He is eight years old, skinny, and scared when he meets her for the first time. She is standing with the Commissioner who talked to him about Tony Zucco and wearing a long, black dress.
The Commissioner walks over and puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. "It'll be okay, son." The man glances over at Mr. Wayne. "We'll get him. And, one day, everything will be alright. I promise."
The girl at the man's side, she's staring at the shiny black of her dress shoes. She looks up for a moment and her blue eyes are wide and clear.
"I'm sorry about your parents." She mumbles to her shoes. Her hand reaches for the Commissioner's to hold.
He had no one to hold his hand anymore. No one. Dead in a puddle of red. Gone, gone in the ground. He sniffled once, twice, and began to cry in little, hiccupping sobs, tears and snot running down his face.
Mr. Wayne came over and steered him away, wiped his face with an embroider handkerchief.
When his eyes were dry, or dry enough, he looked up, but the Commissioner and the girl with the orange hair were gone.
He starts Gotham Academy still a skinny, scared little thing that moves oddly in his expensive uniform. It's nothing like leotards or shorts, or t-shirts, or tanktops, or even long, soft sweatpants.
In class they introduce him as Richard Grayson, he hates being called Richard, and assign him to a seat. The other kids whisper and point and laugh and sneer. The teacher does not stop them and he doesn't know why. Do they not see? Do they already not like him? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with him?
He's told he can eat his lunch wherever he wants so he takes it and climbs a tree outside. Other kids eat under the tree, but they don't notice him. He climbs down after they are gone.
He decides he likes it there.
He sees a girl with orange hair across the playground. She ate mostly alone on the swing-set, except for a blonde girl that came and went.
But it's time to go in now, for more hours of sitting still in clothes that don't fit right and listening to the hiss of the whispers around him.
He thinks Gotham Academy is awful and he hates it. He throws fits in foyer of Wayne Manor about going every day. Alfred sighs and usually waits until he calms down before forcing him to go. When he does the same in front of Bruce, the man looks increasingly uncomfortable and runs away.
But they make him go, every day. His fits are wearing on them. He almost feels bad, but his parents are dead and his world is upside down and he doesn't care. He doesn't care that he's being awful. The whole world is awful.
School has gotten worse and worse. They don't just whisper anymore, they talk. They laugh, right in his face. They ask him if he is a circus monkey, a sideshow freak. They ask him what he does for Bruce to keep him. He doesn't know what they're talking about and neither do they. If they did, they wouldn't say 'My daddy said…'
He tries to be first in line for lunch every day, so he can run to his tree before they find it, the last place where he can get away.
But one day they corner him.
Circus freak, sideshow act, did you escape your cage? Their words run together in his ears and he feels his ears and eyes burn in anger and shame and sadness.
"Hey!" someone shouts. "What do you think you're doing?"
He turns and sees the orange haired girl. She's got her hands on her hips and her hair is up in a high ponytail tied with a dark blue ribbon.
"None of your business!" one of the boys says and they take a step forward.
"You lay a hand on either one of us and I'll have my dad put you in jail so fast you won't even have time to blink!" the girl says and the boy stops.
The boy makes a nasty face. "You aren't worth it."
They walk away. The girl stands there, looking at him. After a moment, he walks over to his tree. The girls that normally sit under it aren't there yet, so he shimmies up into the branches with his lunch.
"Hey!"
He looks down and the girl is there, looking up.
"Aren't you even gonna say thank you?" she calls up to him.
"Thank you." He says. She frowns and, with an easy jump and grab, she catches a branch and hauls herself into the tree next to him.
"I'm Barbara Gordon." She says.
"I'm Dick Grayson." He says and she laughs.
"Dick is a bad word." She smiles, like that's a good thing. "Dick, Dick, Dickie, Dick."
He ignores that and asks "How'd you get up here so easy?" He looks down at the ground, then back to her.
"I'm awesome." She replies automatically. He cracks a smile for her and she continues. "I'm in gymnastics and judo. I'm prac-tic-ally Batman." She stumbles over the large word and he grins.
"You aren't big enough to be Batman." He tells her.
"Well, neither are you, skinny-minny." She retorts and they laugh.
He stops throwing fits about going to school. Bruce and Alfred are relieved.
He doesn't eat lunch alone anymore either.
He likes the person he is with Barbara. He smiles more and laughs more.
She feels like the circus people did, warm and full of color and laughter.
She is taller than him and when they look at things together she stands behind him, puts her hands on the back of his chair or his shoulders and leans over him. He ducks his head to not bump into her and it all fits together like a puzzle.
He goes to gymnastics with her and she is good. Not as good as him, but good. She can't do trapeze work like he can, but she spins on the parallel bars and the motion is familiar and perfect.
"Jump and I'll catch you!" she calls from the ground one day as he lazily performs a routine on the bars.
"What?" he calls, slowing, but not stopping, not giving up his momentum.
"I'll catch you, you skinny thing! C'mon, you chicken?" she goads. He is scared, he's scared of falling. He knows it won't hurt much, even if it messes up and they fall down together. But he doesn't like falling anymore, he doesn't trust the deal he made with gravity now. That's what decides for him. He won't be afraid.
He releases himself into a perfect arc, falling straight for her. He sees her brace herself and prepares his body for either outcome, success or failure.
She catches him, puffs a breath right in his face and her arms quake, but she doesn't drop him and they grin at each other.
He starts to jump out of the tree and into her arms on some days. She catches him and they laugh and laugh, the sound echoes off the walls of the school and everyone stares.
Let them.
Let them see him happy again.
They will not bow his head or silence him now.
They invade each other's space so casually. She leans over him, wraps arms around his shoulders, gives him piggyback rides.
He fits himself against her side, drapes himself across her arms and legs.
The world is perfect.
Puberty has begun, just barely.
It doesn't slow them down one bit.
People whisper.
They never really stopped.
Barbara puts her hands on his shoulders. Her tie is messed up and he is fixing it for her. She leans forward so he has a better view of what he is doing.
The girls and boys in the hallway laugh and sneer alternatively. The two Charity Cases were meant to be. They aren't good enough for anyone else here. The Police's Brat and Wayne's Sideshow. A match made in heaven.
"Can you hear them?" Barbara whispers. Her face is close to his. He can smell the strawberry candy she was sucking on outside the gates.
"Yes." He says. He hasn't looked up at her. Ties are hard, he concentrates on his hands.
"Wanna to get them good?" she asks and he grins and knows she is grinning too.
"How?" he demands.
"I'll kiss you. Then you get on my back and we'll run off before they can react. And make sure to laugh." She says.
"Ready." He says, finishing off her tie. She leans down and presses her lips to his. He can smell the strawberry. A couple minutes later he'll taste it when he licks his lips, but his tongue is inside his mouth now. The pressure against his lips is warm and soft and nice.
She pulls away, already beginning to laugh and he launches himself off the ground with a fantastic leap and lands on her back. She sprints down the hall and they laugh, loudly, shrilly, like children.
He loves strawberry candy, loves it, for years and years. It reminds him of beginnings and laughter, smiles and kinship.
It's a little like love, but more like something else entirely, huge and yawning and spinning wildly.
He creeps taller, edging up and up on her height. She has always been taller than him, but he is catching up at last.
She puts her hands on his shoulders and stares straight into his eyes. Her blue eyes dance with mirth.
"When did this happen?" she asks, as if she hasn't noticed his gradual growth all along.
"Overnight. Tomorrow, I'll be taller than you." He jokes and she grins, leans in and bumps her nose against his.
"Then I should enjoy being eye level with you, right?" she says, their noses still touching. He can feel her breath on his face and he grins wide enough to split his face.
"Yes, you should."
She tries to pick him up, just to see if she can, but he is all muscle and bone. And sunshine and laughter and blue skies, blue eyes.
His hands go to her waist and he lifts her. She laughs, delighted, and he joins her.
"I want to give you a piggyback ride!" he says, turning. She steps forward.
"Shouldn't that wait til tomorrow, when you're taller?" she teases, placing her hands on his shoulders.
"No, right now. No time like the present." She does a little hop and he grips the undersides of her knees. Her skin is warm and soft there.
"Don't go too fast. I'm wearing a skirt." She cautions.
"Of course." He promises and then they are off, down the hallways, to the gymnastics room. He wants her to spin and spin on the high bar and let go so he can catch her.
He wants to prove he can.
The discovery that she is Batgirl is a relief at the same time that it is incredibly worrying.
They can share everything now that had been off limits before.
But now he knows that that shower of bullets is aimed at his best friend. Now he knows that the thug has just landed a hit on one of the very important people in his life.
He invites her over to the cave to train every day until she manages to pin him.
"Ready to stop worrying, Wonder Boy?" she teases from above him. He seizes her distraction and flips them, pinning her to the mat.
"Not yet." He says. The words are a tease, but the tone is full of that same worry.
He likes it when there aren't enough seats in the room. Barbara will sit in his lap, lounged across his legs, content and comfortable.
He loves it. When they were younger and he was smaller, he'd sit in her lap the same way. Rested across her body and loved the comfort of her breathing and heartbeat beneath him.
He hopes he comforts her in the same way and the fact that she always, always seeks out his lap, even when there is room to sit on the floor, makes him think he does.
No one on the Team or in his school can tell if they are dating.
He likes it that way. He likes to chase away boys and put his hands all over her body, possessive and tender at once. But he likes to tease her, call her names, throw things in her hair and be goofy with no consequences. All the world's a stage, but Barbara is not the audience, she is another actor and they will break character behind the curtain and laugh themselves sick.
She likes the status quo too. She likes to press kisses to his cheeks, hold his hand, place her slender fingers on his shoulders, so much broader than they had been, when he was a skinny, scared little thing.
They are dancing on an edge, an oblivion. The abyss will swallow them whole and sometimes they would go willingly into it.
"No one needs to know." He says to her and she agrees. She takes his hand and presses her lips to his.
"They won't be able to tell the difference. It's just another title, Wonder Boy. It doesn't mean anything we don't want it to mean." She grins at him and he grins back.
"I don't need to say it?" he asks, a teasing glint in his eyes.
"You've said it a million times, a million ways. You skinny-minny." She smiles.
He leans down and in, until they are nose to nose, eye to eye. It's been a while.
"Just in case you ever have any doubt. I want to say it just once so you can believe in me."
She scoffs. "As if I could doubt."
"I love you." He says before she can protest and she smirks at him.
"I love you too." Her smile widens. "Just wanted to say it, so you could be confident."
He turns and offers her his back. She laughs and hops up enough that he can catch the undersides of her knees.
"You're wearing pants this time." He tells her before running, full sprint, through the halls of Mount Justice.
They startle Jason, who falls through a doorway in an attempt to get out of the way.
It makes them laugh harder. They don't stop, they keep moving.
And their laughter rings through the hallways.
It sounds a little like love, but more like friendship and strawberry candy.