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Part Two
Fourteen Years Ago
"Robin, behind you."
"I see them, chill out." He threw an almost nonchalant roundhouse kick followed by two more which took out three of the Joker's men. He'd been going out as Robin for over a year now and he was getting pretty good at it, if he said so himself. Especially since no one else would say it. That was the big thing about being with Bruce that bothered him. Sure, fine, the Robin part was pretty cool and living at the Manor beat living in a cell but it didn't come close to living with his parents in their trailer and he missed them every day. He never said anything, of course, but it was true and it wasn't even the big things that he had trouble getting used to—like living in a mansion and going to a fancy private school instead of his Mom teaching him on the tiny scarred up table they had or even being Robin. It was the little things like how Alfred's mashed potatoes tasted different from his mom's or how his Dad spotted him differently when they were trying to learn a new move or what constituted a reasonable bedtime. Nine o'clock? Please. He was used to getting through with the show after ten then making it to bed by about eleven or twelve. This nine stuff was for other kids, okay?
But things were settling in okay, all in all and Bruce had even promised that one of these days he might let Dick meet some of the Justice Leaguers if he promised to behave himself.
He still missed his parents, though. Every day.
Yesterday was his birthday and if they were still alive there would have been a party and cake and a couple of presents but yesterday…Bruce forgot. He was busy and Dick really understood that, especially after Bruce didn't show up for the special dinner Alfred had made but that was okay. It didn't matter. Not really. It was just a stupid birthday but he'd heard Alfred talking to Bruce about it when they thought he was asleep and Bruce just didn't get it. He said he was sorry and that he'd do something to make it up but if his parents were still around it wouldn't have happened because his Mom always said everyone deserved to be special one day a year but Bruce, well, Bruce didn't notice stuff like that.
Being Robin was pretty cool, though.
"John, can you believe what that man did? Can you? It's Dick's birthday. His ninth birthday, the first one without us and that man"—she couldn't quite bring herself to say his name this evening—"is out with one of his money-grabbing sluts while Dick is alone with a damn servant. We have to do something about this and right now."
Dear God, she was on a tear and that wasn't a god thing—a mother bear with a threatened cub would have been easier to deal with. "Mary, you know we can't…"
"Of course we can and you also know as well as I do that if we were still with him, I mean really with him, Dick would be having cake and ice cream with his friends and be opening presents instead of sitting in some straight backed chair doing math homework." The look on her face made it clear how she felt about kids having to sit in straight-backed chairs doing homework. Cripes, he was supposed to be the easy going Gypsy and she was supposed to be the middleclass voice of parental reason; it had always worked before, anyway.
The scene dissolved and they were in an upscale restaurant facing a table overlooking the view of the city spread seventy floors below them. The patrons were well dressed, the atmosphere hushed as only very expensive places are.
"There, you see? He's sitting there flirting with that, that woman while poor Dick is home doing drudge work and I'm not going to stand for it another minute." Using all of her concentration, she made the silver gravy boat tip over into the very young and very blonde woman's lap as Bruce reached over to feed her a special morsel. There was a shriek followed by a flurry of waiters as they did what they could to clean up the mess; the young woman was hustled off to the ladies room to do as much repair as was possible and Bruce stood up to allow the chair and table to be changed and cleaned. He waited there calmly enough for a moment, turned and walked over to the Matre'd.
"Jacques? I'm awfully sorry for the commotion and all but I've really got to be going. You'll see to it that Miss Wellesley is safely home? Now, all apologies and please make sure Philip gets this, will you? Good man." He handed over two hundred dollar bills for the waiter, signed the bill and walked out, knowing he'd be buying the girl a couple of new dresses and sending masses of flowers in the morning, but he'd had an sudden and overwhelming need to make sure Dick was all right and a simple phone call wasn't going to cover it. He reclaimed his Porsche from the parking valet and revved the engine most of the way back to the manor. When he walked into the front hall, he saw the small, very small pile of torn opened wrapping paper and knew what he'd forgotten. Ah hell; Dick's birthday was today—Alfred had said something to him at breakfast but it was early, he was reading the paper and hadn't paid much attention.
Damn.
It was after nine, there must still be something he could do to make it up to the child.
Going to the study, he took the communicator out from its secure hiding place and made a call. Ten minutes later he had Dick dressed for his surprise as Clark calmly walked into the boy's room with a kind smile, cape trailing behind and a nod to Bruce.
"So you're the young man I've been wanting to meet all these months."
Dick's eyes went wide; this was friggin Superman, for Chrissake!
"Dick? May I call you that? I'm Superman but my friends call me Kal. I've heard you're having a birthday and, if it's all right with you, I'd like to give you a present from the Justice League and me if it's all right with you—would you like to go for a ride?"
"A ride? Are you serious?" He looked like he wanted to jump out the window himself, but was waiting to see if this was a joke or something. Bruce had this weird sense of humor.
"I thought it might be fun, but if there's something else you'd rather do…"
Something else? Was he kidding? "Let's go!"
Beside the bed, unseen, John turned to Mary as their son was flown out the window. "Better?"
"Better."
The next day in school Dick was still too excited to be tired, despite the fact that Superman—"My friends call me Kal"—hadn't gotten him back to the Manor until almost four in the morning. They'd flown around the world, stopping in at a few places Dick said he thought would be neat to see—the Tower of London where the beheadings were, a real sunken pirate treasure ship in the Caribbean (they'd had to go underwater for that one, but it seemed that Kal was friends with Aquaman and so it was cool), a flyby to the space shuttle in orbit, the top of Mount Everest and finally, the Fortress of Solitude; even Batman hadn't ever been there.
He wasn't even tired when Kal (he could call Superman Kal!) brought him home. Bruce was waiting up, pretending he was doing some work in the cave, but Dick could tell he was waiting and seemed almost kinda annoyed when he'd told Bruce about the great time they'd had together, but go figure. Hustled off to bed, unable to sleep he kept reliving everything he'd seen and how totally cool it had been that Kal had spent practically an entire night showing him around. He was Superman! He saved the world like most people brushed their teeth or something and he'd spent hours and hours flying some kid around for his birthday. Oh man.
The next day at breakfast Dick didn't see the look on Bruce's face since he was still overcome with last night and told and retold Bruce and Alfred everything three times.
His parents saw the look, though.
"You'd think that man would be glad to see Dick so happy after the way he completely forgot his birthday yesterday, but instead he's jealous. I swear, John, I'm going to talk to Ann about seeing if we can get Dick moved—I bet Superman would take him in, I just bet he would."
"Mary, c'mon—listen to yourself, will you? 'Superman will take Dick in'? What, Batman isn't exciting enough for the kid?"
"I'm not talking about excitement, I'm talking about someone to take care of him, to look after him—to care!"
The big TV screen in their enormous living room flicked to Dick sitting in a classroom, a month later. The time thing up here was a pain to get used to. He as staring out the window, probably daydreaming about Superman again. With a slight mental hiccup and a touch on the TV remote the scene shifted to Bruce Wayne's office where the Grayson's could see him sitting at his very large desk, feet planted firmly on the blotter as some man tried to make a point with him. Bruce yawned.
"Well, yes, I know that Lucius, but be reasonable. I'm a busy man and Dick has Alfred to look after him. Of course I could leave early, but what kind of example would that be setting to the employees?"
"Bruce, it's your decision, but I really think—and I'm speaking as a parent here—that you might want to rethink missing that science fair at the boy's school."
"A science fair? Ascience fair? I mean, like with all those smelly chemicals and mice in mazes? It all sounds so…grade school, if you know what I mean."
Lucius looked like he was counting to ten. "The child is in grade school, Bruce."
"Well, yes, I know that, but…"
"I really think it would be a good idea."
Bruce swung his feet off the desk. "But I was going to play golf with James this afternoon."
Lucius sensed victory. "I'll have Andrea change your tee time and call him. I'm sure it won't be a problem."
"And you're sure he'll like this?"
Lucius nodded. "I'm sure."
Sighing as he made his way down to the parking garage under the building, he knew Lucius was right, but he was busy. The golf date? Sure, that was real, but he was going to leave after the third hole, pleading a forgotten lunch date with this week's bimbette—Cindi? Candi? Carli? Whatever. Then he needed to spend a few hours on the Clayface clues they'd picked up last night. After that he had a JLA meeting and after that a patrol. Well, fine. He'd do this, make an appearance and get it over with. Twenty minutes later Bruce walked into the school gym, now set up with long rows of cafeteria tables covered with posters and plants and God-knew-what things made out of erector sets. In the middle of the third row he saw Dick sitting on a folding chair, alone. His project, something involving Popsicle sticks, string and pulleys was wearing a blue ribbon. For the life of him, Bruce didn't know why Lucius made such a fuss over this. He'd spoken to Dick that morning at breakfast and the boy had assured him that the fair was no big deal; he probably wasn't going to win and to forget about it, which seemed reasonable. And now here he was, surrounded by soccer moms, teachers and several hundred noisy kids. It was hell and on top of that, he could see the principal headed towards him and knew he was about to be touched for a donation to whatever cause they needed money for now. He knew that look and could recognize it at a hundred feet.
But he also noticed the look on the Dick's face when he saw Bruce walking closer and then he got it.
"You did it. Bruce showed up and Dick knows he's cared about. You were right, Mary."
Mary rolled her eyes in exasperation. Men. Of course John loved dick; he adored him and would have died for the child, and for her, too for that matter. Well, all right that was a poor choice of phrase, but it was true. But men—he really thought this was the end and the problem was solved.
She knew better. A man like Bruce Wayne knew nothing about raising children and likely had no interest in learning. He'd taken Dick in out of pity and a nudge from above but he'd turned over the day to day care to an elderly servant and was now using Dick as a paid employee for Batman; as an apprentice and Mary wasn't even close to happy about that. Yes, sure, Dick was having a good time and it was helping him get over his loss, but he was losing his childhood and that was something she wasn't going to sit still for. He needed friends his own age, he needed independence and he needed to know that he was loved and cherished the way he'd been when she and John were with him in body as well as in spirit.
She was his mother and she'd make sure he had what he needed.
She could and she would.
"Look at this! Congratulations, chum. Good work."
Dick gave him that big smile, the one Wonder Woman would be a lady killer in a few years, not that she was interested, of course. "Thanks. You want me to explain it to you? Most of the other kids and parents didn't get it, but Kal said he did something like his when he was in school and it sounded really neat the way he talked about it so I thought I'd try and…it's pretty cool."
"Kal suggested this to you? You mean on your birthday?" They were talking about science projects on Dick's birthday?
"No, when I called him a couple of months ago. I asked you if you had any ideas but you were busy and Alfred said something about 'noxious chemicals and rabid animals' and so I called Kal. He said I could; he even gave me his special number. That's okay, isn't it? He said I could call and he didn't seem angry or anything, he was really nice and then he came over to show me what he meant."
Clark had shown the kid how to do a science project? He'd come over, didn't have the courtesy to mention he was even there and showed his ward how to do some dumb science project for a third grade science fair? Tonight he'd be having a talk with Supes and you could take that to the bank.
"Bruce? Was that all right? You're not mad, are you?"
"No, of course not, you did just the right thing and I'm proud of you. Well, well, we'll have to be getting a trophy shelf for you, right up in the study with the rest of the family's things!"
Damn Clark, this was going too far and he wasn't about to let that Kryptonian Boy Scout weasel his way into Dick's affections and that was all there was to it.
Mary was watching all this on the TV screen, Bruce's thought appearing like sub-titles across the bottom. Cut off Dick's access to Superman? We'll just see about that. Concentrating, pushing the remote again, she planted a suggestion in his mind… "Clark is one of your closest friends and you trust Dick with him implicitly. He's welcome any time he wants to see Dick and you're grateful for his friendship and influence on the boy. In fact, you're going to tell him so tonight at your meeting and you're going to do so in front of all the other Justice League members."
"Mary? 'You coming to bed?"
"Yes dear, I was just finishing something."
TBC