A/N: Time for another update! Enjoy!

Much to Bruce's surprise, the following week went so much better than the weekend and gone. As much as he hated to leave Roy alone, he wasn't left with a choice. So he'd left food out for Roy after figuring that if he didn't the teen wouldn't eat, and tried to get home as early as possible. Luckily he had to get out earlier than usual anyways to pick Dick up at school, but it was still 6 hours that left Roy to his own devices. Bruce didn't worry about him causing trouble, he worried about Roy having a panic attack. What if he had a flashback? No one would be there to make sure he was ok. What if he was too scared to eat? He was still too thin to be skipping meals. It was a relief to Bruce to get home and discover that Roy's day had been largely uneventful. The most eventful thing to happen was Bruce walking in on Roy sitting on Dick's bed while Dick was doing his homework. Roy was looking through one of Dick's workbooks and neither of them noticed him, so Bruce quickly hid outside the doorway.

"Do you like it at Gotham Academy?" Roy asked.

"Mostly," Dick answered. "Before I lived with Bruce I'd never gone to a school before so it was weird at first." He looked at Roy. "Did you go to school before you lived with Oliver?"

"Yeah. I went to school on the reservation."

"Which did you like better?"

"I was never a big fan of school, but I'd chose life not the reservation over life with Oliver any day. What grade are you in?"

"4th. You're 14 so you're in….8th grade. Right?"

"I guess."

"Don't you know?"

Bruce decided now was a good time to interrupt the conversation. He walked in and knocked not the open door. "Dick, we have to leave early for patrol tonight."

"Ok."

Roy was still looking through the workbook. Bruce watched him for a second before he walked out. He'd forgotten that Oliver had "homeschooled" Roy for the two years he'd lived with him. It was just now occurring to Bruce that if Roy was going to live with them for the foreseeable future, he would probably need an education. Which was where Bruce ran into the first problem. Roy's existence in the Manor had to be a complete secret. They couldn't formally enroll him anything. The second problem arose not long after that, and it was that Bruce, despite all his knowledge, had no idea how to go about making sure Roy at least got a standard education. He deserved it. It wasn't his fault he'd gotten caught up in this mess, and he deserved to be educated like every other kid. Finding no answer, he decided to discuss it with Alfred when he returned from his trip England. When he did bring it up, the day after Alfred's return to Gotham, he was at least pleased they were on the same page.

"I do agree with your assessment," Alfred said. "Master Roy is in need of a basic education."

"How though?"

Alfred considered it. "It shouldn't be too difficult. I think the best approach would be to build a curriculum for him based off what they teach at Master Dick's school. Given your status, procuring the information and materials we need shouldn't be too hard. I can work with him during the day."

"Are you sure? I would hate to ask you to do so much extra work, Alfred."

"Except you're not asking Master Bruce, I'm volunteering. Besides, this can be my contribution to our collaborative effort. I'm not a teacher, but I think Master Roy and I could succeed in this endeavor." Truthfully, Alfred felt that he could be doing more, and the chance of trying to give Roy some normalcy in his life made him feel better.

"Alfred, have I ever told you how grateful I am to have you around?"

"I do try to earn my keep sir."

Bruce nodded. This wasn't a bad plan. "I want to give him as normal a life as possible."

"Yes, because normal easily found around here."

"Ok. Next step is probably to see what Roy already knows."

"You should probably be prepared for him to be a little behind. Oliver Queen doesn't seem like the type of man who would eagerly help Roy if he struggled."

"You're right about that. I'll find out what 8th grade standards are and see what tests we can give him."

"Very good sir."

Two days later, Roy was watching tv with Dick when Alfred came to get him.

"What's up Alfie?" Dick asked.

"Master Bruce would like to speak with Master Roy in his study."

"He does?" Roy asked. Alfred didn't miss the flash of fear on his face.

"There's no reason to be afraid. He only wants to talk."

Yeah, sure. Roy'd had plenty of "talks" with Oliver. Nonetheless, he nodded and followed Alfred out of the room. While they walked he rubbed his arm nervously and tried to think of anything he'd done wrong. Nothing came to mind. He kept his room clean like Alfred said and went to bed when he was told to. He hadn't talked back, to the best of his knowledge at least. It only made him more nervous as they walked into the study that he didn't know what he'd done to upset Bruce. He tried to figure it out based on Bruce's face when he saw him. Bruce was harder to figure out than Oliver, but Roy could usually still get a good idea. Unfortunately, he had a pretty neutral look, which didn't help Roy any.

"Sit down Roy." Roy sat down in a chair and Bruce sat across from him. Alright, this was new.

"W-what did I do?'

"What?"

"Whatever it was I'm really sorry."

"No Roy, you didn't do anything wrong." Bruce wondered how long it would be until that stopped being Roy's automatic reaction. "Alfred and I wanted to talk to you."

"Ok."

"You're going to be staying with us for….the foreseeable future, so Alfred and I thought that we should start thinking about making sure you have an education."

"Really?"

"Yes. I know it's almost summer right now, but we wanted to give you some tests."

"T-tests?" Fear flashed on Roy's face again.

Bruce decided not to ask. There was no time to for him to want to beat Queen into a bloody pulp right now. "They're all very basic. Math, science, reading. Just you know…usual school stuff."

"Ok." Science? Roy hadn't learned science since he left the reservation.

"What was your curriculum like with Oliver Queen?" Alfred asked.

"Uh….he just left the papers in the library and I did them."

"What subjects were there?"

"Math."

Bruce frowned. "Just math?"

"Reading too. I would read a book and write what it was about."

"Just math and reading?" Roy nodded. "No science, English, history…." Roy shook his head again. On some level, Bruce honestly wasn't surprised.

"He-he wasn't really that concerned with me learning that kind of stuff. He was more focused on my archery." That didn't surprise Bruce at all.

"Well just do your best."

"Ok." Bruce gently guided Roy to sit at his desk and Alfred placed the first its in front of him.

"Take your time sir," Alfred told him. Roy nodded and looked at the test. His heart started pounding when he realized he didn't know most of the answers. Scratch that, he didn't know any of the answers. He swallowed. 'Is it better to get them all wrong?' he wondered. 'Or should I just leave them blank?' Luckily for him, Alfred noticed his panic. "You don't have to answer anything you don't know."

"O-ok." Roy stared at the first question. It looked like gibberish. There were numbers and he could recognize the addition and subtraction signs, but why was there letters?! There were no letters in math! On top of that, there were those parentheses things that he never understood and these strange bars around certain numbers. Even the question made no sense. 'What value of x satisfies both equations above?' What did that even mean?! He moved on to the next question, but that turned out to be just as confusing as the first one. He moved down the page, trying to find a question made sense. It didn't get any better on the second page where had to put something on a grid and find something called a slope. Then the weird…math sentences had not just an x and also a y! In the end, Roy just flipped the three pages over and slid it away.

Alfred picked did up and, even though he was sure he knew what he'd find, he flipped through the test. He handed it to Brice, who did the same. Every question was blank. Alfred gave him a look that suggested they should discuss it with Roy later. "Uh…let's try a different test." Alfred set another one down in front of him. This one didn't make Roy nearly as nervous. The first question had more of those parentheses things, but then the next question was just exponents, and he did know those. Unfortunately, those were the only questions he could figure out. Some questions asked him to find the length of a triangle, how he was supposed to do that without measuring it he had no idea. There was more math with letters and a question about how far a taxi went. He answered a little under half the questions and handed the paper back to Alfred with a shaking hand. Alfred looked it over with a pen quickly, the handed it to Bruce. Bruce looked it over. Roy had answered less than half the questions, and a little more than half of those were correct. "Ok…Alfred?"

"Just one more for math sir," Alfred assured him. When he looked at the questions, Roy was a lot more confident. He could remember learning this stuff before he left the reservation and after he'd started living with Oliver. So he wasn't as worried when he handed the test to Alfred. The butler quickly corrected it and handed it to Bruce. This one Roy did much better on.

"Ok," Bruce nodded. "Now reading." It seemed pointless to test him on anything else.

Roy wondered how they could give him a test on reading. He looked at the test once it was given to him. It was a story with questions. So he started reading, but quickly realized it was too hard. He didn't know a lot of the words, which was a problem since he had to define some of them later on, and the story was kind of hard to follow. The second story was just too full facts and words he couldn't process. So he once again handed Alfred a blank test and another one was placed in front of him. This one went about the same was the first one. There were too many stories that didn't make any sense and words he didn't know. His heart was pounding against his ribs as he handed yet another blank test to Alfred. They gave him a third one, which calmed him down a little bit since he could actually understand the story. He handed it back when he was done. He watched Bruce and Alfred carefully as they talked quietly to each other. His breathing picked up a little bit. 'Oh god, he knows! He knows I'm stupid! He knows how stupid and worthless I am!' This would surely cause Bruce to get frustrated and lash out at him.

"Roy," Bruce said, getting the teen's attention. Roy jumped a little bit and flinched back. "We've looked at them and you….well you failed both the 8th-grade level ones."

"8th?" Roy asked. "That's-that's what I should be able to do, right?"

"Yes. You were able to do better on the 7th-grade math but still didn't know anything, not the 7th-grade reading."

"Is that bad?"

"Not bad," Alfred corrected. "Just…not where one would hope you would be."

"You read at a 6th-grade level and your math skills are below average on a 7th-grade level," Bruce summarized. He expected some kind of shock from Roy, surely the boy couldn't have known this already, but he got none. Instead, Roy just nodded, like he wasn't surprised at all.

"P-please don't tell Dick," he said quietly.

"Tell Dick what?"

"That I'm stupid."

Bruce blinked. "Roy you're not stupid."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you are not," Alfred told him. "You are a little behind, but that does not make you stupid."

"Yes, I am!"

Bruce crouched down so he and Roy were at eye level. "Roy," he said carefully, starting to get the feeling that he might need to watch his temper in the next few minutes, "why do you think you're stupid?"

"I don't think I know. Oliver told me so."

"He did?"

"Yes. He told me I was stupid and that's why I can't do my school work."

"You're not stupid, Roy. Oliver was wrong and he shouldn't have told you that."

"But-"

"No buts. You're not stupid. I'm sure your inability to do your work was more due to Oliver not helping you."

"He-he said it was pointless to help me. He said I was too stupid and he got too aggravated and that I was only good for archery anyways."

"Only good for archery?" Alfred questioned cautiously.

Roy nodded. "He-he said I was worthless and only good for shooting because it was the only good thing I could do."

Bruce had to turn away to hide the anger from Roy. Fury was coursing through his veins and his fingers were twitching to get around Oliver's throat and squeeze until every last breath had left his lungs. Luckily Alfred was there. The old butler knelt down so he could look Roy in the eye. "Master Roy, you are not stupid, nor are you worthless. Mr. Queen should not have told you those things. I am sure once we begin working on your schoolwork together you shall see that." Roy didn't look certain about that. Bruce managed to get his anger under control and turned back around.

"Given how far behind you are, I'll give you choice on how we can go about this," he said, trying to sound a lot calmer than he actually felt. "We can wait until the fall and you can try to start catching up from there. Or, you and Alfred can work over the summer to get you caught up so that you're ready to start with high school level work in the fall."

"High school?" Roy asked in confusion. That made sense. He was a teenager. He was supposed to be starting high school

"The choice is absolutely yours, sir," Alfred said, standing up. "If you feel you are not up to intensive academic studies just yet, we can put it off."

"Um….can-can we get caught up over the summer?" Roy didn't want to be so far behind that he was still doing middle school work when he should've been able to do high school level work.

"Of course sir."

"And you're going to-to help me?"

"Of course sir. I shall be your teacher."

Roy's initial reaction was to figure Alfred would leave him to his own devices upon releasing how stupid he was, but that didn't really seem like something he'd do. Alfred was always really friendly and never seemed to lose patience with any of them; even when Dick was climbing the chandelier. He hated getting his hopes up, as he'd done so many times with Oliver, only to see them crushed, but he couldn't help but feel cautiously optimistic about this. "Ok. Thank you."

Alfred smiled. "It would be my pleasure."

"You also shouldn't worry about Dick," Bruce said. "We had to get him caught up a little bit too when he started living here so he could go to school. He's ahead of the curve now and soon you will be too," Bruce assured the teen.

"Ok," Roy nodded. "I promise I'll try really hard."

"All we want is for you to do your best." Bruce was pleased when Alfred gave him a nod. For once he'd managed to say the right thing. This was something said to Dick frequently about school, which always got him praise from Alfred. He reached out to squeeze Roy's shoulder, but the teen ducked out of his reach. Bruce retracted the hand quickly. For a moment he'd thought he might actually be able to touch Roy, but clearly, he'd been wrong.

"You should probably return to Master Dick," Alfred said. "He's no doubt wondering where you've gone off to."

"Ok," Roy said. He slipped out of his seat and quickly left the room.

Bruce sighed. "I thought we were making progress."

"Progress is slow," Alfred reminded him.

"I shouldn't expect him to trust me."

"He will in time sir."

"I remind him too much of Oliver."

"The only thing you can do is give Master Roy time to get used to you and realized you and Oliver Queen are very different people."

Bruce sighed as he sat down at his desk. "What if he never does Alfred? What if Roy can't overcome his fear of being around me?"

"I know it's not your strong suit sir, but try to think optimistically. Master Roy won't get better if you don't believe in him. You must have confidence in his ability to overcome the terrible things that have been done to him, as well as your ability to help him overcome them."

Bruce gave Alfred an amused look. "You never fail to impress me, Alfred."

"So glad I've made an impression sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I must see to lunch or I'll have Master Dick snooping around my kitchen."

"We wouldn't want that." Alfred left and Bruce sat back in his seat. No matter what Alfred said, he couldn't shake the thought that Roy would never be able to trust him. Not that Bruce would blame him. The way Oliver had treated him for two years was beyond inexcusable. He didn't want to give Roy the impression that his trauma was unconquerable; that was a thing he most definitely did not want to do. Yet he still couldn't bring himself to believe that Roy could ever truly trust him. Maybe the best he could hope for quiet indifference. He got up and left the room. After a few minutes, he found Dick and Roy watching tv in the den. Dick wasn't really watching, but instead distracting himself with some gadget he'd taken from the bat cave. Roy seemed oblivious to it. Bruce noticed the way he no longer sat curled up into a tight ball. He looked relaxed and calm, which was new for him. He also didn't miss the way Roy kept glancing at the windows. It was another nice day in Gotham, two in months had to be a record, and Bruce could see the appeal. He knew Roy wanted to go outside, but he couldn't get him out there. If he told him that he could Roy would just nod, but then stay away from any doors. If he left the backdoors open Roy would just sit beside them. 'Not today,' Bruce decided. 'I'm going to get him outside today.'

He spent the next couple of hours trying to think of a way. There was always having Dick do it, but then he figured Alfred would give him another 'you need to show more interest in Roy' lecture, so he decided against it. In the end, he just decided that if they all went outside, him, Dick, and Roy, then it should make Roy comfortable enough to go out. If Dick was around Roy could usually be calm enough to do a lot of things. So, during lunch, Bruce brought up his plan. "Dick I was thinking this afternoon we should do our training outside."

"Cool!" Dick liked the prospect of spending the afternoon outside with Bruce. He looked at Roy. "Are you coming outside with us too?"

"Um…." Roy looked down at his plate.

"Roy can come if he wants to," Bruce said, glancing at the teen.

"Are you going to shoot your news bows?!" Dick asked excitedly. "You haven't even used them yet."

Again, Roy looked down. "If-if Bruce says it's ok," he said quietly.

"If you want to come out with us and shoot that's fine."

"Thank you." Roy didn't say anything else, but Bruce was at least satisfied to have gotten this far. So after lunch, he and Dick got ready for their afternoon of sparring while Roy grabbed his bow. He picked the recurve since it was the most familiar of the two and grabbed one of the quivers, as well as an arm-guard. He strapped the quiver to his back and strapped the arm guard to his forearm. He went downstairs to the back door where Dick was waiting for him.

"Come on!" Dick grabbed Roy's hand and, before the teen could stop him, dragged Roy outside. The sunlight was a lot brighter outside than he had been expecting. Once he adjusted though, the warmth on his face as welcomed. He smiled. He loved being outside. "Need help setting up the target?"

"Sure." Roy set the bow down and Dick helped him get the circular target propped up.

"It's really heavy."

"It has to be to catch arrows. They hit hard."

"Cool." They walked away from the target and found Bruce had joined them. Roy swallowed nervously and he quickly picked up his bow. "Show us what you can do!"

"Um….ok." Roy pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it. He raised the bow and pulled back the bowstring. '15 yards.' Child's play. He released the arrow and it hit the target.

"Bullseye!" Dick cheered. "That was sweet!"

"What kind of range can you shoot?" Bruce asked.

"50 yards," Roy answered. He backed up and Bruce and Dick followed him. He shot again, then again, driving two more arrows into the target center.

"That's amazing!" Dick smiled. "You're really good."

"Thanks."

Bruce nodded. As much as he hated how Oliver had used Roy, he could see why Oliver had picked Roy. The kid was a good shot. "Come on Dick, let Roy shoot in peace."

"Awwww," Dick whined.

"You and I have sparring to do."

"Ok."

They left and Roy moved closer to the target. He ignored Bruce and Dick while he shot. Of course, he didn't miss, he never missed, and nailed arrow after arrow into the center of the target. Once he emptied his quiver he retrieved the arrows from the target and reloaded. He kept shooting without regard for what was going on around him. He moved closer and farther away from the target as he went, changing his speeds at random so that he was shooting slow or at his top speed. After a couple of hours, he stopped to roll hoo shoulders and stretched his arms. He reached back for another arrow, then froze when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone yelling. He turned around to see Bruce swing at Dick and Dick blocked it with his arms. Roy tried to catch his breath, but that was kind of hard. His breathing kept getting shallower and faster. He closed his eyes and dropped his bow so he could put his hands over his ears. He could still hear them though. 'No, no, no, no, no, no!' He fell to his knees and Oliver grabbed his shoulder. He threw Roy not his back and punched him in the face. "No! No please stop!"

"Roy."

"No, Ollie please!" Oliver just kept punching him. In the face, the stomach. Nowhere was safe. "Ollie please!"

"Roy it's not real!"

"Please stop!" Another punch to the stomach knocked the wind out of him. He was gasping for breath and someone touched his shoddier. He tried to move way but he couldn't move.

"Roy, it's ok! You're safe!" That-that was Dick's voice! No! Dick couldn't be here! He couldn't see this!

"Roy, Oliver isn't here." That was Bruce. "He isn't here, you're safe. Just breathe."

Roy tried. He tried to focus on just his breathing. He realized he was outside. He was laying on the grass staring up at the sky. Bruce and Dick were leaning over him. "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" Dick asked as Roy sat up.

"I-I-" He blinked and curled up into a ball. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Bruce assured him. "It's not your fault."

"Is it because we were sparring?" Dick asked gently. "Did it remind you of what Oliver did?"

"Dick-" Bruce said in a warning tone.

"Because it isn't like that Roy! Bruce wasn't really hurting me!"

"Dick back off. Don't scare him more."

Roy took a deep breath and slowly took his face out of his legs. "I'm-"

"Don't apologize," Dick told him.

"Roy, what happened?" Bruce asked gently.

Roy took a deep breath and lifted his head out of his knees. "O-Ollie was hitting me. He was punching me and it hurt and he wouldn't stop…" HIs face disappeared back into his knees. Dick reached out to put his hand on Roy'd back, but Bruce stopped him. He shook his head at his younger ward, then turned his attention back to Roy.

"That was then Roy. That was in Star, not here in Gotham."

"Can-can I go back inside?"

Bruce felt something side of him deflate. "Yeah go ahead." Roy got up and grabbed his bow. He shuffled back into the Manor so he could go lay down. He felt so drained all he wanted to do was lay in his bed and look at the wall.

"Bruce, what happened to him?" Dick asked.

"Roy had a flashback, Dick."

Dick frowned. "Flashback?"

"He was reliving something traumatic."

"Why?"

"Everyone reacts to trauma in a different way."

"So this is just how he's reacting?"

"Yes."

"Will they stop?"

"I don't know. I hope that they will in time." He put his hand on Dick's shoulder. "I think we can agree though, that there will be no more sparring in front of Roy."

Dick nodded. "Agreed."

"Good. Come on, let's get back to work."