The CPS file, while somewhat sparse, provided him with one essential clue; Mary Grayson's maiden name. Not that 'Mary Lloyd' is going to be all that much easier to find information on, he thought with a sigh. Unless…Dick said that they'd toured in Europe. In that case, they must have had passports to get back into the US, and if they had passports then they had to have social security numbers. If nothing else, that will give me enough to get started.
It took a little time to break into the State Department's passport information databases, but once he was in it was nothing to narrow down his possibilities to one of three women, all deceased, who seemed to have been born in the right range of years. Just as he was about to begin the laborious task of sorting one out from the other, Alfred appeared. "…You may find these useful, sir," he offered, handing over two documents.
"Death certificates? When did we get these?" Bruce frowned down at them.
"They were faxed from the cemetery earlier this evening, after I spoke with them about having the young master's parents moved. I imagined they might contain information that didn't make it into the CPS file and which you would otherwise have to spend time looking up."
"I didn't think there would be this much data on them, or I would have just started searching for these." Haly knew more than I'd thought he did…here she is. Matching up a birthdate with the one on the sheet in his hand, he clicked the middle of the three names on the screen. "…This helps."
"Excellent, Master Wayne. I hoped it would." With a nod, the butler retreated back up the stairs.
Okay, Mary Janine Lloyd…born in Gallia County, Ohio… He paused. Huh. That's not too far south of Flash's town. Kind of an odd coincidence. Parents, Harvey and Jillian Lloyd… He went on, reading through the basics and absorbing all of it. Once he knew where she'd grown up, it was nothing to pull her old school records, newspaper clippings, everything with her name attached to it.
The Lloyds, he determined, were a solidly lower-middle-class family with, at the beginning at least, a good chance at upward mobility. Harvey worked for the local electric company; Jillian was employed part-time at the local supermarket. As he'd suspected, Mary herself was no slouch. Good grades all through school culminated in her graduating a year early with an honors diploma; she served in student government, and was a cheerleader for her final two years of public education. That would partially explain why she was able to transition into trapeze work the way she did, the billionaire mused. And I can see where she passed a certain…peppiness…on to Dick. After that she was off to college at the state capital, where she no longer carried pom-poms but did take a rigorous slew of courses.
It was in the spring of her sophomore year at university that Mary Lloyd met John Grayson. That, at least, was what Bruce deduced from the fact that there were brief articles about Haly's Circus coming to town in the local papers roughly a week before the Lloyds reported their daughter missing. Evidently she called home in short order, since the only news about her after the initial fervor in her hometown was a brief report that she had, quite literally, run away with the circus. But what happened to her parents? he wondered. Everything I've heard is that Dick has no living blood relations, but his maternal grandparents wouldn't be that old, and don't seem to have lived dangerous or rough lives…oh.
There it was, some eighteen months after their only child changed the course of her life completely to become the wife and performance partner of a man she'd known only a few days; a house fire, started ironically enough by faulty wires. Both dead, and their pregnant offspring a spectacle a week later when she swept back through town to clean up what she could of her parents' affairs. She didn't stay long, and that seemed to be the last Gallia County saw of the scholarship girl turned traveling woman.
He didn't think it likely that he would find much more on her beyond reviews of her and her husband's act, and he didn't need to see those to know that she'd adapted quickly and well to her chosen life. It's no wonder Dick is the way he is, he mused, sitting back for a moment before tackling John. He seems to be a great deal like her in essentials, and she obviously took care to pass on the knowledge and skills she gained from her formal education. If she was responsible for cultivating his mind, then it stands to reason that his father took the lead in his physical training. He certainly looked far more…circus…than Mary did, based on what little I saw of them.
Tracking down a man who had been traveling since the day he was born was no easy feat even for Batman, and much of what he did find was speculation not on John himself but on the line from which he came. Three hours passed as he gleaned tidbits from two hundred sites, a few legitimate and wholly believable, the rest belonging to that vaguely esoteric ether that lingers around those who live in the eddies of society. The Grayson family, he discovered, had been of some importance for a time after they arrived in North America with one of the several waves of Romanichal migrations in the last two hundred years. When the topic turned to acrobatics, and especially to aerial feats, the family name came up over and over again. One rumor stated that it was a Grayson who had taught Harry Houdini the contortions he used for his greatest escapes; another claimed that Grayson fliers were the stars of P.T. Barnum's earliest shows.
Bruce's naturally skeptical mind wanted to discredit both ideas, and several of the others he read, as too fantastical, but something held him back. The way the boy moved, his ingrained charm, and above all that damned quadruple somersault that he could not get out of his head all whispered that it was entirely feasible; as likely, at least, as his own forebears' flow of adventures, which he knew to be true to some extent. Where did they all go, though? he worried the question with an even greater urgency than he'd felt for the vanished Lloyds. Mary was an only child…was John, too? And even then, he must have had aunts, uncles, cousins…why does this bother me so much? Despite what Randall had said about there being a lengthy search that had to take place, he doubted that there would be one mounted at all. It shouldn't matter; even if he has blood kin, he clearly doesn't know them. They'd be totally unknown to him if they showed up on the doorstep.
His breath caught. …That's the danger. If the family name is known, and there are distant relations out there…suppose someone's interested? Suppose they see a news article, a TV clip, anything. If there was somebody who came here, tomorrow, next week, next year, and claimed to be his next-of-kin…god, what if he wanted to go with them? Even not knowing them, if they…if they could take him back to the circus, back to the life he had, to some extent, wouldn't he go? I know he still feels out of place here, and I know it will take time for that to go away, but…what if not enough time passes, and someone steals him from me by right of blood?
It was a cruel, nasty thought that sunk steely talons into his stomach until he had to push away from the computer. Unsettled and mildly nauseous, he stood and made his way upstairs. No one is taking him. He belongs here. With…with me.
You're not showing it very well.
Says the person who tried to keep me from him until a couple of days ago, he snapped back.
I've already admitted that I was…not as well informed as I would have liked, Batman conceded gratingly. Now it's your turn to do the same.
Yeah, let me show how much he belongs with me by putting him into situations where he's likely to be hurt or killed. That makes perfect sense.
He would be trained before he went out, you know that. Besides…if you let Robin become more than a voice on the radio, don't you think he'll have ample reason to want to stay if someone does come to claim him? There was much, much more to it than that, but the vigilante saw an opportunity to strike and took it. He'd more or less recovered from the defeat the billionaire had dealt him in regards to the boy, and was now determined to pull out all of the stops when it came to securing the child a position at his side. It was only the second time in his life that he had given in to the clichéd idea of joining those that one couldn't beat, but the youth had proved to be such a worthy adversary that he was anxious to see how he might be as an ally.
Bruce hesitated just as he passed into the bedroom beyond his own and came in sight of the lump under the covers. His fear of losing the person it marked, of watching this moment and the ten thousand like it that might come in the future vanish into nothingness, tore into itself; he was, hypothetically speaking, damned no matter which way he went. If I let Robin become more than an armchair mask, I risk losing him. If I don't, I risk losing him still. The difference, though, he decided after a moment's wavering, is that in the second scenario he would still be alive somewhere in the world. And that's what matters; his survival.
This from the man who just a few days ago decided that survival wasn't enough. You wanted to live; why doesn't he deserve the same consideration?
He can live without being like…like me. He will live without being like me. And that's final.
"Bruce?"
The quiet whisper derailed his thoughts, and he snapped back into himself. "Hey, kiddo," he moved closer inside, glancing towards the window to ensure that it was covered. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"You didn't," he shook his head, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes with one hand. "I…I had a nightmare."
"Why didn't you go across the hall?"
"You said not to stay there unless I knew that the police were gone. I checked your room and you weren't there, and I remembered you saying that you'd look in before you went to bed, so…I just decided to wait in here." A soulful gaze peered up at him as he drew to a halt beside the mattress. "…Can I come sleep in your room now? Please?"
"…Yeah, chum. Come on, it's late. We have to get up in a few hours." The words had barely finished leaving his mouth before Dick was on his feet.
"Ready."
"Do you want Elinor?" the billionaire nodded at the elephant that had been left beside the pillow.
"Um…she can guard the bed for me while I'm gone."
It was a little surprising – the boy had been clinging to the stuffed creature every night since his arrival – but so long as indecision was roiling in his midsection again Bruce didn't have the energy to ask for details about the shift. "Okay," he acceded, then held out his hand.
He quickly learned the reason that the comfort toy had been left behind despite not having inquired. As soon as they were cocooned in the master suite, two thin arms, one of which would normally have been occupied with the elephant, wrapped around his neck. It was an exceedingly uncomfortable position for the exhausted and heartsick man, but he could imagine the sort of dream that might have driven the child to such an intensely needy reaction. "…That bad, huh?" he asked quietly, running his hand up and down his spine slowly.
"It was awful."
"Was it a new one, or…?" Or your parents, he didn't finish.
"It wasn't them, it was…something else." Almost as bad, he kept to himself.
"Tell me about it."
"It…they tried to take me away. I mean…no…they did take me away. My social worker came with the police, and they made me go with her even though I kept saying I didn't want to. And I was crying, and…and you were, too, and…Alfred looked like he was going to hit someone, which was kind of weird but scary at the same time, even though I knew it wasn't me he wanted to hit…and I knew that they were never, ever going to let me see you again. One of the cops seemed kind of sorry for me, and he said that maybe when I was all grown up I could come back, but…for some reason I had this feeling that you weren't going to be there then. Like…like something was going to happen to you because they took me away. But she said I was talking nonsense, and that where I was going they'd 'knock all that fantasizing' out of me…it was really scary, Bruce," he choked. "It was so scary, because…because it could happen, couldn't it? They…they could take me away from you."
"…I'm not going to let that happen," he swore, his eyes as damp as his neck from the boy's tale.
"But…the lawyers today, they said all you can maybe get is guardianship, right?"
"Permanent guardianship. That's pretty powerful."
"Yeah, but…it doesn't mean the same."
The words were so close to his own from earlier that he flinched. "…I know, chum," he stroked his hair, then cradled the back of his head. "I know. But it's the best I can do right now."
"But it might not be enough."
"It will be."
"What if it isn't, though?"
"Dick," he shifted, disturbed by the intensity of his questioning. "…There are a lot of things in the world that not even all of my money can make right. When I run into those things, do you know what I do?"
"…What?" he whispered.
"I rely on a different sort of persuasion."
"…Batman's persuasion?"
"Yes."
"But…you can't beat up my social worker."
Well… "No," he conceded. "I wouldn't do that. But that doesn't mean I can't scare the shit out of her."
"…Are you supposed to use that-"
"No. Don't repeat it. My point stands, though. They might not let me adopt you, Dick, but they're not taking you away from me. Whatever I have to do, that's not happening. Okay?"
"…Okay." I don't understand how you're going to fight them, but…I trust you. If anyone can win, you can.
"Feel better now?"
"A little," he shrugged, not wanting to exaggerate the truth. They were silent for a while. "…Bruce?"
"Huh?!" he started back awake. "What is it?"
"…Did you go out, after all?"
"No," he half-groaned. "I didn't. Why?"
"…When are you going back to Newtown?" When will I know if Zucco is the one who killed them? hung unasked between them.
He could hardly blame him for being eager. "Maybe tonight, kiddo. We'll see how things go. But you know I'll tell you just as soon as I know something for sure."
"I know. I just…" I just want to know now. And I want to help. I want to see him be arrested the way I got to see Anaxas be taken away tonight. I want us to do that again, Bruce, and I want to do it to him. If he's the right guy, he amended. Knowing that saying all of that would likely only upset the man – hadn't he just promised a few hours before that he understood that Robin wasn't to leave the cave? – he bit it back. "I just don't want him to do that to anyone else." It wasn't a lie, but it was far from the entire truth.
"I'll get him, Dicky. I promise, if he's the one who did it…I'll get him."
"…Thank you."
Don't thank me until I actually have him in cuffs, the billionaire couldn't bring himself to say despite being fully cognizant of the fact that no matter how good the lead he had on Zucco looked it didn't mean that he was the right guy beyond any shadow of a doubt. It wasn't worth giving the child curled against him anything else to dwell on, though, so he kept his reply as simple as possible. "…You're welcome. And Dick?"
"Uh-huh?" he mumbled.
"No one is taking you away," he breathed against his scalp, eyes already closing again. Not even me, his final thought of the evening echoed into sleep.
"…I'm glad, Bruce." He sighed and snuggled in closer. So glad.
Author's Note: I just wanted to take a minute to thank all of you who have been reading and to doubly thank those of you who have reviewed, especially the guest reviewers who I'm not able to thank personally through private messaging. Stay tuned, Bruce and Dick are in for a flufftastic Saturday morning. Happy reading!
