Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s 4am.

Dick knows this because he can hear the bells of Gotham’s clock tower tolling. The sound is different from what Dick has come to expect; a clanging, resonant sound that has always made Dick want to grit his teeth though he’s never worked out why. Tonight the sound is muffled. Distant. Like someone has wrapped the bells in blankets.

Dick crosses his arms over his chest, watches his breath form clouds in the dim orange street light and tries not to think of blankets. Of his bed. Of Alfred back at the mansion making tea or hot chocolate or anything. His stomach turns at the thought though and for a moment Dick thinks he might be sick. Actually sick. Sick all over his boots. Sick all down the polished stone wall of the Gotham Library. He looks down -it’s a long way down- and somehow that makes him feel better.

It’s started snowing again since Dick took up his post and it’s cold down the back of his neck, soaking into his cloak, weighing him down, and Dick thinks that when he gets back he’s going to ask for a waterproof cape instead. Ten times bigger, with fur lining. He thinks Alfred would make it for him too, regardless of Bruce’s disapproval.

Disapproval or indifference. They’re about the only two emotions Dick has so far gotten out of Bruce in all the months he’s known him. In all the months they’ve been working together as partners. Disapproval because Dick is too slow or too loud or his grades at school are too low or because he punches some stuck up brat in the face for calling him dirty. Indifference because Dick is an annoyance when they’re not training or patrolling. Indifference because Bruce doesn’t seem to know how to care about anything except Gotham and Dick wonders if it will always be like this; if his whole like he’s going to be fighting for a city he’s not sure he even cares that much about, much less likes.

It’s just a place; one of hundreds Dick has passed through in his life and none of them ever felt like anything special. None of them were as much like home as the road, as travelling with his family was.

But he can’t think about that.

Dick coughs and his throat feels like it’s closing in itself. Like there’s something stuck that won’t budge. He wishes he had some water. Hot water. A bath. A bath and a drink and sleep and it’s really hard to remember why he ever fought so hard to have this. Dick wanted this. He asked for this; to be out here in the city with Batman. To stand at his side. Or in the case of right now, shiver pathetically somewhere five floors above him.

It had felt like the right thing to do. Like the only thing that might make being alone a little more bearable; if he could stop what happened to him from happening to other people, he’d thought. So that no one else had to feel like this. But Dick is so cold the skin on his hands and arms feels like it’s cracking apart, and his legs are so cramped he thinks he might never be able to move again.

He needs to move. He needs to keep warm, keep his muscles loose in case he needs to run or fight or fly. Dick knows if he tried any of that now he’d end up getting hurt. Or dead. The thought of moving; the idea of uncurling from the ball he’s contorted himself into makes him feel dizzy; sick again. He’s going to be sick for real this time. Batman is going to come back, tall and indifferent and not at all cold and Dick is going to vomit on his cloak.

It’ll be the most fun Dick’s had all week.

Then, suddenly, a voice cuts through the quiet and Dick jumps, almost loses his balance.

“Robin.”

Dick blinks, trying to steady himself, trying to remember how to breathe, waiting for his heart to stop trying to beat its way out of his chest. He looks around, slowly, careful, because every movement hurts his head, but no one is there.

“Robin.”

There is no disapproval in Bruce’s -in Batman’s- voice yet, but Dick is pretty sure it won’t be long.

Communicator, he remembers. It’s his communicator. Uncurling his arms from around his stomach makes Dick grimace and he fumbles with the device when he finally manages to get a grip on it at his belt. It takes forever and way too much concentration just to bring it up to his face, just to press the button on the side. Dick imagines Batman tapping his foot impatiently.

“Ba-,” he tries, coughs, tries again. “Batman. I’m here.” His voice sounds weird, loud in his head.

There’s a pause, then, “Has anyone come out the entrance?”

“No.” Dick’s certain no one has. Pretty certain. Kind of certain. “I think,” he adds, because even if he gets it in the neck, Dick would rather that than let thieves and murderers get away.

“You’re not sure.”

Oh yeah. There’s the disapproval.

Dick coughs again and this time his chest hurts.

“I’m... not,” he admits. He hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been listening to the bells and thinking about stupid things like warmth and home and all that other stuff he’s never going to know again. It’s 4am, or 4:30 now and Dick just wants to go to bed like any other kid and Bruce is going to think he’s weak and useless and will never let him come out on patrol again. Dick can’t let that happen. It’s all he has left.

On the other end of the communicator Batman is speaking. Dick doesn’t want to listen but he knows he has to. He’s Robin out here and he’s Batman’s partner and he has no choice.

“I’ll finish up here,” Batman is saying. It’s a dismissal and Dick feels even colder.

Snow falls into his eyes, down his cheeks and Dick uses his free hand to wipe it away. He’s not crying. He’s thirteen. He’s not a baby. “Go wait in the car.”

Dick wants to argue but he knows there’s nothing he can say. He didn’t keep watch. He didn’t pay attention.

And the thought of being out of the snow and cold and dark is just too inviting.

“Okay,” he agrees, closing his eyes and not liking the way the blackness inside his eyelids sways and lurches.

He doesn’t expect it when Batman speaks again.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says and Dick frowns. It hadn’t sounded disapproving at all. It had sounded -something else. Not annoyance. Not anything Dick recognises. He’s too tired to try and work it out.

There’s an expectant silence on the line, like Batman’s waiting for a response so Dick says, “Yeah,” before cutting the connection.

It’s a long way down and he doesn’t particularly feel like moving, despite the ice-cold wind picking up around him, making his cloak flap wildly. He doesn’t trust himself with wire work; his vision isn’t clear enough and his balance is uncertain. He remembers his dad telling him a hundred times - a thousand times- to never fly if you don’t feel right. To trust that you’re body knows when it’s had too much. Done too much. Gone too far.

Bruce never tells him those things. Bruce tells him to push through it. To keep going. To never stop.

Dick doesn’t think his dad and Bruce would have gotten along, and the thought of it stings. Another thing to push away; to not think about too hard. He wonders if that's why Bruce never seems to feel anything; because he's spent so many years ignoring anything that bothers him that he's forgotten how to care about anything but his mission.

Below him, the sound of shots firing startles Dick and he jumps, almost overbalances before catching himself; realises he was dozing off. He looks down, blinking snow out of his eyes, and sees a man spilling out of the main entrance. There is shouting. The man looks up and down the road frantically.

Another shot rings out and the man on the steps cries out in pain, clutches his leg and stumbles. Bright red blood splatters into the white snow and for a second all Dick can see is the blood pooling around his parents' dead bodies; twisted, broken things that haunt Dick's nightmares. He scrubs at his eyes because that was months and months ago now and it's fine. He's fine. His throat is dry and his eyes burn and Dick thinks for sure this time he's going to puke. But that isn't something Robin would do. Robin is fearless. Robin is strong; unbreakable in the face of anything the Gotham underworld could throw at him. And Dick is Robin.

The thought grounds him, and somehow Dick can breathe again. Can remember what he's here to do.

On the steps below him, two more men in expensive-looking suits are emerging from the building, weapons drawn. Bad guys stealing from bad guys. Dick recognises them all from Bruce's database; memorised records crowd his head; drug trafficking, possession, armed robbery, assault, murder.

Dick fumbles with the communicator. "Batman."

There's a long pause and Dick waits. Bruce could be in the middle of a fight. He could be listening to something more important. Dick doesn't let himself think, he could be dead.

Finally, Bruce replies and he sounds breathless, harried. "Robin."

"There are three guys coming out the front. They're firing at each other."

"Acknowledged," Bruce says. Then, "You were supposed to be in the car."

"I was on my way," Dick lies. Sort of lies. It's not really a lie when he did mean to move.

"Go. Now."

The transmission cuts out. A dismissal. He should go. He has his orders. But below him the guy who'd been shot is stumbling backwards, falling into the snow. Another shot hits him in the shoulder and he howls. Dick is relieved he can't see any blood this time. This man is called Alan Dubrey, career mobster, a whole lot of violence, a whole lot of victims in his history. Alan Dubrey is about to die.

There's a part of Dick that tells him not to care; that he deserves everything he gets. He chose this life. He chose and the innocent victims he hurt and maimed and killed didn't get to. But then there is Bruce -Batman- and he's frowning down at Dick and telling him, we don't judge the worth of a man's life.

Except where they kind of do.

But then, Dick is not like them. He won't become like them. No matter who it is, it just isn't in Dick to stand there and watch someone killed when he could do something about it.

He doesn't think; he reacts.

The wire is familiar in his hands as he swings down, pushing everything aside; fear and doubt and his father’s words. He’s in Batman’s world now. Robin’s world. Not the circus.

He moves silently, concentration fixed on the mobster doing the shooting. Take out the biggest threat first, he hears Batman saying. Dick attacks feet first, knocking the gun right out of the guy’s hand and in surprise it’s easy to get in another kick to the man’s face; he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

A wave of dizziness overtakes him then and Dick has to crouch down to the ground, hand out to steady himself and just take a breath; one breath is all he gets because he’s an idiot who forgot about the second man who’d followed Alan Dubrey out the building. Dick remembers it when he feels a fist strike the side of his head and he’s sent sprawling. The cold snow burns against his arm where he slides and slides and there’s a weird buzzing his head that sounds like Bruce but is probably just concussion.

There’s nothing he can do, Dick thinks. He’s screwed up so bad and he can’t even seem to sit upright and it’s inevitable when a shadow falls over him; the mobster. There’s a gun in his hand now and it’s pointed at Dick’s heart.

It doesn’t matter what his name is, Dick realises; that knowledge isn’t going to save him.

Dick closes his eyes. He should fight. He should get up and fight. No matter how much it sucks sometimes or how much he misses his parents this is his life and he doesn’t want to give it up.

“Look what I caught,” the mobster sneers and Dick just can’t, he won’t die here.

Using the last of his strength, everything he has left, Dick flips himself over, kicks out at the man’s feet and it’s enough that he overbalances, crying out angrily as he hits the ground. He keeps hold of his gun and Dick dives for it. Dick knows he can’t win this on strength, not even on his best day, and right now he can’t win on speed and agility so instead he tucks in close to the mobster. It’s unlikely he’ll risk hurting himself. But still the mobster struggles, trying to dislodge Dick from where he’s holding on to the gun, keeping himself between the weapon and the man’s body.

“You little fucker,” he swears, and, “I’m gonna gut you,” and it’s nothing Dick hasn’t heard before.

But he’s losing his grip and he’s losing his footing where there’s ice on the sidewalk. Dick is panting heavily in a way he only ever does when Bruce is testing him, making him keep going no matter how much it hurts.

There has to be something else he can do but there’s no time to stop and think of something because he’s concentrating on holding on and staying upright and not getting killed.

Then he does slip, lets go, and the mobster takes the opportunity to shove Dick away, kicks him as he falls and agony explodes in Dick’s side. He can’t breathe. For a long time he can’t breathe, and the mobster laughs.

“You’ve got some balls, Kid,” he says, and there is the gun again, aimed right at him. His vision is kind of blurred and everything hurts but Dick can see the mobster’s finger squeezing the trigger and he thinks, shit, and, Batman is going to kill me.

But then Dick’s vision is filled by black; black cape, black cowl, and Batman is there twisting the gun from the mobster’s hand and Dick is certain he hears a snapping sound. He hears muffled cries. It’s hard to make out what’s happening; Batman is too fast and Dick is fast loosing sense of anything other than the pain in his head and his side and yet relief too. Despite the niggling fear that Batman is going to be pissed at him, Dick is too tired to care.

The next thing he knows Batman is standing over him, putting a hand on his forehead. The hand is bare; he must have taken his glove off at some point.

Dick says, “There was another guy-” but Batman shakes his head.

“It’s dealt with. We're going home.” No questions. No arguments.

Batman picks him up and he’s weirdly gentle and Dick can’t remind a single time before that he was this close to Bruce when he wasn’t in a neck-hold. Now, Bruce holds him close and starts walking. They're moving fast and Dick’s stomach turns.
He tries to look up at Bruce’s face but he can’t see much of him under Batman’s cowl; he can’t work out how mad Bruce is.

So Dick goes for damage control.

“Sorry.”

It must be bad, Dick thinks, because Batman says, “We’ll discuss this later. Just rest.”
Later. When he’s less tired and more aware and can better listen to Bruce’s inevitable lecture. But maybe this time he deserves it.

Dick watches the street lamps overhead, listens to the ground crunching beneath Batman’s boots, curls in close to his warmth and doesn’t care if he seems like a needy kid. Batman makes no comment.

He closes his eyes and this time it’s not death he sees. His heart is slowing, his body feels too heavy, then he feels the seat of the car under his back and something warm being draped over him. It smells of leather and Bruce.

“Rest, Dick,” Batman says again and this, at least, is an order Dick has no difficulty in obeying.

**

It’s warm wherever he is; not familiar, but warm and comfortable. Dick’s neck hurts, his ears aching every time he swallows. He tries to open his eyes but it’s too much effort and so he lies still, trying to work out where he is and what happened. He doesn’t ever remember feeling this bad before, not even the one time he caught flu on the road to Moscow and couldn’t perform for a week. His mom had brought him the worst soup ever and his dad had brought his extra blankets and he’d never slept so much in his life.

Not for even a moment, Dick thinks, did he think his mom or dad would be there for him this time. When he remembers why it’s like the bottom falls out of his stomach and he’s suddenly cold all over; Dick is sure he can feel ice crawling across his cheeks, filling his veins. Nothing is comfortable any more. Nothing is warm.
He’d known all along; he’d never forgotten, not really, because he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of imagining they were still there with him. That possibility was gone.

This was his room at Wayne Manor. There would be no one watching over him.
Except when Dick finally gathers the strength to turn his head, to look around, he finds Bruce there in a chair beside his bed. He’s asleep – Dick doesn’t think he’s ever seen Bruce sleep before, to the extent he was beginning to wonder if he was even human – so he must have been there some time. There was an empty mug hanging from his fingers.

For a long while Dick watches Bruce. He looks young asleep and Dick wonders how old he actually is. There’s a bruise forming under his left eye. His hair is a mess. He’s still wearing batman’s boots even if the armour and the cape are gone. It looks weird, a contradiction; the supernatural, absolute strength and impassivity of Batman furnished with a human face and dirty coffee cup.

It’s long past dawn outside, light creeping into the room even with the thick drapes pulled closed. Dick has school today. One of the conditions of his partnership with Batman is that he would never let it interfere with school. It feels Dick with dread, even on the best of days when he doesn’t feel like he’s gone ten rounds with Batman. Pompous, rich, snide brats and in the months that Dick has attended Gotham Academy he has yet to find any one he would actually want to be friends with. He’ll skip out, he thinks. Find somewhere to hold up where he can sleep. He just wants to sleep.

The next thing he knows is Bruce hovering over him and Dick’s eyes are gummy and sore; he must have fallen asleep. Bruce has his hand on Dick’s forehead again and there’s a glass of water in his hand.

“Hey,” Bruce says, and Dick tried to speak but all he gets out is a kind of choked cough. “Hey,” Bruce says again. “It’s okay. Don’t talk. Drink some water.”

It’s awkward because Dick can’t hold the glass and Bruce doesn't seem to have a clue how to help someone drink when they’re mostly lying down so Dick ends up with water running down his chin and onto the pillow and Bruce grimacing and muttering. The water feels good going down his throat though and the sight of Bruce mopping up the mess he’s made with a towel is kind of funny so it’s worth it.

When Bruce finally sits back down on the chair beside Dick’s bed, putting down the glass and towel and rubbing his face with his hands, he laughs, “I should leave this kind of thing to Alfred.”

Dick would never say it but he’s glad Bruce didn’t.

Bruce shakes his head then and his expression turns serious and Dick thinks, yeah, here it comes.

“I’m sorry,” Dick manages to say pre-emptively.

Bruce frowns and for what feels like hours watches Dick in silence like he’s searching for something.

“Why did you disobey my order?” he asks eventually.

An easy question to answer. “I couldn’t let anyone die.”

Bruce holds Dick’s gaze and doesn’t look away. “Even if it meant you'd get hurt? Get killed?”

He doesn’t sound angry; he’s not shouting, and that’s maybe worse.

“I didn’t think of that.” Dick coughs, shakes his head slowly, carefully. “I just couldn’t let anyone die when I could do something to stop it.”

It’s the truth and Dick will take whatever punishment Bruce can concoct for him, but the fact is he would do the same again given the chance.

Finally, Bruce looks away, down at the ridiculously plush carpet, rubs his forehead.

“I get it,” he says quietly, then louder, looking up at Dick again, leaning closer, “I get it, but your life is just as important. Think of that before you get into a fight you can’t win.”

“I could have won,” Dick argues. If he hadn’t been sick or whatever was wrong with him he could have won that fight easily.

Then, Bruce actually smiles. “And next we’re going to work on hubris. But not now. Now you sleep.”

Dick looks at the clock on his nightstand; it reads gone eight o’clock. “I have to go to school.”

“Not today,” Bruce says. He stands again, pulls the covers up over Dick’s shoulders.

“You’re not going to shout at me?” Dick asks suspiciously.

Bruce gently brushes the hair from Dick’s forehead. “Get well, then we’ll see,” and it’s said with such lightness that Dick thinks maybe he’ll get away with this one. That maybe this once he didn’t do anything wrong. And maybe – just maybe – Bruce Wayne isn't Batman after all. Maybe he’s actually human after all.

Dick doesn't doubt that there will be yelling later and there will be punishing training and there will be lectures and disappointment and disapproval. But maybe, Dick thinks as Bruce pulls the drapes more tightly closed, tells Dick to sleep, shuts the door closed behind him as he leaves Dick to the quiet with water and a promise to return with Alfred soon, Bruce Wayne isn’t as indifferent as he’d thought.

.End.