Bruce stayed for the first half day of preschool which Damian liked.

One of the teachers showed them both around and asked Bruce stupid questions like if Damian was fully potty trained or if he still had accidents. Damian gave the teacher a rather fierce batglare over that one. Bruce flicked him on the nose for it. She asked if Damian could recognise his name in print yet. Damian started glaring again.

"Damian go play and let us talk. Off you go," ordered Bruce.

Damian stomped away.

"Does he know any sign language yet?" asked the teacher.

"He knows a few signs but he is excellent at lip reading and his speech is good. It had developed well before the hearing loss progressed to the point it is at now. He is scheduled for surgery in November but the damage is a little more than simple build up in his ears so I'd like him to have all the tools he might need just in case," Bruce spoke this part carefully making sure Damian couldn't see him.

"Will you be mainstreaming his schooling or registering him at Saint Agnes in September?"

"He'll be mainstreamed. He is extraordinarily gifted and will need a specially tailored education program which the primary division of Gotham Academy can provide. Every Thursday afternoon he'll be picked just after lunch. He'll be going through educational screening to identify his learning profile through Brahms Youth Pscyhological Services. They'll have an assessment survey for you to fill out on him when you get to know him a little better. Dr. Terry Graham has asked if he can come to observe him in the classroom setting but everyone wants him to settle in here first."

"We already have a relationship with BYPS and we've worked with Dr. Graham before. A lot of our student have special needs. Is there anything special he'll need from us to thrive here?"

"Focus on the ASL. If he starts acting up he's probably bored or needs to burn off energy. He is not normally this reserved. When he starts getting more comfortable you'll find him quite high energy."

"You mentioned gifted. How does that manifest."

Damian was wandering the class room looking unimpressed. Everyone was using sign language. Almost no one was speaking and those few who were, were not pronouncing words correctly so lip reading was nearly impossible. He stopped someone from beaning someone else with a block. He flipped through the books on the reading shelf. Most of the books were stiff indestructable board books. There was a bin of Tinker Toys. Since when had Tinker Toys been made of plastic instead of wood? Heaving a frustrated sigh he pulled out the Tinker Toy bin and started to build a carousel. He snagged the animal bin and a roll of scotch tape. He kept glancing back to make sure Bruce was still there.

Damian kept having to sign, "No thank you," when kids tried to take toys out of his hands or steal the scotch tape or the animals. The other teacher sat down next to him and put coloured tape on his fingers like she had, then showed him the signs for animal and tape. He tried to ask her a few questions but she was deaf just like the children and did not lip read. It was going to be a long day.

By the time Bruce was leaving, Damian had a fully functional carousel. The animals even sort of went up and down on their own though you had to push it to make it go around. Bruce had signing tape on his fingers too.

"Looks good," signed and spoke Bruce.

The teacher who'd been talking with Bruce looked at Damian's creation. Looking gobsmacked she signed to Bruce. "Gifted?!"

Bruce nodded but he was not really impressed. Damian was ignoring the other children. "You can do this at home. Play with your peers."

Damian gave Bruce a very expressive, you've got to be kidding me, eyeroll.

Bruce knelt and took Damian near. "I have to go now. I know this is hard. No one here speaks your language but you're good with languages. You will do fine. I want twenty new words by the end of the day. Can you do that?"

Damian pouting signed, "Animal, Tape, Break, Give, Stop, Share, Carousel, Circle, Time, Bathroom, Eat," then he couldn't think of anymore signs so his hands fell to his sides. Damian did not look happy.

When Bruce went to leave Damian called out, "I want Bear! Please can I at least have Bear?"

Bruce sat in the car outside for a moment or two collecting himself because honestly it wasn't easy to walk away and pretend he hadn't noticed the tears Damian was trying to hide.

When Bruce came with Tim to pick up Damian at the end of the day Damian said nothing at all. He grabbed Bear who was waiting for him in the back of the Jaguar and sat in his car seat kneading Bear's paw. Damian wouldn't talk to either of them. It seemed to help calm him down when Tim gave him a copy of his math homework to play with / work on. Damian did a few math questions before falling asleep in his carseat.

"Is he okay?" asked Tim.

"He will be. It may take a few days. Can you check his lunchbox and see if he ate anything?" answered Bruce worriedly.

"It looks like he played with it but didn't actually eat anything," answered Tim. The sandwich had been torn into tiny pieces. The celery had been peeled into shreds. The apple slices looked like faces had been cut into them with craft scissors and his thermos of milk felt full. Both cookies were untouched.

At dinner Damian politely listed and demonstrated 137 new signs but wouldn't eat a bite of dinner. He polished off his milk at least.

Tim couldn't stand it anymore. Tim understood stressed out. He was an expert in it. Apparently when his little brother was stressed he stopped eating and got all serious. When Tim was stressed he stopped sleeping and drank too much coffee. Neither behaviour was healthy. Tim grabbed D with a smile. "Come on D." Tim pull/pushed him towards the Batcave. "Get suited up." Tim looked up. He could see Bruce watching them from the top of the stairs. Bruce nodded for him to continue with whatever he was up to.

While Damian was getting ready Tim put his communicator in. "Batman do you copy?"

"I copy," answered Bruce who was still watching hidden in the shadows at the top of the stairs but he'd put his communicator in when he saw Tim get his out.

"Can you radio ahead to Canary and tell her we'll have a guest for tonight's training session."

"Approved," answered Bruce quietly. "There's a training belt for him in the cabinet next to the med bay. Have him demo the web slinger he brought back, run him through Katas and target practice with the batarangs. I don't want him sparring until his arm heals and I've had a chance to assess his skill set. He's been practicing with escrima when he's thinks I'm not watching. See if Canary can properly size him for a decent practice set."

The Zeta announcement turned the heads of everyone who was at the mountain.

"Recognized Robin B01, Red Robin B20"

"Robin, this is Lagoon Boy, Impulse, Bumblebee.." started Red only to be interrupted by a large galloping animal.

"Wolf!" called Robin happily.

Wolf pounced on Robin knocking the small boy to the floor and snuffling him all over.

"Wolf!" cried Red Robin alarmed. "CONNER!"

Wolf grabbed Robin by the scruff of his cape and raced off with him.

Impulse zipped after him only to result in Wolf parking himself over top of Robin and growling ferociously at the speedster. Tiny Robin was giggling madly from underneath the supersized wolf.

Conner who had come to see what all of the fuss was about crossed his arms and gave Wolf a scolding look. "Wolf give back the puppy. It's not yours."

Wolf barked at Conner obviously disagreeing with him. Wolf planted a heavy paw on Robin and glaring at Conner proceeded to thoroughly lick Robin who just couldn't stop giggling despite being rather wet now.

"That's Batman's puppy not yours," corrected Conner.

Wolf gave Robin one last lick then begrudgingly skulked away giving Conner woeful betrayed whines.

"I think he missed you," observed Conner with a chuckle.

Impulse chortling madly zipped off and came back with a towel for the pint sized vigilante. "Absolutely crash entrance. I thought dog breath was going to make supper of you for sure but you knew diffferent, didn'tcha half pint. I'll be taking on the mantle of Kid Flash soon. The costume's just being resized. I know the origional is your BFF."

"...and this is Wonder Girl. Beast Boy and Blue Beetle will here soon," finished Red Robin. "Beast Boy's green and Blue Beetle is well, he's blue, sort of. You'll figure it out."

Robin watched the sparing practice from up in the high rope course. Beast Boy when he got there, turned into an eagle and flew up to sit beside Robin between his matches.

"You aren't worried about falling?" asked Beast Boy.

"If you want me to understand you, you have to turn back into a human before you talk. My hearing is broken. I can read lips but definitely not beaks," answered Robin.

Beast Boy transformed back scrambling to settle himself more securely in the ropes. Robin his legs hooked securely grabbed him with his good hand and stablized him.

"That sucks man," spoke Beast Boy

"Absolutely not asterous," Robin agreed. He didn't know Beast Boy at all. That probably let him give himself permission to vent a little. "I miss music. I've been working on building a simple directional noise meter wired into my mask with indicator arrows. I was thinking colours to show sound levels. I'm totally grounded if everyone and anyone can sneak up on me. I know neither Batman nor Red Robin will help. They let me dress up and do computer stuff but well... you know."

"And you know how to do that?" asked Beast Boy. "Frankly, you look like Blues Clues would be more up your alley."

"I like Blues Clues but I also like electrical engineering," defended Robin. Robin laughed as Lagoon Boy got the smack down in a rather awkward spar.

Black Canary called something up.

"She wants you to demo a web slinger?" explained Beast Boy.

Robin climbed out of where he was wedged in between the ropes with a grin. "Want to help?" he asked Beast Boy. "We'll play tag. Give me a ten second head start, then try to catch me."

Beast Boy grinned.

The demo started off tame enough with Robin swinging away and Beast Boy transforming to escape web traps, then there were web sheilds, blunt web weapons, a web glider, acrobatics and a wild assortment of green animals.

"STOP! HALT! DESIST!" yelled Canary. Things were getting really rough really fast. Robin still had a broken arm not to mention he was five!

M'gan mentally broadcast, "Stop!" as well.

Robin came grinning. Beast Boy waddled up in the form of a penguin. Robin laughed delighted and waddled after Beast Boy before taking another look back at Canary. A vein was throbbing on her forehead. Robin stopped waddling but the mischievous grin stayed so he hid it behind his cape laughing eyes still twinkling towards Canary.

"You're poker face is a total fail," teased Beast Boy his toothy grin also undaunted.

"Look at the absolute mess you've made. There are webs everywhere! I know for a fact Batman said no acrobatics and swinging through the air like that one handed?!" Canary's face turned red she was freaking out so much.

Robin started giggling completely unrepentant.

A deep gravely voice from behind softly spoke, "The webs dissolve in about an hour. It's Robin's bed time." He nodded for Robin to come with him.

"I'm hungry," spoke Robin slipping his small hand into Batman's larger one. "Do you think I could have a sandwich before bed?"

Red Robin smiled.

Red Hood had an alert flashing on his computer. It was from software leftover from Robin version 1.0. It reported back zeta movements. Hood liked to know when Bats was in the same city so normally he just tracked Bruce's Zeta's. He'd awkwardly added a tag so he'd know Robin's movements too. What kind of idiot thing was going on with Bats? Why did the Baby Bird Zeta to the mountain?

Hood banged his head against the wall. The better question was, why did he care what Bats and the Baby Bird did. He just couldn't leave it alone. Someone was knocking at the door.

"UPS Delivery for J. Todd?"

Jason signed for the small package. It said do not open until April 27th. Jason opened it. Inside was a card with a cartoon motorcycle drawn on it with a grinning stick figure driving over a clown with x'ed out eyes. "Happy death didn't stick day." There was a Harley Davidson motorcycle patch in it, a skull with wings. It was signed, "Love Robin."

Jason had no idea what to make of the card at first but he cracked open a beer while staring at it. Then stuck it to his fridge with scotch tape and sewed the Harley patch into the lining of his jacket using surgical stitching thread.

April 27th the anniversary of the day Jason had died was still a few days away.

As Jason finished getting suited up to go on patrol he took one last look inside his jacket and smirked.

Happy death didn't stick day was almost as bad as the twinsies but honestly Jason had never seen Roy and Harper happier. Maybe the Baby bird was onto something, grab that silver lining even if you had to squint at grey and call it silver.

"I'M NOT DEAD YET J'SLIME!" Jason yelled into the night standing on his bike as his motorcycle tore through the streets of Bludhaven. He popped a wheelie, "I'm a gonna have me an Ivy Kissing awesome Death Didn't Stick Day!"