Dick was forced to go to school the next morning. That wasn't too much of a problem, considering he had wanted to go to school the entire time and it seemed like it was only Bruce's authoritarian habits that were keeping him out, but there was one downside. That downside involved having to get up early only to stare childishly at a single white tablet on the dining table.

"I'll say, I don't believe your medication did anything to you," Alfred commented as he placed a cup of tea beside Dick's eggs and bacon sitting beside a dash of psychopathic prevention. Dick eyed the tea in disappointment. He really preferred coffee, but Alfred wouldn't let him have any unless it was a holiday. According to the less-authoritarian-but-still-more-powerful butler, Dick could have coffee when he made his own money to buy his own coffee with. Emphasis on the made his own money part, because it wasn't as if he lived in the manor of one of America's richest men or anything. Not at all.

"I'm not going to take it," Dick said.

"You do realise that Master Bruce is only allowing you to go back to school because of your new medication?" responded Alfred.

"I'm not taking it."

"Master Dick, I implore," sighed the butler.

"Bruce isn't even around, how's he gonna know if I take it or not? You won't tell him if I don't want you to," said Dick. "I'm not crazy, Alfred," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Alfred paused where he stood with his arms crossed behind his back. "You don't seem crazy to me, Master Dick. But you do seem… unwell. And I'm no expert in psychology. All I want, as well as all that Master Bruce wants, is for you to be healthy."

Alfred knew Dick better than anyone. Sometimes, Dick felt like Alfred knew Dick better than Dick knew himself. He always knew what to say and when to say it. If Bruce was Dick's father, then Alfred was the enigmatic grandfather. So for Alfred to say that, it made Dick want to scream. It made him want to throw an entire fit and yell about how Alfred had utterly betrayed him, had yet to even speak to him about his feelings on everything, had so readily taken Bruce's side. But he couldn't raise his voice with his grandfather. Alfred would probably respond with something wise and thoughtful that would make Dick rethink all of his existence, anyway. Dick didn't want to think anymore. What happened to just doing?

He owed a lot to Alfred, no matter how he felt he was being treated right then. Alfred had done enough to make up for it, Dick realised as he nudged the bland white tablet with his pointer finger. If Alfred thought that he was unwell, then the least that Dick could do was make him happy and try to get better.

Was he really crazy? Maybe he was. Maybe the tablets could actually help. Maybe, by taking them, he could make Alfred and Bruce happy. Make himself happy. Make them a family.

Would making them happy make them a family again?

"Shouldn't I be taking antidepressants instead?" Dick asked quietly. "Just to be sure?" But Alfred said nothing.

He was taken to school only after the smooth white tablet had melted on his tongue, descending down his throat in a disguise of saliva while Dick's inner thoughts screamed for it to stop.

Barbara was mad, cautious, and anxious. Mostly mad, but that was just because she was Barbara.

"Where the hell have you been?" she exclaimed when she saw Dick emerging from the sleek Wayne Mercedez. He knew that the expensive car was for image, and it was technically 'casual' compared to how some students got dropped off, but he would never get used to the flashiness of the rich.

"Sick," Dick answered, and he felt a jolt in his gut when he realised that that was exactly what he was. He was 'unwell.' He was sick.

"Sick enough to skip over a week of school? Paying no attention to the fact that you left me vulnerable to the cruelty of high school, especially a high school filled with kids worth more than my house, but you missed so much work! Mr. Billard's going to skin you!" Barbara went on, engulfing Dick in a hug. He felt himself tense up, but so did she, and she immediately stepped back with a worried frown. Dick had never tensed during a hug before - he was always the one to give them - but he hadn't been hugged in so long that it felt alien.

Maybe not so long. How long had it actually been?

"Okay, what gives? What really happened?" she demanded, holding him at arm's length with a firm grip to his shoulders. Dick probably should have taken that moment to reflect on why he had ever considered becoming friends with the one girl in the school who could probably kick everyone's asses (but him, of course). Then again, he knew that he'd never truly get along with a damsel in distress.

"Babs," Dick started, and he wasn't even going to try and deny that he wasn't telling her the full truth. "Just let it go."

Her fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeves, but his level stare must have made her realise something, because she promptly dropped her grip. It didn't mean that she'd drop the subject, though. Dick knew that all too well. She was probably going to go to her father's office after school and try to bribe either the Commissioner or the GCPD database into giving up what was wrong. Persistence wasn't always the most welcome thing.

At least she knew better than to immediately pursue it with him. Dick's palms were sweaty and his head was dizzy and he was more tired than he'd been in a very long time. It'd only been thirty minutes since Dick had left the manor and all he wanted to do was go back.

Dick's request only lasted in Barbara's head until lunchtime, apparently. "Is it Wally?" she asked, and Dick promptly lost his appetite. Wally. Everything was about Wally. He was sick of Wally as much as his own mind was sick of his sanity. Barbara sat beside him as he pushed away his tray. "I mean, you haven't acted like this since, y'know."

"You're not the most subtle person in the world," Dick replied. He surprised himself with his bitterness. Everything just kept backtracking, didn't it? And it was way too hot in the room.

"I'm not trying to be," she answered. "You know you can't ignore your problems forever."

"I'm not."

"I'm pretty sure you are."

"Tell that to my therapist." The word left a bad taste on Dick's tongue.

"'Therapist'?" Barbara echoed.

"What? Are you really that surprised?" Dick challenged. "First I'm depressed, then everyone's so freaking convinced that I'm insane, I miss school for two weeks and come back avoiding humanity, and you're shocked that I'm seeing a therapist?" Psychotherapist.

Barbara paused to take in her best friend's words. "No, not really, I'm just sad that you have to," she said. "And come on, you've always been a little insane." It was a last ditch effort to maintain some sort of light atmosphere around them, but with as much misinformation as she had been given, the joke only made Dick's dark thoughts worse.

Dick didn't eat his lunch. Barbara didn't eat much of hers, either.

By the time lunch had ended and fifth period had approached, Dick couldn't think straight. His entire body felt heavy and hot and when he went to grip his pencil, his fingers wouldn't grip. His fist wasn't a tight fist, and trying to actually write the name of the To Kill a Mockingbird movie on the top of his notes was an impossibility when every line of the letters turned out skewed and shaky.

How come everything always went wrong in English class?

The second that the first ten minutes of class had passed, Mr. Billard's bathroom rule, Dick was out the doors, across the halls, and into the nearest men's restroom. He collapsed against the sink because running had lurched his head as if it were his stomach at sea, but when he folded himself over the faucet to try and get rid of whatever might have been making him feel that way, nothing happened. He gripped the porcelain with shaky white knuckles instead as classmates he was sure he had never seen before cautiously tiptoed past him, stealing curiously suspicious glances but never uttering a word. That was fine. Dick would rather it be kept that way. Life would have been so much easier if nobody ever uttered a word.

He only returned to class when he felt that his head had stopped spinning and twisting and turning, and it was just to grab his binder because the bell rang seconds later. Mr. Billard didn't comment as he left, but he did give Dick a look that had the hairs standing on the acrobat's neck and his gut sinking with dread. The man shook his head and picked up his phone as Dick disappeared around the corner.

His next period was computer science. Dick suddenly preferred English.

He wasn't bad at computer science. In fact, he was so good in it that when he had hit the top of his class, Bruce hadn't let him do any of his homework for a good week in order to drop his grades. Dick didn't know how suspicious it would be if the main technology company in Gotham happened to have a heir that was also rather good with technology, but Bruce was insistent that there could be no ties between Dick's talents and Robin's talents. It was a pain in the ass, to say the least. But despite how much he aced the class, it was useless when he couldn't see the screen.

The small numbers for coding were suddenly incomprehensible. What used to be the most understandable language that Dick had ever learned suddenly looked like it had been written in Welsh. Every bracket looked like parenthesis, every dash like an underline, every asterisk like a pound. He blinked rapidly, but that only served to sway him as his vision blurred.

"Dick?" spoke Miss. Adams. She had a soft voice, like a bell, and Dick could only move his palm from the mouse to wipe on his pants as he slowly turned to face her, careful not to swing his head any. "Could you step outside with me for a moment?"

He got up carefully, he walked carefully, and he shut the door behind the two of them carefully. They ended up in a small alley of a hallway leading to the art room that opened into the main hall. His teacher's sneakers squelched softly over the tiles, only serving to remind Dick that it really was Miss. Adams' first year teaching. That only made him respect her more, though, knowing how hard the first year of a new profession could be (for example, he was beaten half to death by his partner's former friend during his own).

"I wanted to ask how you've been," Miss. Adams began. Her hazel hair fell around her shoulders in disarray and, likely realising how unprofessional that looked, she swept it back. Dick thought that she fit the stereotype for an enthusiastic art teacher more than any stereotype for anything involving cold computers and monitors.

"Fine," Dick answered.

Miss. Adams sighed. "I find that hard to believe, Dick. You've missed a lot of school. Would you care to explain why?" Somehow, the young teacher made it sound personal, as if it were her duty as a friend and not as a grade recorder to know. Dick couldn't decide whether that made him grateful or uncomfortable, and thinking about things like that made his blurry vision worse. He was ready to be done with the day. He felt ill. More so than he technically was.

"I bet Bruce already told you why."

"I was told that you were leaving because of your mental health, and I just want to know that you're okay. It's my job to help you succeed and be the best that you can, but I can't do that without taking into mind what might be holding you back," she replied evenly. She sounded like she was holding her words back in some way, that there was more that she wanted to say, and Dick credited that to why she was starting to sound like a broken record. Dick didn't realise that he hadn't answered until her evenly lined mouth morphed into a frown. "Dick?"

"Sorry, I'm just dealing with a lot," he muttered. The tiles were swimming.

If Dick had thought that she had sounded like a broken record before, he didn't know how to describe her right then. "I-talk-here an-when-you kno-issu-ick?-Di-ick?" He tried to hold a steady palm against the wall, but everything was starting to melt together and the only things he could really understand were the disassembled syllables of his name growing in volume.

"Dick!"

The only thing he could think before he dropped to the ground was:

Not again.

So, call me curious - what do you guys think is going on?