Rating: K+
Genre: Angst
Summary: Law of the place of the injury. John and Mary Grayson die in Metropolis and their son Richard is taken in by another billionaire. A few years later, he becomes friends with Batman's sidekick, Nightwing.
Author's Notes: This story is finished, and was originally posted on the YJ Anon Meme. I thought about uploading it as a single chapter, but I think there are places where I think dramatic breaks are justified. The title is a legal pun. It's a Latin phrase used in conflict of laws, that stands for the rule that courts should apply the law of the place where the injury (tort) was committed, which I think works well here. But also, it has the word Lex here. So, yeah.
Lex Loci Delicti
The Law of the Place of the Injury
Sure enough, Batman comes back to Metropolis, but this time, Lex is in town, and Dick has to stand on the sidelines and watch Batman and Nightwing fight for their lives against Lex's new Metallo prototypes. They get out alive, but barely.
Joker comes to Metropolis so Batman comes up after him. Somehow, Lex, Batman, and Superman all end up working together to stop Joker from releasing Smilex in the subway. Dick helps. Superman can't stand to be in the same room as Nightwing, and Dick can't stand to be in the same room as Superman, so he and Nightwing end up spending a lot of time together.
Eventually, Dick apologizes for the whole kryptonite thing.
"It's ok. Batman explained."
"What did Batman explain?"
"About your parents. I'm sorry."
"I don't see what that has to do with anything," he lies.
Lex is going to Realasia. Dick's never been, so he begs to go, and finally Lex relents. Dick can get anything from Lex so long as he begs hard enough.
There's a woman, Cheshire, trying to kill Lex, except Lex is so nonchalant about it that Dick knows she's not trying to kill Lex. Lex is always calm and collected, but Dick knows him well enough to know the difference between calm and collected and unconcerned.
Nightwing, Speedy, Aqualad and several others are there to protect Lex. Or at least, to protect the peace talks, and that means protecting Lex. He overhears Speedy explaining that Cheshire works for Ra's and suddenly Dick understands everything. He doesn't share his discovery with the others. They don't need to know about the Light.
Still, it gives him time to spend with Nightwing and Kid Flash, who is pretty cool and good at math and amazing at science. But what he loves most of all is getting to hear about Batman.
Every year, he makes the pilgrimage to Gotham, to the last place where his parents flew, and the only place he's ever flown (because that night was the first and last time for him). Mercy always drives and Lex always hugs him the whole length of the drive. Every year, Dick has noticed Batman lurking in the shadows. This year, Nightwing is there too. And he can't resist. He calls out to Nightwing and invites him to lunch.
Lex doesn't join them, but he gladly pays for it. Lex likes it when Dick is social, and Lex likes Nightwing, mainly because he makes Superman's skin crawl, and Lex thinks it's good for Dick to cultivate friends in the Justice League.
It's during lunch that it happens. Nightwing makes the mistake of mentioning Batman's butler. Suddenly, everything clicks, and that night Dick can't sleep. The next day, Dick gets a math problem wrong for the first time the whole year. But he's got other things on his mind.
Batman's operations are remarkably expensive. Of course it would require a tremendous amount of funding. Dick had always implicitly assumed that Batman had external funding. But while Dick can imagine an independently wealthy patron funding Batman's gadgets, he cant imagine that someone would give Batman a butler. Which means that Batman is himself wealthy enough to hire a butler, and probably wealthy enough to fund himself. It takes Dick three minutes to compile the list of Americans who might be wealthy enough to pay for Batman's equipment. It's not a large list and it only takes Dick an afternoon to whittle it down to just one name. Dick knows who Batman is, and he can't believe he didn't realize it sooner. It makes so much sense. And there's a pang of pain, because he and Batman are so much alike.
Lex, he knows, can never find out. Batman's secret identity will be the first thing he's ever kept secret from his guardian.
But he can't help himself. Every once in a while Dick uses the LexCorp satellites to track Bruce Wayne. He doesn't really know why. And that's how he notices the odd meetings with Clark Kent, that annoying reporter who is a perpetual thorn in Lex's side. There's no reason for them to meet. Wayne and Kent have no mutual friends, no shared background. Wayne doesn't read the Daily Planet and Kent's never written an article about the Gotham billionaire. They meet like old friends at innocuous diners, but Dick can't find a single piece of paper linking the two men.
He starts to spend hours just looking at Clark Kent's photograph. What's so interesting about mousy Clark Kent that Batman makes time in his day for him? He wonders. Finally, he sees it, or thinks he sees it, and immediately, he's on the computer fiddling with Photoshop. And WOW. How is it that no one's ever noticed that Clark Kent is just Superman wearing glasses?
To Be Continued