking for.
“Look out the window.” His mom points outside to the purple and green of Gotham, the question marks filling the sky. “A madman is controlling the whole city. We have a lot more problems than this kid wanting to be a boy.”
“Hey, what’s a five-letter prefix for action?”
It’s his fifth crossword puzzle of the night. The sunset had already come and gone, another day where the Riddler challenged anyone to ask a riddle he couldn’t answer, another day where he was met with silence.
His dad mutes the television at the question, and his parents glance over at him from where they sit on the couch. They give him that look he’s been getting from everyone lately, the you’re crazy look.
But you’re only crazy if it doesn’t work.
“At those puzzles again?” his dad asks. “Did you finish your homework?”
He frowns at him and then the paper, running the tip of his pencil’s eraser along the wrinkles of his forehead. What does homework matter in times like these? “Yeah, Dad."
Five letters….
“Listen,” his mom says, “your dad and I—we think it’s really impressive what you’re trying to do. But, you know, you’re spending all your free time trying to come up with the right riddle—”
“It only takes one,” he reminds them.
His dad sighs. “We know, but what about being a kid? What about seeing your friends?”
He shrugs. “I see them at school.” They give him the you’re crazy look too.
“What about the Fox Center?” his mom asks, and it’s clear they’re not going to let this go or help him figure out this crossword clue. “You used to go there all the time.”
“Yeah, okay,” he says, just so the conversation doesn’t become A Conversation. “I’ll hang out there this week.”
His dad unmutes the television, and he counts it as a success.
He doesn’t mention that he’ll be bringing his puzzles with him too.
“What would you have named me? If I was born a boy?”
His parents smile.
“Duke,” his mom tells him.
Suddenly, the letters slide right into place.
“I go by Duke now, Mr. Fox,” Duke says politely.
“Oh!” Mr. Fox seems surprised before his face settles into a warm smile. “Then it’s good to see you again, Duke,” he says, repeating his earlier words with the right name. “What have you been up to?”
“He’s been tryna beat the Riddler, Mr. Fox,” Jordan announces loudly from somewhere behind them. He’s the only one working at the table, all the other kids on the floor playing a game. “See all his puzzle books? Thinks he can come up with an unbeatable riddle.”
“It doesn’t have to be unbeatable,” Duke corrects her indignantly. “It just has to be something Mr. Riddler can’t answer.” He sighs, looking over at Mr. Fox. “You probably think it’s crazy too, huh? Everybody else does.”
Mr. Fox’s smile softens as he places a hand on his shoulder. “I think that sometimes, the craziest undertakings can be the noblest.”
It’s the best thing anyone has ever said in response to his plans. “I’m going to give the city back to the people,” he tells him with conviction.
“I have no doubt that you could one day, young man,” Mr. Fox says.
Mr. Fox has known him since he was a little kid. Duke’s chest warms at the compliment.
“I’ve just realized,” Mr. Fox says suddenly, before Duke can reply, “this is Duke’s first day at the center. I think it’s time you make a new brick.”
When Mr. Fox opened the Lucius Fox Center for Gotham Youth in the Narrows, he started a policy. On your first day here, you have to make a brick. You cut the clay, you paint it, you put it in the kiln, bake it, and then you put it out back.
There’s a wall. Some bricks are from decades ago.
Duke’s original brick is from when he was five. When he had a different handwriting, a different favorite color, and a different first name. It’s a vague memory now, but he remembers how happy he’d been to add his brick to the wall with the rest of his friends.
It was the first time in his short life that he said: I was here.
Six years later, he makes a new one. He boldly scratches DUKE THOMAS in the clay. He paints the brick bright yellow and his name a vivid black.
Mr. Fox takes a drill to the surrounding mortar of his old brick and carefully cuts it from the wall. It’s still intact when he pulls it out and hands it over to Duke.
“You can keep it,” Mr. Fox tells him. “Or throw it away. Whatever you want.”
Duke runs his fingers over it, over the life he once had with a future he’ll never reach. When he grows up, he wants to be a paleontologist, and holding the brick feels like how he’s always imagined it’d be. His hands are dirty with its dust, like he’s uncovered the bones of who he used to be.
It’s not who he is anymore, but it’s a piece of him, and he’s always loved being able to put all the pieces of a puzzle together.
He slides it into his pocket.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Now to immortalize Duke Thomas.” Mr. Fox fills the hole his old brick left behind with mortar and pushes the new brick—yellow and black and Duke—in its place.
Duke Thomas Was Here.
The other bricks surrounding it are muted and dulled by age and dirt, but his is bright. New. It marks his new beginning of the future he’s reaching for.
Duke glows.