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screamting · 5 years ago

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Dick’s first day of school snuck up on them.

Bruce drove him down in a rusty small blue honda civic from the 1990s. They’d picked it up off the lot for under 3,000 and were using it as a way to ferry themselves to the junkyard to pick up parts for their special car--but for now, they were using it to drop Dick off at school.

Drop Richard Malone off at school.

On paper, Alfred paid for Dick to attend Gotham academy. A private school. It had both boarders and day students. Dick would be a day student, so long as it was feasible.

...on the first day of school, Bruce drove Dick down to his alma mater (which translated to ‘place you never wanted to visit again,’) and dropped him off outside the gates.

“Want me to walk you in, Chum?” he asked, despite it not being any Malone’s alma mater yet, and Dick glanced back at him and shook his head sharply, mumbling a quiet “see you later,” before going off towards the gates.

Bruce turned to drive home and realized, belatedly, that Dick had never not been homeschooled.

He waited for afternoon to pick Dick up again, and resolved to remember to pick up milkshakes on the way back, so he can ask how the day was with a backup plan.

“It is not the right time of year to prune,” Alfred told him. It was far too close to school starting. Far too close to fall. “But, I suppose, it isn’t impossible . It will just be a good bit trickier to know which branches need it.”

Bruce obligingly bought a new plant from a chain store--a nursery would’ve properly pruned it weeks ago, but chain stores didn’t have that same attention. Alfred brought it home in a little green planter: a tiny bush cut into a lopsided circle.

“This isn’t, in fact, how to do it,” Alfred said, setting it beside Bruce on the patio table. “Can you tell me why?”

“..it doesn’t target the dead branches,” Bruce said, and Alfred gave a nod.

“It’s indiscriminate. And quite sloppy.”

He handed Bruce a pair of pruning shears.

“With it cut like this, it’s a little difficult to find the dead branches, but you’ll manage.”

...after a moment, Bruce shoved his hand inside the bush and just… gripped one of the little branches that didn’t have any leaves on it between his fingers. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded obligingly and gave a smile that felt far too much like it was meant for a child.

“How far back do I cut?”

“As far back as you can.”

Bruce nodded and pushed the shears in. And snipped.

The metahuman had power over plants, the paper the day before had said. She argued she’d been acting in self-defense. Her children were crying out for help. And so she helped.

(“‘ I is hearing the scream of a flower as its stem is twisted from the ground,’” Dick read aloud by Bruce’s bedside, trying to work through the recommended reading list for his level. One year behind his age level wasn’t bad for three years on the road, but it was a lot to catch up on all the same. “‘ I is hearing the soft moan of the old oak, like an old man dying, weeping, when it is felled.’ ”)

As the state of New Jersey did not recognize plants as people or her as the property owner, her appeal was denied. She would spend several years above minimum in Belle Reve for aggravated assault.

(even though the one she assaulted wasn’t there. Bruce hadn’t stepped into court. Bruce hadn’t said a thing. There was one phone call, and a woman, naked, trapped outside on a Gotham street, and then five other people stepped forward, claiming to be someone she’d attacked.

And he didn’t know what to think about that. If what everyone said was true was true, or if it was just falling into the fallacy of mob mentality. If it was easier to accept what was said as true. Even if he'd seen the violence first hand, it was him being attacked, that was different--)

He kept his mouth shut, and reached for the next dead branch, and clipped.

“...and how would I trim something that’s not dead, but it might… be overgrown? Or the wrong height?”

“Hmm,” Alfred said, still watching him. “Well, first we will need to get you a proper ladder.”

Justly imprisoned or not, the metahuman--a former botanist called Pamela Isley--would be in Belle Reve for several years.

Maybe he could change something in this town while she was gone.

Therefore, Mr. Malone came to the Gotham Parks and Recreation office, asking if when he got this 501c3 approved that he be allowed to enter Robinson Park and clean up the place.

And the budget-starved Parks office said fuckin’ do it if you’re brave enough, man , and sent him on his way.

It was… much easier than he expected, really. But perhaps the Parks department carried so little influence no one had even bothered to bribe them to keep people out. All the same, he’d listen to that backwards warning.

He drafted the papers in two days. He worked over it at dinner, trying to fill the gap that had once been occupied by discussing with Dick where to travel next and how to best avoid a million impending dooms. He had a free consultation with an attorney in the morning who looked up at Bruce over his glasses, eyebrows up, and reminded Bruce that the park was where mob deals went down and that grassy lady attacked a fella the other day.

Bruce said that was fine. He knew. He wasn’t here to cause a ruckus.

Legal documents. Articles of Affiliation. Mission Statement. It was helpful to have a second pair of eyes that actually expected the little bureaucracies innate in law, things that Dick and Alfred preferred to grumble at rather than knot through. Not that Bruce had been trained in law himself, but his school friend, Harvey Dent--

(was still in the hospital. Burn ward. He’d stabilized, but wasn’t often conscious--)

...Bruce submitted the paperwork after the Parks commission met with him, and then all he had to do was draw up a budget and wait. Alfred ‘lent’ Mr. Malone the startup money to establish a paper trail. After the initial donation, Bruce could make periodic donations to himself in various names; have miraculous windfalls whenever cash grew thin. Even without any backing or campaigns, he could make this startup impossible to fail.

...the problem is, Bruce has long proven his judgement is impaired.

When Dick returns from school not sniffling but vibrating with stress all the same, Bruce’s first thought is to run and start over somewhere else.

He thinks it might be an averted suicide response. The need to pack up and leave the current problems behind. With a hardline against being able to die, his mind latches onto another option. A fight-or-flight response that only hits flight when the problem isn’t something that can’t be physically fought off, like a tween coming into the car and sitting down in the passenger seat with a deep sigh.

...Bruce asks how his day was.

Dick says it was fine.

Bruce doesn’t ask if he wants a milkshake. He goes through the drive-through and buys some anyway. They go home and work how to install tail fins on the car frame slowly coming together in their garage.

...the ‘suicide’ response isn’t the only thing that lingers. Bruce isn’t really sure ‘lingering’ is the right term, actually. The flight response only arises when things can’t be handled directly in front of himself anymore, but the fight response--

Bruce has impaired judgment.

He proved it as soon as his first ‘suicide’ response sent him to the League of Assassins, and he decided to not flee the moment they made it clear nothing would continue until he took a life. He proved it when he wasn’t able to avoid dragging a literal child in the middle of a personal crisis into his mess, rather than leaving him somewhere safe and far, far away from him. He proved it with each near-death experience from Deathstroke in Metropolis to Isley in Gotham.

And yet, here he was again, finding himself cleaning up the Batman suit long after Dick was put to bed, adjusting it with better material to withstand a bullet’s penetration.

The people at the parks department weren’t wrong. It would be dangerous to work the area while the mob still operated widely inside it, and he would not cooperate alongside the mobs for protection. The alternative was therefore relatively obvious: get rid of the mobs.

Mobs weren’t exactly like a snake, but they did function well enough like one. Cut off the head. And like a hydra, if new heads sprouted--smother them.

...that, at least, he knew how to do. Kidnapping and recon, and finding information. Find proof of a mob boss’ wrongdoing and get a prosecutor not so cowardly to be bribed. Hand the information over. Don’t let them fail the charges. High profile dangerous people wouldn’t be kept in a local jail, but would likely be transferred to a higher-security prison, circumnavigating the cluttering, and with a focus on high-priority prisoners rather than most random people out on the street, they would be moved through the system more quickly, hopefully at least stalling out their operations in the meantime, if not shattering the whole system beneath them with the sudden departure.

This was the best plan he had, and it relied far, far too much on too many external variables--finding a clean court, getting a jury that felt safe enough to actually put their foot down, finding witnesses willing to testify, a prosecutor who wouldn't be bribed--

(fuck)

--and dealing with a Commissioner whose good graces he might’ve worn out.

…

But the alternatives were to allow this to continue growing, complicit by his own inaction.

(he was already complicit enough in too many crimes.)

(How did you clean up a world that you yourself aided in the destruction of?)

Prosecutors that couldn't be bribed?

They ended up like Harvey Dent.

Batman appears without Robin that evening, because it is a school night and Dick needs to sleep. He stops what crimes in progress he comes across and starts watching Robinson Park more closely.

He doesn't interfere inside it. He just watches. Plants cameras in the bushes and on the branches of trees, and zips his way out, to watch the footage and get to know the day and nighttime patterns of the area.

It… will take time. That's something he's not used to. Dick and he worked fast on the road, and even before that he was either handed his information by the ones lower down the chain or only spent a handful of days doing legwork to verify things that'd been missed. Instant gratification, he guessed he could call it. Just… dealing out a death and being done with it.

(And somehow, he'd drawn the line at known violent mobsters and Deathstroke.)

...he had to do a lot of meditation to get through the park video feeds. He had a lot of work stacking up between tracking down faces from the feeds. Police database of mugshots helped more than he expected. He started a tally of how many people in the mugshots were brought in bloodied and who brought them in to look into later.

After all, if Gotham was going to get rid of its mob problem, the police force would need some pruning, too.

Gotham recidivism was above 80%. Bruce gargled his coffee and tried very hard to not spit it out somewhere, because somehow, he was more tired by this statistic than shocked. A bit of, ‘oh, I knew it would be high, but really?’

No fucking wonder there weren’t enough cells in the world.

(What do you do when you can’t put anymore garbage in a landfill?

Learning what a fucking recycling program is might be a good first step.)

It's okay, though. He's totally got a handle on this. He's already been looking into what makes recidivism lower, and the difficulty of access to jobs for felons seems like a big one. Lack of change to living situations that caused pettier crimes like reselling material or shoplifting. The inside prison situation has an effect, according to Norway, which has a prison system Bruce isn't even hoping to replicate, even if he were a living millionaire with a clear conscience.

Reading other people's’ writings on recidivism has… definitely helped clarify things for him, even if all he can think of for the worst of criminals is still to lock them in a cell far away from everyone or until the death penalty finally takes it out of his hands.

But it is one thing to lock up a murderer who sabotaged a family performance and killed in front of an audience, and children, and child … versus locking up the child who killed trying to protect their family from an abusive partner.

They’re different. They have to be.

If Bruce has any right to be alive, he has to be able to believe in gray areas.

Bruce drops the first of several Maroni forerunners on Gordon's desk in the northern precinct. When he finds the precinct desk vacant, he pays a visit to the commissioner’s house instead.

The thought process is that it would probably be best to clarify that the dropoff isn’t an attack on the commissioner's authority. It’s an opening for compromise. Bruce will be mindful of the incarceration rates, but he won’t be leaving Gotham and he’d like cooperation from the police when it came to prosecution.

Unfortunately, he proposes it in the form of a paper note (written in his off-hand) slipped onto Gordon’s bedroom table where the man will notice it as soon as he returns for bed, which is much more threatening than he fully realizes.

(He doesn’t imagine Gordon’s daughter will find the note first and replace it just as she found it after reading. Then again, he doesn’t ever find out it happened, either.)

The county’s defense office wants to cut a plea deal with the gangster brought in, because no one wants to be the next Harvey Dent. The Assistant DA, a woman named Rachel Dawes, seems willing to try, but the department is extremely reluctant to support her, even as she steps up to take Dent’s place until another election can be held.

In the precinct, Bruce’s audiobugs catch officers he’s tracking placing bets on how long until someone finishes Dent off in his hospital bed.

Bruce decides he needs to be more aggressive.

Twenty-seven aggressive anonymous tipoffs and two synchronized FBI raids half a month later, and Bruce is startled when the door to his bedroom opens and Dick walks in. Bruce doesn't really jump in surprise anymore-- it’s more of… half reaching a position to fight, and stopping in a split second as he realizes the threat doesn't exist.

“Ah,” he says, “do you need--?”

“I was at school,” Dick says, answering the question in an odd way. He didn't need anything, he'd just come back from school--

Bruce’s neck snaps up to look at the clock, while the other part of his brain realizes that it’s nearly dark outside.

“Did Alfred--” he says, a panicky shame he’s not used to rising up within him.

“No,” Dick says, shrugging his backpack off and slumping onto bed. “When I realized you weren't coming I walked home.”

Bruce's throat feels tight. “You should've called.”

“Figured you were busy,” Dick says, watching the ceiling, “you've got more important stuff than school.”

Bruce remembers, the pain less raw with years, the slow agony of a school day, knowing there must be more he could do than sit through the farce.

He remembers that agony of adolescent uselessness clearly, pain dulled or not, but he’s also wisened to its falsehood over the years. There was little he could manage at the time.

“...I’ll set an alarm next time, but school isn't unimportant,” he says, keeping calm and controlled for an extra moment, before doing a double-take on the thought he’d had just a moment before.

Adolescence?!

School is over a month in. Dick’s anniversary is coming up soon. Bruce has gotten the Feds back in Gotham and an internal investigation into the police force for corruption. His nonprofit is finalizing some paperwork and looking into how to hire nonviolent offenders and start training them for small-time landscaping and cleanup by contracting with a local pre-established landscape crew that mostly does the outer and northern Gotham estates. Harvey Dent is conscious but minimally verbal in the hospital. And Dick is thirteen, officially a teenager.

Bruce does not know how teenagers are different from younger children. He does not recall being any different than he is now at either age. Only morose haze interspersed by flashes of overwhelming tension and temper.

Harvey once knew him at that age. Not that Bruce could talk to Harvey--not… as himself. The man Harvey knew was long, long dead, (or, it would be simpler if that man was dead, and Bruce as he was now was a new man entirely--) and it’s not as though Bruce could ask advice anyway.

Still. Maybe he will send Harvey some flowers they’ve started in the backyard...

Once the Justice League gets out of his living room.

Aside from Superman calling over the phone whenever he seems to please, once a month Martian Manhunter seems to show up, posing as just another social worker or lawyer or family friend, here to check in on how things are going with adoption, or the 501C3, or the… latest cookies out of the oven.

And if it’s not Martian Manhunter helping Dick sneak cookies off the cooling rack, then it’s Wonder Woman, which is somehow even worse.

There are not a lot of situations when Bruce would rather a mind reader with incredible telekinetic powers who could mentally and emotionally cripple him with a thought be in his presence, versus just a very strong lady who could rip him in two by breathing.

Diana Prince has made that situation a monthly occurrence.

She came this time while they were in the garage, putting together a much-overdue car engine. Alfred had insisted on dinner before business. Diana Prince stands in his house for over an hour by the time the rope finally came out and they got down to business. It is an hour too long. Bruce doesn’t think he’s had more than a few words of conversation with her since they moved into Alfred’s townhouse late summer, but he has heard the same questions out of her mouth far too many times.

“Have you been hurt lately?”

“No,” Dick says, because he only patrols on weekends, and Bruce makes sure he’s kept well away from anything that looks like it will have guns.

“Are you being treated well?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy?”

“Y…”

...Bruce blinks for a second, before he realizes that Dick’s teeth are clenched tight and his face is turning faintly to another color.

“Dick…?” Diana says, before Dick gives into the rope, and says the truth.

“No.”

He’s not sure if anyone else can hear the air leave the room, but it does, and Bruce feels his lungs collapse in the vacuum left behind. His stomach shrivels into a ball.

He wants to run from the room, but his feet are too heavy and slow to move, so he just crosses his arms even tighter, and digs his fingers into his ribs.

“...why is that?” Diana asks. She doesn’t even glance back at Bruce when she does it. She doesn’t even glance away in the first place, even as Dick is screwing his eyes shut. The color his face has settled on is red, and blotchy, and fast.

Dick drops the rope from his hand and hiccups.

Bruce can’t move to comfort him.

...Diana looks between Dick, and the dropped rope, and pulls it back into the lasso loop. She stands.

“...I’m going to head outside for a bit and give you two some privacy.”

She turns and walks out to the garden, where Alfred is still watering the flowers.

Dick hiccups again, and Bruce is a stranger in his own body as he sits on the floor cross legged, and pulls Dick into his arms.

...he’s a lot bigger than he was when he was eight and curled into Bruce’s side, just minutes after his parents fell. Bruce puts his hand on the kid’s head, fingers running through the cropped dark hair.

“...Dick?” Bruce says. “Dick?”

He doesn’t get a response. He sits there, uncomfortably rubbing Dick’s hair, until Diana returns some long minutes later, announcing it’s about time she headed out.

“I’ll see you next month,” she says, mostly to Dick, who still hasn’t looked up.

Even as Bruce wonders if it’s a threat, something in his chest loosens when Diana leaves and Dick stays behind.

Eventually, they get up, and try to get ready for bed.

—

Harvey Dent wakes up again.

The last thing he remembers is a gun being pulled on him; a court case that he had to win, no matter what—

The nurses are alerted to his consciousness by the sound of his screaming.

Bruce Malone has no reason to visit him. No clearance. No nothing. All he does is run a small nonprofit startup, currently sending out applications to the very criminals Harvey put behind bars.

He doubts Batman would be welcome.

—

Gotham elects temp-head Rachel Dawes to permanent DA to finish out Harvey’s term by seventeen votes. Bruce doesn’t rig the election, though he thinks of doing so. Instead, he spends the week beforehand trying to disrupt the bribery network connecting the ballot counters to the remaining mob and asking Robin to go make sure the paperless polls aren’t hacked the night before.

...Robin isn’t happy with Bruce going out on his own still. But they compromise, some.

They send Harvey flowers.

They leave a note on Dawes’ desk. An offer, if she needs anything. They don’t want her to end up like her predecessor.

—

In the morning, at the first hint of workable weather, Bruce has some on-parole inmates and recent-releases standing in the middle of the park, shivering, holding shovels and rakes.

This is the first day they’ll be working together and training on the job. There will be a stipend associated with the work. Tools are provided. There’s just—they haven’t done this before. And neither has Bruce Malone, who failed to shake off his kid, Richard, who is sitting off on a picnic table not far away, arms wrapped around his snow pants and pouting furiously.

...He stays quiet as Bruce starts showing the group what they’re supposed to be doing— first snipping the large bushes down to size, raking the sticks and leaves into piles, and then coming up the back with shovels to help define areas for mulch beds around the bushes. Generally they would not be pruning this early into fall, but… the bushes have to go.

It’s step one (ignoring Bruce’s personal twenty-step plan midway through execution) to help keep the park safe and free-er of illegal activities: just being able to see into the damn park.

Once they actually start working, Richard gets up from his perch and glumly takes a rake, helping follow along and pulling the old foliage and branches into a set of neat piles a couple feet out of the way.

It would be one thing if Dick seemed to be having fun, but… he doesn’t really. He’s tolerant enough with the car (whose construction has largely stalled) but he’s never really had the kind of brain like Bruce’s which likes the simple, repetitive patterns of gardening, or kata, or math.

(“I don’t want to stay home,” Dick had said that morning.

“Then wouldn’t going out with a friend be better?” Bruce said over breakfast.

“I don’t have any friends!”

Bruce did not respond to that, and had escorted Dick to the park.)

...they pack up in the later afternoon, when the sun is still high but before banks close-- Bruce gathering up all the direct deposit information for the ones who sound interested in coming back, and paying the rest with checks. Dick waits in the car.

When they drive back home, something big, and blue, and midwestern is already in their kitchen, and is talking to Alfred about pie crust technique.

( Hell. )

Superman is wearing his full goddamn uniform as they enter. He turns and smiles when they come into the living room, raising up one big hand to greet them.

“Hey there! Decided I’d stop by.”

“....You did,” Bruce agrees, while Dick seems to perk up, eyes widening at the very large and blue man leaning on the counter.

Dick had met Superman already. Spent a week at least on the same spaceship as him. Stared him down over Bruce’s unconscious body. Somehow, it wasn’t stopping him from having that bright excitement in his eyes, now.

Maybe Superman was more exciting when he presumably wasn’t here to arrest anyone.

Presumably.

“Uh-huh,” said Superman. “And Mr. Pennyworth was telling me some about how things have been going for you here! Community service work. Sounds good.”

Sounded innocent was more like it. Sounded like prisoners in bright orange vests on the roadsides picking up litter for fifty cents an hour. Doing time, paying back society for all he’d done to it— yeah, he figured it would sound good to Superman.

“It is,” said Bruce.

Dick, maybe in a better mood now that they were out of the Gotham smog, saves him again.

“Are you here for dinner?” Dick asked, not quite on his tiptoes—not on his tiptoes at all, actually.

He’d grown again, Bruce realized. Now he stood almost to Bruce’s ribs, where once he’d had to stretch to reach.

“No, I didn’t think I’d be that welcome,” Superman said, smiling sheepishly, and good. At least he knew. “I’m just the messenger this time. Because we are going to have to start cashing in on that deal we made.”

For a moment, Bruce’s heart stills, and he feels Dick tense just a little bit beside him.

(Is it wrong, for a moment, that he’s still glad that Dick tenses when they both know it won’t be him attacked?)

“Woah, woah, no scary faces—“ Bruce’s face had not changed. “We just need your input. Information sharing, remember? Flash has had some weird things going on in his neighborhood and we thought maybe it’d be something you’d recognize.”

...Right.

Right.

He was getting protection from This League in exchange for cooperation, not just his dignity.

Before he could pull himself back into his body, Superman added, “and Robin too, of course.”

“Robin doesn’t need to—“ Bruce began.

“—Robin would be delighted ,” Dick said, raising his voice unnecessarily high and drowning out Bruce’s own.

Bruce looked down at Dick, mouth flat. Dick stared back up at him, scowling and arms crossed.

“You hate busywork,” said Bruce.

“It’ll be fine!” Said Superman, suddenly in his face , arms moving between him and Dick, pushing them apart, like they were dangerous to each other— “Flash was just going to bring his kid, uh, flash along with him, and thought it would be good for them to meet. Should’ve led with that. Just, giving kids friends in their own age bracket.”

Bruce had stood rock still, staring at the same spot Dick had been, now blocked by Superman’s arms. He did not look away.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “You should’ve led with that.”

—

...the next evening, his attempts at trimming his hair were interrupted by Alfred, who was quick to steal the scissors away and finish things himself. Soon, it was short enough he could slick it back for the first time in… a while. He pulled on one of his better dark turtlenecks. Business slacks. Dark shoes. Dark. Maybe too obviously a hide-away-in-the-background type dark.

They met Flash… on the other side of a zeta beam. Bruce hadn’t ridden one since first being escorted from the Watchtower to Gotham.

He hadn’t forgotten how uncomfortable it was, but it was one thing to remember in the mind and another to be given a reminder in the body.

Neither he nor Dick were in costume. There was no reason for Batman and Robin to suddenly be in Central. There would hopefully be no reason for anyone to suspect Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to travel so far away from their little safe haven and attack.

Flash, however, did have some things to protect still, and so he waited on the other side of the zeta with his bright red costume made darker in the night, and an unfortunately bright smudge of yellow standing beside him.

“Hey, Bats,” Flash said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you nicely this time.”

Bruce was really glad he hadn’t given in to breaking this guy’s legs. That would have made this reintroduction unbearably uncomfortable. As it was, he met the hand slowly, and enough of a sound for acknowledgement.

Flash didn’t say anything about it, turning instead to Dick. “And you! Also glad to see you’re doing fine; hooow’s the ankle. This is my sidekick, Kid Flash.”

There was no time to answer to the ankle before Flash had introduced and thumped the yellow teen him on the back, getting the very encouraging response, “I’m not a kid I’m a teenager, ” which was too obvious to have needed pointing out, considering the cracks in his voice and the speckles acne surrounding his lips. “Don’t embarrass me!”

“I would never do that.”

(While Bruce remained cold in his skin despite the warm night, beside him, Dick let out a little bit of a laugh. Almost a few huffs of one, really. It was softening. It was enough to unfreeze Bruce some and get him going again.)

“You needed help with identification?” said Bruce, stepping forward to end the introductions.

Flash’s expression changed back to serious in a… flash. At least he didn’t look disappointed. Or surprised. “Yeah. Follow me, there’s a place a little more private down the street.”

That place ended up being a deli bakery. One that had very much closed for the evening, and had shuttered its windows for good measure. This made very little difference to Flash, who pulled out a key from a very discreet pocket, and opened the staff door in the back.

“They donate the day-old stuff to me,” Flash said, grinning, like that explained much at all. “Why don’t you kids go see if there’s anything set on top of the counters in the back?”

The little yellow flash made a sound that wasn’t quite a whoop, but wasn’t quite quiet, either.

And then the little hand reached out, grabbed Robin’s wrist, and pulled him through the door behind the counter.

“Woah, easy, chief.”

Flash’s hand wasn’t touching Bruce, no, but it was in front of him, ready to block and restrain in a movement as Bruce took a step forward to follow.

He turned to look at Flash, and met his same hard eyes looking back through Flash’s mask.

“They’re just gonna look around and see if they can find some food. It’s fine.”

Bruce knew that was just what they were doing, of course. He just wanted to— check. Just to make sure. It was a closed up shop of people they didn’t know in a city that was too dark and empty at night, save for a few well-maintained streetlamps and a pair of teenage girls walking down the sidewalk to the seven-eleven, sticking close together in the Midwest fall—-

“Let’s just get a seat and wait for them, and we can get started. How’s that?”

Flash had removed his hand, and was gesturing now to one of the booth seats near the bar. Not by the windows. Maybe far enough from the windows that anyone who looked in and saw a book light on would just assume management was doing the books late.

(Bruce’s jaw was not tight , it was just his teeth kept pressing down together. He sat down across from the seat Flash gestured to. It was better to get through work quickly, and head home.)

“Okay,” said Flash, suddenly in the booth with him. Bruce almost still felt the breeze of the movement as a book-clipped green folder was produced and laid out on the table. “So, this is a case that’s been going on a little while. Take your time and let me know what you think of it.”

The file was pushed over to Bruce’s side of the table, and he took it quietly, removing the clip and flipping it open.

He disregarded the notes and bios and instead turned first to the photos.

...he did not like looking through other people’s photos. All he could think of was that he would have liked a bit closer look at the doorframe, or just a little bit out of angle, or frustration at someone’s focus being a little bit out. That was why you took lots of photos of course, but it was still a gnawing anxiety in him that they were going to just miss something. All he had were his eyes through someone else’s lense and someone else’s word to take for it.

Which he was very bad at liking.

….but that was just what this was, he guessed. The case was from five years prior. A body of an older woman on the floor of an enclosed porch. Broken glass. Gunshot wound to the left shoulder, close enough to the heart she’d probably been dead within a minute or two, long before the first police officers had arrived. A bullet hole in the wall behind her. Fallen out of her chair. Glass window of the porch had shattered. A bullet had been extracted from the wall, looking like a .22– moderately furnished house with plastic sheeting over the couches. Wicker chairs. An expensive security system had captured what were rendered as stills of the moment the bullets entered the cameras view, and a man a minute or so later on the front door at the other side of the house, running inside, presumably to inspect.

There were other things. They seemed comfortably middle to upper-middle class, from the photos, and finally turning to look at the profiles confirmed it. 68. White. Retired with a moderate stipend. Married thirty years. No priors or connections that Bruce might consider linking to any of the people he knew. Just things like public intoxication, driving violations, a few fines—

Her husband was found with her, and owned the same caliber gun that had broken the glass encasement, shot the woman, and knocked her out of her chair before lodging in the wall. He’d run in from across the street to investigate the gunshot, he said. He denied doing the deed, and circumstantial evidence was not enough to make a conviction on��

...Bruce flipped through the folder again, frowning.

Flash, who had pulled out his phone, looked up. “Something?”

“...what is it you want me to say about this?” It was a neatly put together file. Very neatly. No real loose ends, if everything in it was true. What was he supposed to be catching, here?

“Just, I guess, your thoughts. Anything stand out?” He took the moment to arch his back and stretch his arms out a bit, one hand still holding the phone. Smiled a bit. Friendly.

Bruce frowned while looking at Flash this time.

“This is a test,” he stated, “and I doubt just to see if I’d throw out a name just to be ‘useful.’”

Flash blinked innocently at him, but he was still smiling. “I mean, haha, can’t blame us too much…? You found a lot of trafficking chains, but, I mean—“

“The case has already been closed, and you’re certain of who did it,” said Bruce flatly. He flipped the folder shut and shoved it back across the table. “I’d rather see the scene myself, but if the numbers are right, the bullet hole is too steep an angle for a flat lawn if the husband shot from shoulder height. Someone half his height, or someone kneeling or lying in the grass. He’s old enough to have trouble getting up from that position, much less from the edge of the yard, to run around to the front of the house and avoid grass stains from a new cut lawn. There’s not enough other information to know who might’ve had a motive to make it professional or not.”

…

Flash blinked at him, leaning his elbows on the table to watch. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. Good.

“Yeah,” Flash said. Moved the folder off the table, to the booth seat, out of view. “Some kids were playing with their new .22 in the yard across from the house and accidentally shot her through the window. They confessed a few months ago.”

It was a small enough crime that news wouldn’t have made it to Gotham. Or been widely publicized at all, if ‘kids’ meant they were still minors. That would make them thirteen at most at the time of the shooting—

Bruce wasn’t sure if his throat was full of acid or metal as he said, “Is there anything else for me to look over?”

Flash hesitated a moment (an eternity for him, surely) and said, “Well…”

Bruce stood and made a straight fucking line to the door Dick had been pulled in and not yet emerged. Flash called out, “Hey—!”

….even as the hand fell on his shoulder and tried to pull him back, Bruce had frozen in the doorway.

On the other side, he could only see a bit— the doorframe was too narrow and he dared not step closer—but he could see enough.

He’d wondered, a little bit, why Robin hadn’t emerged when he’d begun speaking. Surely he was loud enough to be heard from the back room. They were only meant to be separated minutes. Just a quick mission. Now, he could see, though—

Dick, sitting on an industrial chest freezer, his legs kicking, not near touching the floor.

He was holding a popsicle. One of the fudge ones. Partly eaten and the top of the stick beginning to show, and Robin didn’t see how it was beginning to drip down over the crinkled plastic wrap, and would soon run over his fingers.

He was busy, looking at Kid Fash. Kid Flash squatting on the floor with a creamsicle, holding it up to the color of his suit, and visibly whining with an orange tongue, a pouting face—

And Robin ignored his own melting ice cream to laugh.

...Flash’s hand tugged on his shoulder again, this time gentle enough that Bruce felt it. He turned with the pressure, and headed back for the booth.

He sat down in it, across from Flash and his already-solved case folder.

“...this was not for case files, was it,” Bruce said, staring at the table between them, feeling very stupid and small.

“I mean,” Flash said, looking almost as embarrassed as Bruce was shamed. “...we did want to know. But… we thought maybe my uh, my cousin could use someone who could relate to him.”

Ah yes. For Kid Flash’s sake. For the boy who they’d never seen publicized before, who was complaining about his outfit color as if he hadn’t chosen it, who didn’t know that in Flash’s ‘occasional empty diner hideout’ he was allowed to run off and eat before being told.

Not for the boy that for the past month Diana’s pitying face had hung over, the boy who had eagerly asked to Superman to stay for dinner, and who Martian Manhunter would deliver sleeves of choco cookies to, even though they had more than enough money to purchase a box for themselves.

...perhaps Bruce should be glad Flash wasn’t the best at lying. Perhaps Bruce was too used to looking for tells, and mistook super speed masking for the truth.

“I see,” was all he said.

When he’d been a child, there had been plenty of others who knew death, and who had never moved him an inch for all their crying. He’d done his best to make that untrue for Dick the past few years, and now they knew each other’s grief inside and out.

Bruce did not know what else to do from there.

It was grief all the way down.

“He’ll need to learn how to counter people who might actually know how to fight speedsters,” he said, watching the table. “There’s pads in the basement, if he’d like to improve sparring with Dick sometimes.”

Flash blinked at him again. Flash sat up straighter, grinning. “Oh?”

“Oh,” Bruce agreed, looking up to scowl. “But for fuck’s sake, bring more than one casefile next time.”

—

On Robin’s anniversary, a gang fight breaks out in the Diamond District.

Something gone wrong. A shootout.

Bruce isn’t sure if it could’ve been called a shootout before the police arrive. By the end of the night, the building is on fire, and a gas vein has blown. Heavy smoke drifting down the street causes a panic, and then a stampede—

He doesn’t want to let Robin out tonight.

On the news, it looks like there are fights breaking out in the stampede. There are people lying down, specks of color on the ground as the helicopter news anchor tries to describe the scene. She’s pure professional. Cold eyes. Clear eyes.

The smoke momentarily engulfs the helicopter, and she begins crying.

He does not want to let Robin out tonight.

He will deal with the outrage in the morning.

—

(On Robin’s anniversary, Harvey Dent sees the fires and hears gunshots from his hospital room. He drags himself and his IV stand away from the bed, towards the window, and fumbles with the latch with ineffective hands. The nurses come with the heart monitor alert. When they sedate him, Harvey is still screaming “Burn it down, burn it down.” )

—

...as often as it happens, Bruce doesn’t think Gotham knows how to deal with tragedy. Wasn’t it common by now? Weren’t they used to it? But as much as the flags should’ve flown half mast and statues been erected, the world stood still— the next morning, school busses take the children to school, and their parents march out to work.

Bruce has a distinct face, but with enough makeup and a red wig, he can seem to be a different person for a while. He can dress himself up as officer and with enough confidence and disdain walk right passed the caution tape and into the crime scene the next morning.

Is it still accurate to call several city blocks a crime scene? Is it a crime scene at all?

There’s caution tape around it. He knows what the words mean in his head. A shape, more than a real definition, with real letters attached— a block of space that has crumbled differently from the world around him. A depression of buildings, some with more tarps laid down than others.

Most of the bodies have been taken to the morgue by now. Not all of them. But most.

Is he going to sneak into the morgue tonight? Is he going to cut open an innocent person who gave no consent to him? To do more than what their family may have agreed to? Will he just steal the coroner’s report and assume they did their jobs properly?

….it is Gotham. He will assume nothing until proven otherwise. Even now it feels like the police are more rattled than usual, like something has actually gone and bitten them and made them pay a bit more attention.

Inside the building where the shootout started, he starts to look for the bullet holes and take pictures. He looks for scorch marks to track towards the origins of the blaze.

He doesn’t find a blown gas vein, no matter how hard he looks.

There was a difference between a storage building and a warehouse. This was a storage building. It had perhaps had a secretary and some organizers. Someone in charge of keeping track of records. There had been unused parts of the building. Bare rooms without much beyond stripped light switches and unpainted walls. One or two empty office spaces, for meetings perhaps. For presentations.

It was on the second floor where he found the lab. What appeared to be the remains of a lab, in any case. It had been shot up through the floors, and the papers had burnt up in the fire. Police hadn’t officially come up this high yet. The stairs didn’t seem stable. Bruce had not specifically used the stairs. As long as no one saw him slip back down, it would be fine.

It seemed as if the lab had not been in use at the time of the shootout. Fortunate. The beakers were broken, but they were all clustered together near the sink, clean, and so presumably had all been put away after any use. There was nothing sitting out that seemed to have been mid-use. He would’ve believed a Bunsen burner might’ve started part of the fire, but there was none of that, either.

...there was one thing. A broken tankard in the corner that had caused most of the damage, to be certain. A high caliber round seemed to have punctured it, either from the floor below or fired from the hall outside. Otherwise, there would’ve been another body up here, or at least the remnants of one. But the sudden decompression seemed to have mostly left just… a badly scattered room and shrapnel damage on the opposing wall.

He was about to move to the next room when he noticed the faint texture inside the tank and a matching sort of stain on the ceiling above.

...he moved closer to the tank, holding his breath and not daring to hope (should he be hoping for something?) and investigated.

A thin layer of green-ish white powder layered the insides of the tankard. An explosive cloud of the stuff must have also flown towards the ceiling and stained it during decompression. He’d assumed it was an oxygen tank. Assumed wrong.

Taking out a few q-tips, he picked up a few wipes and sealed them away in an evidence bag, did another once-over of the room, now trying to double check everything and ignore his ‘assumptions’, but the burnt papers remained largely illegible, and the cleaned lab materials yielded nothing new.

He moved on to the next room, and slipped out quietly from there to check the rest of the street.

—

He arrived back home in different clothes just about the time that Dick (picked up by Alfred) returned home from school.

The kid looks at Bruce as Bruce enters the front room, and a silent but perceptible drone passes between them.

For a moment, Bruce simply looked back, wondering what it was he was supposed to say here.

Eventually, he fumbles in his pockets and pulled out dust-covered q-tips. They’d done this lots of times on the road, hadn’t they? And it had been fun, then. “Want to help identify oddly colored dust?”

Dick lets his head drop back with an open-mouthed groan at the ceiling, but he does come to the garage lab without… any other response than that sound and movement.

...Bruce was not sure what that meant.

—

Who the fuck was rigging exploding nitrous oxide cans to deliver green-dyed powdered LSD?

—

Monday, at the park, he tells the ones who show up they can stay and work in the park as they’ve been doing the last two weeks, or they can come with him to help clean up the areas damaged by the fire.

Most of them, eight out of the ten, peel off to go help with the fire damage. He can’t say he expected that. But they wander out of the park, keeping together in a group, and spend the day with magnet sticks picking up nails and crooked metal and stacking bricks up out of the walkway. They hose down the ashes to stop dust and at Bruce’s insistence, scoop the ashes into garbage bags instead of just washing it all into the sewer.

It gets him some weird looks, but no one is ready to argue with him after only working for two weeks, because these are the ones who stayed for that daily stipend-- there’s not a contract here; these ten are the ones who hate this work less than anything else they might’ve had available, so they break out two flat shovels and bag things up, wearing cotton masks to avoid inhalation. Bruce trots back to the park to get the truck and pick up all those bags for disposal.

He’s prepared for the ones they left behind to have skipped out early, unsupervised, but as he rounds the (now lower) hedges to look at their base of operations he finds… they actually have acquired an extra person.

No, the shovels aren’t moving and the hedges don’t look that different from what they’d been like this morning, but that’s still not abandoning a position. And instead they have some soda cans from the nearby vending machine, and are leaning on a termite-eaten picnic table, talking with rapt interest to Dick Grayson.

Bruce paused to take it in a second time. Dick certainly clocked him coming into view even though the kid didn’t turn to look his direction. Dick was still there, though, sitting on the other side of the picnic table with a fizzy orange juice and his legs crossed under himself. It wasn’t Bruce’s day to pick him up, Bruce was certain, and yet he had a moment where he had to think of it again to make sure, and checked his phone, and his pocket schedule. But his instinct was right, and it was indeed Alfred’s day to pick Dick up from school while Bruce worked here in the park--

He started to walk over just as Dick turned and raised a hand in greeting, letting the recruits cue into his presence before he was close enough to startle them. And yet, they were still startled enough to look at their shovels and very obviously say “shit,” even when Bruce was still too far away to actually hear it. Then, one seemed to realize they had cursed in front of a tween, said “shit” again, and smacked themselves on the forehead.

Dick’s nose wrinkled up as he smiled. Bruce couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was a laughter snort.

(He did not acknowledge his jaw untensing as he walked up to Dick who was smiling and sociable again.)

He came over intending to smile and say words and have a nice conversation, and… then he was close enough and realized he didn’t know what to say. Did he tell them not to corrupt Dick? Would they take that as him implying they were poisonous to others? Would Dick take that as him being protective and spoil the mild good mood? If he told them to take the rest of the day off since clearly things weren’t going to happen, was that dismissal? Or was that chasing them off? Would it be a threat to their paycheck, even though he intended to pay the day’s wages fair as always?

Things seemed to be going almost well lately. The park was slowly being cleaned and Dick was in better spirits than he’d been for two days since the anniversary--

“Oh, he stalled out, don’t worry about it.”

It is not embarrassment, but Bruce does snap out of his train of thought and back into the present. “Sorry,” he says, and looks to the two grown men in their baggy jackets and laced up work boots and secondhand hats. “We’re just finishing cleaning up some of the ash. If you come help move the last bit, we’ll all call it a day.”

As they got up and started shuffling away from the picnic table, Bruce did glance at Dick, and after a moment of still confusion, say, “Coming?”

...the expression Dick gives him was not a smile. But he did come.

They throw the garbage bags in the back of the trunk, and pack it largely to the brim. Surreptitiously, before Dick can climb into the passenger seat, Bruce digs out a simple dust mask and hands it to him. With barely a second look, Dick puts it on and rolls down the window before settling in. It’s smooth, and no one asks questions or looks much askance, because he and Dick are good by now at not announcing something is happening that is different than normal to the world at large.

(And Dick has become very good at seeing through that with Bruce, but Bruce is… starting to wonder if perhaps, he has taught Dick too well to hide anything that would draw attention that something was wrong. Like a wounded animal could run on a broken leg, or a predator bleed from the mouth, and neither would ever make a peep.)

They drove the bags of ashes home to hide behind the house’s perimeter walls, and Bruce tried to explain. The dust, and the huge plume of heat and smoke that could’ve blown even heavy particles down the street, and the sort of cues that psychedelics took from the state you were in. How most people probably wouldn’t exactly get a good trip, surrounded by gunfire and smoke. And maybe there was something else he missed, in the ash, unsafe for casual disposal, how he wasn’t certain he hadn’t missed something--

Dick laid his head back on the car seat, sighing through his mask, and Bruce stopped his mumbling.

Glanced over.

“...maybe I can… arrange for Flash to take a look, if you want to come along,” he offered as they pulled onto their street.

Dick sat up a little straighter, a little light in his eyes.

...he wondered, maybe unkindly (but mostly tiredly), if Dick would rather move in with the Flash and his sidekick. He didn’t have any real evidence for this. Kids did tend to be fairly excited to see friends around their own age, and just because someone might enjoy a trip to a festival didn’t mean they wanted to live in one.

...yet, Dick probably would’ve been quite happy, adopted into a renaissance fair circuit.

Maybe it wasn’t that Dick needed more friends. Maybe the issue was Bruce.

But it’s too late to change that now, isn’t it? Dick drew his line in the sand in front of the Justice League, and Bruce had given him too many secrets to have to keep, and there was nowhere else to go.

—

Bruce goes to Gotham Academy early. Very early. Two hours before pickup is meant to be.

Dick has gotten into a fight.

The parents of the other kid are already there when Bruce arrives and is shown to the principal’s office (it is in the same place it has been since Bruce went here) and ushered inside to the sound of anger and snapping threats.

The office is wood, with a centered carpet and a large mahogany desk at the center, and surrounded by three adults and two children, one of them his.

Dick doesn’t have a scratch on him, unless you count a faint bruise starting to show on his knuckles. The other boy, who is bigger and taller in every way, has a tissue up to his nose and an ice pack on his ear, and is simultaneously shielded and towered over by his two parents, neither of whom have stopped arguing with the principal since Bruce arrived.

He barely gets a chance to get to Dick’s chair by the wall when he is also pulled into the argument by a “Is this little heathen yours, Mister Malone?” from the mother.

Things are not going to improve from there, he’s pretty sure.

“What’s going on?” he asks the principal instead, who is a balding white man with age spots on his face and horn-rimmed glasses on his nose.

“ Master Richard here has assaulted Master Reynolds--” the principal begins.

“--and we will be pressing charges if adequate disciplinary action is not taken,” says the father.

“But what actually happened,” Bruce says, and somehow the noise gets louder in the room. Not the physical noise of three or four people talking at once, but also the hot dissent from Dick in his corner, the hidden bloodied fear of the boy he attacked, the principal patting the desk with his hands over and over, trying to call attention back to himself. Fluorescent lights bright as static. Itchy polyester fake turkish carpets even though his shoes. The room is small and red-orange with wood stained to look like cherry, yellow copper accents on the studs of cushions and trophies and the frames of portraits and certificates hung on the clustered walls--

Dick is suspended three weeks.

Dick is curled in the front seat of the car, furious that Bruce didn’t defend him enough and fight back, and get his sentence reduced or vetoed entirely. His body is balled up tight enough he’s no bigger than he was at eight, curled around the seatbelt in a haze of fury.

“He was picking on people ,” Dick says in a way Bruce knows means Dick had seen it before, but this time it had crossed a line. “ He should be suspended.”

‘He’ is getting two stitches and a formal apology written (ostensibly) by Dick. Dick will not be the one writing it, even if it’s his name at the bottom. ‘He’ will be in school, not in trouble for bullying but now with free reign to his targets without Dick to stand in the way. If Dick was even in the way before at all. If being in the way without being physical meant anything in this case.

“You’ll just have to be more subtle about it,” Bruce says, trying to be encouraging. Because Dick didn’t do anything wrong to step in. Maybe it didn’t deserve a bloody nose, maybe it could’ve been handled some other way, but he still hasn’t been able to wrangle the exact story out of anyone but he is certain that--

Dick goes “RRR” and kicks the windshield hard enough that Bruce startles and slams on the breaks.

Their seatbelts jerk tight and a car horn behind them blares.

...there is the faintest tap on their bumper, but Bruce is already speeding the car forward again, heart pounding too hard to stop.

There’s not even a scratch when they get out at their house later.

He goes to Dick’s bedside in the evening. Dick’s lying on top of his covers with the lights turned off in a darkening room, staring at the wall opposite the door. There was music playing before, but the CD player turned off as soon as Bruce turned the door handle.

He sits by Dick’s bedside and asks if he’d like to go out for the evening.

Dick agrees, but there isn’t much laughter that night, except the sort Robin scares people with.

The mood is still there the next morning.

It is Superman’s turn to check in. Apparently.

The visit is unscheduled (and probably because of Dick’s suspension) and today involves casserole, which Bruce is primed automatically to dislike.

"Yes?" Bruce says upon seeing big blue and buoyant in their kitchen, hovering over the kitchen island with a glass dish covered in aluminium and Alfred looking over a handwritten paper beside him.

"Oh, hey, good morning there," Superman says, as if he's surprised to see Bruce here when there was no other person for him to be there to see . "I was just dropping off the casserole recipe Alfred wanted to try."

…one of the only people for him to be here to see. But Bruce still doubted a casserole was a real reason for a whole visit. So Bruce tries again. "Did you need something?"

Alfred looks up from the paper with a frown and without a word starts shooing them out of the cooking space if they're going to be talking business. "I dunno. Was there something you needed to talk about?"

They make it to the couches of the living room, though neither of them sit down.

"No," says Bruce.

"Alright then," says Superman, who Bruce is learning is an asshole. "I heard some stuff happened with Dick at school?"

Which is entirely unsubtle and a very clear sign that Superman is not leaving until Bruce asks some sort of question or resolves whatever this is.

So fine. Bruce hasn't even had some fucking coffee yet. He'll ask a question. "What would you do if your child, who is aware that at nightime they can go out and punch abusers and rapists, during the daytime attempted to defend an underclassman, and as a result are threatened with criminal action or suspension while you are trying to lie low and causing a big fuss about it and fighting the decision will do the exact opposite of laying low, severely limiting their freedom regardless of if we win."

Like a coward, Superman's expression says he had been thinking of Dick as a kid who was not Dick , and sheepishly says, "I guess, what would your parents do?"

Bruce thinks he feels it this time. The expression on his face turning colder. He feels it the same way Dick can always see the change. "I wouldn't know that, now, would I?"

...this was why he left in the first place, wasn't it. This eternal loop of days upon days surrounded by people who just forgot or never could let him forget. It's been easier as an adult, almost-- it's normal now for people's parents to be dead. It's normal to not have people ask after them like limbs they can't see have detached. Even if Superman doesn't know his old name, doesn't know that stupid story about a boy billionaire and his rich family, its jarring to realize that even the most alien being on earth just assumes--

--well, of course. He would know all humans have parents.

But the bite in Bruce's voice is cold enough, and the way Alfred's slight shuffling in the kitchen goes quiet, it's enough to get through apparently-- Superman's head is ducked down embarrassed and he says, "right, sorry," because perhaps Bruce returning to Gotham to the fucking Wayne Butler's House should've been enough reason to realize he didn't have any family left of his own. "The person who raised you…"

"Nothing they said," Bruce interrupts, "has ever done anything about this."

…

Maybe he's angry. He hasn't had any coffee yet. But he turns to end this conversation and walk out to the garden, and hears Alfred's sigh from the kitchen.

But he's telling the truth.

Even if Alfred had found something new to say in the years since Bruce tried to bite his therapist's face off, if he's tried to say it to Dick, it clearly hasn't been working.

There is a thing like a piston beating up against his head. A hammering rhythmically at the front of his skull. One thing, then another, then another, then another, and when he wakes up the next morning to one more ring there will still be all the ones behind him, echoing through the halls still unresolved.

He wasn’t made to live like this. How was anyone made to live like this? One thing after another and another and when he wakes up in the morning there are still more banal, useless things to do in a world that eats up and eats up and eats up--

How does the grocery store clerk wake up each morning? How does she go to bed at night knowing the same thing will happen the next day, but worse, and more tired, and less pay, over and over, for eternity.

#batman #dick grayson #bruce wayne #robin #fanfic #roadtrip vigilantes

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jasontoddiefor · 5 years ago

Text

Title: Robin’s Requirements Summary: The name’s Robin,” the kid said with Dick’s smirk and Jason’s accent. Bruce felt ice crawl up his veins. He was going to throw up.Robin number three wasn’t human and Bruce didn’t know how keep going after Jason’s death. They make it work (after a rough start). AN: I decided to put up all the chapters I’ve posted of this story so far in proper order on tumblr since some people prefer reading here. Here’s the AO3 link to the story! I update weekly!

Chapter 1

Summer in Gotham was almost unbearable. The smoke and ashes lingering in the air mixed with the heat radiated from the asphalt to create an atmosphere that made it difficult to breathe or even just move in. In-between the tall skyscrapers and the houses squished into spaces much too small for them, you got the closest you could be to the experience of boiling to death without actually dying.

Winter may freeze your limbs, break away one finger after another, but summer’s heat, similar to the blast of an explosion, burned away your skin.

The summer nights appeared to be the much kinder, softer counterpart to the day time for the poor creatures who had to make their way through dark alleys.

It was a farce.

Gotham wasn’t kind, she hadn’t been in a long time.

The coolness of the darkness lulled you into a false sense of security. You were exhausted already, scared of the shadows too maybe if you weren’t used to them, or if you knew what lingered beyond them, but at least death didn’t await you in the sun’s divine punishment.

A logical but wrong assumption.

Grim hunters stalked the dark, waiting for you to slip up, to make a mistake.

Or at least, they used to be there to sink their teeth into you.

For the longest time Gotham had been protected by three guardians, predators, but nowadays you only ever spotted one of them, and if you did, you were better off to slice your own throat, or so they said.

Nobody had ever attempted to deny that meetings with the Bat could get bloody, especially if you provoked him. Still, they didn’t used to look like a war zone, entrails spread over the grey asphalt as empty eyes judged you for all the horrors you committed. The Bat used to be kinder, more forgiving, more understanding.

He wasn’t anymore. He had broken like Gotham had so many decades ago.

He still protected the weak, the needy, the helpless, but he no longer fought for the damned.

Instead of being their ferryman, he brought them directly to hell. It wasn’t death, not yet, but by the time he was done, you would wish for it.

People wondered what had changed right up until the Joker nearly choked on his acid laughter in the Bat’s arms, laughing about little songbirds cut up so badly you couldn’t tell the red of their feather coat from their blood.

It made sense then that the Bat would start to lose control. Everybody knew that the little Robin was off-limits. You try to could hurt and maim him, or break him for sure, these were the rules of the streets, and if he wanted to fly through them, he had to acknowledge them, but only ever as long as the Bat was your actual target.

You did not target Robin, Gotham loved him.

(There was a price to be paid for his death.)

“Duke, honey, it’s time for bed!”

“I know, Mom! Just five more minutes!”

Duke Thomas considered himself to be a regular ten-year-old. He loved video games, Star Wars, his Mom’s cooking, his Dad’s jokes, and, above everything, Robin Spotting. It was so much fun to stay up late, hoping to catch a glimpse of that colorful uniform or hear the joyful laughter.

Duke had actually seen Robin once too, on his fire escape. The hero had smiled at him and then put his index finger on his lips, indicating for Duke to be silent. Caught up in his excitement, Duke hadn’t even been able to speak to the hero or do anything but stand at his window, jumping up and down. He had watched as Batman caught up with Robin and the duo had flown away, Robin pretty much glued to Batman’s side.

The alley beneath Duke’s window was dark and dirty, but the heroes had been able to light it up.

And now Robin was gone.

Duke couldn’t believe it.

The police hadn’t said anything about Robin’s disappearance. Duke checked the news every day when his parents weren’t watching him too closely, lest they start thinking he wanted to watch those instead of his cartoons, hoping to hear about something interesting that wasn’t economics. However, the papers had plenty to say about Robin. His Mom called them ‘gossip rags Duke was better off not paying too much attention to’, but he had read them regardless.

The papers claimed Robin was dead, said that the Joker had killed him.

Duke was sure they were lying.

Robin was magical, Robin couldn’t die.

(But the Joker rarely appeared to be human either.)

Maybe somebody just had to remind Robin that he was still needed here. Duke sometimes got so caught up in his thoughts, he forgot to do his homework. It was probably something similar for Robin

“Duke, lights out!” His Dad said when he passed by Duke’s room.

“Just one more minute!” Duke pleaded, not even looking up from his desk.

“Alright, alright.” Dad laughed. “But you have to tell me what you’re writing.”

He entered the room and stepped closer to take a look at the sheet of paper Duke had been writing on, but Duke quickly pulled it to his chest to hide his scribbles.

“No! You can’t see it! It will take away the magic.”

You didn’t show your parents the letter for Santa either, or it wouldn’t get to Santa. Of course, the latter wasn’t real, but Robin was. And honestly, there were rules about this kind of magic – his parents should know them.

Dad just raised his hands in defeat, still smiling in amusement.

“Okay, buddy, but tomorrow you have to share with the class.”

Duke frowned, unsure whether that would be enough time for Robin to get his letter.

“Later,” Duke yielded. “Once I know it worked.”

Dad’s smile softened and he patted Duke’s shoulder.

“Only one more minute, then bedtime. You have school tomorrow and I don’t want to get another call about you falling asleep in class.”

Duke huffed, but couldn’t hide his happy smile. “That was only once!”

“Once enough. Sleep well, kid.”

“Night, Dad.”

Dad walked out of Duke’s room, closing the door behind him so that Duke was staring at the Justice League poster pinned to the wood. Batman needed Robin, so Duke would remind the short hero that he had to come home.

He quickly finished his letter, packed it in transparent cover, and hid it away in his Super Secret Special box. It was actually just a shoebox he had painted yellow and orange and decorated with plastic gemstones, but Duke loved it. Then he turned off the light and crawled into his bed. Duke took his alarm clock from the nightstand and set the alarm for a few minutes before midnight. He wasn’t sure whether twelve o’clock really was the right time, but it seemed very important in a lot of movies, so Duke figured if he had to choose, he might as well go with this time. If he succeeded, he’d maybe write to the police as well, tell them how to contact Robin since the Bat-signal only worked for Batman.

Falling asleep when he was so nervous turned out to be a chore. It felt just like the evenings before his birthday when he could hear the blood rushing through his ears and it kept him awake for as long as possible.

Duke managed to sink into sleep sometime after his parents had gone to bed as well. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d drifted off right until his alarm rang again and Duke woke up startled. Tiredly, Duke crawled out of his bed and put on his socks to minimize the sound he made. He picked put the box and began tonight’s journey.

When he opened the door, he winced at the jarring sound. Even if he tried to be as slow as possible, the door refused to stay silent. Duke halted to listen if his parents still slept. His father’s snoring turned out to be a rather practical way of measuring it. Thankfully, his parents also didn’t wake when Duke stole the house keys out of his mother’s purse. With his box in hand, Duke sneaked out of the apartment and headed towards the stairs leading up to the rooftop.

The air inside the staircase was stuffy, receiving no circulation whatsoever. On tiptoes, Duke walked past the doors of his neighbors, being exceptionally careful when he passed the apartment of Ms. Norrington. She was, in the words of his usually calm and kind mother, a mean old witch, except she hadn’t said witch, but another word starting with a ‘b’ that Duke was too frightful to repeat. The old lady and her ugly little dog always watched Duke and his friend with her mean big blue eyes, especially when they were carrying toys. In Ms. Norrington’s opinion, there was nothing more terrible than children playing and having fun. One of these days, she wouldn’t even wait until Duke had made a sound, she’d just snatch his football away as soon as she would spot him. Therefore Duke needed to pass her without alarming her.

One step, another, a third and a fourth and Duke had done it. Victoriously, he rushed up the remaining staircases to the rooftop. If his parents knew that he was up here, they’d ground him for sure. None of the kids in the apartment block were supposed to go upstairs because the fence surrounding the roof hadn’t been fixed in ages and someone could get hurt or, even worse, fall off the roof when playing.

Duke thought it was stupid. He wouldn’t ever be dumb enough to fall off a house. However, that hadn’t stopped the adults from locking the door between Duke and his goal. But for that purpose, Duke had snatched his mother’s keys. His own keyring only had the keys for the front and backdoor, one for his bike and one for his Cousin’s home. His mother, on the other hand, did possess a key for the top door.

The lock was rusty and the key wouldn’t turn properly when Duke tried to open it. Duke bit on his tongue in concentration as he twisted the key multiple times until finally, after what felt like ages, the door clicked and opened.

Duke slowly closed it behind himself again, as to avoid the wind pushing it into the lock again with a loud BAM! Certainly, old Ms. Norrington would wake from that. Duke would just have to hurry and be finished before she managed to get out of bed, put on her pink shoes, ugly old and gray bathrobe and made it to the door.

Gotham was an ugly city according to the news, but Duke had long since learned not to trust them. Sure, the city could be a bit cleaner, but monuments like the shining WE building or the green Robinson park in the distance were signs that Gotham wasn’t as shitty as people claimed. The breeze here up on the rooftop was quite enjoyable too. They should tell their landlord to repair the fence quickly so that Duke could play Batman and Robin with his friends up here. That would be way cooler than going to the playground. Here they would be up on a real rooftop and didn’t have to pretend the monkey bars were the top of the Crystal Palace. Thinking of his two heroes, Duke reminded himself of his mission.

He looked around for the best spot to put his letter and settled on the water tank. A short ladder was leading up to it and so, with his box secured under his arms, Duke began to climb. He slipped nearly once or twice, but always managed to catch himself at the last second.

Once he reached the top, he allowed himself to sit down just to catch a quick breath. He was working on a schedule after all.

Duke set his box down next to him and took off the cover, revealing his letter to Robin and his most prized possession: a Batarang.

He’d found it in the trash a while ago and ever since he had the supreme right to always play Batman if he wanted to. He hadn’t told his parents about it because he knew they’d take it away, even if Duke didn’t take it outside his room usually. Why would he? He didn’t want it to get stolen by others!

Duke reached for the Batarang and then traced its edges with his fingers. It was still sharp, if he wasn’t careful he’d cut himself.

Duke didn’t have a Bat-signal, but he also didn’t want to attract that much attention. He was sure that if he just scratched something in the wooden surface of the water tank, Robin would spot it sooner or later. With the sharp side of the weapon, Duke began to scratch a big R into the wood. He made sure his carvings were deep enough that they’d be seen from above.

Then, with as much might as Duke could measure up, he rammed the Batarang through his letter into the wood so that it wouldn’t just fly away when left unsupervised.

There, his work was done.

Content with himself, Duke allowed himself to observe Gotham for a little while longer, forgetting Ms. Norrington for a moment. He wouldn’t get a sight as neat as this one again in a long while.

Duke climbed down from the water tank and returned inside. He made it past Ms. Norrington’s door and slipped into his apartment and room, his parents still sound asleep and none the wiser of Duke’s little adventure.

Yawning, Duke pulled his blanket over his head. It was sad that he had to give up his Batarang, but maybe he’d get a new one once Robin returned. And Duke didn’t mind playing other heroes.

After all, now it was really just a question of time.

Beneath him, the city was wide awake, even during such late hours. He should probably return to the Cave for tonight, he didn’t have any supplies besides the one lone Batarang. While he was sure that his wit alone would suffice to support Batman, a utility belt filled with all kinds of tricky equipment would be immense support, never mind much more fun.

He was already on the move, heading home for the first time, when Gotham started screaming for help. Her shouts spoke of fear, of a terrified mother scared for her children’s safety.

Somebody was threatening her - who?

Batman wouldn’t approve of it, he was sure, but generally speaking, it wasn’t his job to listen to Batman. He was there to support the Bat and, more importantly, keep Gotham safe. He couldn’t do that from the Cave.

With a wild grin, he jumped from the rooftop, executing a perfect landing on the balcony of the next house. Quickly he moved forward, making his way through the cold September air to come to Gotham’s aid.

He was Robin.

He had been born for this.

#dc #batman #bruce wayne #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #Alfred Pennyworth #fanfic #robin's requirements #dc comics

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goodmythicalshipping · 6 years ago

Text

A Bag of Tricks (One-Shot)

🎃 Happy Halloween, Mythical Beasts! 🎃

Proud to announce this morning that I’ve written a new one-shot fic, which is now available below or on my AO3 page! Hope you like it, have a great day!

❤️ Sage

(Shoot me your ideas for future fics in my ask box!)

Summary: In a sudden turn of events, middle schoolers and best friends Rhett and Link receive a bit more than just candy on Halloween night.

The scent of warm sugar and burning wood permeated through the dimly lit streets of Buies Creek, as children of all ages, dressed in costumes from such hit movies as Terminator and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, scoured doorsteps for seasonal treats. A full moon hung above the horizon, shining a faint light on the neighborhood’s many rooftops, each letting out puffs of chimney smoke that soon vanished into the cool autumn air. Already hoisting large bags of goodies over their shoulders, a group of enthusiastic eighth-graders approached their next house.

“Hurry up!” one of them hollered back toward the rest of the group that dragged on behind him. “I heard this house gives out mega-sized Push Pops!”

“You’ve said that about nearly every house!” a girl chimed in, causing the first boy to mutter under his breath as he raced ahead of her to the front door. At the rear of the group trekked two slender boys, the taller one dressed as Batman and the shorter as Robin. Shaking his pillowcase, which was nearly filled to the brim with sweets, the smaller brunette looked up at his friend.

“Whadd’ya think, bo? Y’think I got enough room here for another bag of Sour Patch Kids?” Link chirped.

“D’ya even like Sour Patch Kids?” the blonde laughed. “Yer gonna have a lotta candy to sort through once we get back, and I bet’cha half of it’s goin’ t’me!”

“You wish, McLaughlin!” Link retorted, grinning widely. “Race ya t’the porch!”

And with that, the two boys nearly tripped on the lawn on their way to beat each other to their neighbors’ patio, with Rhett just barely pulling ahead due to his long legs.

“See, what’d I tell ya? Y’owe me two Airheads fer that one, bo,” Rhett claimed, to which Link rolled his eyes. As the group held out their bags to be filled, another boy looked at the brightly-colored Surf Leash Shark watch on his wrist.

“Hey, it’s gettin’ t’be pretty late, m’legs are startin’ to ache,” he announced to the troop of kids surrounding him. “Should we head back t’my place?”

Nodding in agreement, the band of exhausted children made their way to the boy’s parents’ house, descending into the basement to exchange prizes and enjoy the rest of their evening.

“Annnnnd I’ll be takin’ those!” Rhett stated, scooping up a red and blue Airhead from Link’s pile.

“Hey! I didn’t think y’were serious!” Link frowned.

“I won fair ‘n square, bo!” the older boy answered. “Don’t worry, I’ll give ya my box of Nerds for ‘em.”

The blue-eyed boy smiled at Rhett’s gesture, face reddening slightly at his kindness. The group soon found themselves immersed in The Goonies, which played on the large box television set in front of them. As the two boys sat next to each other on the couch, surrounded by their classmates, Rhett draped one of his lengthy arms over Link’s head and behind the cushion. To anyone else, this would mean nothing. However, given their proximity, Link found himself blushing an even deeper shade of pink. He tried to focus his gaze on the screen and silently prayed that his sidekick mask shielded his now-rosy cheeks. He occasionally peeked up at his superhero counterpart through his peripheral vision, who was seemingly unaffected by their closeness.

About an hour of the film went by before one brown-haired girl dressed as Scarlett O’Hara yawned and suddenly spoke up.

“I’m bored!” she exclaimed. “Anyone wanna play a game instead?”

Almost instantly, the movie was paused and the children debated on what they should play, suggesting games such as hide and seek versus truth or dare. Finally, somehow, the group unanimously decided on “7 Minutes in Heaven,” much to Link’s chagrin. He had never kissed anyone before, despite previously having one girlfriend. Therefore, he was wildly inexperienced when it came down to it. He wasn’t sure if the same applied to Rhett, who normally shared everything with him. Still, it was possible Rhett would have kept the details of his love life a secret from him up until this point…

The pre-teens sat in a large circle in the center of the room, placing an empty Coke bottle in the middle. One girl started the game and, soon enough, one by one they paired off, disappearing down the hall and into the large closet, only to return minutes later. With each spin, Link’s heartbeat increased, using all of his mental energy to wish that it wouldn’t land on Rhett.

As they went around the room, it seemed that the dark-haired boy had gotten his wish, as no girl in the room landed on his taller friend. Rhett pouted, eager for it to finally be his turn.

“Hey, what gives?” he whined. “How’s it we’ve been at this fer nearly 30 minutes, and no one’s picked me yet?!”

“Quit yer wailin’, Rhett,” another boy rebutted, handing him the bottle. “S’yer turn anyway!”

Rhett just gawked at it, quickly becoming very quiet. Link watched him in suspense as Rhett gulped, almost loudly enough to be the only noise in the room. The green-eyed boy felt the area around his brow become damp, not letting it show since he was wearing what was almost a full-face mask.

“S’matter, McLaughlin? Y’chicken?” the boy taunted, clucking as their classmates giggled along.

“No way!” Rhett countered, snatching the bottle out of the boy’s hand and planting it in front of him. Link’s eyes widened as he spun it swiftly, unknowingly gaping at it as it slowed down and at long last landed on…

...him.

Link couldn’t do anything but just stare at the glass bottle pointed directly at him, as if he was frozen in place. The other children let out a gasp as Rhett bulged out his eyes in terror.

“Ha! Rhett’s gotta kiss Link!” another girl declared, allowing the other children to whoop loudly. Link began to panic, slowly raising his head to meet his best friend’s equally-stunned gaze. Rhett, his best friend since the first grade… and now he was supposed to be his first kiss?! Both completely unsure of what to do in that moment, they were soon blindly lifted off the floor by their friends and shoved down the hallway toward the walk-in closet. They didn’t even have enough time to process what was happening before they were pushed inside, hearing a boy’s voice on the other side of the closed door.

“Yer seven minutes starts now, don’t come out until yer time’s up!” he teased, cackling as he walked away.

Inside the closet, the two friends could barely make out each other’s faces in the dark. The shorter boy trembled, feeling like he was going to implode. Rhett was just as overwhelmed and the two just stood there in silence, letting some minutes pass before deciding to take action. As Rhett was about to speak up, the other boy began rambling.

“Hey, uh, listen Rhett,” Link ranted. “I know they threw us in here expectin’ us t’do somethin’, but you should know that I don’t expect nothin’ from ya! I dunno what you’ve done before or who with, but I’ve never kissed anyone and was kinda hopin’ it would be somethin’ special… not that it wouldn’t be with you! I’d actually really like t’kiss ya, only if that’s what you wanted, but- oh gosh, this is comin’ out wrong… y’know what I mean, right? I don’t wanna make y’do anythin’ you don’t wanna, or if y’do at least not like this, but-”

Ripping off his bat mask, the brunette was suddenly cut off by Rhett’s soft lips pressing against his, startling him as Rhett moved to embrace the shorter boy. The kiss was awkward at first, with both of them not knowing what to do next. A brief moment passed before they eased into it, and soon Link’s own arms were wrapped around the taller boy’s neck to bring him closer as their lips moved slowly in perfect rhythm. Link’s tanned skin turned a bright shade of crimson as Rhett craned his neck down to deepen the kiss.

Needing to catch their breath, the duo finally separated and looked into each other’s eyes beaming.

“Wow,” Link breathed out, causing Rhett to chuckle.

“Hey, if m’bein’ honest, Link… that was my first kiss, too.”

“Really?” Link questioned. “...well, what’d y’think of it?”

“...y’taste like Nerds.”

“Shut up!” Link squealed, playfully smacking Rhett’s arm as they both chortled, leaving the enclosed space to regroup with the others.

Ironically, Halloween had never been so sweet.

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