Author's Notes: A story of a lonely boy who was too smart and kind for such sad beginnings. References to the Comics' "Robin Annual 04 (1995) and Batman - Dark Victory (1999-2000) and loosely based on it.
Disclaimer: All the characters belong to DC and I only use them for entertainment purposes. I own nothing. If I did the reboot wouldn't exist. Like other details.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Summary: A story of a lonely boy who was too smart and kind for such sad beginnings. References to the Comics' "Robin Annual 04 (1995) and Batman - Dark Victory (1999-2000) and loosely based on it.
Summary:Prompt for the Batfamily Christmas Exchange 2014: A story about Dick back when he was first Robin, finding his feet as Bruce Wayne's charge, finding his feet as Robin. Hurt Robin, bonus Alfred and Gordon would be amazing!
Warning(s): Angst and repressed emotions.
Sunday December 7th, 2014 Words: 4,025.
'Bobbin' Around'
By Robin Wingster
"Have you found him?"
"I'm afraid not yet, Master Bruce. Perhaps it would be best to cancel the young Master's attendance."
A heavy silence.
"...Master Bruce,"
"Mmp."
"Sir, I truly must insist you take the time to reconsider—"
"Now is not the time, Alfred."
"And when is the time, Master Bruce?" Mr. Pennyworth answered back in an air that took the boy by surprise. Far as Dick understood the nice butler had never argued with the rich man for anything; and why would he when he was his employee? "It's been two months since you have been using that excuse."
Oh. They were talking about him.
He hid himself better on his corner of the ceiling, curving his spine even deeper into the gargoyle's chest.
"It's been a busy couple of months. The press hasn't quelled enough for me to focus on the case, and because of that—"
"'Because of that' what, Sir? If you've agreed to the press conference I mentioned beforehand the media would have been far more sated with the situation."
Dick furrowed his brow in aggravation. He was sick of the reporters himself, but in no means was he willing to play the puppet just for laughs.
He wasn't in the show-business anymore.
"There's no 'situation', Alfred. The boy needed a place to stay until someone decides to take him in: that's it." Mr. Wayne talked back using that grave voice of his that always sent chills up his spine, making the nice-butler turn-up his nose.
"Alright, Sir, if you could excuse me a moment, there are errands to take care of before the banquet starts; the kitchen staff needs my assistance." Nice-Butler said, moving briskly out of the ballroom where they had been.
"Wait—Alfred, what about the kid?"
"What about him, Sir? As I recall he's your charge until someone decides to take him in. Beg your pardon, Master Wayne, the guests will arrive shortly and you have a child to find."
"No—Alfred!"
Too late. Dick thought watching the oldest man leave the place and head (supposedly) towards the kitchen. The place was a huge maze; Dick wondered how long it took the two men to get the gist on things here. Well not that it mattered; he had no intention of attending their snob-fest, less of all for someone who was only fostering for him after barely speaking to him twice in the whole time he'd been trapped here.
He didn't know what was that guy's problem. Dick hadn't asked him to take him out of Juvie (if it weren't for the Batman he would be in the Circus (1) with his real family); he was still wondering about it.
It was frustrating.
Time was usually spent doing nothing but exploring the giant palace: he felt really uncomfortable in the room he'd been handed; all those new toys and fancy clothes that he'd yet to even go through against his small sack of things.
Dick felt really small in there. With nothing to do he had nothing else but wander in his thoughts, something way too dangerous.
Mr. Wayne grunted one final time before storming out (possibly to find him) and there was that other can of worms he'd been interested in understanding since he came here.
It's not like he had much to do.
Going through the lines above the ceiling, he minded his footing as he made his way outside the ballroom and into the common reception hall to go up the stairs.
Dick had to be extra-careful.
"Where is he now?" The grown-man muttered under his breath searching around him with his eyes alone. "I don't have time for this."
His presence alone made him shiver. The first month he felt so insecure around the man after he first took him in—and how not? He towered over Dick more than Gerda (the giant woman at Haly's) minus the kind-smile, and when Dick finally mustered the courage to thank him, the man had offered a nod with a tense 'hello' and ushered him inside a limousine without a backwards glance. Then, during the whole ride Dick caught him gazing at him from time to time, just like the nice-Butler from the rearview window.
And then: nothing. It was the kind old-man who took him on a tour of the Manor, and who took the liberty to explain all the details regarding his staying like house rules, eating times, his bedroom, facts about the private school he would be attending and so on.
Amidst his exploring of the grounds he'd found a closed-door and snuck past it, finding a deserted room filled with expensive furniture that was throughout dusted impeccably for it to be completely abandoned. A brush had caught his eye on a vanity and before he knew it, Dick had succumbed to his delusions and grabbed it.
It had been the first time he'd spent a Father's Day alone, something he told Mr. Pennyworth after who knew how long he'd spent staring vacantly at the accessory.
"I'm all alone now, Mr. Pennyworth." (2) Dick had confessed to the elderly man in an effort to try and understand his situation better; the English-man had reassured him otherwise and confessed Mr. Wayne's orphan status too.
It hadn't brought the comfort he guessed was intended.
He'd even saw the Batman again that evening when he was at the highest part of the Manor trying to clear his thoughts—Dick had told the man someone had killed his parents; a fat man who threatened Mr. Haly and yet—
—bull's-eye and Dick held his breath with sudden fright when those navy eyes shot upwards nearby his hidden spot just like a Hawk.
That's what he got for slipping.
There was a moment of uttermost tension where he perched frozen against that steely-gaze that remained fixed on his general area, afraid he would be spotted.
"…of everything…" Mr. Wayne mumbled walking away, and if Dick chose to stay on his spot for a little while longer it was out of pure self-preservation.
He was scary.
Once gone he started to relax on his spot and again considered trying to escape instead; it's not like he was actually wanted anywhere they took him, even with children his age. Dick had never had trouble making friends, yet every day at school was like entering a different dimension; the townies were snobby and had ugly colors, and while Dick was okay to ignore them to avoid issues, he wasn't okay with anyone insulting his family.
That fight had gotten him in big troubles at school, and even if he'd only defended himself after the first punch was thrown nobody believed the word of a 'dirty-foreigner' so they called his current guardian to the Principal's office.
He hid his face on his elbows in helplessness; the Principal had sent him out to wait for them, then Mr. Wayne walked out of the office after a little while with a testy "let's go." He followed him to the car with the nice-Butler driving; first-stop was to drop Mr. Wayne on his work and only after he was gone did Mr. Pennyworth scold him. Dick hadn't the heart to defend himself so he just nodded and mumbled an apology when they returned to the Manor and called it a day.
At least he was getting better on the language—Mr. Pennyworth's daily-English classes were helping a lot. It wasn't like his parents' teaching at all and that made him feel better and worse all in one.
Sighing softly his interest in exploring the grown-man's secrets waned like his mood, so he made a line to the room where he slept, dragging his feet on the floor of the darkened bedroom sooner than he expected and choosing to sit next to his sack to rummage thoroughly for his object of comfort.
Dick wanted Zitka, but his friend wasn't here so he settled for the next best thing: a plush elephant he'd named after his best friend.
When he found it, Dick hugged the old thing, careful of the numerous stitches he'd proudly made to make it feel better because he was a big boy now, and didn't't need his mother's hands for it.
A sob escaped him, so Dick furrowed his face even deeper on Zitka.
He missed his mom,… he was trying so hard to be a big boy but he missed his mom and his dad and now Zitka would never have the option of being fixed by his mom because he was dumb to tell her he could do it and now she was gone and he was all alone.
'It's not fair,' he thought childishly trying to control his hiccups; that they were gone and had left him in a strange place with strange people who didn't want him around. He was tired of feeling sad and lonely; Dick would trade all the toys and clothes they gave him—anything for a bunk in their old trailer.
Sadly, when he finally lifted his head after wishing it with all his heart nothing but the cold walls and lifeless bedroom greeted him.
"I'm all alone now, Mr. Pennyworth."
Dick was alone, and he needed to get used to it.
He didn't understand why he had to go get the kid in the first place, Alfred knew he wasn't good with children and a traumatized-acrobat wouldn't be the exception.
Bruce repressed a sigh. For two months they avoided the press before he ran out of excuses to give the fickle-media what they wanted:
Richard Grayson.
He massaged the bridge of his nose trying to tune-out the sound of the numerous masses traipsing on his house; high socialites that called themselves his friends laughing obnoxiously downstairs and mindlessly offering to aid his Charity of choice (the Juvenile Center) so long as they could watch the spectacle first-row.
Bruce grunted in dissatisfaction.
Alfred was right. They needed to show them the boy and get their curiosity sated or they would only get worse. Problem was that it'd been two months since he fostered the kid and not a single person showed interest in adopting him.
The billionaire had to stop that train of thought immediately. To make matters worse, the boy had been off to find his parents' killer on his own. It was a too dangerous for him, and even Batman wasn't any closer to solving that particular case to give the kid Justice.
Too much was going on and too fast to his liking. He took an orphan-in out of some misplaced sense of morality, while he still tried to swallow his guilt over telling Harvey who he was a night before Maroni threw acid on his face and effectively ruined a good man's life.
Doubt plagued his mind-if only he'd told Harvey his secret maybe things would've really turned-out different.
Heaving a long breath Bruce dispelled his thoughts as he stared at the door.
Now, if only the Guest of Honor would do his part and get this shenanigan over with he could finally go back to the Cave to finally solve this troublesome case.
'Just knock.' He thought forcing his knuckles to graze the door before he abruptly opened it: this was his house—he had no reason to tread on egg shelves.
Except the first thing he saw was the boy on the floor curled around an ugly stuffed-animal and a pair of striking blue-eyes dozing awake before quickly standing up and avoiding his face.
Did he really have to do that every time he was nearby? The kid was a pathetic sight to watch and the vultures below would shred him to pieces in no time.
How he hadn't the same reactions to the Batman was a mystery.
"Alfred said he left you a suit for the evening." Bruce said awkwardly, receiving a small affirmation after an undecided pause. "So get ready then. We need to go down." He fumbled rashly when the quiet only stretched and tried to overlook the flinch of the kid's tiny shoulders.
This was why Alfred should've been the one here. Bruce briefly contemplated if the boy was daft when said kid finally made his way to his closet and closed its doors after him to presumably get ready (at least he hoped so), however he had to disregard the notion just like it came.
The boy was smart, he'd gathered as much; Alfred had complimented his quick grasp of English and proudly announced his excellence at school twice in the current month. It seemed he was only skittish—around him.
Far too soon the boy was done and Bruce took a tentative hold of the offered black-tie; it was testament to how unprepared he was to deal with this when he decided to face Alfred's scolding than another uncomfortable situation with the kid, and so, forgo the item altogether by putting it on the back of a chair. There was no question to his action, just hollow eyes that followed his lead and then, they were joining his guests and the hand he had to place over the scrawny boy's shoulders had never felt so wrong.
The only rewarding feature was how it kept the sharks at bay and the boy was so small for his age that it was easy to take him away from their claws when Bruce felt the boy stiffen too much.
A practiced dazzling-speech finished the trick and the fools were left to wander around in search of new shiny things.
"Go ask Alfred to take you to bed; you can have dinner in your room." With that he left to tend to the other side of his coin.
He'd gotten better at avoiding Mr. Wayne.
Of course knowing the layout of the Manor like the back of his hand helped too. Dick had also gotten a lot better at ignoring the teachers and kids at school, because if he didn't do much to stand-out then Mr. Wayne had no reason to pay attention to him, something the man had also gotten better at.
Yesterday had been a productive day of sorts. Dick had been following the man's absence religiously, and he'd noticed a pattern that was in par with the holiday's murders and the days prior to them.
It was weird.
No matter how anyone looked at it, a billionaire had no business on days-off, and whenever Mr. Wayne was supposed to be inside his own ridiculously-large house, Dick never knew where he went off-to.
Except…
That clock had a hidden entrance, and he'd followed it only to find a big cave underneath the Mansion. Dick hadn't ventured into it more than a couple of minutes when Mr. Pennyworth's voice asking for him made him go back before he got caught. No; it was ridiculous to imagine it...
Mr. Wayne had wanted a word.
Dick watched the last of the fireworks at play from the top of the Mansion.
It was the fourth of July and unsurprisingly, Mr. Wayne had gone off to tend his business elsewhere.
"Big surprise." Dick had told him after the man offered more than a couple of words to him, stating Mr. Pennyworth could take care of anything he needed or wanted. And that there was a lot they needed to talk about yet, but he was busy.
Again, 'big surprise.'
Well, Dick would take part of it no more.
It wasn't like anyone would notice him gone.
The trailer was his first option; back when that lemon-face lady came for him to the Circus, Dick had wanted to warn Pop about the Fat-man but he'd been brushed aside the moment Pop had just gotten to him by some big-burly blues and taken away from the only remaining family he had left.
The system said he had a better chance at the Juvenile Center for Displaced Boys; Pop and the others never stood a chance. So now that Dick had a better understanding of how things worked he knew staying in Haly's was dangerous for everyone else:
Unless he got to the Fat-man first.
He did not expect, however the case, to find two bullies tormenting Pop Haly around and hadn't thought better of it when he threw the first thing he gathered at one's face through the trailer's window.
Dick ran when the bullets started going off after him; climbing lamppost after lamppost, and swinging himself amidst the cables with unnatural grace. He had been higher than this and these people tried to kill Pop—a grandfather to him; there was no way he would let them go, so he lost the men eventually.
"There he is! Get him!" A bullet grazed his shoulder and he tumbled off, crashing into some trashcans with the burn of his skin pulsing fiercely.
He was all alone.
"It's that Grayson kid!"
"Just our luck; thought Wayne had him."
"Yeah—we got ourselves some big cash from Zucco for tying loose ends." The skinny one said to the other and then pointed at him. "Sorry kid, nothing person—argh!" Dick's blurry eyes peeled-opened at the sight.
"Batman…" he whispered at the figure of a man who stood atop the big mungos like they were nothing against him.
"I thought I told you to stay put." He gathered before everything went dark.
He was in and out a lot of times—more than he considered possible, when he summed-up the strength to open his eyes. Dick had eavesdropped enough of the men's conversation to know the name of the Fat-man who killed his parents and who now threatened Pop again; he had to go and find him before someone else got hurt!
The police wouldn't help him because nobody listened to him about anything just the same way nobody wanted him around anywhere.
"You need to stay put." Batman's voice took him out of his reverie as he towered above him. They were in a familiar-cavern like place full of an impressive computer and many other strange trinkets no one would find in a regular Cave.
"But—" It didn't matter—Zucco—that was Fat-man's name! That was what they needed to do, not this—not—
"Dick," at the recognizable ring, he leveled-up his watering eyes disregarding the soft blankets and the strong smell of medicine hanging around him, because he knew that voice just like he knew this place because he wasn't stupid but he was alone and his shoulder hurt and why did Mr. Wayne let his parents' murder pass for an accident when he was The Batman—why did he took him in and left him all alone with his secrets to discover and then ignore because Dick wasn't supposed to get more involved than he already was for appearances' sake with the man, because now he would never let him leave.
"It's okay; I told you we had a lot to talk about." He had, but just like everything, Dick had thought the man had only spoke out of nervousness over what to do with him more than anything else.
Dick would never fly again now that Mr. Wayne knew he'd known who he truly was.
The boy—Dick Grayson, had found-out about him; he was bright, Bruce had noted from the moment he stepped into the Circus' Tent, until the moment he found-out his parents' killer.
Dick had fled the system when children older than him had viciously attacked him through somewhere he'd yet to completely confirm; Gotham's Juvenile Center for Displaced Boys hadn't had one single case of fugitives though it didn't meant by any means it hadn't been tried before.
Dick had great patience with those who undermined him and knew how to face adversities and stand-up to others whilst keeping composure to avoid standing out; this he knew when he went to the Principal's Office at Gotham Academy after the fight incident, and when he'd reached his Office at Wayne Tower he quickly hacked through the security camera's at the Private School to check-on the footage where the sad truth revealed weeks-upon-weeks of torment before Dick rose to defend his family's name before his own.
But Dick also had horrors that haunted him day-and-night and followed everywhere he went; Bruce saw it on the boy's dead-eyes and fallen shoulders; saw it on the flinch of his back when he was treated like a broken pet amidst his "friends" and reporters on social gatherings despite being able to handle a polite conversation with only some weeks of Alfred's English lessons.
And yet, the boy seemed to yearn for solace; gravitating around some of the cleaning staff just minutes before he went to bed like he'd been told.
"Mi dulce niño, todo estará bien, ya verás."
"…los extraño... ¿por qué me dejaron solo?"
He'd spoken Spanish brilliantly, and Bruce had lingered into their conversation a few ways away to confirm both the aforementioned need just like the ability to do so when the woman offered him comfort in a warm-embrace, and he left them to their own devices; feeling ashamed of intruding in something so simple he hadn't even had the courage (or decency) to offer the boy himself.
Bruce had taken into investigating the boy's records then, discovering they've been around in more places than he'd been to in a long time; finding a couple of school tests from last year alone that validated Dick's current record from Gotham Academy—the kid had the beginnings of another three languages and used to be on top of the class before the fight, presumably achieving normal standards to avoid any attention to him, and wasn't that something?
By the time Bruce had considered telling him about Batman, Dick had already figured it out himself on a lazy Fourth of July afternoon, just when he had to leave to avoid another murder from the current Holiday Case.
When faced with him he'd said nothing but a "big surprise" and resumed watching the remaining fireworks instead of the confrontation he'd expected.
A confrontation he deserved.
It had brought back his initial thoughts regarding his future; here was a brilliant-traumatized eight-year-orphan who up to date continued eliciting the pity of the City under the pretense of actual care, when his only remaining talent was a penchant for heights and a mind far too curious for his own good; what parent would want to adopt him?
No one: the awful truth… Dick was too much for parents who wanted a healthy-happy kid who didn't demand more care than anyone would be willing to handle, so he'd finally gone through with his previous line of thought and considered his situation.
…would he really be so bad? Bruce could make a difference to the kid and give him the opportunity nobody gave him, and when he'd begun with that notion, Dick had once again upped and shown him how he was too-brilliant for his own good and nearly got himself killed in the aftermath.
It brought things to perspective.
If Bruce had told Harvey who he was maybe he'd still be the man he'd once known and called a friend.
If Bruce had faced his own insecurities he would've been able to see just how alone he'd allowed his charge to be and found the obvious solution Alfred had been hinting at.
Then, maybe, Dick wouldn't have been hurt-wouldn't have been almost shot.
So he would train him and help him with the loneliness Dick had to endure in his own way. Bruce had yet to brave himself to being capable of offering comfort but he would try to find the boy justice.
And maybe between the two orphans they would find the boy the peace they both so desperately yearned.
(1) Check "Robin Annual 04 of 1995". Great issue featuring Dick's origin where we see him living on the Juvenile Center for a Month and after attempting to escape through the chimney and arriving there, he faces Batman on the roof, just-by the chimney.
(2) Batman – Dark Victory 09 (1999-2000)