A/N: Another what if? Robin origin story.

“Flying”

Then:

The rooming house boomed with the cacophony of rock music and burst at the seams from the gaggles of teenagers huddled around the many kegs of beer. All underage and currently attending Ridgedale Prep, the Batman had followed Mickey “Da Pounds” Mason there to see his new buyers. He growled as he watched Mickey enter the house and through binoculars saw the gangsta weave through the crowd before stopping before a certain boy dressed in a polo shirt and jeans.

Batman dropped the binoculars and swore openly before rushing toward the house.

Now:

Sixteen-year-old Dick Grayson writhed his wrists inside the handcuffs, which held him to the Batmobile’s door handle. Damn, they were tight and chaffed to the point of blood. Finally, after ten minutes of failing to escape, Dick fell back against the seat as comfortably as his situation would allow and banged his head, once, twice, three times on the rest. Why did this always happen to him?

Bruce Wayne would ship him off to one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the nation. He’d get into trouble. The Batman would smash some heads, and he’d be in police custody within moments. Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s valet who couldn’t bother to even pick him up for Thanksgiving, would come with this pathetic look of disdain and disappointment, and Dick would be brought home for a few weeks of “probation” before being shipped out to a new one.

God, this was already number fifteen in eight years.

He vaguely wondered where number sixteen would be. Maybe he’d be shipped out of America this time. England? Eton? No, that Swiss place. Now that would be awesome. Snowboarding, skiing, Swiss girls…

The roof swished open, and Dick purposely looked away as the being that ambushed every criminal’s nightmares now sat next to him. The roof clicked shut, and Dick again struggled against the metal.

“You’ll never free yourself,” the Batman’s growling voice proclaimed. It always sent a shiver through Dick’s spine, like shards of glass tearing skin. The teen tried his best not to show it.

“How much does Mr. Wayne pay you?”

Without even looking, Dick knew of the arched eyebrow the Batman did when questioning.

“How much? Come on, man. It’s gotta be a pretty penny for you to continuously show up and ruin my life every few months.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed under his cowl, and Dick followed suit. Sure, his entrails liquefied, but he’d seen the Batman enough since Wayne took him in that he could at least meet the man’s dissecting glare.

“Why do you continuously try to throw your life away?”

“I don’t—”

“Underage drinking—”

“Oh, come—”

“—unprotected sex—”

“What! How the hell—”

“—and now drugs.”

“What?” Dick threw himself back in his seat. “Are you stalking me?”

“You have everything you could ever want,” Batman began, and Dick already followed with a roll of his eyes. An unrelenting hand seized his chin and forced their eyes to lock once again. “You have a good home, a great education, your every want—”

“Are you for real?” Dick snorted and somehow managed to tear his head from Batman’s seemingly impervious hold. “A great home? What home?”

“You live at Wayne—”

“I live at a boarding school in upstate New York. Great education? I barely pass, and don’t even get me started about want. What I would love is for you to leave me the f alone, but we both know Mr. Wayne won’t let that happen.”

“Maybe it’s because Mr. Wayne knows you could do better than you have been.”

Oh, God, this was too rich. “Man, what the hell does Mister Wayne know? Really? About me or about everything?”

The Batman’s face remained impassive, unreadable, which drove Dick crazy. “Maybe he knows more than you think.”

“You know what I know?” Dick laughed sardonically. “I haven’t even seen Mr. Wayne in years. I’m not exaggerating. You know the last time?”

Batman remained neutrally silent. Finally.

“I was twelve.” Dick’s nerves urged him to lean forward and ruffle his already disheveled crown. “Look, you save—what? Thousands of people a year, so you probably don’t remember but an assassin—Deaththroat—”

“Deathstroke,” Batman corrected.

The Batman—THE BATMAN—remembered this? “Yeah…right. He attacked me at Brentwood—the first boarding school Wayne sent me to. The guy tied me up and tried to take me for whatever reason. Well, you came, and in the fight, I lost consciousness due to that stab wound Deathstroke gave me. When I woke up in the hospital, Wayne was there, apologized that someone went after me to get to him, and promised it would never happen again.”

“And it hasn’t,” Batman replied stoically.

“Yeah…” Dick muttered, “and he couldn’t be bothered with me since then either.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

Icy. Oh, Wayne must have been paying the Bat a pretty fortune. “Yeah, whatever. I really don’t care. If Mr. Wayne see him—because I sure as hell won’t—maybe you could ask him to send me to that nice Swiss school. It’s at the base of the Alps, and I could go for some snowboard—Ouch! Watch it!”

The Batman forced himself painfully against the car door. “You could’ve been arrested tonight for drug possession with an intent to sell or use. You could’ve been looking at ten to twenty-five years, and all you care about is which school you’ll be attending next?”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “It’s what happens next, isn’t it? Wayne’s not going to allow the police to tarnish his rep, and the reporters love him enough to let this slide. At least ‘til I’m eighteen, and Wayne’s practically out of U.S. schools to send me to. Figured I might as well do some searching for him.”

For a moment, Dick actually thought the Batman was going to hit him. The veins in his neck began to pulsate. His eyes narrowed, and the hands fisted in his shirt shook. Yet all the man did was force him against the car door again and then release Dick.

“You’re smarter than this. Brighter.”

Dick winced and lightly touched the back of his head. No blood. “Thank you, Dr. Phil. Do I get a free Oxycotin prescription with this psyche evaluation?”

“Yet you’ll squander that because you’re nothing more than a spoiled rich brat, whining for more attention.”

Dick knew what Batman wanted. The man sought an emotional reaction, a spur for rebellion and a new outlook on life. He should rise to the occasion, change his ways, and go the straight and narrow.

Like hell.

“Look, say what you want. I really don’t give a shit what you think, what Mr. Pennyworth thinks, or what Mr. Wayne thinks, and I know what you’re thinking. Why do you keep saving my ass and not letting me get convicted? Well, you know what? Stop. I’m done, and maybe you should be, too. Eventually, Wayne and Pennyworth will be, and then I’ll finally be able to do what I want.”

Batman shifted in his seat, and even though Dick stared out the window at the blinking police lights, he felt the eyes drilling into the back of his head. “And just what do you want to do, Mr. Grayson?”

Dick glanced out the window, his eyes distant. “I want to fly. I miss flying. And Christmas and Thanksgiving and real smiles—not those fake ones that everyone always gives me because they think I’m their key to Mr. Wayne—and my bed and buckwheat pancakes and Gotham. I miss Gotham, and it was never really my home. I lived in Wayne Manor maybe a few months before I was shipped to Brentwood, but…”

The Batmobile’s engine started with a growl, and Dick wiped the tears from his eyes. God, he was so lame. “You’re—You’re not giving me to the cops?”

The Batman’s voice would slice through diamonds. “No.”

The car squealed out from the parking lot and headed toward the freeway. “What are you doing?”

The Batman never answered his question.

^*^*^*

“…cannot keep that boy down here…”

The embittered voices teetered on the edge of his consciousness, but they were loud enough to coax Dick from his slumber. He first jerked at the open car roof, staring at the freakish high ceiling of the cavern. His eyes then darted about the confinement, seeing the various levels of the cave, the equipment—both criminology and exercise—as well as the large computer sitting upon a high platform.

Just where the hell did the Batman take him?

He knew it was a mistake to fall asleep once Batman took off the handcuffs when they reached Albany.

“…can’t send him away again…”

The second voice was actually lighter than the first, less menacing, and horribly familiar, so much so that it lured him out of the car and up a flight of rock stairs.

“And then what do you expect to do with him?” the English man demanded, and Dick could just see the crossed arms in his mind.

“He’s my responsibility.” The Batman again.

“As I have been saying for the last eight years, Master Bruce. Why you waited this long to acknowledge it is beyond me.”

Master Bruce?!

Dick’s sneakers masked any noise as he stepped onto the small platform before the computer and sucked in a loud breath at the sight of the Batman leaning over the console.

His cowl laid over his back.

“Mister Wayne?”

Bruce Wayne was the freakin’ Batman.

Next to him, Alfred Pennyworth, Mr. Wayne’s valet/guardian/who-knew-what-else looked at him with that same look of disdain and disappointment he showed when picking Dick up at the police station. This time, however, his bowtie was undone on his open vest, and he didn’t look at all surprised that Dick now stood before him. Bruce, however, whipped around, shocked not to have heard the boy approach.

So this was why he never saw Mr. Wayne and only the Batman. In retrospect, it made perfect sense.

Of course, that’s how most things made sense in Dick’s life.

“Hello, Richard. I see your stay at Ridgedale was as premature as your stays in Glenrock, Montvale, Castlestead and the various other educational establishments you have visited in the last eight years.”

Dick twitched a dark smirk. “Good to see you, too, Mr. Pennyworth.”

Bruce still had yet to speak, probably because he knew what was to follow. Perhaps the last fifteen schools were nothing more than procrastination for this one moment.

“So are you going to forward my stuff from Ridgedale, or should I just pack whatever’s left in my room?”

The adults met him with blank stares.

“We are near the manor, right? Or are we outside the city limits?”

“What are you talking about?” Bruce finally ventured.

Dick shrugged. “I get it now, Mr. Wayne. You couldn’t do all this and raise me, and since you’ve made it pretty clear you’re not sending me abroad, looks like I’m trading a house for a boarding school. I got it. No hard feelings. I just want to get my stuff.”

Alfred took a step forward. “Richard, I do not believe you understand the conditions in which—”

“No, you don’t get off that easy,” Bruce growled as he stormed forward, penetrating Dick’s personal space. “You wanted my attention? You have my undivided attention.”

Dick didn’t give ground. “Oh, please. I know who you are now. You can’t do anything to me or else I’ll—”

He probably should have thought before threatening. In retrospect, he realized where he went wrong. For now, Bruce simply leaned further to be within inches of Dick’s face.

“You will go to Gotham Heights High. You will do well. If you wish to do any extracurricular activities, you will be encouraged.”

“…what?”

“Do not interrupt. After your school day is done, you will come home. You will finish all your work and show your completed assignments to either Alfred or me.”

“Hey, now waitaminute—”

Bruce snatched Dick’s chin, keeping the boy focused. “Then, you will come down to the cave and complete any chores or training I assign.”

“Training? What kind of—”

“In the morning, you will rise at five o’clock.”

“Five? You’ve got to be fuc—”

“You will not swear. Your combat training will convene in the gym area promptly at five-oh-five, not five-oh-six. If you are not there on time, you will get double training at night.”

“Again with the train—”

“When you graduate Gotham Heights High, you will go to college.”

Dick tugged, but Batman refused to let Dick go. “Yeah, like that’ll hap—”

“Gotham State University,” Bruce continued as if Dick never interrupted him.

“By then, I’ll be eighteen. You can’t dictate—”

“You will go to Gotham State University, but I will allow you to choose a major as long as it is not basket-weaving.”

Dick freed with chin with one quick tug. “I was thinking about rejoining the circus, maybe taking up my parents’ act.”

Standing straighter, Bruce crossed his arms. His face contorted into a thoughtful scowl before he nodded once. “We can discuss that when the time comes, but I still expect you to achieve grades that will give you the opportunity for college.”

“And you think I’m just going to go along with this?”

“No, but you will.”

“Why? Because you’re going to beat the shit out of me like you do the Gotham Underground?”

The Batman’s rancorous front softened only a tad. “Because I will treat you with respect. I will only ask of you what I do believe you can achieve, and I will give you what you want most.”

Dick’s face twisted with perplexity. “Oh, yeah? And just what is that?”

“To fly.”

…What?

“I will help you to fly again,” Bruce promised, “but you have to work with me. You give me what I want, and I will give you what you want.”

Dick averted his eyes. How could Bruce Wayne, the Batman, help him to fly again? And what kind of training would he be receiving to…to…oh, God. He’d heard of the Justice League’s protégés. Kid Flash. Wonder Chick—or as he called her. Speedy. Aqualad.

Was that what Wayne meant? To train him to fight crime?

A firm hand clasped his shoulder. “You do not have to make your decision now, but I would prefer it within the next week, so Alfred may enroll you in school.”

“Decision?” Dick scoffed. “I didn’t exactly hear I had one in that monologue.”

“You don’t have to do this. If you’re afraid—”

Dick shoved off the hand. “I’m not afraid.”

“Fine. If you do not wish to help me in my crusade, then I will respect your wishes and contact Child Services. I will make sure you are placed in a good home.”

A normal life? Did he ever have a normal life?

Bruce patted his shoulder as he passed. “I’m heading out. If you need anything—”

“What happens if I like it here but don’t want to do the training? Then what?”

Bruce’s lips perked for a moment. “You know better than almost anyone the cost of being close to me. I could not permit you to stay.”

Permit? Who spoke like that?

Bruce pulled the cowl over his face and once more became the Batman. His voice dropped several octaves as he headed toward the hanger. “Alfred—”

“Very good, sir.”

Great, now they spoke with telepathy.

Once the roar of the Batmobile echoed through the caverns, Dick watched as Alfred took out a spritzer and began to wipe the mainframe.

“Do you desire breakfast, young sir?”

Dick sucked in a sharp breath. “You don’t like very much, do you, Mr. Pennyworth?”

A brief chuckle came from the Brit. “I said nothing of the sort.”

“You didn’t have to.” Dick plopped down in the Batman’s chair and swiveled back and forth, taking in the entire cavern. “I can tell. The way you always looked at me when you came to pick me up at the police stations—”

The man remained cool, wiping down a monitor. “Did it ever occur to you that I was saddened by your previous extracurricular activities?”

“Okay, then what about Christmas and Thanksgiving? Why’d you stop coming to pick me up?”

“What makes you think we have those holidays here, Master Richard?”

Dick swiveled in the seat to see Alfred, who stopped his cleaning to regard the boy as well. “You don’t have Christmas? How can you not have Christmas?” He sat back in the chair. “Oooh! Mr. Wayne’s Jewish.”

“No, dear boy, this house does not hold the light for very long. I believed it was best for you to stay at your school rather than be disappointed by the darkness that always seems to brood here.” He patted the boy on the arm. “And above all that, I feared the path that lies before you now.”

Pulling his feet underneath him, Dick swiveled in his chair. “You don’t think I can do this.”

“On the contrary. Master Bruce would not have asked you if he did not believe you were capable.”

“Perhaps Master Bruce has been hit in the head too many times by Gotham’s worst.” Dick tilted his head back against the seat and looked about the Batcave. This was too much. Who was he for Mr. Wayne to even believe he could do something like this?

A hand fell to his shoulder, and Dick looked up to see Alfred lean against the mainframe. “Master Richard, you bring something to his cave that I have not seen in a long time.”

“Youth?”

The look on Alfred’s face told him he guessed wrong, but to be honest, it wasn’t a dig. Just an observation. “No, young sir…light. Master Bruce sent you away all those years ago because he felt it was best for you. He lives in the darkness, draped in the throes of darkness and despair. That he did not want for you, and he did not want his enemies seeking you.”

“Then how is this supposed to work, Mr. Pennyworth? How can I even hope to help him if we’re exact opposites?”

Alfred hit up the boy’s chin. “Now that I believe you have mistaken. Both you and Master Bruce are good, fundamentally. You both leave your clothes on the bathroom floor, and you both have a fervent desire to stop injustices.”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I remember the night you went in search of your parents’ killer, Richard. You had the same look in your eyes that Bruce has every night before he searches once more for his parents’ killers.”

“What?”

*^*^*

The gravestones looked hardly abandoned, but in the dark of Gotham night, they looked cold, almost unloving. But for a man to dress in a giant bat and fight crime to stop others from feeling his pain, Dick knew they were anything but forgotten.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see his own parents falling from their trapeze, could hear their bloodcurdling screams, and during the night, it only got worse.

To this day, he still had nightmares. It was how he got into alcohol in the first place—to sleep without the dreams. Of course, alcohol led to marijuana, and the girls—well, they came by their own accord. And without any parental unit to give a shit, what did it matter?

The nights were the worst, especially after the girls were asleep. Sometimes he’d just lie awake, missing his parents, being so angry that they had been taken prematurely, hating that Zucco had a heart attack and was spared a trial.

Mister Wayne must have felt a similar anger or pain. Somehow he’d found a way to survive the nights.

Dick looked up to the wretched moon.

Maybe he could, too.

*^*^*

Batman jumped into the car and hit closed the roof. Starting the engine, he tapped a button on the console. “Alfred? Come in. I need you to research on the Carmine—the Roman— Falcone—”

“Born 1947 to Anthony and Maria Falcone, charged for running a racketeering scheme five years ago, but his lawyer got him off.”

Batman hit on the video monitor to see an overzealous Dick Grayson, sitting in his seat with a Bluetooth device clipped to his ear. “Thank you for calling OnStar. What else do you need to know about Mister Falcone?”

“Where’s Alfred?”

“Making me a marshmallow and peanut butter sandwich. I told him I could do it, but he insisted. Is that something I should get used to? Where I’m from, either your mom makes you food or you do it yourself.”

“I don’t believe you had to make it yourself in the fifteen boarding schools you went to.”

“No, I starved after eating hours.”

That, for some reason, hit the Batman, and he shifted the car into drive. “I need to know his current wherea—”

Tapping on the Crays—“He has a house actually out here in Bristol—415 Too-Rich-for-My-Own-Blood Lane, which was renamed to Peach Tree Court. He also has an apartment in the city, but according to these files, his sister lives at.”

Batman steered the car toward Bristol. “You’ve made your decision.”

It wasn’t a question. “Yes, Mister Wayne.”

“Don’t call me that. Not in the suit,” Batman warned.

“Yes, sir.”

The man lightened. “At home, call me ‘Bruce.’”

Dick smiled softly. “Well, when you’re in the suit, call me Robin.”

“Robin? The bird?”

“Yeah, it’s what my mom used to call me when I was flying.”

THE END