i.
It's a weird few days. Weird because it's summer and there's no distractions, no school to alleviate the boredom. There's no track either but Dick makes good use of the grounds, of the gardens. He can cover a couple of miles a day of primly cut grass and evenly spaced out flowers.
When he's not running, he spends time in the room with the fireplace and the chessboard. The pieces are black and white, cut from marble. Dick knows the basics of the game but plays a few dozen games against himself, in practise.
He's definitely going insane.
ii.
"I play black," Bruce says from the door, and irrationally, Dick jumps, but keeps his voice steady. It's day five in the 'where-is-Bruce-Wayne-game' and Dick was just about to set up the board for himself.
"I don't think so. I'm black here, you're white, it's only fitting."
"You're a kid. Innocent. White," Bruce says. Dick doesn't know too much about that. He remembers coming to Bruce's image, and tries not to blush. One of the very, very few advantages to being black is at least it's not as obvious when he blushes he supposes.
"Don't call me that."
"What?" Bruce says, standing close to him. "Don't like being called a kid?"
"No," Dick says, but he can't hold Bruce's gaze.
"Okay then kid," Bruce says. "I'll play you. You win, and I don't call you kid anymore."
"And if you win?"
Bruce smiles. It's a deadly smile, the smile of a man who never loses. "Would you like a cigarette, Richard?" he says, changing the subject.
"Yeah," Dick says, though he doesn't smoke often. Bruce reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet, and hands one to Dick. He holds it uncertainly while Bruce fishes out a lighter, then some queer courage comes over him and he pops it into his mouth, and bends over the flame, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Bruce raises the lighter to meet him, and their faces are inches from one another, framed by the flame. The shadows it casts only emphasise the sharp, angular lines of Bruce's face. It's a quick moment, and then Bruce lets the flame go out and Dick pulls back and takes the seat opposite his newfound father. It's a small table, and their legs press against one another's, not uncomfortably.
"White moves first," Bruce says. "If you still want to play black, you lose your advantage."
"Black," Dick says anyway.
Bruce spins the board around so that white faces him. "Are you stubborn?"
"Yes," Dick replies honestly.
"That's good. Stubborn is good, but don't mix it up with pride," Bruce says, moving a pawn. He moves his legs under the table, and somehow, his legs are now inside Dick's legs. Dick does not complain about this situation.
"I didn't realise a billionaire would be so insightful," he says lightly.
"We're all more than the money we have in our bank accounts, Richard."
Dick coughs. "Actually, I go by Dick."
Bruce glances up from the game. "That's a strange choice to make." He moves another piece and then Dick's lost a rook, just like that.
He doesn't respond again, but focuses on the game. Bruce, by contrast is completely at ease, thrown back in his chair, tossing the rook up and down, up and down. The tip of the cigarette is the colour of a sunset, the only light source in the room. Dick holds his between his fingers.
"I never played chess much," Dick admits. It's not an excuse so much as a statement of the facts; Bruce is annihilating him. He thought this guy was meant to be a coke-snorting airhead, not some sort of chess master. Bruce smirks and takes a knight.
"Worrying about your forfeit?"
"No."
He is, but it's a good worry, an anticipation more than anything.
"Because it's probably going to be community service," Bruce says. 'Of course, you're going to say that it's voluntary, that you want to give back to the community that's given so much to you, but it'll be good press."
"Bullshit."
"Excuse me?" Bruce says.
"You heard me. The community didn't care about me when I was in foster care. They were waiting for me to join a gang or rob a store so they could seamlessly move me from foster care to juvie to jail. Why should I go pick up trash when that's all they think I am?"
"Is that what you think of Gotham?" Bruce asks quietly.
"You're a fool if you don't agree. Wayne Enterprises knows it; adopt a poor black kid, huh, change his life. It's white guy saviour complex. Good press," he spits.
"I had no idea you hated me so much Dick," Bruce says, and Dick realises that he used the right name and didn't call him kid, and he lets out the breath he's been holding.
"I don't," Dick says. "You seem okay. It's just, throwing me into this huge house isn't going to suddenly fix my issues or stop me committing crimes, you know? I feel like I'm more likely to now, just out of boredom."
"Am I not entertaining you now?" Bruce asks.
"Yeah," Dick says. But you were gone for almost a week, he thinks but swallows. "But I thought you didn't want any father-son bonding?" he asks instead.
"I say a lot of things," Bruce says.
iii.
There's no visitor outside his room tonight, but Dick sleeps uneasily all the same. He thinks he hears an engine and shouts in the early hours, but by the time he's sleepily padded out to the hallway to the nearest bay window, there's nothing to be seen.
Go to sleep, he tells himself, and he does.
iv.
"You know how to punch, right?" Bruce asks him the next day. They're standing in the great open sports hall that's a few minutes walk from the mansion.
Dick eyes the equipment, the pommel horse in the corner.
"Never did boxing," he admits, and for some reason, he doesn't think fistfights are going to count here. "I was more into gymnastics."
He waits for the inevitable slagging off, the 'boy named Dick who does a girl's sport' but it doesn't come.
"Why do you only say you run so?"
He looks away. "Running's easier. Cheaper. No equipment, no lessons."
"Send a dog after any man, and he can run. But gymnastics? That requires physical strength, flexibility, power, agility, balance and control. That's a real sport," Bruce says. His face is as unreadable as ever, but somehow Dick think he has been given a compliment.
Dick steps forward and powders his hands, the white chalk startling against the pink-black of his palms. He knows Bruce is watching him, and he's almost eager to impress, though he keeps his breathing steady. He hops onto the pommel horse and does the easy bit first, the single leg scissors, and then, breathing heavy but laughing, he places both hands on the leather and moves up and down the horse. He looks up, for a second, and catches Bruce's eye, and it's like touching a live wire. Dick dismounts by swinging his body over the horse, and lands lightly on his feet. He takes a mocking bow.
"How do you feel now?" Bruce asks.
Like I'm burning up, Dick thinks. "Alive," he says, and it's true. The burn is in his arms, muscles that haven't been used in years making their strain be heard, but it's good, it's healthy.
After a full workout, and a disastrous first attempt at boxing, Bruce makes them go to the sauna. It's scorching in there, a dry heat that makes it tough to sit on the wooden benches in only his speedos.
Sweat trickles down Bruce's chiselled chest, and Dick forces himself to look away. They're only sitting inches away, both panting. Dick decides that now is as good a time as any to test the waters, and stretches obscenely, shuffling himself closer to Bruce in the process.
"What sport are you into?" he asks. "You have the body of a weightlifter, but there's all that equipment…" Dick trails off, biting his lip. He probably went too far, describing Bruce's body.
"I dabble in everything," Bruce says unhelpfully.
"Why?" Dick asks, pushing it. It just doesn't make any sense that a billionaire businessman socialite would be so into keeping fit. Bruce doesn't reply.
They're closer now than they have any right to be; god knows the sauna is big enough. Dick breathes in and out evenly, trying not to think about it. Now is not the time to get hard, for crying out loud. He's finding it hard to breathe because of the dry air, and not because Bruce is nearly naked, his only concession to clothing being a tiny pair of shorts that cling to him in all the right ways. Dick curls his hands around the bench, forgetting about the heat, and closes his eyes.
v.
There's a woman outside his room that night again, and Dick finds it improbable that Bruce is misplacing all of these ladies. He shoos her away like a stray cat, wanting to sleep, but he's only half-way inside the room when he realises that was awful, really. He goes to the door again to apologise, but she's gone, vanished into the night air.
Two nights later, and it's a guy.
"Hey," the guy says, eyeing him up.
Dick has lost his patience with strangers outside his bedroom. This is getting absurd. He knows, really, that these men and women are just getting lost; but each and every one of them, knocking on the same door like clockwork? I t's ridiculous. Bruce is hardly deliberately sending people his way, right? To mock him?
As a reward?
vi.
"Have you ever fired a gun?" Bruce asks him the next day. They're running, Bruce holding the pace, and each word is punctuated by breaths.
"No," Dick says. He's seen it happen though. He still dimly remembers the sound of it, the almighty roar that had rang in his ears when they shot down his parents, though the image of them, lifeless of the floor, has left him. It's easier to remember the audio and repress the visual sometimes. "I don't like guns much."
Bruce doesn't reply, but his lip quirks into a semi-smile, and Dick knows he's answered right. If all of this is some sort of test, then Dick fervently wants to pass.
vii.
He's stiff the next day, and cracks his neck in front of Bruce, who's making coffee. He takes it black as onyx, how he likes most things, Dick is learning. He doesn't know if that applies to his taste in people though.
"Sore?" Bruce asks in his voice like gravel. Early morning voice, Dick supposes.
"A bit yeah," he admits, stretching like a cat.
Bruce sips at the coffee. "I can give you a massage, after breakfast."
Dick blinks. "Don't you have like, a private masseuse, with all the training you're doing?"
Bruce says nothing, and Dick wonders if he's offended him. "I mean, yeah, I'd like that," he says. He can't imagine anything sexier than Bruce, touching him all over, rubbing out those kinks, but he's been working on his poker face.
"Okay then," Bruce says. "Give me ten."
Dick, goes to hallway, and hesitantly, takes off his t-shirt. He doesn't know how his life came to this, waiting for a billionaire to massage his back, but he's not complaining either.