We Became Robin
Vol 1
Chapter 1: The Beginning/ End of Dick Grayson
Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Richard 'Dick' Grayson, who watched his parents fall to a horrible death. One could only imagine what witnessing such a horrendous scene could do to a kid. Yet that scene wasn't what caused his mind to split.
'What did?' you asked. "Was it the hallucinogen gas caused by Scarecrow or the severe beating that he received from Two-face?"
I can't be too sure, myself. But if I had to guess, I would say that "a crowbar was involved."
Now
"Tell me what hurts more?" The voice of the Joker passed through the ringing sound inside Dick's ears.
"This one?" The crowbar struck his face. "Or this one?" Dick saw black lights as he felt the crowbar shatter his ribs.
"They looked like they both hurt," Joker laughed, lifting Dick's head by his hair. "But you tell me which one?"
Dick gathered the saliva and blood that was in his mouth and shot it at the Joker's face. "Neither," he chuckled, displaying bloody teeth. "Where's Harley? She-" he coughed up blood. "- delivers a better punchline."
Joker scowled. "That wasn't nice." He dropped the crowbar, reached inside of his inner jacket pocket, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face. He placed it back inside of his pocket. "But neither is this."
He punched him square in the nose. Blood gushed.
"Sometimes you have to teach children the hard way." He dropped Dick on the floor and grabbed the crowbar. He petted it like a cat with his opposite hand. "And other times you have to beat it into them." He slammed the crowbar against him, causing him to scream.
And as the crowbar crushed his bones, Dick answered the question inside of his head.
What hurt the most was Sheila's betrayal. He had trusted her and seen her as a second mother. Now, he saw Sheila, who was tied up in the warehouse's corner, as the woman who led him to his death.
No, that wasn't it. What hurt the most was that he failed at being Robin.
Who knew that his career as a Robin would end after two years.
Then
Dick turned to the left, then right. He looked forward to the mirror in his bedroom and grabbed the end of his 'black on the outside and yellow on the inside' cape with both hands and posed.
"Evil, beware."
"Beware of the boy with no pants." Dick blushed - heat suffused in his cheek - and immediately dropped the cape.
He turned around to find Bruce leaning against his door frame with a smile on his face. He was dressed in his Batman costume minus the cowl. "You forgot these?" Bruce threw something green at him.
Dick caught the green material in his hand and unrolled it to reveal a pair of green tights.
"I already have on my bottoms." He said, referring to his green subligaculum. "It's a modern-day subligaculum. The ancient Romans, both men and women, wore it. I got the idea from Wonder Woman. It's what she wears, and so did gladiators."
"I know what a subligaculum is, and you aren't a gladiator or an Amazon. Clothes are like your skin. It is an extra layer of protection. You can take your cape off if it catches on fire but not your skin. That's why even Superman wears tights. Do you understand?"
Dick nodded, then said innocently as he put on his tights on top of his subligaculum, "Then someone should tell Wonder Woman that she should wear tights."
"Dick." Dick glanced up at the serious tone of Bruce's voice. "Remember this important lesson whether you are in a cape, or not." Dick nodded for him to continue. "Never comment on a woman's outfit unless she asks you. Even then, always answer with 'it looks nice.'"
"But Alfred always comments on your dates' outfits."
"Alfred doesn't date much now, does he? Besides, Wonder Woman is an Amazon." He added, rubbing the right side of his jaw.
"What? She can't catch on fire?" Dick asked, making the last adjustment to his tights. Maybe he should have taken off the subligaculum first.
"No, that means she-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat. His demeanor shifted. He did this when he went into parent mode. Dick often wondered what made Bruce think he could go from a bachelor to a parent when he adopted him.
In some households, the sixteen age difference would only make him an older sibling, or a teen parent at best.
"That means-," Bruce continued, "-her outfit is a statement of her people's history and traditions. Just as the warriors and gladiators of ancient Rome.
"I see," he lied.
"Good. Let's go. You already wasted time staring in the mirror." Bruce turned to leave the room.
"Just because I can't comment on the ladies' outfits, doesn't mean that they can't comment on mine." Dick rushed to catch up with him in the hallway.
"Any ladies that we encounter tonight will be criminals."
"That never stopped you from chasing after Catwoman." Bruce glared at him from the corner of his eyes. "Alfred told me," he explained as they took the elevator to the Batcave.
"Alfred talks too much."
"He only does because you don't talk enough." Dick said the truth with a shrug.
Bruce was silent as he thought about the last time they had an actual conversation. When the door opened to the elevator, he said, "Fine, after dinner, we can spend fifteen minutes talking."
"That's the time I do my homework."
"No, that's the time you play video games IU before you do your homework."
"You knew." They jumped into the bat car.
"I know everything." They drove out of the cave.
"Don't leave the car," Batman ordered. He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door. They were parked in an alley in Park Row.
"What! You said that I could go out with you tonight."
"You IU are out. You're out of the cave."
"You're joking, right?" He couldn't believe that he was bamboozled.
"Have you ever known me to joke?" Robin glared at Batman, who was unfazed. "Stay put, alert -" Batman exited the car " - and don't leave the car."
"Whatever." The door to the Bat car closed and locked.
Dick folded his arms and sulked in his seat while watching Batman enter a building. "If I knew I would be car-sitting, I would have stayed in the cave and studied. At least, Alfred would bring me tea and cookies."
"I will remember that next time." Batman's response came through the radio.
Dick had forgotten that he could hear him. Dick didn't reply and continued to moped
He did so for fifteen minutes until he heard a loud crash, followed by Batman and a guy falling from the second-floor window.
Dick leaned against the dashboard to get a better view. He watched as they landed in the large, green garbage bin.
The criminal got up first and climbed out of the bin. Two seconds later, Batman leaped out in front of him. They fought. The criminal was an experienced fighter, but Batman was better.
Dick smiled. He loved watching Batman in action.
As he watched the two fight, he noticed another criminal creeping in the shadow. He had a gun pointed at Batman.
Dick hurried to unlock and open the door. He threw a Batarang at him.
The criminal in the shadow screamed, distracting Batman and the other criminal. Batman recovered first and knocked the criminal out before making quick work of the other one.
When Batman finished rounding up all the criminals and calling the police, he returned to the car and a smiling Robin.
Batman started the car while glaring at him, prompting Robin to say, "What? I didn't leave the car."
"Good job."
Robin's smile widened. "Anytime."
Now
Dick couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He could barely blink.
But he could see Joker laughing as he hit him with the crowbar. That was the last image that his brain processed before he passed out and was transported to a location in his past.
Dick stared at the roof of a colorful tent.
He sat up in a bed and glanced around the circus tent. If it was a circus tent
The circus tent only had one piece of circus equipment: the trapeze, which had two metal bars that swung back and forward, meeting and separating from each other.
On opposite ends of the tent were two doors instead of flaps.
"Hi, kid. I see that you finally made it down here." A boy who looked younger than him sauntered through the open door into the room.
"Who are you?" Dick asked.
"Help-" said the boy with blue eyes and black hair with a strip of white in the front, stopping in front of him "-and the reason we are in this mess."
Dick frowned. "What mess?"
The boy raised an eyebrow. "Sheila? The Joker? The Crowbar?"
"The Joker!"
Everything rushed back to him, including the pain that he felt. His body hunched over.
"Took quite the beating there. I felt it from here."
"Where is here?"
"That's a lot to explain right now. What you need at this moment is help. Unless you want tomorrow's headlines to read, 'Robin dead! Joker Did It! Ha Ha!'"
"I've got to go." He tried to stand up. He failed.
"You need my help, kid, or else you, no we are going to die."
"Who are you again?"
The boy smirked. "Jason Todd aka Robin."
Dick frowned. "I'm Robin."
"We can argue that later. Give me your hand." Jason stuck out his hand, which Dick stared at.
"You're not some evil monster, are you?"
"No, kid. Now, hurry up before we die."
Dick reached for his hand, praying that this wasn't a mistake.
Jason Todd screamed, feeling the metal against his face. The actual feeling of the crowbar was unexpected.
Neither was the second feeling or third. By the fourth, he stopped screaming. He didn't want to give the Joker the satisfaction of hearing the screams come from his lips.
On the fifth time the crowbar touched his skin, anger boiled up inside of him.
Using that anger, he managed to dodge the crowbar and headbutt the Joker in the stomach.
His victory was short-lived.
The next swing that the Joker took was three times harder than the previous one. It felt like an eighteen-wheeler hit him.
He fell against the floor, and his eyes landed on her.
Sheila.
The woman that betrayed him.
At this point, he didn't know what hurt the most: her betrayal, Joker torturing him, or the fact that Batman had not come yet.
As the crowbar and the Joker's words rained down on him, he decided not having Batman's back in the future was the worst.
Later
Batman rushed to the scene, praying to God that he wasn't too late.
As he got closer to the building, he jumped off his snow bike and raced toward it.
It exploded.
The blast propelled him backward. He tumbled in the snow. He dug his feet in the ground to stop himself, stood up, and ran.
With each step he took, a new emotion entered his system. Fear, regret, anger, hatred, disbelief, and disappointment in himself.
He failed his partner.
Entering the building that had been destroyed, he searched for him. Under bricks, under metals, under debris.
He searched until his heart and knees collapsed; his mind calculating everything that went wrong.
As he tried to comprehend everything, a faint whisper drifted into his ear.
His body moved automatically, following the sound of the bittersweet chant. "Help...help...help."
"I'm here." He kneeled in the snow feet away from the building. He gathered Robin in his arms. "I'm here."
"Batman." Robin created a teary smile with his bruised face.
"Save your breath." Tears fell from both of their eyes.
"I'm sorry." His body went limp.
A/N: Just to let you know I won't be updating this regularly. I still want to work on my novel, The Epilogue (yes, I haven't forgotten about it). This is just a stress and writer's block reliever. Funny thing is that was how WAR started.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it, wherever it may go.
Oh, volume one is before 'they' joined the Titans, and 'they' are twelve years old now.
Thanks ShikaIno1 for the idea! You are the reason why there are two volumes.