A/N Thanks, as always to all reviewers! You are the reason I am writing this story.

Chapter 4

In Which Dick Begins His Training and Impresses His Tutor

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.

- Richard III

Bruce sat cross legged on the mats in the middle of the dark gym, trying to center himself, to calm his mind for the coming ordeal. He forced his breathing to stay shallow and his taut shoulders to relax, while willing the knot in his stomach to dissolve. He would need every shred of control and judgment for what he was about to do.

When Dick bounded into the gym just before five, the lights were on and Bruce was standing with his back to the door, absently flexing his hands. He heard his ward come to a stop behind him.

"There are two things I want to make sure you understand before we begin," Bruce said quietly. "One is that if your schoolwork begins to slip, this will stop. Immediately. The other is, if you ever want to quit, for any reason, you can do so. That decision is completely your own. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"But I'm not going to…"

Bruce spun around and hit him, a vicious blow to the stomach that knocked Dick flat on his back. "Get up," Bruce said coldly.

Dick began to scramble to his feet. "Whoa, I wasn't read…" A hard kick sent him flying halfway across the mats.

"Death does not wait for you to be ready," Bruce said grimly, as he crossed to the boy's side, picked him up in a cruel grip, and threw him.

Dick's brain finally caught up with his hurling body, and he twisted in midair, landing in a crouch and ready to block the fist that came crashing toward his head. He managed to ward off the blow, but the next second his feet were swept out from under him and he was again flat on his back.

Bruce forced him up in a brutal arm lock. "If you lose your head or your feet, you're finished. Never let an enemy get a clear shot at either. Try that again."

He threw Dick back into his former crouched position, and this time when the boy blocked the punch, he also jumped sideways, buying himself three seconds before a kick caught the back of his knee.

It went on like that for the next thirty minutes, Bruce knocking Dick down again and again until his breath came only in pained gasps and he was swaying during the few seconds he kept to his feet.

Just one more time, Bruce told himself as Dick slowly pulled himself up from the mats after taking a kick in the ribs. One more and he wouldn't be able to get up again. One more time to drive the lesson home.

Dick straightened his shoulders, and met Bruce's gaze, as ready as he could be for whatever was coming next. He might not be able to get up again, but he would try anyway. He couldn't do it. Abruptly, the older man turned away and walked over to the cupboard where clean towels were always kept. "This afternoon," he said conversationally as he pulled the top one off the stack, "instead of coming here for our usual session, you'll go to the country club for your first polo lesson." Draping the towel around his neck, he walked toward the door.

"Polo?" Dick called after him.

Bruce looked back over his shoulder, careful to keep his expression blank, his tone cool. "It explains the bruises." He walked briskly out of the door and up the stairs to his bathroom where he started to strip off his shirt for the shower, then fell to his knees and retched into the toilet. When the heaves subsided, he sat back and rested his head against the cool tile of the wall. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, and his teeth were chattering. He had known that it would be bad, but he hadn't realized that every blow he dealt would be like twisting a knife in his own gut. And he would have to do it all over again, tomorrow.

Alfred had watched the entire training session through the lenses of the Manor's security cameras. The moment Bruce left the gym, he bolted out of his chair and headed down the hall. Dick had made it to the doorway and was leaning against the frame, his eyes closed.

"Master Dick?" Alfred asked softly as he approached.

The pale blue eyes flickered open, and a weak smile appeared. "Hey, Alfred." He tried to take a step forward and staggered.

Alfred leaped forward and wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulders. "You should soak in the Jacuzzi to keep from stiffening up."

"It went a little rougher than I expected," Dick mumbled, and allowed himself to be led out of the gym and down to the pool room. Alfred stuck him in the hot water with the jets going and busied himself with the plants, keeping a wary eye on the head bobbing above the foam. He wasn't sure whether or not weariness would be enough to overcome the pain and lull Dick to sleep, but he wasn't taking any chances.

When he judged it wasn't safe for the young master to remain any longer in the heat, he appropriated a towel and walked back to the edge. "Time to get out, Master Dick."

Dick stood up obediently, and as the foam ran off his slender body, the beginning of dark bruises were visible across his stomach and rib cage. Alfred winced, but made no comment as he handed over the towel.

"Alfred, I've been thinking about last night," Dick began as he wiped off his arms and chest and wrapped the towel around his waist.

"Yes?"

"Well, about that thief who said he had the vision. I mean, he was crazy, right?"

"Many people are fervently religious without being insane."

"But this wasn't religious," Dick argued as they walked toward the door. "This was…nuts. I mean, a saint appears to him in the middle of a robbery? But…" He hesitated, frowning. "I can't help thinking that his vision came true."

"How so, Master Dick?" Alfred pushed open the doors and Dick shivered as they left the moist air of the conservatory.

"He said Saint Nicholas told him that everything would be all right. And they got away. With a lot of money. Don't you think that's a little…weird?"

Not really in the mood to go into the fine points of theology, the butler evaded, "There are many unheard of coincidences in the world."

"But do you ever think that things were like…meant to happen?" Dick persisted.

I used to believe you were meant for this house. Alfred's eyes found yet another bruise darkening across the boy's back. "I believe we choose our own actions. If you shower quickly, you'll have time for some sleep before Mr. Peaceable comes."

Dick took the stairs at a pace much slower than his usual scamper, and Alfred's mouth was tight as he watched the boy go. You had better know what you are doing, Bruce Wayne.

Alex Peaceable was a slender African American man of twenty-seven. He had been on the fast track for a tenured mathematics professorship before a brush with meningitis severely disrupted his schedule. When he recovered, he found that he had lost his taste for the cutthroat competition of academic life, although not for knowledge. He knew Lucius Fox through the engineering department at Gotham U, and when the older man suggested he try private tutoring, Alex had been dubious. He had never worked with children, but Fox assured him that Richard Grayson was not an average child and that he was desperately in need of a tutor who could write algorithms faster than he could.

To Alex's surprise, he fell in love with his new job. He liked Dick – the kid was brilliant and amazingly unspoiled, despite his untraditional lifestyle with his wealthy, indulgent, and notorious guardian. Alex detested Bruce Wayne as much as he liked Dick Grayson, but his sentiments only spurred him on to do his best for the kid. And Wayne, to his credit, interfered very little with Alex's curriculum, merely requesting that periodic progress reports be placed on his desk. Alex strongly suspected that said reports were rescued from unread obscurity by Alfred Pennyworth, but the arrangement worked.

When Alex arrived at Wayne Manor that day, Dick was already in the schoolroom, leafing through a highly speculative book on dark matter. His page on Robert Frost was resting in the middle of Alex's desk.

"You survived," Alex said dryly, picking up the sheet and scanning the first line. It didn't look particularly promising, but considering that this was the first time the boy had produced more than two sentences about literature without over-the-shoulder supervision, he wasn't going to be too exacting.

Dick started to shrug, froze, and carefully relaxed his shoulders. "It wasn't so bad. The writing, I mean. I didn't like the poem."

"Surprise, surprise," Alex murmured, but his mind was distracted. Dick was usually bouncing with energy first thing in the morning, but today he looked pale and tired. He was also wearing a sweatshirt – the first time Alex had seen him in long sleeves since the beginning of March. "Are you feeling all right?"

Dick looked surprised. "I'm fine."

"You look a little tired."

"I didn't sleep very well last night," the boy admitted, then added innocently, "I think Robert Frost gave me nightmares."

"Or it might have been the late night horror show you watched while writing this," Alex observed shrewdly.

Dick just grinned, the expression relieving some of the pallor of his face.

Alex picked up a biology textbook and tossed it onto his pupil's desk. "Get started on chapter 11 while I read this and see what kind of b.s. you came up with this time."

Dick obediently flipped open the book, and Alex settled at his own desk with the essay.

"Out, Out-" is a poem by Robert Frost. In Frost's "Out, Out-," a guy gets his hand accidentally chopped off by a buzz-saw. When the guy gets his hand accidentally chopped off, there is a lot of blood. This is probably symbolic of the guy's life because if you lose too much blood then you die. I think that this is a terrible poem because it talks about things that are sad and depressing. If you are going to read a poem, and I don't know why you ever would, but if you were going to for some reason, I think it should help you think about good things and things that help you see the bright side of life. If you want to know about depressing stuff, you can just walk down the back streets of Gotham and see it in real life. You don't have to read some poem.
There were two parts that I especially hated in this poem. The first was when it talked about the saw eating the boy's hand like the boy was supposed to go and eat supper. It seems like Robert Frost was trying to be funny, but somebody getting hurt and bleeding and dying isn't funny at all, and I think it's really disrespectful to make a joke about something like that. If you're going to write a poem about something sad, you should at least keep it serious. The other part that I really hated was that the boy's sister saw him get hurt so bad and saw his blood running out all over. She probably loved him a lot, and it probably made her really scared to see that happen. Now she will probably have nightmares for the rest of her life where she will see her brother getting his hand chopped off.

The last third of the page was devoted to a speculation on how lazy Robert Frost probably was since he didn't even try to make his poem rhyme.

Alex Peaceable sat back in his chair and stared in amazement at the back of Dick's head. He had been trying for months to get the boy to express feelings about something besides mechanical engineering, but he had not expected this sudden flow of passion, particularly in light of the cheerful disdain with which Dick always treated any mention of poetry.

Dick glanced up from his book. "How badly did I do this time?" he asked when he saw his tutor looking at him.

Alex shook his head. "It's good. The best thing you've ever written. It appears you actually felt something when you read that poem."

"Yeah. Hatred."

"Not all poems are supposed to make you feel good. They're supposed to make you think."

"About how sometimes people die and you can't do anything to stop it? Yeah, I want to spend a lot of time thinking about that."

There was an angry edge of sarcasm to Dick's tone that Alex had never heard before. "Are you done with the chapter?" he asked, wanting to think a little more before he continued the poetry discussion.

"Four more pages."

Dick turned back to his book, and Alex reread the first part of the essay. He stopped when he got to the speculation on the sister's nightmares. What do you see in your nightmares, Richard Grayson? he wondered as he remembered the brief sketch of the boy's history he had been given. No known relatives, mother killed the night Dr. Crane's fear toxin destroyed the Narrows, rescued from a severely abusive foster home. Maybe the sudden burst of feeling wasn't so surprising after all. No matter how much math and science you buried it under, you couldn't get rid of the past.

Gordon parked in his driveway and glanced at his watch. He should be just in time for breakfast.

Last night, the Deep Harbor casino had been robbed of sixty-five million dollars. The police were, to put it in Sherlock Holmes parlance, baffled. They had no leads and no good guesses. The robbery was over and done with before S.W.A.T. had even gotten the call - the vault door had been mysteriously and noiselessly blown open and the currency that had been stored inside was gone.

It was the biggest robbery in the history of Gotham, and Gordon, feeling that time was essential and that he now led a team of officers he could trust, left the c.s.i. to his lieutenant and went to light up the bat signal. The highly public device made him uncomfortable, and he only used it in dire emergencies, when he couldn't get an answer on the number that, as far as he knew, only two people in the world had memorized. He had sat beside the altered spotlight for two and a half hours before he realized that, for the first time their five-year relationship, the Bat wasn't going to respond. Now, in addition to frustration over the robbery and the ever-gnawing worry about the fights with Barbara, he was beset with a deep conviction that somehow, somewhere, catastrophe was looming.

"Dad!" Jimmy squealed as Gordon unlocked the kitchen door and stepped into the warm scents of bacon and pancakes. The little boy jumped up and ran over to give his father a sticky hug.

Gordon swung his son into the air, then set him down with an "Oof! When did you get so big?"

"Did you catch the bad guys, Dad?"

Gordon sighed. "Not yet." He glanced at Barbara's back, which had been pointedly turned to him ever since he had come in. "The casino lost 65 million dollars last night."

"We saw the paper," Babs chimed in from her spot at the table.

"Yeah, well, I'd better go change my shirt." With a last look at his wife's stubborn back, Gordon headed for the bedroom. He changed his shirt and shaved, and ran into Babs in the hall on his way back to the kitchen.

"Have you seen the paper?" she asked softly.

"About the robbery?"

"No. About Batman."

His eyes widened, and he grabbed the folded newssheet she offered. The article was at the bottom of page two, and the headline read, Batman and His Merry Men?

Last night, at 12:35 a.m., the Batman rushed into Gotham Hospital's ER with a wounded child in his arms and, after delivering her to waiting paramedics, disappeared in classic style. The girl, Ariadne Pappas, 12, had received a shallow knife cut across the throat. Her condition is not critical, doctors say. Her mother, Athena Pappas, 39, said that her daughter had been spending the night with an aunt who owns a small pawn shop in Gotham's south quarter.

"Three robbers broke into the shop, but the Batman came and saved them. Ariadne said he had someone else with him, who held her on the way to the hospital. He said his name was Robin Hood," Pappas said.

Ariadne Pappas, who is blind, was unable to provide a description of Batman's alleged companion.

"You didn't know about this," Babs guessed, watching his face as he read.

Gordon looked up at her seriously. "Go finish your breakfast, honey. Thanks for the paper."

Resigned to the fact that her father refused to talk to her about the Bat, Babs retreated to the kitchen.

Gordon remained in the hallway, staring at the article. Is this the reason he didn't show last night? And has he actually got a partner? No. Impossible. The girl was confused. She'd just had her throat slashed, for Pete's sake.

"Your pancakes are getting cold."

Gordon looked up and saw his wife standing in the kitchen doorway. She wasn't glaring and she looked tired.

"Thanks," he said softly.

She nodded silently and retreated. With a final glance at the paper, Gordon tossed it on the hall table and followed her.

To Be Continued

A/N I realized, while writing the first part of this chapter, what a dark story this is going to be. I mean, Batman isn't called the Dark Knight just because he wears black, but still, enough is enough. So if you're feeling unduly depressed, I promise some comic relief next chapter. We'll get a closer look at the visionary thieves, and the appearance of Robin will unleash a strange chain of events in Gotham City.

In response to a question by a reviewer, Barbara is fifteen, just starting her sophomore year of high school. Her birthday is in late November, and Dick's is in February, so there's a little over two years between them.

There's a new challenge up in the Batman Martial Arts forum. It has to do with writing a fight scene, so this is a great chance to get in some practice, especially for those of you who are always whining about how hard action is to write. (Yes, yes, I already signed up. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with a little whining now and then. It's good for the digestive system.) There's even a prize for the best scene, so check it out!