Skipping ahead a little. Dick learned Bruce's secret, then became Robin. You already know that part.

Moving on. On one particular night, Robin got captured. So... Yeah... That sucked.

Robin stood in an elevator with an armed goon on each side of him. They were the picturesque definition of armed goons: Black suits, black sunglasses, shaved heads. It's like they were being cliché on purpose. They looked sort of like the Secret Service except their expressions were meaner and they had guns. Thinking of it: the Secret Service had guns too, but they hid them in their vests while these two were pointing them at Robin.

He was distracting himself; he stopped thinking about it.

He and Batman were tracking down Rupert Thorne, one of Gotham's better-known crime bosses. Tonight Thorne was trying to buy a shipment of high-tech weapons, only to turn around and sell them at a high profit tomorrow night. They stopped tonight's deal but during the fight Robin stupidly got himself captured. Batman was going to lecture him about it later... as soon as he escaped.

They took away Robin's utility belt so he didn't know how he was going to escape yet... He was still working on that part of the plan.

Talk fast, think faster, and don't let yourself get scared, he told himself.

One of the goons reached towards Robin's face. He tried to take off the black domino mask, but once he touched the fabric an electric shock zapped his fingers away. "Ow!"

Robin shook his head. "It looks like a simple mask, but trust me. It's not," he said with a smirk. "Even if you do get it off - which you won't, trust me - you'd need facial recognition software to identify me. Just save yourself the hassle."

Talk fast and bluff like there's no tomorrow.

On second thought "no tomorrow" is a really bad expression right now.

The elevator opened. They stepped out into Rupert Thorne's office. It was a lavishly decorated penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows; one-way glass, Robin guessed. Thorne stood in front of his desk, smiling smugly at Robin, with two more goons at his side. Robin was roughly pushed into a basic metal chair, the least-expensive piece of furniture in the room. The four goons surrounded him, aiming their guns at Robin.

"Well," Thorne said in an oily voice, "this certainly makes up for losing that weapons shipment. The Bat's baby boy, right here in my clutches, ready for interrogation."

"Clutches?" Robin repeated. "Who says 'clutches'? You guys really are being cliché on purpose, aren't you? And another thing," he looked around at the gunmen, "you don't surround the person you want to shoot. You end up shooting each other that way. Rookie mistake. I'm ten years old, I've never even held a gun. How do you know less about using them than me?"

Thorne picked something up from his desk: Robin's utility belt. He made a show of tapping one of the compartments, which produced another electric shock.

"Question one," Thorne said. "How do you open this?"

"There's a trick to it," Robin answered. "Want me to show you?" He reached his hand out with a big smile.

Nobody moved.

Robin pulled his hand back. "Yeah, didn't think so."

"You're awfully cocky considering I'm holding your life in my hand," Thorne said as he put the belt back on the desk.

"I'm not scared of you," he lied very convincingly. "And I'm not dead yet."

"Of course not, you're an asset. I don't discard assets until I use them up first," Thorne said with a cold smile. "How soon and how painful that will be is entirely up to you."

Robin didn't react. He didn't allow any emotion to show through his mask.

"Now... Who is Batman?"

Stall for time. Stall for time.

"...My mentor."

"You know what I mean. What is Batman's real name? I know you don't want to sell out your daddy," Thorne said with mock sympathy, "but I'm sure he'll understand since your life is on the line."

"Batman's not my dad," he blurted out. "Common mistake. He's actually a future version of me who came here by accidental time travel. That's how he has all these fancy gadgets. They're cheap in the future, you can get 'em anywhere. It's also why he allows a little kid like me to fight crime. Since I'm a young version of him, he knows I have what it takes."

Robin grinned at Thorne. "Now here's the question: Am I bluffing to protect his real identity? Or am I sarcastically telling the truth so that, even if you find out later, you wouldn't believe it? Could be either, couldn't it? That's the trouble when you interrogate liars. You don't have a lot of practice with that, do you Thorne? You shouldn't have asked me for Batman's identity. You should have asked me for proof of Batman's identity."

Thorne silently glared at him. "All right..." he said quietly. "Do you have proof of Batman's identity?"

"Like what? A driver's license?"

"Like his name," he growled. "Something I can check up on."

"Why should I tell you his name?"

"Because if you don't, you'll die," Thorne said through grit teeth.

Robin stopped smiling. "...What did you say?"

"You. Will. Die."

Robin stared at his captor.

Then he looked around the room. He mentally measured the distance to his belt on the desk - blocked by Thorne - no chance of snatching that in time. Measured the distance to the window at his side. Kept track of the position of the goons and the gaps between them. Subtly pushed against the chair, testing its weight.

Here we go. Guess there's only one thing left to do. It's extremely risky. It won't always work. But I can't see any other way out of this...

I'll have to call his bluff.

Robin calmly stood out of the chair. "No I won't."

That actually got a laugh out of Thorne. "Say what?"

"You won't kill me."

"And why do you think I'd hesitate for one instant to shoot you?" Thorne asked with a sneer. "Because I'm so nice and trustworthy?"

"You said it yourself. I'm an asset. You won't get rid of me until you've used me up first."

Thorne didn't respond and didn't smile.

The gunmen were still aiming at Robin, but hadn't moved yet. Robin looked at them and raised his arms dramatically. "Come on! Think about it! I'm Robin, the partner of Batman! I'm a gold mine of information! I'm the only one in the world who knows his name, his address, the location of the Batcave, how his gadgets work, and all his secret weaknesses. I am the best chance you will ever have of defeating your greatest enemy once and for all!"

He scrunched his eyebrows skeptically. "And you're just gonna kill me the first time I say no to you? Yeah, right."

The goons wouldn't shoot without orders. Of course they wouldn't - Robin planted the fear of shooting each other in their heads. And now he reminded them how valuable he was alive.

But Rupert Thorne didn't show any signs of intimidation. "So you think I can't kill you because you're too important? Well you're wrong. I am the one with all the power here, and if you make me angry, your life is over like that," he snapped his fingers.

"Boys!" he called. The goons re-aimed their guns aggressively.

Robin spun around and picked up the metal chair. It wasn't extremely heavy, and he was strong for his age. He held the chair out defensively like a lion tamer.

That got another laugh out of Thorne. "A chair against four armed men with guns? What are you gonna do with that?"

"You act like you want me dead," Robin said. "You know what I say to that?"

He turned and heaved the chair with all his strength towards the window. It shattered the glass with a loud and satisfying "CRASH!"

Robin looked at the shocked Thorne and yelled, "PROVE IT!"

He marched towards the skyscraper's broken window. Without his utility belt and grappling hook, certain death was one step outside that opening.

Leap, and a net will appear.

Thorne recovered from his surprise and cried, "GRAB HIM!"

The closest thug dropped his gun and lunged at Robin. He snatched onto the end of his cape and pulled the boy back. Robin loved the cape, but admitted that it was really impractical sometimes. Though he didn't complain now because what happened was exactly what he wanted.

The thug held tightly onto the boy's shoulders and kept him still. Thorne glared. Robin grinned.

"You said you have all the power, but I'm the one who's really indispensable! You know what 'indispensable' means, right? It means I can't be dispended - dispensed - one of them. Am I talking too fast? It's the adrenaline. The point is... threatening to kill me won't work now that you stopped me from dying."

Thorne looked furious, but kept his tone even. "All right. Fine. I don't need to kill you. I have other ways of making you talk."

"Like what? Torture? I'll go through torture for days before I give up the information that's keeping me alive. But you don't have days, do you? You think Batman's taking a nap somewhere? He is tearing this city apart looking for me. It's only a matter of time before he figures out which building you took me to."

Robin pulled away from the goon's grip. "Everyone knows Batman has a no-kill rule. I don't think anything would ever make him break it. But I also think nothing would tempt him more than you torturing me for a few days. Ask yourself: How angry do you want to make the World's Greatest Detective?"

Thorne's face betrayed no reaction, but his men were starting to look uncomfortable.

Robin continued. "So. Killing me won't make me talk. And torturing me won't make me talk... Your best bet is to bribe me."

"Bribe you?" Thorne repeated incredulously.

"Sure, why not?" He grinned and pointed dramatically at Thorne. "Try it! Ask me what I want!"

"I don't give a damn what you want."

"You don't have a choice, because you're not getting what you want otherwise. You're racing against the clock. You need a way to learn Batman's secret identity before he finds us. Me? I'm in no hurry. I'm just trying to stop you from killing me and I have - literally - the rest of my life for that. So start negotiating!"

Come on, come on. Hurry up. Of all days to be slow...

"I won't negotiate with a damn brat," Thorne said.

"I have an idea. We'll trade the information," Robin said cheerfully. "If you answer my questions, maybe I'll answer yours. That's fair, right? Okay, uh... Who were you going to sell the weapons to? When and where were you meeting them? Telling me that is your best chance at making me talk."

"I'm not telling you anything."

Robin turned his head away and crossed his arms. "Well, then, you might as well throw me out that window, because I'm not saying another word until you tell me."

Thorne scowled at him. He waved his hand, and the four goons aimed their guns at Robin.

He waited for Robin to crack, but the Boy Wonder just stood there with his arms crossed. He didn't even flinch.

They both waited.

Please, please, let this work...

Eventually, Thorne waved his hand again, and the goons lowered their guns. With a frustrated expression he calmly said, "I was selling them to Black Mask. We were going to meet at pier number nine at eleven-fifteen tomorrow night."

SCORE!

"Now give me Batman's name. You said we'd trade information."

"Hold on, I don't think it's an even trade yet," Robin said. "Maybe you should tell me something more first."

"Enough!" Thorne shouted. His face was so red the color was starting to spread to his white hair. "Let's get one thing straight. I only kept you alive because I thought I could use you. But if you never talk, then I can't really use you, can I?"

Robin frowned. Thorne had a terrifyingly good point.

"So prove yourself useful, or die - this time for real!"

I guess I lost my net. I... I'm all out of ideas.

But an instant later Robin noticed something important in the corner of his eye. He had bought enough time.

He turned his head back towards Thorne. "Okay, I'll tell you his name. But I'll tell you something else first: The real reason I broke that window... I was never really going to jump out."

He whispered, "...It was to let Batman know which floor we're on."

Thorne's eyes widened.

His goons spun towards the window an instant after Batman came through. Batman threw a smoke bomb on the ground in the center of the crowd, where Robin was standing an instant before he jumped away. The gunmen couldn't see and wouldn't risk shooting each other, but Batman was an expert at fighting in the dark.

Meanwhile Thorne tried running away. He turned towards his desk, but Robin sprinted around him and leaped up onto it. Robin grabbed his utility belt, pressed a button, and threw it towards Thorne. "Don't catch this!"

Thorne grabbed the belt out of the air, and a powerful electric shock ran through him. "AAH!" He dropped the belt and fell unconscious on the floor.

"Hey, I warned you," Robin smirked.

.

The Batmobile drove into its parking spot inside the Batcave. Batman silently stepped out, and Robin followed him.

"You're extra quiet tonight," Robin said.

Batman didn't reply. He just walked ahead.

"Are you mad or something?"

Robin ran in front of him and blocked his way. "C'mon, I did good tonight."

Batman stared down at him.

"Well, I did!" Robin told him. "I made the best of a bad situation. I still had my earpiece, so you could hear most of what happened, right? I bought time, and made them nervous. And I got information out of Thorne! Because of me, we know when and where Black Mask is coming out of hiding. Admit it, I did great!"

Batman pulled off his cowl; he became Bruce Wayne again. "You got captured," he said bluntly.

"What, like, that's never happened to you?" He took his own mask off; he became Dick Grayson again. "Yeah, okay, you can always rescue yourself, but still. And you know what? If not getting captured is good, why didn't you praise me on all the days it didn't happen?"

He waited for an answer. He didn't get one.

"Even after all your years and years of training, you still get in trouble sometimes. I've only been doing this for a few months, but I am great at it!" Dick said. "Why can't you just say it? I am a good crime fighter!"

"You're an excellent crime fighter, Dick," Bruce said. "That's not a good thing."

Dick blinked. Bruce walked away from him, towards the computer.

Dick followed him after a moment. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Bruce didn't look at him. He sighed and said, "This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. I only trained you because I was afraid that if you didn't catch Tony Zucco, you would feel a need for revenge that would never go away. I hoped bringing him to justice would give you closure. I hoped you'd stop being Robin after that."

"I didn't want to stop. I still don't."

Bruce turned to look down at him and sternly said, "That's not normal, Dick."

Dick winced. After what he went through at school... did Bruce not know how those words made him feel?

"It's my own fault. I got carried away and didn't stop you when I should have. This," Bruce gestured around the Batcave, "is my life. It wasn't supposed to take over yours. You were supposed to move on, but you're not... I probably shouldn't have made you Robin in the first place..."

Dick was dumbstruck. "Bruce, you didn't 'make' me Robin. You didn't tell me you were Batman - I found out. I got involved in crime fighting. It was both our decision."

"Maybe, but I am enabling you. And I'm not going to do that anymore."

Dick stared at him. The dumbstruck feeling just kept getting worse. "Are... Are you firing me?"

Bruce sternly stared back. "I am forbidding you from being a vigilante."

Dick blinked. He smiled humorlessly and shook his head. "You can't do that."

"I make the rules, not you," Bruce replied.

"No, you can't do that. You can't!" he shouted. "You can't teach me these things and then... then... shut me off like a machine just because I got captured one time!"

"This isn't because you were captured. It's because you're getting too much like me."

That shocked Dick into silence.

Bruce sighed in frustration, and then he said, "Stopping criminals isn't a game for me, Dick. It's an obsession. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. You deserve better than to have your life swept up by my vendetta... But you're never going to have a regular life if you keep being Batman's partner."

Dick thought about everything Bruce said. "So..." He forced his eyes not to water. "You're kicking me out...? You're just gonna dump me on some other foster parent?"

Bruce's expression softened the tiniest bit. "I would never kick you out."

He laughed humorlessly. "You're gonna have to! You said it yourself. This," he gestured to the cave around them, "is your life! So I can't be a part of your life if I'm not part of this. That's exactly how I found out your secret, Bruce. I got too close!"

The boy scowled at him. "So if you're gonna cut me out of your life, then you have no choice but to go all the way. Because if there's one thing I learned tonight... it's that threats don't work unless you follow through!"

He turned around and marched away.

.

Dick, in his regular clothes, was packing things in his bedroom. He didn't have a lot. He owned several new items since becoming Bruce's ward, but he didn't consider most of them important enough to bring.

He would run away, try to get back into foster care. Social services would have to pay attention to him if he just ran away enough times. A part of Dick was looking forward to the change. Living in the same place for nearly a year was starting to make him uneasy. But it was only a small part... Most of him didn't really want to leave.

But there was no point in staying here if he couldn't be Robin.

Bruce, in his regular clothes, appeared in the open doorway. "Can we talk?" he asked gently.

Dick rolled his eyes and put his duffel bag on the floor. "It's your house."

Bruce walked into the room. "I've made some mistakes, Dick. Maybe it's too late to fix them, but I should at least start admitting them." He looked Dick in the eyes and said, "...I can't replace your father."

"I never wanted you to!" he cried out.

"I know," he nodded. "But I wanted to. That was the mistake."

Dick didn't know how to react to that.

"When your family died, I saw myself in you," Bruce said. "I saw too much of myself. I was so convinced that you would go down the same path I did. What I really wanted was to take your pain away... I'm just now starting to realize that probably wasn't possible... I can't take away your grief but I should at least keep you safe."

"I am safe," he said. "You taught me how to fight and defend myself."

"You should have a normal life."

"Why?!" Dick asked him. "I never had one before."

Bruce blinked.

"Bruce, I was raised in a circus. Did you forget that? I used to fly over a trapeze without a net. I risked my life for a living - And I don't mean for money. It wasn't a job. It was my life. And that was okay... Don't you get it, Bruce...? I was never going to have a normal life. I just wasn't. I wasn't trying to."

"Okay," he nodded. "But that doesn't mean you need to be a vigilante."

"Why can't I? What's the point of doing anything else?"

"See, that's what I was trying to avoid," he pointed at Dick. "'What's the point of any other life?' That's the type of single-mindedness I wanted to discourage."

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Dick pleaded. "Don't twist my words! I'm not you, Bruce!"

That made Bruce momentarily speechless.

Dick continued. "I'm not the same as you. I'm not the same as anyone. Yes, we both lost our families. And, yeah, I miss them. And I-" He stuttered. "-I hate it. And I get angry. And - But - But stop treating me like an exact copy of you. I'm not doing this because I'm 'obsessed' or 'revenge' or whatever. I want to keep being Robin because I love it! I love doing these dangerous, exciting, amazing things. I love saving people and learning all these skills and techniques. I love all of it... So don't take it away... Please."

Bruce was quiet for a long time, thinking carefully about what Dick said. Eventually he nodded and said, "Okay."

Dick stared at him expectantly. "O-Okay? Okay, as in...?"

"I'll keep training you, for now," Bruce said. "I won't make you quit."

"And... I can still live with you, right?"

Bruce smiled and shook his head. "That was never in any doubt."

Dick walked over and hugged him. "Thank you."

Even after having a child for nearly a year, Bruce wasn't really a hugger. But after the briefest of hesitation he put his arms around Dick anyway.

They stepped away, and Bruce looked at the bags on the floor. "Do you want any help unpacking?"

Dick paused. "Uh... Actually..." He felt a little embarrassed to ask since he was so lucky to avoid leaving, but, "Since I'm packed anyway... Would it be okay if I moved to a different room in the manor?"

"What for?" Bruce asked.

"Well, it's just... I never stayed in the same place for this long before," Dick said. "It's starting to feel weird..."

.

Wally mused over Dick's story. "My family's against me being a superhero, too. It's not that they want me to be 'normal.' They just think it's too dangerous. But they don't want me to sneak off and fight crime on my own - again - so they figure it's safer if I'm Uncle Barry's partner and let him watch me."

Dick didn't reply.

"I keep telling them I can take care of myself," Wally said. "And most of the time I can. It's just... sometimes... I get..."

He got frustrated. Then he looked at Dick, who still hadn't responded. "...Are you listening?"

Dick blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Earth to Dick, you still with us?"

"Y-Yeah, I was just thinking about my family..." He lowered his head. "Batman was right about one thing. Robin or not... I still miss them."

.

Author's Notes: (Posted 3/7/2017) I didn't plan to do this chapter, but I thought of it after waking up on my day off, and compulsively started writing. Anyone who watches Doctor Who will probably recognize this chapter. I stole a lot from episodes that feature interrogations like "Deep Breath" and "Heaven Sent." Thinking of it, Peter Capaldi would make an interesting Batman.

In "Batman: Hush" (I think) it showed that Batman has safety devices in his cowl to stop people from taking it off. I decided to put something similar in Robin's mask (I suppose to make up for its flimsiness as a disguise).