Nine-year-old Dick Grayson watched as his entire world crashed to the ground thirty feet below him. Horror, shock, and grief attacked his senses, the emotions so overwhelming that he couldn't think straight. He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and reopened them. It had to be a trick. Everything in the circus consisted of tricks, and this was just another one. One his parents had neglected to tell him, but a scoop or two of ice cream after dinner would enable him to forgive them.
Or…it wasn't a trick. The entire, silent, crowd wouldn't all be staring at him up on the platform if it was a trick. Unless he had a part to perform. Maybe he was part of the finale now? Was he supposed to be doing something? His parents weren't going to be very happy if he forgot his part of the performance on the very first night he was supposed to do it.
Without noticing, Dick had begun the long climb down the rope ladder. The silence was unnerving; the circus had never been silent. When he reached the ground, the sea of performers parted for him. It took him two minutes to walk from the ladder to the place where his parents were lying on their backs.
The nine-year-old stared down at them, not quite sure what to do. It had to be an illusion, or maybe he was hallucinating. He had heard the magician talk about it before. Seeing things that weren't really there, or something like that. His parents weren't lying on the ground, he was asleep, or he had a head injury, or…anything but this.
An emotion he had never felt before – deep, deep sorrow – filled his entire body, and he knew this was neither a trick nor a hallucination. They were dead.
"Dick," Pop Haly softly began, "we need to talk."
"They left me," Dick said, his voice sounding almost robotic. "Was I not good enough? Why did they leave me?"
"This has nothing to do with whether or not you're good enough, Dick. A bad man did something, and none of it is your fault. Let's go sit down over there."
Gently, the circus owner took hold of Dick's shoulders and turned him around. He led the boy to the bottom row of the now-empty bleachers, grateful that the rest of his performers had taken the initiative and ushered the crowd out of the large tent. They sat down, and Pop Haly put an arm around Dick's shoulders.
"What's going to happen to him?"
"Surely he'll be allowed to stay with us."
"Where else would he go?"
"He has no other family."
The murmured questions and comments were just loud enough for Dick to hear, and they worried him. Was someone going to take him away from the circus? Were they going to make him stay here – wherever 'here' was – and live with somebody else?
"…detention center…parents…foster care…doesn't…I can…until…Bruce…do that…take…"
Words were jumbling into his mind, twisting around each other and making no sense at all. Pop Haly stood up, and Dick saw a pair of black shoes standing in front of him. He lifted his head and found himself staring into a set of dark-blue eyes. They looked neither friendly nor mean, and Dick didn't know what to think of them.
The owner of the eyes crouched down in front of him. He had dark hair and a fancy suit. Dick didn't know to think of the man, either.
"Hi, Dick," the man said softly. "I'm Bruce Wayne."
"Are you going to take me away?" Dick asked bluntly.
The man didn't respond, so the nine-year-old folded his arms across his chest and waited expectantly. It should be an easy answer – yes or no.
Pop Haly jumped in, sparing Bruce the awkwardness of confirming the boy's suspicion.
"You have to go with the nice man for a little while, until they can figure everything out."
"What is there to figure out?!" Dick exclaimed, moving his gaze to the face of the circus owner. "They died, somebody killed them!"
The nine-year-old was becoming slightly hysterical as the reality of his situation began to set in.
"That's what we need to figure out, Dick. The person who did this has to be found before you can leave Gotham City."
"Why?!"
"Because…"
Pop Haly paused, and this time Bruce jumped in.
"Because Gotham City has some old, ridiculous, laws that were originally meant to protect people but are considerably outdated and need to be discarded. We don't know how this happened, and we have to figure it out, which means you have to be under the protection of the Gotham City Police Department for the time being."
"But…I belong in the circus. Don't I?"
"Yes, Dick," the circus owner agreed, "and we'll get you back as soon as this is figured out. It shouldn't be very long, they have a real superhero here. His name is Batman, and I hear he's a great detective."
Bruce managed to keep his expression neutral, even though he wanted to laugh at the description. Batman wasn't 'super', he was just another normal citizen of Gotham City. A great detective, though? Bruce had to agree with that.
"How long?" Dick asked.
"I don't know," Pop Haly replied with a quiet sigh. "But I do know that Mr. Wayne is a very nice man and will keep you safe while Batman and the police figure everything out."
Dick looked at Bruce again, uncertainty in his light-blue eyes. He really didn't want to go with this 'nice man'. His place was in the circus, with….
"Am I useless?" he suddenly asked, then immediately exclaimed, "You don't need me anymore!"
"No, Dick, you're not useless," Pop Haly stated vehemently. "You…"
"But I can't perform without them!"
"That's true, but there are…"
"I don't want to do other things, I want to fly!"
The nine-year-old burst into tears, and the circus owner turned so Dick was crying into his chest. His muffled sobs broke the hearts of both men, and Bruce was taken back to a dark night in a wet alley, the one time he had allowed himself to cry after his parents were murdered.
"Dick, I can put up some equipment in my gym," the man offered, trying to find a way to both stop the crying and get the boy to agree to come with him.
"You…have a…a gym?" Dick quietly asked as he raised his head.
"I do, and I can put almost anything you want in there."
"That's probably, um, expensive. You don't have to."
Dick was staring at the ground now, sniffling and rubbing off the evidence of tears on his face.
"That's not something you need to worry about, kiddo," Bruce responded. "If you come with me, I can show it to you."
He held out his hand, and Dick lifted his head again. There was a long pause, and both men could see the wheels churning in the young mind. Finally, the nine-year-old slid his much smaller hand into Bruce's calloused one. The millionaire stood up, and the boy followed suit.
"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," Pop Haly said quietly.
Bruce nodded, then led Dick out of the tent toward Alfred and the waiting limousine. If the butler was surprised, he didn't show it. He politely held the door open for the two, shutting it after they were situated inside.
"What have you gotten yourself into this time, Master Bruce?" he questioned softly to the night air.
Alfred didn't know it, but Bruce had just agreed to bring a shining beacon of hope and kindness into their lives. One the butler would be forever grateful for, and one that would finally force Bruce to realize that he could care for someone other than Alfred. A person who would be become more important to him than the entire population of Gotham City. A nine-year-old child who would one day become Batman's protégé and, later, a powerful ally. A relationship that would be a continual work in progress, but a bond that would last forever.
And so began the story of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, Batman and Robin, father and son.