Note: This chapter was written a long time ago. Then I went on hiatus. This is the next to last chapter. You'll understand when you see the last chapter.
The next morning:
Bruce had stayed in the Batcave the entire night, a debate raging both internally and vocally. Yes, Dick was talented. Yes, he had taken down three adults – one of which was a professional killer – even though he was probably terrified of every one of them. Yes, he had helped Batman by cleaning up the henchmen.
Then there was the other side. Dick was naïve, a vulnerable ten-year-old child with no sense of self-preservation. The only other person who would bait a professional killer into wasting all of his bullets was Batman. It had been one of the worst ideas, more like the worst idea, the boy had ever had. Even if it had been intelligent.
"Intelligent and stupid, great combination," he muttered.
And he had killed a man. Batman still didn't know the full story but it had to have been an accident. Dick would never do something like that on purpose. But, there was a tiny seed of doubt in the very back of Batman's brain. What if the boy had snapped? What if he had seen Mr. Mack, wandering the streets as free as a bird, and just…snapped?
"You should talk to him, Master Bruce."
Alfred's quiet voice uncharacteristically startled the younger man.
"He's quite upset, sir. He thinks you might hate him."
"Hate him?!" Bruce exclaimed, whirling around to face his butler. "Why on earth…how could he…what made him…"
"If you're attempting to ask why he would think that, Master Bruce, perhaps you should think about the words you flung around last night. Master Dick is ten, sir, and has feelings that are easily hurt."
"But I'm right," Bruce growled.
"I agree, sir, with part of it. He should not have gone out – I should not have allowed him to go out – and he made some…shall we say, reckless decisions."
"Reckless," the younger man echoed incredulously. "That's the word you're choosing?!"
Ignoring the question, Alfred continued, "But I do not agree with your decision to ban him from the Batcave, sir."
"WHAT?!" Bruce yelled, his tone demanding an explanation.
"Master Dick wants to be a part of all aspects of your life, sir. He lights up this place when he is down here helping. And he was the one who found his way into the street cameras, Master Bruce."
"I did that!"
"After he programmed it so that you would think it was you, sir," Alfred stated with the quietest of chuckles.
"He's a liability," Bruce snapped, getting the conversation back on track.
"In the field, yes, Master Bruce. In the Batcave, however, he is a tremendous asset."
"He killed a man!"
"You told me that was an accident, sir. Did you lie to me?"
"No, but I don't know exactly what happened."
"Are you telling me, Master Bruce, that you think there's a possibility, no matter how small, that it might have been on purpose?!"
"I…the man killed his parents, Alfred!"
"Did he shoot when he had the chance to kill that very man on the circus grounds, sir?!"
"No, but I had to talk him down! If I hadn't been there, he might have!"
The conversation was becoming very heated. Alfred couldn't believe that Batman thought Dick Grayson could murder someone! And Bruce couldn't believe that his butler couldn't believe him!
"You didn't see him…"
"I most certainly did, Master Bruce! We have Bat-cameras, and a camera on the Batmobile! I watched him, although I couldn't see his face. He would not have…"
"YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT!" Bruce thundered.
That shut both of them up. Alfred angrily grabbed a feather duster and began swiping it around the Bat-computer. Bruce began storming around the entire Batcave, seething internally and muttering unintelligible phrases.
Ten minutes later, Alfred gave in.
"I will say one thing more, Master Bruce. It is the same thing I said when I first came down here. You should go talk to him, sir. Especially since you don't know the full story."
With that, the faithful butler strode away and took the service elevator back to the Manor.
"You should go talk to him," Bruce repeated snarkily.
Give him time to get used to the idea first. Alfred's right, being banned is going to be hard on him. But it's the only way…
"I'll ask him about it later," the man mumbled. "He needs – we need – to cool down."
One week later:
School had started so Bruce hadn't found a chance to talk to Dick about the events of a certain night. Of course, he didn't go out of his way to find a chance, either.
And Dick was sure that the man hated him, no matter what Alfred had said. Why else would he be practically ignoring the boy's existence?
The energetic, lively, bright personality of Dick Grayson had faded slightly. Instead of tumbling his way around the house, he walked. Instead of sitting in his favorite chair and grinning at the sight of Bruce walking in the door every night, he sat on the couch and read a book. And instead of using the gym, he stayed in his room.
Alfred gave Bruce a pointed look every time he saw the younger man. And Bruce walked around with a scowl on his face. The house seemed darker to everyone and finally Dick grew tired of it.
"If you hate me so much that you can't even stand the sight of me," he began while they were eating dinner, "then just tell me! I'll stop eating meals with you and I'll stay out of your way!"
"I don't hate you, Dick," Bruce replied with a sigh.
"Why not?! I killed someone! I broke your number one rule! You should despise my existence!"
The last sentence was yelled but there was anguish instead of anger in the boy's tone. And it opened the floodgates.
"I'm the worst person in the whole entire history of the world! I didn't listen to you and Mr. Mack died because of it! I don't deserve to even be here anymore! I killed someone and I should be in the detention center! But I don't want to go there but I deserve it and you should just call Mr. Makov and let him know that I should go there but I don't know what you should tell him to justify that because you can't really tell him that Robin killed someone!"
Dick was shouting the entire time, making him cough when he was done. But then he wasn't done.
"And I know I'm a huge disappointment and I'm not surprised that you've been ignoring me because that's probably what I would do if my ten-year-old ward had done what I did and in fact I would probably hate him just like YOU. HATE. ME!"
Both Alfred and Bruce were frozen, shocked at the words pouring from the boy's mouth. Dick stared at them, waiting for some sort of reaction. Neither man moved so Dick got up and strode toward Bruce. When he was right in front of the man, he grabbed Bruce's wrist.
Bruce flinched slightly but didn't pull away. What happened next shocked the men even more. Dick lifted the man's arm and, without warning, swung it at his own face. Bruce was able to stop his hand right before it slammed into Dick's cheekbone.
"No!" Dick yelled desperately. "I deserve this, I'm a despicable human being…"
Before he could continue, Bruce shoved the small hand off his wrist and pushed his chair back. Turning in his seat, he grabbed Dick's torso and pulled him into a fierce hug. He was surprised when the contact was not reciprocated.
"Please," Dick said quietly, his voice cracking from trying to hold back the tears. "Please don't be nice to me, I don't deserve…"
"That's enough, kiddo," Bruce stated firmly. "I don't ever want to hear those words come out of your mouth again. You are not a disappointment, you are not the worst person in the history of the world, and you absolutely do not deserve to be hit. Ever."
"But I killed him," the boy reminded him, the words muffled by the man's strong chest. "I should be in jail."
Bruce pushed Dick back just far enough that he could see the young face. There were no tears, but the features were scrunched in pain.
"Was it an accident, chum?" he asked softly.
Dick nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.
"Ummm, are you telling me you don't know whether or not it was an accident?"
"It was but I should go to jail so I decided that it wasn't but really it was. I think."
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"I guess," Dick whispered. "And then are you going to call Mr. Makov and send me to jail?"
"You're not going to jail, kiddo. We should have talked about this a week ago. I'm sorry, I let you down by waiting so long."
"No, I let you down when I murdered Mr. Mack."
"How about if you tell me exactly what happened and then I decide if you're a murderer?"
"It doesn't matter because the definition of murder is 'the unlawful killing of a human being by another human being'."
"How – no, why – do you know that?"
"I looked it up because I needed to know if you should send me to jail."
Alfred stepped into the conversation.
"Master Dick, you missed a word in that definition. 'Premeditated' is an extremely important word."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you planned to do it, chum. Did you go out that night planning to find Mr. Mack and stick a…"
"Master Bruce!" Alfred cried, horrified at what the man was about to say.
"Um, and kill him?" Bruce finished, mentally kicking himself.
"No, but I knew he had escaped and that he should go back to jail."
"Okay, then you didn't plan it which means you're not a murderer."
"But. I. KILLED. Him!"
"Tell me what happened, Dick," Bruce demanded, hoping his tone would knock out the voice in his boy's head.
"O…okay. I saw him and he recognized me. I got scared because he had a knife and we – I mean you and me – had never worked with weapons. I was thinking about not fighting him but then he ran at me. I twisted my torso and the knife cut my arm. His shoulder hit my ribs and then his fist found my face. That made me fall against the car and hit my head.
Then it was hard to see because of all the black spots. But then his foot was coming toward me so I rolled under the car. Then he went around the car because I should have kept rolling and come out on the sidewalk. But I knew he would think I was going to do that so I rolled back out onto the street.
Then he wasn't paying attention to anything except where I should be coming out. So I climbed on top of the car and jumped at him. The knife was pointing down but somehow it got turned around and I landed on the sidewalk and he landed on top of me and bounced off and I couldn't breathe and then I could but my chest really hurt and there was blood so I sat up but the blood wasn't coming from me it was coming from him and there was a…a…a…"
The last part of the explanation had rushed out of Dick's mouth so fast that both Bruce and Alfred barely understood it. And now the boy was gasping for air.
"Okay," Bruce stated loudly, cutting off Dick's attempt to explain that there had been a knife sticking out of Mack's chest.
"It was an accident, Dick. He was ready to kill you but you did something unexpected. It surprised him and he couldn't counter effectively. It wasn't your fault."
"But the knife wouldn't have turned if I hadn't jumped at him," the boy said sadly.
"You're inexperienced. There's no way you could have known, or even calculated, what was going to happen."
"I'm a horrible…"
"I said no more of that," Bruce growled. "It was an accident and you are not to blame."
"You don't…hate me?"
Dick's eyes were on the ground and his voice sounded tiny.
Putting a large hand under the small chin, Bruce gently lifted the boy's head. He waited for their eyes to connect, light-blue searching dark-blue for any sign of disappointment or anger.
"I could never hate you, Dick," he said quietly. "And I'm sorry you've had to carry all this on your shoulders for an entire week. Do you feel better, now that you've told me about it?"
"A little, but not really. I'm always going to know that I killed him and you guys are always going to know it and maybe someday you'll decide that I do need to go to jail."
"You don't have to be afraid of going to jail for this, Dick."
Bruce pulled the boy into his chest again and this time Dick's arms wrapped around him. His small body began trembling and the man knew exactly what was happening.
"I'm sorry," Dick sniffed. "I'm ruining your suit."
"I don't care, chum, let it out. You've had a stressful week so just let it all out."
"I, um…I…"
"What, kiddo? You can tell me anything, you know that, right?"
"Yeah, just…I don't know, um…never mind."
Alfred, the always-perceptive and practically all-knowing butler, stated, "Go ahead and say it, Master Dick. It will be good for both of you."
Bruce glanced at Alfred, confusion in his eyes. Returning his attention to Dick, he ruffled the dark hair and began rubbing soothing circles on his back.
"I love you."
The muffled words were whispered and barely audible. The dark-blue eyes of Bruce Wayne widened in astonishment. Dick…loved him? Bright, shiny, amazing, intelligent, Dick Grayson loved him, angry Batman and all?
"Yes," came a shy whisper. "Angry Batman and all."
That was accompanied by a quiet giggle and Alfred's mouth twitched in amusement. Bruce was confused again so the butler took pity on him.
"You said it out loud, Master Bruce. 'Angry Batman and all'," he clarified. "You seem…surprised, sir."
Bruce was speechless. His mind was blank except for three words: I love you.
"Master Bruce," Alfred prompted softly.
"It's okay, you don't have to say it back," Dick whispered. "I'm a patient pers…"
"Iloveyoutoo," Bruce blurted out so fast that nobody except Dick and Alfred would have been able to understand.
Alfred nodded in satisfaction as a small smile graced his face. Dick's hands tightly clutched the back of Bruce's shirt and the man felt the boy tighten his grip around his own waist.
"Um," Bruce began, somewhat embarrassed, "do you have any homework?"
Dick giggled again before replying, "It's Saturday. I finished it all yesterday."
"Oh. Right."
Silence, but not an awkward one, filled the room.
"Do you want to go workout with me?" Dick asked timidly.
Bruce, not understanding why the ten-year-old sounded so timid, replied, "Sure. What kind of workout? Tumbling, trapeze, body weight…"
"No, um, punching dummies?"
Pushing the boy back again so he could see his face, Bruce replied gruffly, "I'm not training you, remember? And you're still…"
"Banned, I know," Dick interrupted softly, wiping the tear tracks off his cheeks. "But you're not training me, we're just working out."
"That's a good point," the man replied. "Okay, let's go work out."
You'll get him to allow you back in soon, Master Dick.
Alfred watched them walk away, his smile turning into a smirk. Bruce had no idea what was coming. Neither did Alfred – Dick hadn't confided in him – but the butler knew that the persuasive ten-year-old had something planned.
