Chapter Text
“So, Mister Batman- or, are you even a mister? I mean, people do call you Batman, but people call me a lot of things too, and not all of them are true…”
The child in the dirty, tattered hoodie that was much too large for his too-small frame danced around the edge of the roof, feet right in front of each other and arms out as he walked. He teetered close to falling from the fifty feet drop several times, but never fell. Not that the Batman would not have caught him if he had.
“...like maybe man isn’t even a gender, but a title in another language! I know a lot of languages, but not all of them…” the child was still chattering. He did a little flip and landed on one foot, his whole body leaning towards the promise of a long descent, and the Batman made an aborted movement towards him, ready to catch him if he slipped, but the boy only righted himself and smiled at the Batman, more haunted than any child should look. The Batman knew that smile, it was from these smiles -the ones on Gotham’s young that buried their bitterness and anger hoped despite their being nothing left to hope for- that the Batman was born, the last line of defense from a world that kept on taking. If a creature like it could feel love, it would be for these kids: Gotham’s forgotten.
“You know,” said the child, his accent thicker than it had been before, slipping out of the Gothamite drawl he’d somehow perfected in the three short weeks since the Batman had first spoke to him,before their talks on rooftops became common, stepping silently between a murderer and a boy about to become one, hellbent on avenging his parents. “I never told how my parents died.”
He teetered even closer to falling, and then took a step back, away from the edge for the first time all night. His cheeky grin finally breaking as raw grief flashed across his face. “They fell.”
The Batman made a surprised grunt, and the smile was back, if a little less bright and a lot more sharp. The Gothamite accent was back too: “bet you didn’t expect that, huh? Bet you though i’d be scared. That’s what all the social workers think. They say I’m unusual. That normal people would be scared. I bet that’s why they put me in kid-jail, because I’m too unusual to have a home like the normal people.”
“Do you…want… a home?” the Batman asked, struggling with the syllables he rarely had to use anymore . Batman had been around long enough that people trusted him, even without him saying anything, but it wasn’t always that way, and there’d been a time when words had been a valuable asset.
The child crossed his arms, eyes bright with an emotion that the Batman, not feeling many things at all, had never learned to describe. It was more complex that just sadness, but it wasn’t very happy either.
“I already had a home. I want it back.”
***
It had been a fight to get Dick Grayson as his ward -people didn’t trust his intentions with a young boy were completely pure- but Bruce was glad he had. The orphan-system in Gotham was something that Bruce hadn’t been able to fix yet, and if he could save even one boy from going through what he had, if he could give one child the father’s support he’d lost, then he could be satisfied that he’d done at least a little good in this world.
Young Richard Grayson stood at the manor-door, gaping, with nothing to unpack, and no possessions but the clothes on his back, and Bruce’s heart ached for the young acrobat he’d caught before the show, laughing alongside his parents as he swung between their arms, and for the boy who’d screamed their names in a language Bruce didn’t know as they lay mangled on the ground, a paramedic pulling him away from them. He reminded Bruce so much of himself that he couldn’t not adopt him right then and there.
As Richard’s eyes swept across the interior of the manor, they fell on Bruce, and…stopped. Richard stayed staring at him, and Bruce, who had no idea what it meant, or what he was supposed to do, fidgeted awkwardly and waved. “Welcome home,” he tried, feeling like he was being judged.
Without warning, Richard’s eyes snapped open, and he bounded up to Bruce so suddenly and quickly that he couldn’t stop the surprised flinch as his new ward jabbed him in the knee, being too short to reach his chest, gaze accusatory.
“It’s you!” Richard exclaimed, and Bruce was very, very confused. Had the social-workers not explained to him who he was moving in with? Had he just recognized Bruce as the famous Bruce-Wayne? Or did he recognize him from that night at the circus somehow?
“It’s me.” Bruce responded, unsure of what else to say. Somehow, he must have said the right thing, because the boy suddenly grinned and hugged him, his short arms barely going around his legs. “I knew it!” Richard exclaimed, bouncing a little on his feet, and then, a little softer, he asked, “Can I fight crime too?”
Children were known to have active imaginations, and Bruce was too busy melting into the warmth of the small arms trapping his calves together and the relief of being trusted so quickly to question it anyways, even if he had had the heart to say no to a traumatized nine-year old, so instead he said: “Sure, Chum”, and absently patted his hair, and within an hour, he’d already forgotten the conversation.
***
“I want this!” Dick pounced on Bruce the moment he opened the door, shoving a paper into his face. Bruce smiled warmly and gently plucked the paper from his hands. “Hello to you too, Dick”.
Dick ignored him, bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet. “Can you make that for me?”
Bruce took a moment to look at the paper again: it was a pretty-good drawing of what looked like the flying Grayson’s uniform, but with a crayon-colored yellow cape and a black mask to go with it. It was obviously a superhero costume, one based off his late parents. Looking at Dick over the edge of the paper, Bruce saw his eager eyes and flushed cheeks, but also the restless fidgeting of his hands that displayed his nervousness, and knew at a glance that this was important to him.
“What’s this superhero’s name, Chum?” Bruce asked as he neatly folded up the paper and put it into his suit pocket to deposit at his desk later, and Dick, seeing the acceptance for what it was, lit up immediately and tackled Bruce’s legs into a hug, almost causing Bruce to trip; he grabbed onto the door frame for support, chuckling under his breath.
“His name’s Robin! And he's not a superhero, he’s a vigilante! He’s Batman’s sidekick,” Dick winked at him cheekily when he said the last part, as if they were both in on the same secret. Taking a guess on what that secret was, because with kids it could be anything, Bruce said: “Not that Batman’s sidekick has anything to do with Bruce Wayne or his son, Richard Grayson.”
He’d never called him his son before, and he half expected Dick to say something along the lines of, “You’re not my dad!”, in which case Bruce would die of a broken heart, but as it was, Dick only giggled, and burying his face in Bruce’s pant leg, added “yup! And Batman definitely has nothing to do with Bruce Wayne either.”
***
Master Bruce would often comment that Alfred seemed like he never aged.
Alfred neither confirmed nor denied this statement. Alfred did not lie, but he was not so fickle with the truth either; if he never mentioned the eldritch being living underneath the Wayne manor: Why, no one ever asked.
Alfred was a being centuries old and slow to trust, and he trusted Master Batman to keep Young Master Dick safe, but he also knew that, if Master Bruce were ever to find out about Master Batman’s new sidekick, he would not only be very upset, but he would likely find out about and try to evict the Master Batman from the manor, which would lead Master Batman to have to either curse or eat him to keep him away, and Alfred had grown rather fond of Master Bruce, and would rather he not be eaten. Thus, things needed to be done to ensure that he would not meet such a fate. One being ensuring that Master Dick knew not to tell him.
“Master Dick,” the young boy, who had been pouting in front of a blank Tv screen- Alfred had ensured that, for the first week at least of Robin’s debut, Master Bruce would not be hearing of him on the news at home, at least (and afterwards, he will, as the youth call it, gaslight Master Bruce into believing that the costume of Master Dick’s was based on the vigilant, and not the other way around), looked up.
“Hi, Alfie!” He chirped, mood immediately brightening as he bounded up to Alfred and hugged his legs. Alfred allowed himself a small smile at the boy’s antics, he really did bring so much joy to the manor. “What’s up?”
“I must ask you a favor pertaining to…Robin”
“Robin?” He perked up at hearing his hero name. “Do you need me to save someone”.
“...yes. I need you to protect Master Bruce”.
“B?” Master Dick tilted his head in a puppy-like manner, confused; “B can protect himself.”
“Of course he can, my boy. But even those who can protect themselves may need help sometimes. Is that not why Robin exists?”
“Y-yeah! It is.” He let go of Alfred’s legs and puffed his chest up importantly; It was rather adorable “What do I do, Alfie?”
“I must ask, my boy, that you not talk about Master Batman and Robin while around Master Bruce.”
“But he already knows all about Batman and Robin.” Master Dick looked confused, the young boy’s eyebrows scrunched together and that puppy-like tilt of his head back.
“He does,” there was no Gothamite out there who didn’t know who Batman was, and as for Robin- Master Bruce would hear of his soon enough, even if it wasn’t from the currently blacked-out Tvs at home. “But he is Bruce Wayne, not The Batman. He wouldn’t…like…vigilantism so close to his personal life”.
“But B is Ba-” Master Dick’s eyebrows drew even closer together, and his nose scrunched up as he squinted scrutinizingly at Alfred, and the old Butler could see the gears turning in his young head. “-but B can’t be Batman because B’s a bajillionaire and Batman’s a crime fighting vigilante, so then Dick Grayson can’t be Robin either, cause it would be suspicious,” he looked up at Alfred for confirmation, “So Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne can’t talk about Robin and Batman, cause it’s suspicious?”
The logic behind the realization was, admittedly, lost on Alfred, just as much of what the young boy said often was, but he had come to the correct conclusion, so the journey wasn’t of much importance. “That is correct, my Boy, you do catch on quite fast”.
Master Dick lit up at the compliment, standing just a little bit straighter than he had before, and as always they tugged on Alfred’s ancient heartstrings. Really, any longer with the lad and his heart might truly unravel.
***
“So” Robin 's face materialized in front of Bab’s as he hung himself upside down off a tree hanging near the road. She scowled at him, to which he stuck his tongue out at her and swung onto the back of her bike, sitting perched on his toes at the edge of the bike-seat. “Have you figured out Batman’s identity yet?”
“No” as embarrassing as it was to admit it to the smug preeteen brat. “But I’m working on it”.
Said smug preteen brat smiled smugly, rocking back and forth on Bab’s bike in a way that made her really want to just start driving and let him fall off. He would probably live, Robin is weirdly good at that. Better than Batgirl, admittedly, but he had professional bat-training, so it didn’t even count.
“You won’t figure it out,” he singsonged, “You’d never guess.”
“So it’s someone who wouldn’t usually be expected to dress up like a bat and fight crime…that narrows things down” it really didn’t, but the white lie was worth it to have the shocked look on the brat’s face be the last thing she saw as the traffic light turned green and she took off, causing him to fling backwards from the momentum, twisting himself around and just barely managing to grab onto the tree he’d been hanging from earlier.
“Thanks for the hint, loser!” she screamed over her shoulder as she rode, ignoring the weird looks she got from strangers. She definitely didn’t have beef with an elementary schooler. No way.