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Full Circle

Chapter one:

The doorbell rang once, and he ignored it not out of deliberation, but because he was so engaged in cleaning out the mess all around him that he didn't hear it.

Wow, didn't know the cleaning could be so therapeutic. Should've done it more often, so at least mo—now what the hell is that?

He got up, scattering loose sheets of paper and dust everywhere, answering the door on its fourth ring.

"John Grayson, what took you so long?" The voice was quiet but demanding.

"Yeah well, you tell me, Alvy." John twisted a little and indicated his living room with a flourish, half-bowing in presentation of the mess.

"Crazy." Alvia stepped carefully into the apartment, poking things out of the way with her toes. "Why the sudden spring cleaning?"

"Mom. Who else?" John grabbed a can of soda from the kitchen, and threw it to Alvia Malone, who caught it easily. He grinned. "Hey, you got it."

She pushed aside some huge photo albums and sat down on the empty spot. "Duh. After all the times you threw things at me, expecting me to grab them, but they knocked me on the head…" She gave a glare, but soon turned her attention to the mess. "C'mon, I'll help, then you can treat me to pizza or something."

"Do that, and you got it."

"Idiot."

The sorting of papers, books, boxes and various other ancient knick-knacks took more than two hours, and by the end of it, Alvia slumped onto the couch, totally slagged. John was stuffing the final bits of papers and books whenever he could find space.

She shuffled around and finally laid down upon the couch. And it was then that she saw the five volumes of photo albums still hiding at its feet.

"Oh man, we missed the albums."

John cursed without turning, and Alvia grabbed the topmost one and held it out to his back. "Hurry up and take it. It's heavy."

He finished with the papers and turned, then crossed the living room with a horrified exclamation, almost tearing the album from her grasp. "Alvia, you slag! You were holding it by its cover! If dad finds out you treated his album like this, I'll get it!"

"Sorry. But what's up with them anyways? We've digitized everything to vid., but you're still keeping these junk?"

"Dad's heritage. He's always one for old times." John indicated the stack of albums. "Goes way back to Gotham in the nineties, I think. My…great-great-great-great-great-granddad's time."

"Great. How many greats were there?"

"Dunno. Five?"

"Show me."

John dug out the album at the bottom of the stack, holding it with a carefulness that spoke of his appreciation for his own past as well.

"Well…here's the guy, my five-times-great-granddad." He pointed to a picture. "Here's him when he was a kid." Another picture. "And this is the place he lived in for a long time, with this guy called Bruce Wayne, and—"

Alvia slapped his hands away. "You're going too fast. I'll look at this one on my own, thanks."

The album was placed gently on her lap, and knowing how much it was treasured, she took more care with it, even making sure the pages didn't catch.

'Five-times-great-granddad' was named Richard 'Dick' John Grayson. What a long mouthful. But he was a pretty cute guy, especially in his youth. Alvia glanced up at John, noting that much of the similarities had faded away from his ancestor, and only the dark hair remained: the sole link in his generation to his past.

The following few pages were all of when Dick Grayson was a kid, dressed in tight red-and-green costumes, grinning broadly, waving to the camera.

Confused, Alvia flipped back to the previous page, and then back and forth a few times. It was as if this photo album had started sometime when Dick was a young adult, and his childhood pictures had been thrown in as an afterthought, or as pictures having been forgotten, found, and then added in: there was no logical chronological sequence there.

Following those, old newspaper clippings had been stuck behind the clear protective films, preventing them from yellowing.

'SOLE SURVIVOR IN FAMILY OF THREE' read one headline. 'BRUCE WAYNE TAKES IN CHILD;' 'FLYING GRAYSONS KILLED IN ACCIDENT;' 'END OF A TRAPEZE FAMILY ACT?'

"Dick's parents were killed." John glanced over, but didn't try to read the papers with Alvia: he'd read them so many times they were in his memory. "Seems I've got Romanian blood in me. They were pretty famous, it seems."

Alvia pointed at a headline. "Who's Bruce Wayne?"

"Uh…then CEO of Wayne Enterprises? You know that company that was like…Wayne-Powers fifty years ago or something?"

"Yeah, I guess. But there's no Wayne-Powers now."

John rolled his eyes. "Still not watching the news, I see. Alvy, Terry McGinnis took back control for Bruce Wayne after Wayne's death. No more Powers. Back to Wayne Enterprises now."

"And Dick lived with Wayne?"

"Yeah. Adopted into the family or something. Big manor, rich guy…" He flipped the pages carefully till he reached one of Wayne Manor. "Here."

"Whooo…nice place."

"I guess. Never been there."

Alvia picked up the can of soda and shook it at him. "Never been there? You crazy?"

"Don't drip on the stuff. And no, we've been living in Blüdhaven for so long I don't even feel like I know Gotham at all."

"Family-history crazy and you never went up to the Manor," she snorted, closing the album. "No pizza today. Let's go to the Manor. You can drive."

John rolled his eyes and kept the albums properly. "Yay."

It took them a lot longer than the usual thirty minutes to get from Blüdhaven to Gotham, thanks to a traffic jam.

Sure, there were hover-cars and hover-bikes now, but the damned government had to regulate how high they could speed above the ground.

"What's the use of these hovering vehicles, then?" Alvia complained.

"You tell me." John poked her in the arm. "Check the map. I've got absolutely no idea where the darn manor is."

The GPS system fitted in all vehicles was good, but information was only as good as the frequency with which it was updated, its accuracy, and its neglect. Which, according to Alvia, was severely neglected.

"They don't have it, John."

Continuous sighs filled the inside of the car, and Alvia joked that the vehicle would just explode if more sighs came. John exhaled once more, childishly wondering if the car would really explode, and then shaking himself back to reality.

"To the library, I guess."

"And you handle the librarian this time."