Author's Note: Okay, people, the next few chapters are going to be a timeskip, a FLASHBACK to when Dick moved to Wayne Manor. Because the flashback turned out to be reaaallly long, it's split into three chapters, and I will upload them a couple of days apart. Remember this is out of the present timeline. We would be interested in your thoughts and reviews. I, TheAlchemist'sDaughter, wrote the flashback, AmberSpirit is taking a much deserved rest :p
Chapter 14
Dick could still remember the day when he was first brought to Wayne Manor.
The manager at the temporary group home had him ready to be picked up ten minutes before Alfred got there, and Dick remembered looking behind him at the other kids, orphaned or abandoned, all different ages and colourings, but all of them looking at him with the same mix jealousy, hope, hate and sadness that united them. They all hated him, because he was going to be adopted by a billionaire and live in a mansion, but at the same time, it was like their years in the home had stripped them of the energy needed to express their hatred. They just stared at him with blank, waiting eyes, and he was both afraid of and sorry for them. He turned back to stare at the door, trying to envision the moment that Mr Wayne's butler would arrive and take him out of there, in the hopes that that would make it happen sooner. Even though he had no particular desire to live in Wayne Manor, he knew enough to fear being left behind.
He had only been there three days. Three days ago, he'd had parents. He'd had an amazing, colourful life flying high in the circus, awing hundreds of people a night. But then... Somebody had taken it from him. With that thought, came an anger so great it felt like it was pushing against his ribs, his skin, until they would split and a monster would replace him. The bitterness of it was sour in his mouth, and it turned down at the taste as he gritted his teeth, his eyes tightening with a look so dark he imagined he scared most people. His parents had always said revenge was bad, and that good boys that made their parents proud didn't hurt people or misbehave, so whenever these feelings hit, he just had to clench his jaw and wait it out. He couldn't take revenge, he didn't know who was responsible for his parents' fall anyway, but there had to be justice.
Someone had killed his parents, he knew it. He'd seen the gear, he knew it had been sabotaged. His father would never, never have left it like that. He always checked and triple-checked the ropes and bars before every show, every single knot and bolt had to be perfect. Dick had seen his father do it a million times, and received a hundred lectures on the importance of it, and a hundred lessons on how to do it right. But that night Dick had seen the knot tied wrong. It was just wrong, it wasn't loose or frayed, it was wrong. His father had never tied a knot like that for the trapeze for as long as Dick could remember, and it didn't even match the one next to it, but by the time Dick got up there to join their act, close enough to see, it was too late.
The phony knot had held for a while, but by the time Dick got up to the platform, and had time to notice it, and frown in confusion, it was already strained, slipping. He watched as the end of the rope grew shorter, withdrawing into the knot as it unravelled. He remembered how his eyes stretched as he realised what was happening, and everything just... went... slow...
He screamed. "Mom! Dad!"
He fell to his knees at the edge of the platform, one hand gripping the square metal as he threw too much of his weight forward, reaching with his other hand towards his parents, fingers outstretched. His cries made his mother look up as she swung back, having just been caught by Dick's father, who couldn't react to his son as he hung by his knees from the bar, facing his wife, but Dick saw him twitch as he heard his son's desperate warning. Dick's mother's green eyes met his, and seemed to teleport him much closer, as if they were right there and if he reached just a little more he could catch them both and pull them up to safety. But then with a last jerk the knot gave out and one side of the trapeze bar currently supporting both his parents became detached, dropping into the void in front of him.
Dick saw with perfect clarity the expression of horror on his mother's face as they fell. His father's hands slipped from hers and she reached for Dick instead. His father managed to tangle in the trapeze for an instant, turning to face his son. He looked up at him with shock and dismay. Dick got to watch them both as they fell.
It wasn't like a dream. In dreams you wake up before you hit the ground. You don't have to see the truly horrible stuff. Dick saw it all. He saw them smack into the hard wood, their bodies much smaller now at that distance. He saw the bounce. He couldn't have heard the crack of their bones but he did. And he saw how his mother kept looking at him, her face dead now, blood spreading slowly out from under her hair. He was leaning over the edge of the platform, too far, his body weight too far forward. He would have fallen, if his whole body hadn't frozen, his shock making every muscle in his body tense, rooting him to the spot.
There were two heartbeats of absolute, echoing, emptiness-of-space silence, and then he screamed. He screamed and he couldn't stop. Both hands now gripped the edge of the platform as he curled on all fours and put everything he had into screaming. He screamed hysterically. It wasn't like a scream of fear, or of pain. It wasn't like the screams in movies. It didn't even sound human. This was raw and startling, it shook you. Anyone who heard it would be able to recall the exact sound for the rest of their lives. There was no identity behind the scream. It was just the sound of a body when its psyche has broken. Dick couldn't see, he couldn't hear himself, he couldn't even think. He could only know. Those people he knew as his mother and father, those people he loved and who loved him, the entire foundation for his world, had been sharply and brutally torn away from him. So he screamed and he kept screaming, huddled on that platform, looking over the edge. He filled the tent with his shrieks, marking the moment of his parents' death so that nobody could ignore it.
The audience was screaming too, some of them. The ringmaster had come out and was trying to calm them down, get them to leave without trampling each other. Meanwhile, the other circus members flooded the space below, the clowns and the stage hands, people Dick knew, they all crowded round, and three of them thought to lay something over the bodies, a white tarpaulin with the circus proudly depicted in a circle staring up at Dick.
Strong arms wrapped around him, though he hadn't been aware of anyone climbing the ladder to get to him. They pulled him away from the edge of the platform, hurting his hands in the process as he refused to let go. He still screamed, and fought whoever it was that was holding him. He needed to keep looking down at where his parents were, because the minute he looked away that meant a new moment had begun, the first moment of his life without them, his life as an orphan.
But the man was stronger than him and caught his hands. He was talking but Dick couldn't hear or understand him as he continued to scream and writhe, until eventually a thick, dirty white glove was crammed into his open mouth. It was like the ones the clowns wore and it tasted of chalk and dust. It muffled his screams and after a moment they changed to sobs. He was drawn back against a wide chest as he collapsed forward, sobbing as if he would shake himself apart, his eyes wide open, as if they could never close again. The man rocked him, shushing him, and Dick couldn't remember what happened after that. He didn't know how he got down from the platform, or who the man was. The next thing he could remember was the flashing police lights, and being completely numb and dazed when an officer tried to ask him questions, unable to answer.
Another blackout, and a tall black-haired man was leaning down to him as he sat on something, a blanket clutched around him. The man didn't smile at him, but his blue eyes were piercing. "Dick, my name is Bruce Wayne. I'm going to help you, okay?"
Dick couldn't remember if he replied or not, but after that came the group home and the hardest days of Dick's life. It was a struggle just to be in his own head, to breathe. He would have died if it had been physically possible - that, and he knew he had to survive, to have a life, because he was the only one who knew that his parents' death hadn't been an accident. He was the only person who cared about justice, about avenging them, and making things right.
When the woman at the home had told him he was going to be adopted by Bruce Wayne, she had to explain to him why that was so important. Growing up in the circus, travelling all the time, Dick hadn't had any idea who Bruce Wayne was. But then over the next couple of days he'd learned from the carers and the other kids that Bruce Wayne basically had more money than God, and he owned Gotham city. To be adopted by him was mind-bogglingly lucky, almost crazy, no one could understand it. It was also going to be a secret. A man like Wayne didn't need the press poking their noses into what was just a charitable act. Apparently he had been at the circus that night, and now felt the urge to take care of the little orphan boy. Because you know, they told him in a hushed voice, Wayne was an orphan too.
At first, Dick hadn't wanted to be adopted. His parents might not be around anymore, but he was still a part of their family. He was a Grayson, not a Wayne. He would never be a Wayne. But then he became more aware of his surroundings, of how desperate and wretched life in the home would be for him, and he thought about how useful Wayne's money could be if he could convince the man to look for his parents' killer. And he didn't want to be alone for the rest of his life, he wanted some kind of home, some kind of family. He wanted to belong somewhere. So he let the adoption process go ahead without complaining, and they let him keep his last name.
All that had happened over the last three days. That morning had been his parents' funeral. Wayne had paid for everything. Dick had never seen so many flowers. The coffins, black and shiny, one slightly bigger than the other, reminding Dick of exactly what he was looking at, looked like they had been carved out of polished stone. The graves were in the fanciest cemetery in Gotham, in the best spot, a hill looking over the city. Wayne had offered to pay for a mausoleum, or at least some kind of statue to go over the graves, but Dick had preferred headstones. When asked what should be inscribed on them, he couldn't think of anything. Nothing was good enough to tell the world what amazing, beloved people lay there. So in the end, he had asked for "The Flying Graysons" to be carved under their names, because that was who they were, and Dick couldn't think of a better way to put it. He'd never had to be poetic before.
Wayne was at the funeral, along with his butler, Alfred. They stood with Dick but they didn't talk, and their presence made him uncomfortable. The majority of the guests were from the circus, and it was strange to see clowns and entertainers look so plain and solemn. There wasn't going to be a wake, so after the service, they all paid their respects to the twin coffins, laying flowers in the grave, and then Dick said goodbye to everything he had ever known, one by one. The guests tried to talk to Wayne, get a feel for a man that would be assuming the care of one of their own, but the billionaire seemed to make them uncomfortable too, and he wasn't very forthcoming.
Eventually it was just the three of them standing at the graves.
"Are you coming, Master Dick?" asked the butler, his tone gentle but professionally removed.
Dick was going to have to get used to being called "Master" all the time. "No, I'd like to stay here for a while," the boy replied, staring down into the graves.
"I shall see you at three o'clock then," the old man replied, nodding goodbye, and withdrawing with his boss.
Once they were gone, Dick sat down on the wet grass, not particularly caring about the suit Wayne had bought him for the occasion. He sat there, and looked down into the deep, rectangular graves with their sharp edges, the caskets at the bottom darker than the earth around them, the various flowers scattered on the lids. It was the closest he'd felt to his parents in three days, and he felt calmer somehow. But he also felt that justice must be done - the guilty must be punished – and he felt angry at the world again.
The worst part of it was that he couldn't stop himself from thinking of what his parents must look like in there. Their injuries from the fall would be unhealed, but dressed up to look pretty by the coroner. Their blood replaced by embalming fluid, their lips sewn shut. Soon, five feet of soil would be dumped on top of them and they would be buried, at peace, but out of the way as if they were dirt swept under the rug. And then they would decay, turning yellow, their flesh rotting and falling off their bones. He wondered if bugs could get to them in their coffins.
Thinking of them this way felt like a betrayal to their memory, but he couldn't help himself. He felt dirty and disgusting, and he just missed his mom and dad so much. He wanted them to be there with him. They didn't have to go back to the circus, he didn't need his old life back if he could just have them. He just wanted to be held by his father and hear his mother's voice.
It was only when two men in dirty overalls arrived to fill in the graves, hovering awkwardly a few feet away when they saw him, that Dick wiped the tears off his cheeks and stood up. He wanted to say something, tell them he loved them, and that he'd never forget them and all that stuff, but all that came to him was that whoever did this to them, and to him, would pay. He wouldn't let them be just an accident. He wouldn't let the world be wrong about them, forget about them. He would make them proud. He would be the son they would be proud of.
Back at the home, he'd packed what he had in the bag he'd brought it in. He didn't have much, just some clothes. When he'd packed for the home, he looked around his family's trailer and realised it was take everything, or nothing. He felt that he couldn't leave a single thing that his parents had touched behind, but at the same time, it was too painful to even look at a dinner plate. So in the end, he'd only taken his neutral clothes, plain dark colours that didn't remind him of the circus, and at the bottom of the bag, in a plastic bag so he didn't have to see it, he'd taken his Flying Grayson outfit, because he couldn't leave it behind and live with himself. Fate had taken the circus away from him, but he chose his own identity, and he was his parents' son. He was the magnificent charmer of crowds. He could fly.
That was what was in the bag now. He didn't have any books or DVDs, any gadgets, and he wasn't even particularly fond of the clothes he had. He could have left the bag there and not even felt the loss of it. He didn't feel attachment to anything anymore. He'd already lost his parents, and he was kind of waiting for life to get worse and finish the job. But as he sat on the bottom steps of the hall stairs, with the resentful faces of lonely urchins silently watching him, he thought about the glimmer of light that was Bruce Wayne. Living in a mansion wouldn't be too bad, if you have to live somewhere. God, he missed his parents, and he'd trade Wayne and all his money for life with them in a trailer in a blink, but he couldn't do that. Unlike the other kids in the home, someone had taken an interest in him, wanted to give him a life, the best one they could. He was lucky.
He reproached himself immediately. No, he wasn't lucky, he wasn't lucky his parents were dead.
The old doorbell gave a tinny ring, and Dick straightened up, his hand going to the bag. The woman in charge of the home went to the door, smoothing her hair and clothes as she went. When it opened, Alfred gave her a little bow of greeting, but they both knew why he was here. The old man's eyes searched Dick out among the others in the hall, and held an arm out behind him, gesturing through the door. Dick stood up and walked outside, keeping his eyes on the floor, fully away of the dozen eyes watching him walk into a better life than they could ever hope for. Once he got outside, he heard Alfred thank the woman, and he turned to maybe say goodbye, but the door was already closing.
He turned back and Alfred was already halfway to the car, a posh black thing with an unconventional shape.
"Hurry along, Master Dick, we have to get you settled in," he said cheerily, pausing to smile warmly at him over the top of the car, his eyes showing just the right amount of commiseration, before sliding into the driver's seat. Not for the first time, Dick got the feeling that the world was moving too fast for him.
He jogged to the car and climbed into the back seat. "What kind of car is this, anyway?" he asked the butler.
"It is a Rolls Royce, Master Dick, a top of the line English car," replied the old man, with a hint of smugness. As they pulled away, the ride was smoother than any other vehicle Dick had ever ridden in
He ran his hands over the white leather seats, feeling like he'd leave dirty smears everywhere, the car was so much more luxurious and expensive than anything he'd ever experienced before. This Wayne guy must be as loaded as everyone says.
"Um, Alfred? Can I ask you something?" Dick began tentatively.
"Of course, Master Dick."
"Is it true that Mr Wayne is an orphan?" He couldn't yet add "too" to the end of that sentence.
The butler took his eyes out of the rear view mirror. "I'm afraid so, Master Dick. Master Bruce lost his parents in a mugging when he was eight years old," he replied solemnly.
Dick assimilated this information. Maybe he would be able to get along with his guardian. Especially since his parents hadn't just died, they'd been murdered too.
"So who looked after him?" Dick continued.
"I did, Master Dick. I had been working for the Wayne family for many it years, it seemed only proper."
Raised by your own butler, huh? Dick wondered how that dynamic worked, who told who what to do. But it must have been nice to be able to stay in your own home, and be raised by someone you know, rather than what Dick was going through. Guess having money like he did made it easier.
It was a long drive across town from the home to Wayne Manor, which was on the outskirts of the city, where there was still space to put an estate that size. Dick looked out of the window, trying to get a feel for the city. He'd never seen it before, never lived anywhere but the circus. He wondered about fate when he considered that this just happened to be the city they were in when his parents were killed. Was there a reason to it? Maybe it was his destiny to become Bruce Wayne's ward.
But that didn't justify the death of his parents.
Eventually the city fell away and was replaced by artificially pleasant suburbia, the houses getting bigger and bigger and further and further apart. Several minutes after Dick saw the last house, Alfred pulled up to a pair of cast iron gates, which creaked open when Alfred pushed a button near the rear-view mirror. Dick craned his head to see, but on either side of the gate was a stone wall covered with thick ivy. This was obviously very private property.
The evidence of Wayne's wealth, and the knowledge that they were minutes away from his new home, increased Dick's nerves, making him feel sick to his stomach and shaky. They drove along a gravelled drive up a vast, sloping lawn. Wayne Manor was now visible, and Dick stared at it with apprehension. It loomed up towards them, too big. It was clearly an old building, built out of different shades of stone, with some ivy tangled at the bottom. It was intimidating and alien to Dick.
The engine cut off and Dick gathered up his bag, his door opening before he could touch it. He looked up at the butler holding it open for him good-naturedly. It made him uncomfortable.
"You don't have to do that for me," he said with an awkward laugh, trying to avoid offending the old man as he clambered out of the car.
"It is my job, Master Dick, I must always maintain the sophistication of the Wayne household," Alfred replied.
"And you don't have to call me 'Master Dick', all the time. Just 'Dick' is fine."
"I take pride in my performance of my duties. Surely you are not asking me to be a poor assistant to Master Bruce, are you, Master Dick?" Alfred replied with a defiant twinkle in his eye, and the faintest curve of a smile.
It was clear that Dick was just going to have to get used to a lot in his new life.
The gravel crunched under his feet as he made his way up white marble steps to a pair of large front doors set into an alcove. The butler preceded him, unlocking a door and then holding that open for him too. Dick just ducked his head as he crossed the threshold.
The first thing that always hits you in a new place is the smell. Wayne Manor smelt empty, like cold stone and distant polish. The carpeted wooden staircase smelt old but classy, subtly suggesting the prestigious heritage of the house. It didn't smell lived in.
Alfred appeared beside him and took his bag in his white-gloved hands, and looked down at him. "Shall I show you to your room?" he suggested, holding his arm out towards the staircase.
"O-okay," Dick answered, barely able to meet the old man's eyes when it was so clear to him that he didn't belong there.
"Master Bruce has ensured that you will have everything you need. No expense was spared in outfitting what will be your bedroom. Feel free to settle in, unpack," - Dick eyed at the half-empty canvas bag as they progressed through muffled corridors. - "While I prepare tonight's dinner. Master Bruce has requested that it be on the table at six-thirty every night from now on, but if you would enjoy a snack before then, that will be perfectly allowed. I often find a little nibble helps me feel at home," the man continued, briefly shooting the boy a wink as they walked.
Finally they came to a room not far down a corridor off the landing with a white door, which Alfred opened without breaking his stride, flattening himself against the door and watching Dick as he walked tentatively into the room.
Looking around, Dick had a moment when he just couldn't believe it. The room was bigger than his family's entire trailer! A huge TV with the stickers still on it hung on the wall; Dick hadn't even known they made them that big! He'd never really paid much attention to the tiny table-top box at home, mainly because, living in a circus, there was always something else to be doing that was more entertaining elsewhere, helping the clowns with their gear or practicing his stunts. But that brought back painful memories.
Dick wandered over to a bookshelf near the TV. The two bottom shelves held the four leading game consoles, and the two shelves above them held a range of games for each. The boy could feel his heart racing. Of course he knew what they were, he'd seen adverts, heard about them, but he'd never actually seen one, let alone all four of them in the same place, for him to use as he wanted! He ran his fingers over the games; some of the titles rang bells, but he'd have to get to know the others, not really having much experience outside some old arcade games.
When he looked closer, the shelves above were neatly filled by DVDs. It looked like Wayne had just ordered every DVD or blue-ray disc that had been released in the past eight weeks. He'd only ever been to the cinema a few times a year with his family. He looked behind him at the bigger-than-double bed, and imagined vegging out with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of soda watching those movies.
There was a desk facing a window with a view of expansive gardens opposite the bed. Dick leaned over to look at the rolling lawns, perfectly rectangular hedges and tall trees outside. At the bottom of the garden, just visible between the tree trunks, he could see more of that stone wall. There was a tall stack of books on the desk, still in their plastic wrapping, and as he tilted his head to read the spines, Alfred explained behind him,
"Master Bruce has enrolled you in the Allen Bex Academy, the top school in the city. He graduated there himself, top of his class." The butler spoke with an air of almost fatherly pride. Dick swallowed heavily. The books looked scary, and Dick had never been much of a reader. His parents had home-schooled him, so he knew some stuff, but they had always been a family of performers, and Dick had thought he would be a trapeze artist for the rest of his life. He hadn't counted on...
But it had happened, and now he had to get used to the fact that his life was entirely different now. Maybe he could go back to the circus when he graduated high-school, but for the next five years, this was his life. It looked like he had some studying to do.
Dick then checked out a small plain door beside the bed, opening it tentatively. It was a walk-in closet big enough for three or four people to lie down in, and the racks were already three-quarters full with clothes, including what Dick recognised as a school uniform by the blazer with an insignia stitched onto the chest. There was also an assortment of jeans, shirts and jumpers. Dick closed the door and looked back at Alfred, trying not to look too bowled over.
"If you notice anything missing, do not hesitate to ask, Master Dick. Perhaps you favour a particular brand, or -"
Dick cut the butler off. "Alfred... It's, it's too much," the boy said awkwardly. Getting this amount of money spent on him should be great, his dream to walk into a room full of toys and clothes and luxuries, but for an orphan who'd never had many material goods, it didn't sit right. It was just stuff, he hardly knew what to do with it.
There was also the tiny, niggling voice that he didn't want to look at, that said that in a life where he could have whatever he wanted, he might start to prefer that life over his true one, the one at home in the trailer with his parents. He'd never forgive himself if he ever looked down on that life. Video games couldn't replace his parents. Their memory was the most valuable thing he owned, but he didn't trust himself to remember that.
Alfred's expression softened and he said, "It is the least we can do. We want you to be happy here, Master Dick. It has been many years since this house has been the home of a teenager. Let us do what we can, while we learn what we should do."
Dick let his objections rest with a sickly nod, and the butler broke the intense eye-contact. "I shall leave you alone. If you need me, I shall be downstairs," he said, and withdrew in that professional way, backing out of the room so that he never put his back to his employer, closing the door after him.
Alone now, Dick looked around himself again. He didn't know where to start. He grabbed his bag off the bed and tossed it under one of the racks in the closet, briefly flicking through the clothes before walking out. He wandered over to the bookcase and read over the titles on all the boxes, then crouched to examine the consoles, hoping they came with instructions.
It wasn't long after that, that the solitude of the giant house started getting to him, and Dick went downstairs to find Alfred. At the circus there had always been dozens of people moving around, working and shouting to each other across the vast spaces, and then during the last three days at the home he had been surrounded by other children, packed into too few rooms. But here, in Wayne Manor, there was nothing but quiet, still space, too much space for two men, and now one boy. It made Dick uncomfortable, as if the silence was artificial, like he was being watched.
He had no idea of the layout of the house, so after uncertainly retracing his steps to the stairs and the front hall, he went right, and followed the curve of the house through an elegant sitting room, a dining room and then finally he came to a polished wood swing door, which he pushed open to find the kitchen. The room was well lit, and decorated in wood and off-white tiles. The butler was moving dripping lettuce from the sink to a bowl on the counter behind him, his black coat removed and his white shirt sleeves rolled up, a green apron protecting his front.
"Ah, good afternoon again, Master Dick," Alfred welcomed cheerily.
Dick tried to reply but his uncertainty killed the sound in his throat, and only an awkward squeak that could pass for a "hi" escaped. The boy made his way to one of the tall stools lining the kitchen island so that he could sit facing the butler as he worked. It was strange; Dick didn't have anything he wanted to talk about, but he was acutely aware of a need to be around people. The sunset shone through the windows to tinge the room gold.
"Tonight's dinner will be roast beef with pomme gratin, asparagus and Grandma Pennyworth's old family recipe gravy," the old man informed him, smiling. "It has been a while since we have had anything to celebrate around here, and Master Bruce works such long hours, it will be nice to start having family dinners again."
"It sounds great," Dick mumbled. The complexity of the dish, and the amount of thought that Alfred was obviously putting into it, made him feel guilty. He was used to just a simple sandwich, something that took five minutes. That was what he liked, he didn't like asparagus, and he remembered all the times his mother had begged, bribed and blackmailed him into eating vegetables, all without much luck, but he knew he would everything set before him in this house. He was morbidly afraid of upsetting his hosts, his guardians, and of disappointing them. Could they send him back if they didn't like him? Could they change their minds? What then, back to the home?
The butler alone had made him feel the pressure of expectation. They expected him to make them a family, but Dick didn't want that. He already had a family. Just by treasuring his parents' memory, he felt as if he had already disappointed Alfred, but he couldn't be what the butler wanted without betraying his parents. He was stuck.
"I bought some Italian ice cream for dessert, but if you would prefer, I could bake a cake, perhaps cheesecake, or a trifle?" Alfred continued, looking at him with obliging eyes.
Oh God, no don't make anything more... "Ice cream's fine," the boy said.
The butler at him for a moment too long, then moved on from the salad to chopping vegetables.
"Master Dick," he begun solemnly, making Dick's stomach drop. He hadn't been good enough. "You must know we don't expect anything from you here. We are glad to have you, to be able to help you in your time of need. And as I mentioned earlier, we are all familiar with bereavement." He wiped his hands on his apron and came round the island, putting a firm old hand on Dick's shoulder, looking down at him. "We are not looking to replace your family, or make you a Wayne. We are only trying to ease the transition, and facilitate your happiness when the time comes that you are ready to feel such," he said.
Dick blinked up at him, his throat choking up in the face of such sensitive, selfless honesty, forcing him to look away. Clearly, this old English gentleman was both compassionate and good-natured, and Dick felt that he was going to get on well with him.
Alfred nodded understandingly and returned to his cooking. Dick felt like taking a moment to compose himself, and slid off the stool.
"I'm going to go look around," the boy offered in way of excuse.
Alfred looked up abruptly. "Ah-" Dick stopped, fearful of having said something he shouldn't have. But then the old man forced a smile and said, "Very well, Master Dick. I shall ring a bell when it is time to come to dinner."
Unsure, Dick pushed through the door and wandered away. Maybe the butler was afraid of him breaking something? Or just thought he was going to poke his nose through his or his master's personal belongings? That hurt Dick, he had better manners than to go pawing through the details of somebody's bedroom or office.
He returned to the hall and took the door on the other side, coming to a room much more modernly outfitted, with a low glass coffee table amongst a group of plush couches and armchairs, and quite a large liquor cabinet-slash-bar. After that he found a conservatory that was more like a tropical greenhouse, a small library of some sort, and a home cinema tucked out of the way down one of the wings. Under the stairs he found a staircase leading to the garage, which was the size of an air craft hangar, and housed easily fifty cars. Some of them were flashy sports cars that were so low to the ground he wondered how a full-grown man like Bruce Wayne was ever supposed to fit in them, there were also giant, gas-guzzling four-by-fours, some recreational vehicles like dune buggies, and some more professional black vehicles, such as a couple more Rolls Royces and a smooth black Jag. As curious about and impressed by the cars as he was, Dick didn't linger in the garage. With so many expensive things down there, it definitely felt like somewhere Alfred wouldn't want him to be.
When he emerged back out of the door under the stairs, he heard a key turning in the lock of the front door, and his heart seized. It must be Wayne coming home from work. He waited where he was, and sure enough when the door was pushed open, the billionaire crossed the threshold. Dick had only ever met the man twice, once at the circus on that night, and then earlier that day at his parent's funeral. Everything else had been communicated through lawyers, the carers at the group home, and Alfred.
Wayne cast an intimidating figure. He was tall, over six feet, with broad shoulders emphasised by his dark overcoat and business suit. Besides this, he looked too young to have as much money and responsibilities as he did. Dick understood that he had inherited the company from his father. The man put down his briefcase and saw Dick standing at the other end of the hall, looking on nervously.
"Ah, Dick, how are you? Settling in alright?" he said with a smile, hanging up his coat.
"Y-yes, thank you," Dick stuttered, acutely aware that here was the man who was solely responsible for him not being in the depressing family home anymore, and who had raised him up to levels of wealth and comfort only a handful of children would ever know. His future was secure because of Bruce Wayne.
"Good, good. I know it's not easy, losing your parents," the man consoled, mimicking Alfred in the way he came close and put his hand on Dick's shoulder, looking down at him with blue eyes.
"You... you lost yours too, didn't you?" Dick said without thinking, instantly regretting it as the man cleared his throat and took his hand away. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" he added hastily, trying to excuse his guardian from having to answer.
"It's alright. I did, yes. I was a bit younger than you are, however, and it had a... profound effect on me. I hope you are spared that," he replied.
Dick didn't know how to reply to the enigmatic words so he stayed silent, and after a moment, the elder moved away and said "Let's see how Alfred is doing with the dinner, shall we? I'm starving," and he smiled again, helping to alleviate some of Dick's tension. The boy followed the elder through to the dining room.
Author's Note: So? Thoughts? Responses? Also, fanart or icons or anything like that for this story would be deeply appreciated, really inspiring ;)