"Oh, hello! What's your name?"

"Robert."

"Robert? I've never seen you around, Robert. Are you new?"

"Kind of. I didn't move very far."

"Really? Where did you live before?"

"Starling."

"Huh, that really wasn't that far. Just a train ride away. Why'd you move, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Nah, I don't mind. My mom just had a better job here is all."

Dinah Lance looked over at Dick with a smile. "Good," she praised. "You're a natural."

"Thanks, mom," Dick responded, exaggerating her title to gain a chuckle. He glanced out of his window, his shades a grateful item as the sun glared through the glass. To say that Dick wasn't very used to cars without tints would be a truth - however, Robert was so average that he'd never even been in a limo, meaning that Dick never had either.

"You're welcome, son," Dinah responded accordingly. "I'm sure you know where the main office is?" she winked when Dick cast her a deadpan look. "It doesn't matter, though. Remember, Robert, you're a new kid on his first day of school. He needs his mommy to drag him into the principal's office."

Dick groaned as Dinah stepped out of the car. Sadly, even he couldn't stop the smile forming on his face.

"By the way," Dinah said as she dropped her own smile stepping out of the vehicle, simultaneously stepping into the skin of a certain Sara Adams. "You look like a delinquent."

Dick cringed. Right.

After Dick had shaken himself out of his frozen state in the Meeting Room, the centre of operations where Dick had spoken with his mentor, he proceeded to the Dressing Room. It was, though, on the other side of the underground building maze, and getting there required walking in silence and more time to think for himself.

Naturally, with all the information that Dick had to digest, he did not want such thinking time.

When Dick finally reached the double doors that had all the make up, costumes, designs, and disguises ever thought up locked away behind them, he had positively convinced himself that it was all just an April Fool's joke.

An April Fool's joke in autumn. But who cared about seasons, anyway?

Unfortunately, as Dick cautiously pushed at the doors and they parted around him, he was presented with his new attire dangling from a clothes hanger in one of his butler's hands. In the other hand was an opaque blue bowl with a handle.

"Do you need help getting dressed, Master Robert?" Alfred said kindly.

Dick had said no. Turns out, it was sort of needed, as he'd never attempted getting into skinny jeans and skinny shirts before. He had gotten into skintight spandex before, but jeans were an entirely different category. Completely different category.

And what was the point? They were ripped anyway!

"I think this is taking it overboard," Dick said half an hour later while he was looking up at the ceiling. His head was resting against a sink, one that reminded Dick of a hair salon.

"I think you might just be right," Alfred responded, but he didn't stop.

Two hours later, Dick was standing in front of a body mirror, hair towel dried and mussed up and tipped red. He wanted to hate it, couldn't help but admit it looked good, and glowered at the fact that in order to get the red he was forced to dye the tips of his hair a very pale blonde first. Dick and blonde didn't work.

Aside from his hair, Dick was wearing a used black hoodie with the strings frayed, red fingerless gloves ripped towards the bottom that hugged and went past his wrist, black skinny jeans that had a tear going from mid thigh and slightly past his knee on one foot and not on the other with a chain as a belt, a black band T-shirt with dripping red lettering that he didn't recognise, and black worn sneakers. "You know," he said absentmindedly. "It's not too goth. It's kind of...stylish?"

"I refused to let you walk out looking like a hoodlum," Alfred responded simply, presenting Dick with a hair dryer.

Dick hardly recognised himself with his hair blow dried like Alfred had. Usually it was only pulled back, but Alfred had somehow made it so that his hair was fluffy and pulled more towards the side and front, his bangs brushed over one glassed eye. "Isn't this just...emo?"

"Are you depressed?" Alfred asked.

"No? Maybe Robert's a bit troubled, but not...depressed."

"Then it isn't 'emo'."

Dick didn't know the difference at all. Not many spoiled rich kids that he knew decided to take the time to look as dark as possible.

His biggest problem was the new trouble that he was having sitting down. "My pants keep slipping off," Dick complained. "They're the least comfortable pants I've ever been in. What's the point in this chain? Belt? Chain-belt? Someone could easily take it off me and choke me with it. Are you trying to get me killed?"

Alfred chuckled. "Could you please come over here for a moment, Master Robert?" he said instead. With a theatrical groan, Dick walked over to the side where Alfred indicated, out of the view of the mirror. "Turn around." Dick complied, turning so that his back faced his butler.

Alfred rummaged around on a table behind him, and Dick began blowing on his bangs for fun to watch them bounce. They were practically like feathers. Finally, Alfred paused and Dick felt something against his ear. "Alfred, what are you-"

WHOOSH.

Dick yelped loud, before groaning and clutching his ear. "What the-" he exclaimed, trying to shuffle away from Alfred. Alfred only smacked his hands away from his ear and pressed the sanitising cloth against it. Dick whined protestingly, his ear burning with a pain he had never felt in an ear before.

And, of course, Alfred just had to shove an object in it. Into it. In the ear's flesh itself.

"Did you just-"

"You can't take this off for a month," Alfred interrupted.

"Did you really-"

"You can, however, pick from a variety of different earrings. Most of them are beads, as I figured you wouldn't appreciate diamonds."

Dick only moaned and clutched his very red ear. "Why did you do only one-"

"It seems to be a fashion statement these days."

"Is private school seriously that secluded from the world? Because I swear to-"

Alfred smiled. "Trust me, Master Robert. This particular public school is rather different from what you're used to."

Dick, standing in front of his new temporary school, swore that he could still feel his ear throbbing. It probably was, though Dinah insisted that the red had gone down. It had already been a week since the 'makeover.' It had mostly been to show Dick how he was going to go to school, and it was exactly how he was about to go to school, save for the fact that he wasn't nearly as skilled with a blow drier and his hair was more messy than fluffy.

After Alfred's 'interference', Dick had gone to walk around alone in the city. He had met a girl in the park and ended up going to the movies with her, as well as generally hanging out, for the past week. Bruce had insisted that it would be so he wasn't totally unexpected and unrecognised in the area.

Dick mostly thought that the reason he and the girl had hit it off was because she was pretty goth as well.

"Only for you, mother-dear," Dick quipped back rudely. He was already reprimanding himself for having to act that way towards nice, kind, sincerely could-kick-his-ass Dinah. Dinah glared at him in response and began stiffly striding towards the school.

Dick felt really, really bad. It went against everything he was raised with. He already hated being 'Robert'.

He was severely lagging behind by the time Dinah had reached the gold and red coloured doors. There was a large cheetah painted on the brick wall above, and he regarded the painting of it underneath the words CENTRAL CITY HIGH SCHOOL with disdain.

Dinah let the doors swing back into Dick's face.

A minute later, the both of them entered the main office with Dick clutching his nose.

"Hello," Dinah said kindly as she walked up to the desk, just the perfect amount strained and the perfect amount polite for a mother with a son that she probably wished would drown in holy water. "I'm here to transfer Robert Adams for his first day of school?"

The secretary looked up boredly, not at all taken by Dick's 'mother's' smile. She hummed in acknowledgement, swivelling her chair lazily to begin typing on another computer screen by her side. "Mr. Newell isn't here right now, but I can give you Robert's schedule and leave him a note." Without waiting for an answer, the printer behind the woman kick started, and she sluggishly got up from her chair to retrieve it. Dick's fingers almost twitched in annoyance for her pace - but then again, he was truly a bundle of nerves. "Here you are," the woman said, presenting Dinah with a sheet of paper. Dinah gave the paper to Dick.

Only half of the paper was printed on in an incredibly small font. At the top was his locker number and locker combination, and the rest of the space, other than for information about Robert that he already knew, was filled with his schedule for both of the year's semesters. Dick absentmindedly followed Dinah out of the office, remembering that he wasn't supposed to thank the secretary.

The second the door closed behind him, he glanced up to see Dinah glaring heatedly down at him. She jabbed a finger into his chest. "Remember, Robert," she hissed. "You better not screw it up with everyone here. Maybe try to get the teacher's to like you and they might try to give you good grades."

Dick rolled his eyes as, with a final glare, Dinah stalked off.

"Great, another emo," a voice muttered, and Dick glanced beside him irritably to see a boy much taller than him in sports attire grab a basketball from his locker. The boy glanced at him scornfully. Dick attempted to match his attitude. "Weirdo," he snorted, dribbling the basketball lazily on the ground before hugging it with one arm and walking across the hall. He disappeared into a hallway around the corner of the main office, where Dick could see at the end of it, when he peered, double doors marked with the words GYMNASIUM.

Yup, Dick already hated Robert.

Decided to get something done (that isn't my homework, which I definitely did, psh) before I went to work. Because after these few precious hours, I'm going to be working for three weeks straight without breaks, alternating between show production and 'marketing' and you name it.

I might, though, be able to snag a few hours in the library between shifts per week, so hopefully I can get something out by then.

I hope that you enjoyed, and I can't wait to hear from you guys!

(Speaking of which, does anyone know what's up with those random spam reviews that seem to be on a lot of stories? Or maybe it's just the ones I'm posting recently. Three reviews that take up much more than just the immediate screen. It's horribly annoying).