When the Bough Breaks

By SKH

Rating: G
Characters: Batman/Robin, Alfred Pennyworth
Disclaimer: All characters owned by DC Comics. No profit is
realized from creation of stories based on these characters.
Timeframe: Dick's first year at Wayne Manor
Inspiration: Writer Syl Francis' wonderful young Dick Grayson tear-jerkers
I also, in afterthought, like the animated Batman/Bruce Wayne from the early-years
scenes from "Robin's Reckoning" as a voice for Bruce here.
Summary: Fear in the night
Comments and feedback are welcome to SKHwrite@aol.com

The breeze was cool and fragrant as it passed easily through the boughs of the massive oak. Her upper branches waved idly,
gently rocking their sole occupant, nestled peacefully among the sun-tipped foliage. The child was content and unafraid high
above the ground. He gazed serenely over the tops of smaller trees, beyond the broad green lawn, beyond the big house, to
see the distant — but still imposing — skyline of the city across the river.

From his lofty perch the boy could see for miles around, but his eyes fell on a car approaching the big house, moving slowly
down the long driveway. The boy watched the car's approach with detachment, until it became obscured by the house. From a distance, he heard the sharp slam of the car's door.

Dick Grayson woke from a rare, peaceful dream, summoned from his slumber by the disjointed convergence of real and
unreal. It wasn't morning yet — it was still dark. He sat up and looked at the luminescent dial of the clock beside his bed. Three twenty-two. Much too early to be waking up. He was still very sleepy. Yawning almost violently, Dick crawled out of bed and toddled groggily to his bedroom door. He opened it and looked out into the hallway, his sleepy eyes following a source of light downstairs. He heard muffled voices, Alfred's and — who else? A woman's voice?

Dick crept down the hallway to the staircase. Rubbing his sleep-gritty eyes, he sat on the top step and peered curiously through the balustrades.

"Master Dick, return to bed immediately!" Alfred called sharply.

Still heavy from sleep, Dick sat for a moment, not accustomed to hearing that tone in the older man's voice.

"I said immediately, young man!"

Dick scooted backwards on his bottom, then stood up and padded quickly back to his bedroom without uttering a sound. Once inside, he closed the door, then as an afterthought, cracked it open a few inches. He went into the bathroom to relieve himself and get a drink of water, then clambered back into his bed. He fell asleep almost right away.

Dick woke with a start.

He sat up, listening into the darkness. Some noise, big but far away — or far below — had jolted him from his slumber. It was a noise he had felt, like thunder. What kind of noise could make this big house shake, even a little bit? Realization swept all
traces of sleep from the boy's head. From below. The car door slamming and voices in the house. Dick looked at his clock
again. Three forty-six.

Batman.

Bruce.

Several months before, Bruce Wayne had watched in horrified disbelief as two members of a family of aerialists fell to their
deaths from above the center ring of the Haly Brothers circus during their performance, leaving the remaining member of the
troupe, a small boy — their son — alone and sobbing in terror. Bruce, later investigating as the Batman, discovered the
performers' rigging had been sabotaged, their deaths intended as an example to extort protection money from the owner of the
small circus. As Batman continued to investigate the cruel murder, he felt a protective concern for the orphaned boy, whose
custody had been remanded to the local Child Welfare Service. The boy had been promptly placed in the Gotham Juvenile
Detention Center to await a final determination of custody. It was no place for a frightened, lonely young boy whose world had
gruesomely disappeared before his eyes.

Empathizing with the child whose plight was so similar to Bruce's own childhood trauma, following his own parents' violent
death, Bruce called in every marker and favor available to Gotham City's wealthiest citizen and succeeded in being granted
legal guardianship of the boy. Bruce had less of an idea how to become a parent to Dick than he did of becoming a mentor. He offered to train him, hoping to channel the frustrated helplessness and anger over his parents' murders — the same
kind of emotions that had driven Bruce into the fight for justice that Batman waged on Gotham's criminal underworld.

The boy's days were full, carefully managed to keep his active mind and body occupied so he wouldn't dwell on the sadness of
his profound loss. There were physical training sessions before breakfast, then he would shower, dress, eat, and be shuttled off
to school. In the afternoons there was homework, and more training with Bruce once he returned from his work as the CEO of
Wayne Enterprises. Occasionally Dick was granted some free time, which he often used to explore the Wayne Estate. He
discovered the towering oak tree that stood as a stately sentinel over the small cemetery where Bruce's parents were laid to rest. Despite the size of the tree, it was an easy climb for the young acrobat. Dick found some measure of comfort in the topmost branches of the steadfast centurion, swaying with the wind, as high above the earth as the trapeze had been.

And now, for the past several weekends, the Batman had allowed his young charge, his new partner, to accompany him
into the Gotham night skies and streets, to train at his side as Robin, the code name Dick had chosen for himself. It had been
the nickname Dick's mother had given him because he had been born on the first day of spring. Where the Batman was a
dark and imposing figure, Robin — in his bright plumage — was proving to be a curious and useful distraction to the surprised
and disbelieving miscreants they encountered on their patrol. Their training missions together had come only when the risk to
Robin's safety was at a minimum, and absolutely only if Robin followed Batman's every command without question.

And he did. Robin gave everything he had — and then he gave more.

But the Friday night came when Batman had gone out without Robin. The danger, he had explained, was too great this time.
When things settled down Robin could resume his field training with Batman. Dick had almost started to complain, but he kept
quiet. He trusted Batman with his life. And so the Batmobile had roared away out of the Cave, and Dick climbed the long, dark staircase up to Wayne Manor alone.

That evening hadn't been so bad, though. After his bath, Dick played Rummy with Alfred, the older man who had taken care of Bruce and his home since Bruce had lost his parents. And now Alfred took care of Dick, too. Dick's first impression of the British gentleman's gentleman had been that he was dour and stuffy. That quickly changed when Dick discovered Alfred's wry sense of humor — not broad and immediate, like Dick's father's — but sly and focused, sharp, dry, and challenging. After their card game, Alfred shepherded Dick off to bed, where sitting at the boy's bedside, he read a chapter of "Treasure Island" with dramatic flourish to his audience of one. And so Dick drifted off to sleep, to dream of the peaceful, high treetop.

"Bruce!" Dick gasped. He leaped out of his bed and ran to the bedroom door. He stepped out into the hallway, then scurried
down the grand staircase to the main floor of the Manor house. Dick ran to the front door and looked out the narrow window
beside it. The porch light was on and a car was visible in the driveway. It looked like Dr. Leslie's car.

Eyes wide, he dashed to Bruce's study, to the stately grandfather clock that stood against the far wall. Dick pulled at the base of the clock until it swung out far enough for him to slip behind it, into the hidden corridor. He crept silently to the dark stairs. There was a faint illumination from lights below. From down in the Cave. Hugging the cold stone wall, Dick descended the stairs toward the source of that light.

The stony steps were like ice to his small, bare feet. He wished now he'd put on his slippers. But that wasn't important. Where
was Bruce? What was going on? Dick stepped out into the vastness of the Cave. He could hear noises, but where *was*
everybody?

Then he saw the car.

Dick's mouth dropped open and his eyes grew even wider. The Batmobile sat where it had slammed sideways into the rock wall that marked the end of the driveway, beyond the rotating platform designed to turn a properly parked Batmobile around in the direction of the Cave's entrance. The side of the car was crushed in, and vapor misted out from under the buckled hood.

Dick swallowed hard past the lump that was constricting his throat. He turned and walked slowly in the direction of the
infirmary, the source of the light and sounds. The infirmary was where Alfred had patched up the scrapes and bruises Robin had earned on his nights working at Batman's side. A skinned knee from when he had been tackled from behind by a street-dealer. But Robin had rolled immediately to his back, grabbed the guy by the shirt and flipped him over his head into the wall behind him. And there had been the minor scalp laceration he'd gotten from diving through a broken window to seize a toddler whose enraged father had threatened to drop her out the fourth-floor window. Batman dropped the man with a batarang as Robin somersaulted across the floor, springing up to catch the screaming child before she could hit the floor. Alfred fixed everything in the infirmary.

Not bothering to hide anymore, Dick stood in the doorway of the infirmary, looking in. What he saw immobilized him where he
stood: Batman — Bruce — was lying unconscious on a table while Alfred and Dr. Leslie — wearing what Dick recognized as
surgical clothing — worked over Bruce, determined and serious. Dick saw Batman's shirt lying on the floor. It was drenched in
blood. Blood spatters were on the floor. Blood was on the front of Alfred's surgical gown and on his gloves.

Without lifting his eyes from the focus of his attention, Alfred spoke to the boy.

"Master Dick, it's quite chilly in here, you *should* be wearing your robe and slippers. There are blankets on that shelf next to
the doorway. Please take one. Sit in that chair and bundle up, please."

Even if Alfred believed he could have succeeded in banishing the boy to his room, he couldn't bear to think of the lad sitting
terrified and alone, fearful for his partner and best friend's fate.

"It seems that Master Bruce `zigged when he should have zagged,' Master Dick. Even the Batman is not infallible."

As Alfred spoke he dropped something into a metal dish with a tinny "clink" sound.

Silent tears welled in the boy's wide, blue eyes, then tumbled down his cheeks. He sat in the chair, wrapped tightly in a blanket, hugging his knees to his chest. He said nothing, but simply stared at his fallen guardian. He wanted to sob but he could barely breathe. He just watched, tearfully shivering.

"Dicky, Bruce is going to be all right, don't you be afraid." Dr. Leslie reassured the frightened child. After a moment she dropped another object into the metal dish.

`Slugs,' Dick realized. Batman had been shot. He was hurt so badly he'd crashed the car into the wall.

Dick recalled Batman's earlier explanation for why he needed to work alone that night, and why Robin needed to stay safely
behind.

`What if I'd have been there with him?' he questioned. `Could I have helped him — maybe kept him from being hurt?'

Probably not, he realized. Not now, not yet. He might even have made it worse. Batman would have been more concerned with Robin's safety than his own. Concern could have led to distraction. Batman often warned Robin that distraction and lack
of concentration could have deadly consequences.

"There, that's got it," Leslie sighed crisply, "I can take it from here, Alfred, if you want to see to Dick."

Alfred looked up at Leslie, giving a short nod. "Thank you, Dr. Thompkins, I believe I shall do just that." He removed the gloves and surgical gown, washed and dried his hands, then moved across the room to the very quiet little boy.

"Young man, we should be getting you back up to bed," he said gently, "Master Bruce will recover, I promise you. But he needs his rest, as do you, Richard. Come along, now."

Alfred held his hand out for Dick to take. Dick's hands stayed cocooned inside the blanket as he sat motionless. Alfred stood
there for a moment, then he pulled a chair up next to the lad and sat, lightly resting his hand on a small shoulder.

"Master Dick..." Alfred began to say quietly, interrupted when large, tearful blue eyes turned to him, imploringly.

"Please," Dick whispered, "please may I stay here?" He was careful to ask correctly. "I can rest *here*... I'll be quiet. Please
don't make me leave him...." A small hand appeared from within the cocoon to swipe at his eyes and across his nose.

The older man stood, walked to a cabinet and removed a box of tissues from inside. He placed the box on the chair he'd just
been sitting in, and affectionately smoothed errant curls back from the small, tear-stained face. He then returned his attention to his other "boy."

Dick watched — his breath hitching in silent hiccups — as Alfred and Dr. Leslie cleaned and bandaged the object of his desperate attention. `It won't be like Mommy and Dad' He told himself. But his eyes caught the blood-soaked shirt, the blood on the floor, and he remembered the blood in the sawdust that horrible night. Dick lowered his head to his knees and wept soundlessly.

Dick awoke, gasping for breath. He looked frantically around him. `Bruce!' he recalled. Dick was in his own bed, in his bedroom. When had Alfred brought him in here? He looked at his clock. Seven thirty-five. He scrambled out of bed, pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt from a dresser drawer and put them on quickly. He slid into his bedroom slippers, the first shoes he could find, and left his room. He was about to turn to run down the stairs when he saw Alfred come out of Bruce's room and silently shut the door.

Eyeing the disheveled youngster, Alfred spoke quickly and quietly to reassure him. "Good morning, Master Dick. I had hoped you would sleep a bit longer. I daresay, you need the rest. Master Bruce is asleep in his bed at the moment. He regained consciousness after you dozed off, and was quite concerned for how you felt, given what you'd seen."

`He was concerned about me? *He's* the one who was *shot!*' Dick wondered incredulously. He stood silently, looking up at Alfred, and then at Bruce's door.

"He needs to rest...and you, young man, need your breakfast. Shall we go downstairs?"

Alfred walked down the hall, believing Dick walked with him. He stopped, looking about him for the boy. Turning around, he quickly traversed the length of the hallway in time to stop Dick from entering Bruce's room. He gently removed the small hand from the doorknob and guided him away from the door and toward the service lift.

"Now, let's see about breakfast, shall we?"

Dick stared at the floor of the lift, saying nothing. There were no words to say.

Not long after, seated at the table in the kitchen, the boy sat and quietly stared at his plate, eyes focused on nothing in particular. His thoughts, however, focused on the images from the previous night — the crumpled and smoking car, Bruce lying motionless on the infirmary's table, the blood-soaked shirt.

The blood...

in the sawdust...

on his shoe...

on his mother...

on his hands...

on Alfred's hands...

Alfred's hands... removed Dick's untouched plate. The older man had observed the boy grow more withdrawn as the morning progressed. He had seen this reaction before, in the two young boys who had lost everything dear to them. Young Bruce didn't speak for weeks following his parents' deaths. Richard had been silent and suspicious when he had come to live at Wayne Manor, bearing not only the trauma of his tragic loss but his ghastly experience at the Juvenile Detention Center, as well. For this child to be facing the fear of a catastrophic loss so soon after all he had already endured....

Alfred had long ago come to the conclusion that actions did indeed speak louder than words. With that understanding, he sat down next to Dick, pulled the small, unresisting figure into his lap and simply held him. Dick closed his eyes and tried to think about the big oak tree.

Dr. Leslie Thompkins returned to Wayne Manor in the early afternoon. Prior to her arrival Alfred had had to repeatedly shoo the Batman's worried young partner away from the room where the hero lay wounded and unconscious. The boy succeeded in entering the room while Alfred had gone below to the Cave's infirmary to retrieve medical supplies. Alfred had returned to find the boy rooted to the bedside, in motionless concentration. Dick had stood in the darkened room, staring for long minutes at Bruce's unconscious form, watching the large man's chest rise and fall, as if he were willing Bruce to breathe. `He doesn't sound right... his breathing doesn't sound right...' he thought, as he listened carefully, using the training he'd received at this man's hand.

So focused on his mentor and best friend, Dick didn't notice Alfred enter the room until hands carefully grasped his shoulders, turning him toward the door.

"Master Dick, I must ask you to assist me...please wait downstairs for Dr. Thompkins to arrive and let her in when she does. Would you do that for me please?" 'If the boy felt he was being helpful...' Alfred thought.

The youngster tore his gaze from the man on the bed and looked into the older gentleman's soft gray eyes. He gave a small, ragged sigh and a compliant nod of the head. Looking back at Bruce once more, Dick left the room, slipping out the door, careful to make no disturbing noise.

Thankful that the lad hadn't perceived his increased sense of concern, Alfred moved quickly to Bruce's bedside. Dr. Thompkins was hurrying to Wayne Manor on his urgent summons for what would undoubtedly result in additional surgery for Bruce Wayne. Bruce's blood pressure had dropped significantly in a short period of time, and his breathing had taken on a rattling sound. Alfred had gone below to the Cave's infirmary to prepare the surgical suite, returning to the Manor house above with a transport gurney that he'd left in the service lift. The older man bent to the task of preparing Bruce for the inevitable move to the infirmary below.

Leslie Thompkins once again found herself driving up the long, tree-lined drive leading to Wayne Manor. She parked in front of the main entrance to the house, gathered her medical bag, and exited the car with efficient speed. Masking her worry over Alfred's assessment of Bruce's deteriorating condition, Leslie approached the small figure seated on the top step of the front porch. His small face looked pale even in the early afternoon sunlight.

"Well now, what a pleasant welcoming committee!" Leslie smiled at the child as he rose at her approach. "I suppose Alfred must have asked you to greet me?"

Dick nodded solemnly as he opened the big front door for the family's physician. Leslie thanked him for his good manners and went directly upstairs. Dick followed Dr. Leslie closely, all the way to Bruce's bedroom door. Leslie knocked softly and was admitted by the stoic valet. Alfred looked down at Dick, holding his hand out to prevent the lad from entering the room. Dick stopped at the gesture, his eyes fixed on the door, frustration tightening his features.

"Richard, I must ask you to go to your room now, and close the door."

Alfred knelt and looked into the liquid blue eyes before him. As kindly as he could, he explained, "I do not wish to leave you upstairs by yourself, Richard, but Dr. Thompkins and I must attend Master Bruce without distraction. You must now be the obedient student Master Bruce would be proud of, and do not follow us down into the infirmary." Those eyes widened slightly, bright with unshed tears.

"You may go to the kitchen should you feel hungry, but you must not come `below' unless I ask you to. For now, I would like youto go into your room. You had very little sleep last night — you might try lying down for a nap." Alfred pulled Dick to him for brief but hopefully reassuring hug, then released him and stood. "Go on now, please, Richard, I must return to Master Bruce."

Dick obediently hastened to his bedroom without a word, and closed the door behind him. He leaned back against it, then slid to the floor to sit with his knees drawn tightly to his chest. And there he waited, listening for voices or sounds of movement.

Dick opened his eyes.

He was lying on his side, curled on the floor in front of his bedroom door. The room was nearly dark. Outside, twilight retreated to give way to the darkness of night. He must have fallen asleep.

Yawning, he rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand while using the other to support himself against the door as he stood up.

Dick opened the door and walked out, heading straight for Bruce's room. The door was open, the room unoccupied, and the big bed empty.

Alarmed, the boy ran downstairs in an instant, to Bruce's study. He halted suddenly just inside the doorway and stared hard across the room at the tall grandfather clock. 'Be the obedient student...' Alfred had said, asking that Dick not distract Leslie and himself from their ministrations to Bruce.

Dick frowned in concentration, searching for a way to satisfy his desire to know Bruce's condition. One eyebrow rose, his eyes glanced down the corridor as he considered one possibility. Dick walked resolutely to the security Ops station, a room filled with security surveillance equipment, including monitors displaying views from video cameras installed on the property and in key areas of the house, including the Cave. Alfred routinely kept a watchful eye on Bruce and Dick's activities "downstairs," should he be needed for any reason. There was a matching configuration in the Cave for observation from that location.

Having watched Alfred's use of the monitoring station several times before, Dick knew which screens would display the part of the Cave he wanted to view. He activated the display for the infirmary and dialed up the sound. He watched and listened for a moment before he became aware of the gravity of what was happening.

The boy stared in fearful disbelief. Bruce's condition was failing!

Dick heard the sharp urgency in Alfred's and Leslie's voices as they spoke to one another. He observed the swiftness of their actions as they battled to stabilize the fallen hero.

Frantic, Dick raced back to the study, his hands reaching for the clock's base before he halted himself. 'Dr. Thompkins and I must attend Master Bruce without distraction...' Alfred's words returned yet again to him, as did Batman's, '...distraction and lack of concentration could have deadly consequences,' as well as Batman's training mandate: 'Give me everything you have, then give me more!'

Dick understood with crystal clarity the importance of Batman's insistence for obedience without question. Given the dangerous nature of their work, lives — their own, more often than not — depended on Robin's ability to trust Batman's instructions, as well as Batman's ability to trust Robin's response. Without that mutual trust, there could be no true partnership. Give everything, all his trust — and more.

A storm of emotion struck Dick, forcing him away from the clock and out of the room, beyond the temptation to rush to Bruce's side. A howl of fearful frustration tore from the boy as he made himself run — anywhere — if only to flee the terror of losing the man he had come to love and depend upon, just as he had lost his Mom and Dad that horrible night not so long ago.

Images of pain and fear raced after him like spectral hounds snapping at his heels, as he instinctively fled through the darkness to the place where he had found comfort on the vast estate. Sobbing and gasping for breath, Dick reached the gentle, giant oak when he stumbled on an exposed root. Automatically, the small acrobat rolled through his fall, avoiding injury. He came to a stop before a tall marble obelisk. Illuminated by the rising full moon, the sight that met Dick's eyes seized his heart with icy, incoherent terror: the looming headstone bearing the name WAYNE. The crumbling edge his spirit had been teetering on disappeared from beneath him.

The stillness of the night was shredded by the boy's piercing screams.

Alfred Pennyworth wiped the perspiration from his brow as he doffed his surgical gown and gloves. Bruce's condition had indeed required additional surgery, as Dr. Thompkins had suspected, to stop internal hemorrhaging. There had come an intense few minutes during which Bruce's condition had become unstable, but Alfred's and Leslie's swift and sure actions had quelled the danger, and Bruce rapidly restabilized. Once again, Dr. Thompkins gave her "assistant" leave to go attend the worried little boy upstairs.

Alfred exited the hidden passageway, emerging into Master Bruce's study. Entering the main living room on his way to the stairs, he saw that the French doors that led to the terrace outside were standing wide open. As the older man reached the doors to close them he paused, his head snapping to face the direction of a child's screams in the distance. His child. Master Dick....

Quickly retrieving a flashlight from a nearby cabinet, Alfred hurried out the doors, across the veranda and down a flight of steps to the vast lawn, following the distressful sound. The screaming ceased suddenly, but Alfred continued on, to the place where he suspected he would find the boy.

Some weeks earlier while attending the Wayne gravesite, Alfred had discovered the boy's occasional "hiding place," and was astonished at the seemingly impossible height to which the young acrobat had ably managed to climb. He then spent some uncomfortable moments waiting while Master Dick descended from his perch.

As Alfred approached the knoll where the great oak stood adjacent to the Wayne family cemetery, he heard the anguished, broken sobbing of the object of his search. He reached the small figure pressed against the oak's trunk, the boy's head buried in his arms. Alfred bent and stroked the back of Dick's head, calling to him softly. Dick lifted his head, turning to the gentle voice, his small frame shuddering with hiccupping breaths. Alfred pressed a handkerchief into the child's hand, continuing to speak soft reassurances to him.

Dick's arms wrapped around Alfred's neck as the man lifted him into his arms for the walk back to the house. Despite Alfred's fatigue, the boy felt surprisingly light. The child mutely laid his head on Alfred's shoulder, consenting to be carried. He was too tired to walk or protest.

By the time they reached house Dick was asleep. After a cursory lookover by Dr. Leslie, the boy was carried up to his room, where Alfred undressed him and put him to bed. Leslie stayed that night, and well into the next day, at Wayne Manor, to give her friend the opportunity to get some rest himself. `All three ofthem asleep at the same time — what a rare thing.' She smiled to herself as she rode the lift down into the Cave, to monitor her patient there.

Bruce Wayne regained consciousness in the predawn hours. Leslie Thomkins' smile was the first sight that registered through the post-operative fog. "No more bleeding, Bruce. That's an order! — And before you ask, Alfred and Dick are getting some well-earned rest." Leslie held a straw to Bruce's lips. "Slowly, just a sip now."

Releasing the straw, Bruce lay back and relished the spreading wash of the cool water over his parched throat.

"Leslie..." he rasped, "...the boy — Dick... he's... is he...."

"Dick is fine, Bruce — he's been very worried about you, yes, but he's okay. He's asleep now." Leslie tried to reassure her longtime friend, hoping he'd believe her. Dick hadn't suffered the same magnitude of trauma as with his earlier loss, but the events of the past twenty-four hours had been a considerable... test of faith... to the boy.

"No! You don't understand, Leslie, you have no idea how alone he'll feel..." the usually taciturn Dark Knight was inundated by emotion for his ward.

"Bruce, calm down! Dick knows you'll recover, and he knows he's not alone now, and as soon as I think you're both ready, he can visit with you. Of course, if you send yourself into cardiac arrest he won't have that chance and your concerns will certainly be justified, won't they?" Leslie laid down the law almost as well as Alfred.

That afternoon Dick was permitted to visit Bruce in the infirmary. Bruce looked up as Dick padded silently to the side of his bed.

"Hello, chum," he half-smiled, "Alfred tells me you've gone into `silent running' mode again. I was *hoping* you'd like to talk to me for a little while."

Dick looked down and shrugged his shoulders. He picked absently at the sleeve of his sweater.

Bruce continued quietly. "I thought maybe you could sit up here with me and we could talk about the last couple of days, you know — like a mission debriefing. What do you say, chum?" Bruce patted the bed beside him invitingly.

Dick's eyes searched Bruce's, his expression serious. "Okay," he quietly acquiesced, kicked off his shoes and cautiously climbed onto the bed. He sat cross-legged next to his guardian.

"I understand you've had a rough couple of days..." Bruce began, "I was worried about you Dick. I was afraid you would be...upset...about what happened. It must have been a pretty scary thing for you to go through." He tentatively rested a large hand on a relatively tiny shoulder.

Dick nodded, staring down at the sheets. He gave a small sigh and lifted his head, locking eyes with Bruce. "What happened, Bruce?"

The earnest blue eyes humbled the man who was Batman. "Oh, uh, about three times as many bad guys as I thought there'd be, is what happened. The odds weren't in my favor and somebody got off a lucky shot."

"Or two," the small voice added.

Bruce gave an apologetic half-smile as he brushed his fingers through the boy's dark hair.

Dick closed his eyes before the tears he felt beginning to sting could fall. He inched closer to his guardian and carefully leaned in to embrace him, mindful of the man's injuries.

"Is this okay? It's not hurting you is it?" The boy settled in next to Bruce's chest, his head resting on a big shoulder.

At that moment Bruce wouldn't have cared if the boy did a handstand on his chest. "No, chum, you're fine." A big arm rested lightly against the smaller form, welcoming the hug.

"Bruce, I've been doing a lot of thinking in the past coupl'a days. I couldn't do anything *but* think — my brain wouldn't shut up. I thought about how you got hurt, and that you were by yourself out there. I...I thought that...maybe...it might have been different if I could have been there with you. That maybe you might not have gotten hurt."

"- Dick, chum, you weren't ready for something like that." Bruce began to worry where this might be going.

"I KNOW that, Bruce!" Dick fussed impatiently at the interruption. "That's what I figured, that if you thought I was ready, I WOULD have been there with you. But if I wasn't ready, I could have made things even worse. If you had to worry more about protecting me than doing your job — you, or even both of us — could have gotten hurt or killed. In the circus...in our act...we never went up without the net unless we knew EVERYthing solid — our moves, our timing, our marks, our gear — it all had to be perfect! I KNEW that when I let go of the bar that...my Dad...would be there to catch me. I trusted him to be there. If we didn't know our stuff...if we didn't have that trust without even having to THINK about it...we wouldn't have made a very good team." Dick knew well that errors meant injury or death — he'd been raised on that probability.

The boy paused and swallowed, then concluded his heartfelt speech. "Bruce, you've gotta be able to know that I can do my part of the act, that I can be there for you when you need me, or else we won't be very good partners." At that, Dick huffed a short sigh of relief at having spoken what had been weighing heavily on his heart.

If Bruce Wayne had felt before that Dick was becoming a light in his life, capable of piercing the darkness he'd dwelled in for so many years, he now saw that the light was a beacon that shone steadfastly from this little person. Dick Grayson, with not quite a decade of existence under his belt, had become one of the few individuals that Bruce — or Batman — could consider to be a true friend.

With the arm that had returned Dick's hug, Bruce maneuvered a short tickle in the boy's ribs, eliciting a yip, then a small giggle, breaking the serious mood. Dick lifted his head and tried to scowl over his grin.

"Hey, no fair! I can't get you back!"

"Why do you think I did it?" Bruce waggled his eyebrows with uncharacteristic mischief. Dick's grin claimed victory over his face.

"And *partner*, in case you hadn't noticed, you *are* here for me — *now*." The senior partner's eyes shone with unshielded affection for the junior partner, and both friends smiled to cement the union.

"Now, chum, what's this I hear about you and that old oak tree up on the knoll?"

Upstairs in Wayne Manor, the proper English gentleman's gentleman properly sipped his tea as he watched one of several security video monitors, and smiled with grateful satisfaction.

- Fin