Dick didn't understand, and that bothered him.

There were many things in the world that he couldn't quite grasp – why some people believed that it was okay to kill other people, why everyone else in the JLA let Batman get away with acting uptight and dour when they all knew he was a complete softie inside, what it was that made Alfred's cookies so impossibly delicious – but for the last week one puzzle in particular had been bothering him. He'd looked up answers online and in the Manor's extensive library, he'd asked his science teacher to explain, and he'd even queried Bruce on the subject, but he still wasn't satisfied. It seemed impossible, and if there was anything he had learned during the short time he'd been Robin it was to question everything that made him say 'no way'.

How was it, he thought for the thousandth time as he stared out the living room window at the shapes flitting around in the naked shrubs, that little birds survived the long, cruel Gotham winter?

"Master Dick?"

He started at Alfred's voice. The butler sounded a little perturbed, and from that Dick gathered that he had been trying to get his attention for some time. Tearing his eyes away from the winged animals on the other side of the glass, he turned around. "Sorry," he apologized, blushing. "I...I was distracted. I wasn't ignoring you, honest."

Alfred's posture softened immediately, and Dick knew he wasn't in trouble. "And what is it that has captured your attention so thoroughly today, young sir?"

"It's...it's the birds," he blurted out, glancing into the yard once more. "I just don't understand, Alfred. How do they do it?!"

"Do what, exactly?"

"Make it through the winter. It's so cold here, and dark, and there's all the snow...it's pretty, but how do they eat? Don't they freeze? Their legs don't even have any feathers on them!" He sighed, suddenly feeling foolish for placing his questions before yet another adult. "I guess it doesn't matter. I mean, they obviously manage okay, and Bruce and my teacher and the internet all explained how it works, but...it just doesn't seem possible, you know?"

"Hmm..." Alfred watched him for a moment, tapping his chin pensively with one long finger. "Why don't we sit for a moment and talk about it? Perhaps we can clear up some of your confusion."

"Um...okay." Preparing himself to wait politely through a repetition of what he'd already been told, he moved to the nearest sofa and sat down on one end. The butler took a seat in a chair a few feet away and leaned forward, still observing him closely. "So...how exactly are we supposed to talk about it?"

"Tell me, Master Dick; this is your first real winter, is it not?"

He frowned, thinking. "I guess so. I've seen snow before, though."

"But you are used to spending the holiday season in...Florida, I believe it was?"

"Yeah..." A shiver ran through him, and his feet were suddenly blocks of ice. He pulled them up and tucked them under himself before he continued. "And in Italy and Spain, too, when I was littler. Where...where it was warm enough for the trailers."

"I see. So you've never witnessed animals living through the duration of a true winter, then?"

"No. I know how it works, I get the science about it, but...I don't know why it works. Like with food; even if people put feeders out now, what did the birds do for all those bajillions of years before people and feeders existed? They can't have all flown south in the winter, right? And they don't have trucks and planes to bring them food from warm places the way we do, either. I know they eat a lot in summer and then live off some of it in the winter, but...don't they still starve?"

"Some do," Alfred nodded. "But many survive in just the manner you said."

"But..." He floundered, unsure of what exactly was taunting him. "I mean...darn it..."

"If I may venture a guess, Master Dick," the butler said after a beat had passed, "I think your concern isn't so much based on a lack of understanding as it is on a sense of helplessness."

"A sense of...of helplessness?" he repeated, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes. You say you don't understand how the birds survive the winter, but you clearly do understand, at least logically. For some reason your mind is insisting that the facts are not enough, and what that suggests to me is a want for action. It's rather like with Batman."

Dick straightened up immediately. "Like Batman? How?"

"Well, it isn't enough for him to know who did or will commit a crime, is it? He must go out and catch the fiend himself even though he could very easily give all of his evidence to the police and let them do the nasty work. For you it isn't enough to know that the birds eat what they can and make it through the cold months. Perhaps your solution is like Batman's."

"I have to do something about it," he mused. "...But what? I guess we could get a bird feeder, but there's a forest all around us. We'd need, like, a thousand of them to feed everybody."

"I think we can come up with something better than that, Master Dick," Alfred said. "I have an idea, but it will require that I make a few purchases tomorrow. Can you wait until then to do something for the birds?"

He wanted to do something for them now, but if they didn't have everything they needed then he would have to hold out until the next day. "...I guess so," he allowed. "So long as I know we can fix it tomorrow, then that's okay."

"Very good, young sir." Reaching out, Alfred patted his knee. "Now then, the reason I came to find you to begin with was to see if you wanted your usual after-school snack. I assume an assortment of Christmas cookies and a glass of milk are acceptable?"

Dick glanced back out the window to where the birds were still socializing. They would have lots of food tomorrow, he told himself, but only if he ate today. After all, he couldn't do much for them if he was starving, too. Satisfied with that logic, he stood up. "Sure, Alfred," he agreed. "Cookies sound great."

The next day was the last one of the school semester, and as such classes let out early. Dick trudged to the waiting car with his head and his heart both low, ignoring the running and hollering his fellows were doing all around him. Climbing into his seat, he mumbled a greeting.

"Good afternoon, Master Dick," Alfred replied, peering at his charge in the rearview mirror. Judging that the youth needed a minute to collect himself, he pulled away from the curb. It was only when they were lost in some of Gotham's deepest Christmas shopping traffic that he ventured a question. "...Did something happen at school today, young sir? You seem distressed."

Dick just sniffled and stared out the window, seemingly unwilling to answer.

"...If it's a problem with your report card, I assure you that neither Master Wayne nor I will be-" But Dick was already shaking his head. "No? An altercation with another student, then, or…?"

"There was a dead bird on the playground today." The words fell from the boy's mouth in a dull, trembling tone. "It wasn't...it wasn't like it flew into a window or anything. It was out...out in the middle. It didn't even look that hungry, Alfred!" he burst out. "It looked...it looked normal! But it just died anyway." His boots dug into the fine leather of his seat as he pushed his knees up to his chest in order to wrap his arms around them. Alfred winced, but said nothing. "It just...it just died. It should have gone south for the winter, but it didn't, and it died." He coughed. "I'm sick of things dying all the time."

He had thought that there was something more to the child's despair yesterday than a simple desire to feed the local birds, and here was validation. While Dick had proven remarkably strong in the nine months that had passed since his parents' deaths, he was still only nine, and there were plenty of triggers in the world waiting to remind him of his relatively new status as a victim of violence. In hindsight Alfred supposed that he should have been expecting something like this to occur, but he had been blinded by the boy's resilience.

The only consolation he had for his failure was that there was a partial remedy waiting for them at home. He bit back an inappropriate chuckle as the thought struck him that, despite their lack of biological relation, his younger charge really was just like his elder in some things. Philosophy wasn't enough to bind their wounds; they had to do something, something real and meaningful, before they could heal from life's cuts and scrapes. "Perhaps we can do something to prevent similar tragedies, young sir," he soothed now.

"...Huh?" came a hiccup.

"I have the materials I promised yesterday. Do you still wish to help the birds find ample winter sustenance, as we discussed?"

Dick swiped at his cheeks with the back of one hand and nodded. "What...what are we going to do? You never said your idea."

"You're right, I didn't. But tell me; you enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree, did you not?"

"Yeah." Another nod. "It was neat to do one that was so big."

"Excellent. That being the case, would you like to decorate one outside for the birds?"

The boy frowned. "...But they can't eat Christmas decorations. That would hurt them."

"They'll be able to eat the ones you and I are going to make when we get home."

"We're going to make special ornaments just for the birds?"

"Would you like to?"

"Yes! If it will help them not die, then yes!"

"Excellent." Relieved to see the beginnings of a smile, he sweetened the pot. "I thought we might listen to Christmas music and have a cookie or two while we work. Is that acceptable?"

An excited squeak told him that it was. "Very good. Now that our after-school activity is settled, would you be so kind as to tell me about the rest of your day? Other than the unfortunate bird you discovered, of course." He paused. "You might share your grades with me, if you like." They would be good, he was certain – no one who regularly checked the youth's homework could be in doubt about that – but he would gladly listen to anything in the world so long as it kept the miserable look Dick had been wearing when he'd emerged from the school building from reappearing.

"Sure." There it was, the happy expression that seemed to be the boy's default look. A hint of pain lingered at its edges, but Alfred was confident he knew how to banish even that shadow. "I did good in lots of stuff," Dick explained as he lowered his legs and began to dig through his backpack. "...I just hope I did good enough."

"Oh, I'm sure you did very well, Master Dick," the butler allowed. The traffic began to move again, and he pulled his gaze away to concentrate on the road. "...I'm sure it will all be just fine..."

Several hours later Dick was feeling better than he had in days. Alfred had been pleased with his report card, which he'd read out line by line on the ride home; there had been a pile of cookies waiting for him when he entered the kitchen; and most importantly, he was finally helping the birds. Something was still tickling the back of his brain despite his current joy, but it felt like it might be big, dark, and scary, so he just hoped it would go away and tried to ignore it.

Fortunately it was relatively easy to not think about bad things at the moment. He and Alfred had spent the last three hours working together in the kitchen to make the special bird ornaments, and Dick thought they'd turned out very nice. They were nothing more than store-bought pine cones slathered in peanut butter and then rolled in mixed bird seed, but the bright pipe cleaner hangers they had attached to each one made them look festive. Hung together, they really did seem to make a birdie Christmas tree. Better still, he thought as he peeked over his shoulder at the house, he would be able to see everything from his bedroom window. Alfred had promised that many different species would come, and now he could watch them whenever he wanted to.

They both stepped back once the last piece of their project had been hung. "Wow," Dick breathed as he took it in. "That looks amazing!" The red and green hooks lent a pop of color to the young fir whose boughs they were bent around, and the seeded pine cones stood out surprisingly well against their green-needled backdrop. "Look!" he squealed as a pair of wings fluttered nearby. "They're already coming to eat!"

"So they are," Alfred concurred. "You've given them an excellent Christmas present."

"Now they'll make it through the winter, even though they didn't go south." It didn't matter so much anymore that there was snow on the ground and a bit more than a little nip in the air; the birds had good food to keep them alive, and Alfred had even promised to leave the back lights on for them every night until spring so they could see. They would live and be happy.

"They shall indeed." Something rustled, and Dick looked over to find the butler kneeling beside him with a gentle look on his face. A pair of gloved hands rested on his shoulders and squeezed. "...So shall you, Master Dick," was breathed quietly. "Even though you didn't go south this year."

He blinked, startled. The slithering beast in the back of his mind recoiled, then slithered away. Was that what he had really been worried about this whole time, he wondered? Not the birds, but himself? But there was no reason to worry about either of them, not now; the birds had their seeds, and he had good grades and people who would help him work through problems he didn't even know he was having. "...You're right, Alfred," he said slowly. "Just like they will. But..."

"But what, young sir?"

He looked back at the tree. A half a dozen individuals were clinging to it and pecking at the ornaments that had been designed just for them, and he had no doubt that more would be on their way once the message had been chirped through the forest. "When they eat these ornaments, could...could we make more? Even if it's not Christmas time any more, could we keep the birdie tree up? Please?"

Alfred smiled. "Of course we can. We don't want any little birds going hungry, now do we?"

Dick shook his head and leaned forward, forcing a hug on the man. "Thanks, Alfred."

"Not at all, Master Dick. It's my pleasure. Now," he pulled back, "we'd better get inside. Master Wayne will be home soon."

"Can I show him our new Christmas tree?"

"I'm sure he'd very much like to see it. Come along, now."

He obeyed, skipping back to the rear door they had come out of earlier. "Oh!" he exclaimed just before he mounted the step. "I forgot something." Turning, he cupped his hands around his mouth. "Merry Christmas, birdies!" he called out. The creatures on the tree didn't react, but Dick just shrugged. "I guess they heard me." With that he passed into the house, content in his new certainty that the Manor was a great home for birds of all kinds – especially Robins.

Author's Note: I'll post directions on how exactly to make Dick and Alfred's bird seed ornaments to my blog later today. Happy reading!