Title- Finding the Light

Author- Kim

Summary- What if - Oliver Queen raised Dick Grayson.

DC owns all characters

part 5

Dick pulled the blankets over his head, still shaking from the nightmare that had woken him...He'd had these nightmare's before..when he first came to live with Ollie..They were images mostly..Images of his parents falling to their deaths..Images of loneliness...of lying in an alley, cold and frightened.

The dreams had stopped a few months after Ollie had taken him in..But lately they had returned..and he faced them every night. He'd mentioned them to Ollie, but Ollie's reply that he should, "Hang tough kiddo, they're only dreams, dreams can't, hurt ya.", had done nothing to ease the misery Dick faced each night.

Ollie wasn't home again, as had become his habit...He was off with the JLA fighting some threat that Dick had no idea of. Dinah wasn't with them..She was on a case that had lead her to Asia..And Dick really hadn't seen her much since she and Ollie had split up.

Ollie could be an ass at times and Dick at fourteen years old, fully understood why Dinah had left him..One too many indiscretions on Ollie's part had sealed the end of Ollie and Dinah's relationship..Unfortunately it had also sealed the end to the closest thing Dick had to a family environment.

Dinah had taught him well..He had become quite a skilled martial artist..And she had arranged for him to attend a local gymnasium, one that catered well for budding gymnasts..In fact the instructor had trained two Olympic level athletes and was quite convinced that Dick was destined for the Olympics himself..Though Dick had no desire to compete on such a level.

The only thing Dick desired was family...companionship..Ollie to stay home more often..But that wasn't likely to happen any time soon. Ollie enjoyed his freedom and Dick only held him back...Ollie knew he could trust Dick to stay home and look after himself..Dick was responsible..much more so than the average fourteen year old.

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Dick wasn't sure when he had finally lapsed into an unsettled sleep...But he was woken by a smell...The smell of bacon cooking...His eye's flew open..bacon?...That could only mean one thing...He leapt out of bed and hurried out of his room.

Dick grinned as he entered the kitchen.

"Hey kid...miss me?" Ollie said smiling.

"Nah...But I missed your cooking...baked beans on toast gets boring after awhile." Dick laughed, as he sat at the table.

Ollie chuckled good naturedly and placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of the boy..reaching out to ruffle the boys unruly black hair.

"I'll have to teach ya to make chilli...If you can make chilli your set for life." he said.

Dick screwed his nose up. "Yuk." was all he said.

Ollie looked wounded."You like my chilli." he said indignantly.

Dick looked up from the eggs he was demolishing, smiling happily...he loved having Ollie home again. "I eat your chilli...if I didn't I'd starve...or have to eat more baked beans on toast." he replied.

Ollie smiled, and sat to eat his own breakfast.."Well, just for that we'll have chilli for dinner tonight." he said, grinning.

"So are we gonna work out after breakfast?" Dick asked happily.

"Nah kid..I've been working out almost non stop with the JLA for the last three day's... I'm gonna head out after I clean up..There's a pretty lady I wanna say hello to." Ollie said.

Dick's smile faded..He could guess the 'pretty lady' was the blonde Ollie had been seeing, before he'd left for his mission with the JLA.

Ollie noticed the change in Dicks demeanor. "Oh c'mon kiddo...we can do something together later...I've been working hard you know..I'm entitled to let my hair down a bit sometimes...I'll make it up to you when I get home..maybe we can get some target practice in..there's a couple of new arrow designs I wanna try out." Ollie said casually.

Dick nodded. "Yeah...guess I've got some homework to do anyway." he said quietly.

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Ollie didn't come home..not until the next morning... He walked into their gym area to find Dick working out with the punching bag. It was obvious by the sweat that streamed off the boy's face, soaking his clothes that he'd been hitting the bag furiously for quite a while.

"Hey...slow it down son..Ya gonna bust something." Ollie joked.

Dick ignored the comment and kept going..He'd had another sleepless night..and he was angry..angry with Ollie for treating him so dissmisively..and angry at himself for caring.

Ollie frowned..He walked over to Dick and reached out to grab the boy's arm "I said slow it down." he said firmly.

Dick ripped his arm out of Ollie's grasp, spinning around to glare angrily up at the blonde headed Archer.

"What the hells the matter with you?"said Ollie angrily...normally Dick was quiet and easy going..totally the opposite to himself. This anger in the boy's eye's, was not something Ollie had ever seen before.

Dick continued to glare at Ollie for a moment.. before wheeling around and starting to walk away. "Nothing." he spat.

Ollie stormed after the boy, reaching out he grabbed Dick by the shoulder, and spun the angry teen around to face him. " I FREAKEN ASKED YOU A QUESTION...WHAT THE HELLS THE MATTER WITH YOU?" Ollie yelled..He felt a mixture of anger and concern bubbling under the surface of his words.

Dick's fist were balled at his side, his face flushed with anger...Tiredness and anger spurring him on to lose what control he had left..."YOU...YOUR THE PROBLEM...YOUR NEVER AROUND..." Dick stopped as Ollie cut in.

"I HAVE TO WORK...YOU KNOW THAT." Ollie yelled back.

Dick laughed,"Yeah right." he snarled "Work on that blonde you've been seeing."

Ollie stepped forward..raising his hand as if to strike the boy...but stopping himself just in time..."Get out...get the hell out." he said, his voice a low snarl.

Dick stormed past the Archer and out the door.

Ollie spun around and stomped angrily towards the punching bag..."DAMMIT." he yelled hitting the bag with all his strength.

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Dick stormed into his room and flung himself down on his bed...Ollie didn't care about him at all...That's why he was never around...Dick had been just a good deed...another of Ollie's good causes...Dick was wrong..Ollie wasn't a friend..or a father figure...a roof over his head and food on the table..that's all Dick would get..that's all he deserved.

Ollie sat on the floor of the gym, leaning against the wall, his legs bent and arms resting on his knees...He was angry with himself..not Dick...he knew the boy was right.. he didn't spend much time with him lately...Butdammit, the kid was old enough to look after himself...Hadn't Ollie always given him what he wanted?...Hell he'd even organized to take the boy camping tomorrow..not that he'd had a chance to tell Dick before all this blew up in his face...Ollie sighed..what more did the kid want from him?..Pausing for a moment he suddenly came to decision...The only way he was going to find out what was going through Dick's mind was to talk to him about it..and even if the kid was still angry..Ollie would try to hold his own anger in check..The outburst was out of character for the normally quiet boy..so that meant something had to be wrong..sighing again, Ollie rose and headed towards Dicks room.

Ollie knocked on the door...no answer..."Dick...C'mon buddy..we need to talk this through." he called.

After still getting no answer, Ollie quietly opened the door and walked inside...Looking around he soon realized Dick wasn't there..He glanced around at the state of the room..open drawers..clothes dropped on the floor..Walking quickly to the cupboard he yanked open the door...Dicks bow and quiver were gone as well as his duffel bag..."Shit." Ollie said, realisation dawning, whirling around and running back out of the bedroom.

end part 5