A/N: DC owns all characters involved. This is still unbeta’ed but has been cleaned since its posting on the Bludhaven Group.
“The Hauntings of Dick Grayson”
Being a ghost sucked or so Dick Grayson thought.
He couldn’t really sleep. There were times he’d kind of veg, but it wasn’t the same. Eating just didn’t happen. He could go and bug Alfred to put on the Batcomputer’s monitor for the late night comedy shows, but even those lacked after watching them night in and night out. And he bugged Alfred enough as it was.
So pretty much, if he wasn’t out in
Which brought Dick back to his original thought.
Being a ghost sucked.
Stretching out in Batman’s chair in the Batcave, Dick laid a hand on one arm rest while his legs dangled off the other. He counted three hundred and forty-six stalactites—or was it stalagmites?—before the roar of the Batmobile filled the canons of the cave. Huffing, he swung back and forth in the chair, and when the tires squealed, he swiveled toward the opening cab of the car.
“Hey, Bruce. Make anyone pee in their pants toni…to…”
Dick’s mouth dropped open. He slowly began to sit upward and subsequently slouched backwards, his head spinning.
A boy with short, raven hair and engaging blue eyes sat in the Batmobile’s passenger seat.
His seat.
“Master Bruce, I see you have come home—Oh, my.”
Alfred stopped on the stairs just before the hanger, his eyes widening at the boy who slowly climbed out of the car and then to the Dark Knight who loomed to the child’s right. His cowl already off, he placed a hand on the shaky boy’s shoulder to steady him.
“Alfred, Tim will be staying with us for a while. Please make up a room for him.”
Alfred flashed Dick the briefest of glances, not that Dick saw with his attention engrossed with his double, and finished the steps.
“Perhaps the boy would like some dinner or breakfast first before we whisk him away in the throes of slumber.”
Tim cast a worrisome gaze about the cave, fidgeting with the bottom seam of his shirt. Dick knew that to be a nervous gesture, one that he used from time to time, but ignored that and the boy’s trembling eyes. He ignored the blood stains soaking the boy’s T-shirt and jeans. He only saw the boy’s age, about thirteen; the boy’s hair and eyes, his own; and the cape draped over his shoulder—Batman’s.
“Or more pertinent,” Alfred continued, “we must find you a new set of clothes. I believe we have some old ones that just might suit you.”
“But…they’re mine…” Dick murmured as Alfred wrapped an arm about the boy’s shoulders.
“Come along, Timothy. Yes, that’s it. Good.”
The boy moved as if in a trance, never looking at Dick, and only watching the steps, taking each one slowly.
Dick’s shock eventually wore off once Bruce moved toward the mainframe. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Don’t swear,” Bruce admonished, coming to stand before the chair.
Dick knew what his father wanted, and usually, he would have moved. But not today. “I’m dead. I think you can let that go.”
“I won’t, and he’s going through a crisis.”
“Not like anyone else in the room, huh? Forget that?”
Bruce sent Dick a tolerant glance. “His father was shot in front of him a few days ago, and his stepmother literarily went insane.”
Dick whisked a hand. “Aren’t there child services for that kind of thing?”
“The same one that put you in juvenile center?”
Zinger. “So you just bring him here? Might as well set up a halfway house for orphaned boys.”
“I’m not going to have this argument with you.” Bruce motioned for Dick to stand and vacate his chair. The boy didn’t.
The face-off lasted only a few moments before Bruce sat, his body cutting through Dick’s. The boy immediately hurried out of the chair, and if Bruce felt a coldness from touching him, he didn’t show it. He simply swiveled toward the monitor and hit on the computer.
Dick fumed. “Are you kidding me? Seriously! You sat through me!”
“I’m still hunting Jack Drake’s killers. I don’t have time to—”
“—deal with me? Explain the situation?”
“I don’t have to explain my actions to you.”
“So that’s it? Just ‘Congratulations, you have a brother who doesn’t even know you exist,’ and then ‘I have to find his father’s killers.’ I wonder if Hallmark has a card for that.”
Bruce swiveled around in his chair, his ablaze with anger. “His father was shot in front of him. Can you imagine what that is like?”
A pain more fierce than any other surged through him once more, and Dick’s eyes evened. His breathing slowed, and as he crossed his arms, he averted his suddenly teary eyes. “No, I just saw mine fall from over two hundred feet, and I was shot to death. So, I guess that doesn’t count, does it?”
Bruce’s mouth opened just slightly, but before his own shock wore off, Dick threw up his hands. “Whatever. Bond with the kid. Train the kid. Hell, give him my name. It’s not like I care. I’m just dead. I can’t feel anything!”
Dick smacked his arms hands against his thighs and treaded up the stairs. “Hell, cut to the chase and simply ignore me, why don’t you?”
*^*^*
“Oh. My. God. You’re actually ignoring me.”
It took all of Bruce’s strength not to turn to the demoralized boy standing in the doorway. He simply raised his newspaper, knowing Dick crossed his arms and shook his head.
“Great. Not only is he wearing my clothes, but he’s sitting in my seat.”
Sure enough, just to Bruce’s left sat the new boy to the Wayne Household, wearing a Gotham Knights’ T-shirt and snap-up pants. He picked at his chocolate-chip pancakes with his fork like a child would poke a dead animal.
Dick flopped down in the seat across from Tim, his eyes scrutinizing the younger boy. “I bet he can’t throw a quad.”
Bruce folded the top of his paper down enough to glare at his elder. Dick returned it almost perfectly.
Alfred chose that moment to enter from the kitchen and swipe the comics from Bruce’s newspaper in one motion, lying them down in front of Dick.
“Master Tim, was the breakfast not to your liking?” he asked the boy.
“Hey, Al. Top of the mornin’ to you, too,” Dick huffed. The elderly gentleman still found a moment to glower, a mix of affection and disappointment. It was more than enough to silence Dick, and for the first time, the young boy across the table spoke.
“It’s all right, Mr. Pennyworth.”
“Just all right? Well, now, we can’t have that. What might you fancy?”
Dick propped his head onto his hand. “His own home, his own clothes, his own—”
The boy shrugged, his eyes so low they appeared shut. “I think I just want to go back to my room, if that’s all right.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing more we can—”
“No. I’m fine, thank you—”
He practically cut off his own words as he tried to dash from the room, but Bruce caught him with a hard hand on his wrist, keeping Tim in his seat. “I know this is a difficult time in your life, Tim, but things will get better.”
“And that’s when you’ll get shot twice at pointblank range by some schizoid.”
Tim refused to meet Bruce’s eyes, his bangs masking his face. “Thank you, Mr. Wayne, but if it’s all the same—”
The hand on the wrist went to the shoulder. “Bruce, please, and you don’t have to spend it alone. Alfred and I are here if you want to talk—”
Dick scoffed, and though Tim wouldn’t have noticed it, Bruce’s eyebrows crept closer together. His face tensed ever so slightly, and he removed his hand from the boy’s arm to stop himself from scrunching it. Instead, he patted the shoulder.
“And I am here if you require some substance, Master Tim,” Alfred supplied.
Tim raised his head now, neither his eyes or his face red. They were eerily reserved and collected. He nodded.
“Thanks,
Bruce accepted the nod and watched the boy leave. As soon as he was out of hearing range, Bruce pointed a finger at Dick and opened his mouth, but Alfred snatched Dick’s comics first. “That was uncalled for, young man.”
Somehow, whatever parenting disapproval Bruce could have doled out, Alfred could top.
Still, Dick shrugged. “What does it matter? He can’t hear me.”
“But we can, and that matters enough. Now you know exactly what Master Tim—”
“Master Tim! He’s been here not even a day.”
Alfred hit the paper what would have been the back of the boy’s head. “And neither were you when I called you the same. You know what he is going through, and yet you do nothing more than ostracize that poor boy out of jealousy.”
“Jealous? Of him?”
Alfred bent over Dick under this face was mere inches from the boy’s. “Yes, I dare say ‘jealousy.’ It is misplaced and driven by fear, and instead of helping to make a situation better, you simply complicate it.”
“But—”
“You were in his very place not too long ago, Richard. The loneliness and fear you survived he is enduring. Right now, more than anything, he needs someone to understand. Perhaps you could start.”
Dick averted his eyes toward the doorway where Tim disappeared, his heart aching at the simple remembrances of his first days at Wayne Manor when Bruce hunted his parents’ murderer. Alfred did the best he could, but he truly didn’t begin to live again until Bruce helped him to fly.
“But what can I do, Al?” Dick asked, standing. “He can’t even hear me.”
“But that does not mean you cannot talk to him.”
Sighing in defeat, Dick stood and shuffled out of the room.
Bruce waited until he knew Dick was upstairs to speak, but once more, Alfred beat him.
“And you. It would do everyone best to realize that we are all that boy has.”
“Tim has his step—”
“Not Timothy but Richard. Everyone else has moved on since his untimely death and can only see him on Halloween.”
“I know that,” Bruce spat, standing.
“Then act like it. He needs to be reassured that Timothy will not replace him, and we will always be there for him.”
“His unusual position puts us—”
Alfred lifted the uneaten food onto his tray. “Which is why we must do what we can to reassure him. Until Timothy settles and will trust us when we say Richard is not truly gone, we must proceed with caution on both accounts, for if we don’t, we might lose both.”
*^*^*
Help? How the hell could Dick help this situation? He was a freaking spirit! Tim couldn’t see him, and even if he could, how would that help either of them? Tim was already in his clothes, taking his place at his father’s side, and soon, he would take his place as Robin.
Eventually, Bruce would accept Tim as a son, and the void that Dick still somehow filled would be gone.
Bruce would move on; so would Alfred. Then he’d been alone.
Eventually it was going to happen anyway. After all, if they didn’t find Matatoa again, eventually Bruce would…Alfred, too…and then he’d be alone, cursed to live between planes for eternity.
The only
peace he had would be these few years he still had with Bruce and Alfred, and
damned if he was going to let some snot-nosed rich boy whom he barely
remembered in the hallways of
His angered thoughts derailed at the first sniffling. He stopped just before the guest room given to the younger teen and slowly allowed himself entrance. He found Tim Drake laying face down on the bed, his face pressed into a tear-stained pillow.
Dick wanted to kick himself.
Yeah, he wasn’t happy sharing his parents. Even with the Graysons, he’d been an only child, but he remembered the first days after his parents’ murder and how torturous they were, how uncertain, how scary, and he found himself coming to sit on the foot of the boy’s bed, his back just tucked into the bed frame.
“Hey…look. I know you can’t hear me, all right? But…” He sighed as the sobbing continued, and he found his own tears threatening to close off his throat and saturate his face. “I—I’ve been through this before, and they’re really nothing I can say that will make you feel better. It sucks. It blows the biggest chucks in the world. It’s just…not fair. Life isn’t fair, and there’s nothing more to say except what Bruce did.”
He hesitantly reached down to touch the boy’s leg—or at least tried to—but he only laid a hand on his jeans for fear of sending a chill through Tim’s body. “The pain’s always going to be there, and that knife in your gut? So not going away and some things like this you never get over, but…one day you’ll wake up and for the first time, not dream of seeing your father’s blood and hearing your mother’s shriek. You’ll realize they’d want you to live because you’re their world even if they’re no longer in it, and it’ll get better.”
Sometime during his speech, Tim’s sobs softened into sniffles, and he simply lay upon his bed, his arms off the sides, his face swallowed by the pillow.
“Bruce promised me that the first week he brought me here, and I didn’t believe him. I know you don’t believe me—or at least you wouldn’t if you could hear me. But it will, Tim. It just right now sucks big time.”
Drawing his legs onto the bed, Dick dropped his head to his knees and just stayed with Tim, hoping his presence somehow helped the teen. He unconsciously knew it didn’t, but since he came, the teen had quieted and he simply lay there, asleep and hopefully for the moment, out of pain.
It was then he noticed the poster leaning against the wall, ready to be hung by the maintenance man.
One of the Flying Graysons.
Dick had
his own feature poster, the picture taken just before his parents’ death. This
one looked like one of his first before his parents and he performed in the old
He stared at it until Tim awoke, turned on his back and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were tearstained, broken, and trembling, but Dick saw the resolve within them. Tim would survive, just like he had, just like Bruce had. Tim never looked at him, and Dick never spoke. They simply lay for how long, one staring at the ceiling, the other the bedspread as if content to be in each other’s presence, even though neither could feel the other.
Alfred eventually came to check on them, asking the “young masters” how they fared. Tim barely registered with a grunt; Dick shrugged. Thus, Alfred left albeit with a gentle smile upon his lips.
The sun crept along the sky until the moon took its place, and when Tim fell asleep after a late dinner, Dick watched in silent vigil, unsure of why he cared. Eventually, his instincts proved themselves right as the distant sound of a van door shutting. His head peeked up like a bird’s head shot up from its wings, and he eased off the bed to look out of the window. Even though he couldn’t see much of the grounds about Wayne Manor, he saw a bouncing of light off metal.
A gun.
Dick cursed loudly. He should have seen the signs before. Bruce said the boy’s father had been shot days ago, so it made no sense that he was covered in blood when Bruce brought him home the night before. These people must have attacked Tim, and Batman stopped them, which meant these guys were here to finish the job.
Dick backed away from the window
and whirled toward Tim. “Okay, Bruce left out a few details about your story,
didn’t he, kid? God, I wish you could hear me.” Shaking his head, he dashed to
the door and looked out. It was way past midnight, which meant Bruce was
probably downstairs or out in
Gritting his teeth, Dick ran to the edge of Tim’s bed and positioned his mouth just by the kid’s ear. He opened his mouth wide—and then stopped, looked down at his hands, and simply dipped his fingers into Tim’s cheek. That did the trick. The teen awoke with a start, his shoulders trembling from the cold touch of death. His eyes told another story, though. The touch’s familiarity frightened the younger boy, who had felt its tentacles not too long ago and barely escaped them.
Like Dick had when his parents died.
“Sorry about that,” Dick apologized, “but there are some gnarly guys just outside your…”
He lowered his own voice like it mattered when unfamiliar ones mumbled outside Tim’s window, and the boy lunged for his lights, hitting them off in one click. Smooth move, Dick thought and quickly darted to the door.
“You…You really shouldn’t stay here,” Dick whispered as he stood in the doorway, “but—hey!”
The teen dashed through Dick to head down the hall toward the main part of the house and most likely the Batcave.
Dick watched Tim go down the hall and shook his head, but followed nonetheless. “Okay, what is with you people going through me?” He crouched next to Tim at the top of the stairs where the boy now waited, tilting his head to the side as if listening for the attackers. Still, Dick ranted, “Seriously, it’s annoying, okay? It’s like you don’t even take into consideration that I’m here, and wait!” he shouted when Tim stood and started down the stairs.
Just then, the front doors blasted off their hinges and flew into the base of the stairs, halting Tim in his tracks and stealing Dick’s breath.
“Dude, will you just listen to me for once?”
The men dressed completely black rushed inside the foyer, and Dick realized whatever Tim’s father had done would have repercussions upon the son. The men didn’t wear any garments over their faces. They were here to kill Tim.
It didn’t matter that Dick couldn’t touch them. It didn’t matter that he was only a ghost and could do nothing to stop, but he jumped onto the banister of the grand staircase, surfed down on his socked feet to flip in the air and pressed his feet out in front of him to smash into the first man’s face.
Instead, he fell right through the man’s body.
As he landed on the floor and cursed under his breath, he heard the startled shouts of the gunmen and whirled to see Tim sliding down the banister, flipping in the air and slamming his own socked feet into the first gunman’s face. A barrage of bullets expelled from the gun as the man fell, but not one hit Tim. He landed effortlessly on the floor next to Dick, just above the fallen gunman’s head.
Dick looked at Tim with a mixture of uncertainty and satisfaction. “Not bad.”
Another round of gunfire blazed toward the pair, and Dick lunged forward. “Care to play Follow the Leader?”
Apparently Tim did. Though he never looked at Dick, he matched the boy’s moves almost perfectly. Where Dick hit a man in the face, Tim kicked in the chest, knocking the gun away as well. Dick rolled upon the ground and came up to hit a man in the stomach; Tim aimed a little lower. Tim even improvised a little, taking a thug by the wrist and tossing the bigger man over his shoulder.
The boy had been trained. Not by the Batman, mind you, but enough to be effective.
Dick crossed his arms and gazed at the unconscious men loitering at the duo’s feet. He nodded once to the boy next to him. “Who needs Batman, huh? We’ve got this covered.”
Still, not enough to keep Tim alive. Dick felt the edge of his nerves fray, and he swiveled just in time to see the first man heave himself onto his feet, the gun pointed directly at Tim’s back.
“TIM! LOOK—”
A black object smacked the man across the back of the head, and the man collapsed to the floor a second time.
A different black figure descended upon them from the chandelier, landing before the boys and casting a shadow over their shorter frames. “You all right?”
Dick didn’t even pretend to think Bruce spoke to him.
Tim, for the most part, kept collected, though a shaky hand rubbed the back of his neck. “Y—Yeah. I’m fine.”
“They came to clean up their mistake, huh?” Dick asked, bending down to get a better look at one of the men. “I don’t see any symbols or markings. They aren’t gang members.”
“Corporate espionage,” Batman answered curtly. He turned toward Tim. “They were hired by Lex Luthor to go after your father. What was Drake Industries creating that Luthor wanted?”
Tim shrugged. “I don’t know. My father had just signed some government contracts, but he never told me what they entailed.”
“Maybe Luthor wanted the contracts?” Dick proposed.
Batman glowered. “Possibly.”
Tim cocked his head to the side but said nothing.
The lights of the foyer clicked on suddenly, and Alfred entered the room. “Perhaps we should limit the sparring to the Cave, young sirs.”
Dick looked first to Tim and this time followed his example, smiling sheepishly.
*^*^*
“But I’m good.”
“You disobeyed me and went out alone.”
“To help.”
“To get yourself killed.”
“I won’t if you train me.”
“Out of the question.”
“I didn’t ask a question.”
Tim had become comfortable with Bruce in the three months since he came to live in Wayne Manor, Dick noticed from a seat in the corner of the room, his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped about his legs. His “little brother” stood in front of Bruce’s desk, the older man not even giving his newly acquired son the benefit of his full attention. Instead, he continued to read the morning’s reports about Wayne Enterprises’ economical status and its new acquisitions.
Tim learned the drill by week three and slammed his hands onto Bruce’s desk but still couldn’t achieve the man’s attention. “Bruce, you saw how well I fought.”
Dick’s head shot up. How well he fought? Who gave the kid those moves?
“I don’t care,” Bruce snapped.
“And I’ve been working really hard downstairs.”
Which was true, Dick had to admit. Of course, once again, Tim worked hard training with Dick’s moves. The slightly older boy found refuge in the workout area, punching bags that wouldn’t move and working on the gymnastic equipment. Many times he would venture down later as well to see Tim practicing—or attempting—the same moods. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattering, but Tim couldn’t see him to intimate…could he?
Tim let out a sigh and collapsed into the seat across from Bruce. “I want to help, Bruce. I want to stop what happened to my father and stepmother from happening to anyone else.”
“It doesn’t matter how hard you try,” Bruce said, monotone. “Quit while you’re ahead.”
“So that’s it? The Dark Knight of
Bruce raised his eyes for the first time since the conversation began but looked past Tim to the boy sitting into the corner, who slowly raised his head once more. “Because no matter how hard we try, we can’t save everyone.”
Tim shook his head. “Bruce, what happened to Dick wasn’t because he was—”
“I’m not training you.” What small door Bruce opened he slammed shut once more. “End of discussion.”
“He was Dick Grayson when he was killed!” Tim persisted as he sat up in his chair. “He wasn’t Robin.”
“And neither will you be.” Bruce shut a folder on his desk and stood. “Tim, I took you in for the same reason I took Dick in—to help you through your grief. If you want to help, then you can continue to do so as you have.”
“But you need someone in the field, not a book warm at a computer con—”
“That’s not what I need most.”
Bruce left without another word but not before Dick saw his father lift up and put down his left leg faster than his right. He’d been hurt the night before. He’d watched the fight from a perch at the construction site where Bruce had taken a bullet to the leg. It had only grazed him, but the wound hurt enough for the limp.
He’d wanted
to jump in and help Bruce, but he couldn’t. Not how he used to, and even though
Bruce found a new ally and partner for his crusade, he became more violent,
more bloody, and Dick simply watched. In fact, that seemed to be all he did. He
was a wrath simply watching the lives of others as they were played out.
He was losing Bruce to this new boy, whom Bruce wouldn’t even let in.
Tim growled under his breath and marched to the clock, pulling it open as furiously as the deadweight would allow. The clock was left open, and Dick lugged himself off the chair and followed the stomping teenager all the way down to the cave. Eventually, the clock closed on a timer, something Bruce implemented after Dick’s incident, and by the time the slightly older teen made it to the workout section of the cave, All-American Rejects replaced Mozart, and Tim, now dressed in basketball shorts and a Gotham Knights’ tank top, wrapped his hands as he stepped barefooted onto the mat. Before him hung a punching bag, which he began to beat mercilessly. A punch, a kick, a duck, a backhand—the bag never stood a chance.
Dick, dressed similarly, pushed himself up on the railing and watched. The kid was still good and getting better by the day.
Finally, when Tim’s anger dissipated in the sweat saturating his hair and running down his face, he knotted his hands behind his head to keep upright. “He doesn’t trust me.”
Dick shook his head. “You don’t speak Bruce yet. He didn’t say he didn’t trust you. He said he couldn’t lose another person. First his parents, then me—He’s not going to risk you, too.”
Tim didn’t answer. He never did. Instead, he went back to pounding the bag like it caused his frustration.
While they sat in silence, Bruce came and went. Alfred left dinner, and Dick simply watched the boy work. Tim tired eventually, heading into the showers before taking a seat at the Crays. The weekend allowed him to work on Bruce’s cases without any additional homework, and Dick eased himself on the console next to Tim.
They sat in comfortable silence until the Batmobile showed up on autopilot, and the duo saw the crimson stains on its hood.
*^**
Blood.
Pain.
Groans.
At least Alfred had the wherewithal not to put on the light overhead. It allowed Bruce to awaken from his wounds without as little discomfort as possible, especially with the silk sheets and feather pillows propping up his head. When he opened his eyes, he saw his curtains hadn’t been pulled, allowing the moonlight to cast a shadow on the person on the windowsill watching him.
“…Dick…” he croaked.
The boy put a finger to his lips and pointed to the still figure at the edge of the bed. There, sprawled across the foot of the king-sized mattress laid Tim Drake, an afghan across the boy’s shoulders.
“He was worried about you and had reason to be.” Dick eased off the sill and came to sit on the edge of the bed by Bruce’s torso. “You took three bullets to the chest. You’ve been out almost four days.”
“T—Two-Face…” Bruce coughed, and Dick crossed his arms.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Well, at least one of his shots didn’t hit you.”
Bruce reached up to touch Dick’s cheek, but the boy wouldn’t look his way. “You were stupid, Bruce.”
“Y—You have no…right…to—”
“Oh, I have every right.” Dick closed his eyes and buried his shaking hands in the crooks of his knees. “You have to train Tim.”
Bruce stared the suddenly silent boy, an unspoken question burning in his eyes.
What the—?
Dick sighed. “You’re getting reckless. You’re angry at yourself when you have no reason to be.”
Bruce closed his eyes. Sometimes he just didn’t know what was going on in his boy’s head, and then there were times he wished Dick didn’t know what was going on in his.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grunted, only wheezing every so often.
Dick failed to notice. “You see Tim as part of the family now, and you’re afraid if you accept him, you’ll be neglecting me. Or worse…you’ll let go.” Dick’s voice gave out in the last section, and his eyes kept closed to keep in the tears.
Bruce forced himself to keep staring at the boy outlined ethereally in the moon’s light.
“It’s okay, though. I know why I’m here now.”
“Because of Matatoa.”
Dick shook his head. “Nope. I’m your guardian angel—and his.” He motioned with a nod toward Tim. “I’m not going anywhere, Bruce.”
“But you haven’t lived either. Not since Tim—”
“Did I live before?” Dick snorted. “I’m dead, Bruce. I know that, and I have to accept it. But it was wrong of me to ask you not to move on. It was wrong of me not to want you to be happy, and I do. I want you to be happy, and if training Tim will do that, then I want you to train him.”
The man wracking his chest and ribs prevented him from stopping Dick from stranding, so he relied upon his raspy voice. “No.”
Dick looked so young in the moonlight, and for a brief moment, Bruce thought the rays actually shone through the boy, making him appear transparent.
“NO!” he reaffirmed, pushing past the pain, pushing past the liquid fire raging in his chest. “I will not let you go!”
Tim stirred, his eyes blinking frantically. “Wha—huh? Bruce? You’re awake?”
Bruce glanced at Tim, making eye contact for a moment.
Dick glanced over his shoulder with a wistful smile. “It’s okay to heal, Bruce. It’s natural. It’s good.”
“Good to leave you alone? To abandon my responsibility to you?”
“Is that what I am to you now? A responsibility?”
“No,” Bruce objected, staggering across the room. He attempted to put two hands on Dick’s shoulders, but his hands, like always, fell through the boy. Once more the cold touch of Death seized his heart, and Bruce pulled away.
“You know what you mean to me,” Bruce said. A fact.
Dick nodded. “Yes, which is why it’s unfair to hold you back any longer. Your parents have stopped talking to me, hoping you will no longer be haunted by their deaths. I should follow their example.”
Bruce now took a seat in front of boy and when Dick refused to meet his eyes, bent as best he could to take his gaze. The paleness in the always supernatural eyes marred Bruce’s soul.
Dick laid his chin on his knees. “You don’t need me, not anymore. I’m burden, a distraction.”
“Never.”
Tears dribbled from his eyes and down his flushed cheeks. Dick mumbled something too low for Bruce to catch, and the older man asked him to repeat. Bruce’s heart stopped when he heard the mumbled plea, “Let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Bruce wouldn’t acknowledge the wetness upon his own cheeks. “You have no right to ask me that—twice. Do you hear me?” Dick twisted away. “No, you can’t get rid of me that easy.”
“God, Bruce, you almost died! What would Alfred or Tim have done if you were—”
“What about you?”
“I’m dead, Bruce,” the boy cried. “I’m dead, and nothing’s going to change that. But I won’t be the cause of your death.”
“If you leave—”
“—you’ll train Tim, make him your Robin—”
“He can’t be you,” Bruce asserted.
“And he won’t be. He’ll be his own type of Robin, and—and—he’ll be what you need.”
“You and he are what I need.”
Dick’s face softened, an affectionate melancholy tainting his eyes. “And I’ll always be here, watching over you—but not haunting you.”
“No!” Even as Bruce leapt forward, Dick’s pale eyes faded into the light of the moon and his body with it. “No! DICK!”
The door crashed against the wall. “Master Bruce!” Alfred could do nothing, though, as Bruce crumbled to the ground, his fists clutching his stomach.
Alfred came to his side, then looked back at the horrified boy on the bed. “Master Timothy, please leave us.”
“But—”
“Timothy,
do as I ask.”
And Tim did.
*^*^*
“I do not believe you understand my point, Mr. Wayne,” the woman affirmed, her legs crossed, a folder on her lap. “I do not know if this placement is best for Tim.”
From his study’s desk, Bruce sat up with his hands steepled, his elbows on his chair’s arms. His face wiped of all emotion, he continued equally drained, “Ms. Peterson, I understand your concern, but Tim has a home here. He has become comfortable, secure, and by ripping him away again—”
“—we might be saving his life.”
The agony Bruce felt had run its course and left him numb, but as much as he wished it away, the pain crashed over him like a tsunami.
“I know you care for Timothy, Mr. Wayne. That much is evident,” Ms. Peterson said, fixing her crooked glasses, “but Richard died in your care. We can’t risk the life of another child.”
“No one knows what happened to Richard better than I, Ms. Peterson, and every day, every moment, I feel his absence. I hear his laughter. I see his face, and when I close my eyes, I can almost feel his warmth.” He closed his eyes and continued in a soft murmur. “Do you have children?”
“Yes.” She elaborated no more.
“I will not ask you for even a moment to imagine what it’s like to live without him or her, for it is a pain I wish no other person. But if you can empathize with a parent who has lost a son, then you would know why what happened to Dick will never happen to Tim. I won’t let it.”
Ms. Peterson nodded and opened the folder to write. “May I ask why you didn’t speak this way at Dick’s funeral?”
Bruce glared at the empty seat in the corner of the room. “I thought Dick already knew. He didn’t need to hear it, but apparently, I was wrong.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he’s no longer here.”
Ms. Peterson cocked her head to the side. “I don’t understand.”
“Good, and I hope you never do.”
*^*^*
“No.”
Tim looked up at Batman’s back at the Crays as he followed through with another kick in a workout bag. “Bruce—”
“It’s over, Tim. If you refuse to see that, then I will ban you from the Cave until you do.” His domineering voice left little room for debate, and Tim took his frustration out on the bag, punching, kicking, and even swearing at it.
Alfred entered, placing down a cup of tea with lemon on Batman’s right. “Still no word from Richard?”
If it were possible, Bruce’s uncowled face darkened. The shadows that had lessened when he first took the boy in almost a decade ago resurfaced full force as a darkness all but one could break held Bruce captive.
Alfred stirred a few lumps of sugar into the cup. “Perhaps it was for the best.”
“WHAT?” Bruce growled, swiveled in his chair.
Alfred never even blinked. “He wished in some misguided way to bring you happiness, of which he believed his presence was denying. So you wouldn’t have to let him go, he let you go, thus freeing you from your emotional responsibility to him and Tim. Instead, though, you squander his gift and alienate both your sons at once. If I may say, sir, that is true talent.”
*^*^*
“Fear, Batman, is a great motivator.”
Batman squeezed his eyes shut as his stomach flushed cold yet sweat poured down his heated face.
“Tell me. What scares the big, bad Bat?”
There wasn’t much. Not anymore.
Hanging upside down in a warehouse, Batman shivered and struggled against the bonds restraining him. The blood beat hard in his temple, but Batman refused to give into unconsciousness. Next to him, Vicki Vale screamed bloody terror on the floor as she, too, saw her worst nightmares. He couldn’t give up, for that would mean he would let her down. He had already let so many others, and he refused to surrender. He refused to let evil win.
And he wouldn’t leave his partners alone to die.
He knew Tim wasn’t there. He knew the boy in the updated Robin suit with long green leggings and matching green gloves couldn’t be Tim. He knew the black boots that slammed into the Scarecrow’s body and sent Crane flying weren’t those manufactured by Wayne Enterprises, just like he knew the boy sitting on a crate giving Tim pointers wasn’t Dick.
Oh, the teen looked like Dick with a pair of jeans and a I *heart* GC T-shirt. The teen even sounded like Dick.
“Dude, you totally hit like a girl.”
The boy in the Robin was not Tim. “I do not!” …even though he sounded like Tim.
“Please, Donna hits—Get low. Upper cut!—harder than you.”
“She’s—ugh!—Wonder Girl. She’s supposed to hit harder than me.”
“Right hook—excuses, excuses.”
What the boy’s didn’t see was Scarecrow’s goons coming in from their hourly check-up,
Scarecrow was right. Fear was a great motivator.
Batman’s fingers somehow made it to his belt, and he managed to open the container of acid. As soon as enough of the rope was burned through, he ripped it apart and freed his legs. Flipping, he soared to engage the henchmen, even as “Robin” delivered a crushing blow to Scarecrow.
“Batman?” he asked.
Dick’s smile said it all, even though he chose to speak anyway. “Hell, yeah. This is the Batman.”
Lunging forward, Batman pounced on the first goon and for the first time in four years, left his right side open. Sure enough, he heard Dick yell, “MOVE!” and Robin filled the hole, taking out the second goon before he took out the Dark Knight. They worked as a team, Robin following Batman’s lead perfectly until no one but Vicki remained conscious, and even she was a far cry from cognizant in her state.
Batman turned to the boy in the new suit. “No.”
Tim Drake rolled his eyes. “Aw, man. Come on. Doesn’t this prove—”
“This proves nothing.”
Batman looked at the forsaken crate and then back to Tim. He touched the boy’s shoulder just make sure he was real before heading toward Vicki.
The night proved nothing.
*^*^*
“Might I say, sir, you have become quite colorful these last few months,” Alfred announced as he tended to yet another wound on Bruce’s back.
Sitting half-naked on the medical table, Bruce watched Tim across the chasm, the boy taking his frustration out on a punching bag. Two months of cleaning up bat poop was not a fair punishment for his transgression, but anything more would have warranted a call to Child Services, or so Alfred said.
Bruce sighed and looked away. “He was wrong, Alfred.”
“How so, sir?”
“Because no matter what, I would never have let him go.”
A hand dropped upon Bruce’s shoulder and squeezed tightly. “He knew that, so perhaps he was trying to save you from yourself, which we know how futile that is. After all—” Alfred wrapped Bruce’s burned hands and smiled up at his charge thoughtfully. “—it’s not like the young master was right. It’s not that you need a partner to help you in your crusade. You’re just masochistic.”
“I won’t put another boy in jeopardy.”
“No, you’ll just put yourself.”
A soft mumbling was barely audible from his seat. Even though he couldn’t hear the words, he knew the voice. Tim still attacked the punching bag mercilessly, but he momentarily took his attention off the swinging object to look at the railing to his left—the empty railing.
Tim stopped the bag in mid-swing and snorted. “Yeah, right.”
He then waited as if listening to someone and shook his head. “Nope. Nuh-uh. It’s never going to happen.” Kicking the bag, he was silent for a few more seconds before, “Sure, I love talking to myself. I get the best answers that way.”
Bruce’s heart fluttered for the first time in almost three months. “You can see him.”
Alfred furled an eyebrow as Bruce rose from the bed. “I beg your pardon?”
His voice, though no louder than a whisper, scraped his throat raw. “You can see him,” he said as he approached the workout area.
Tim whirled—then fell face-first onto the mat when the punching bag smacked into his butt. He picked himself up reservedly before flashing an evil glower toward the railing.
“Oh, shut up. Like that’s never happened to you.”
More silence.
“Well, then just shut up.”
Bruce exchanged a quick, lightening gaze with Alfred as the older man approached before offering Tim a hand.
“You see him.”
Tim dusted off his shoulder and froze, his eyes slowly turning to meet Bruce’s eyes. “Wait. You see him?” A wave of relief rolled over Tim and almost made his legs give out. “Oh, thank GOD! I thought I was going same way as Dana.”
“The poster in your room…your gymnastics…you knew Dick,” Bruce said.
Tim nodded rather sadly. “Not well, but I actually met him the night his parents were killed, and we went to the same school afterward but…” Tim shrugged while his face brightened. “I’m a huge fan.”
“You never let go of him.”
“Which is why I can see him like you.”
Bruce’s face immediately tightened as he stared at the railing, then looked away. “No, I can’t. Not anymore.”
“Because you’re so stubborn,” a familiar voice growled, and when Batman looked back, he saw Dick perched upon the railing in a handstand. He flipped upward and landed with his arms to his sides, balancing perfectly. “You know I’m right. You know you have to train Tim, but instead of just accepting it, you fight it. You fight everything.”
That was when Bruce went completely silent, drew all the shadows of the night around him, and strode forward. “You were never going to leave.”
Dick stood straighter. “I said that, but you weren’t
listening. I mean, Bruce, where am I going to go? Who else am I going to haunt?
And who’s going to put up with me?
“You tried to manipulate me.”
“Duh. You know, for a master detective, you sometimes miss the obvious.”
The glower sent Dick’s way only made the boy smirk and cross his arms, his eyebrow arching to say, “What are you going to do? Ground me?” The boy couldn’t even turn on a TV by himself. No sweets? Boy couldn’t eat.
Being the father to a ghost had some serious disadvantages, but he would take his son any way he could get him.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
Dick’s eyes softened, and he smiled ecstatically. “So are you going to train Tim?”
This time, Tim’s eyes brightened, but Batman stalked away from him with a simple, “No.”
As Tim deflated, Dick flipped off the rail and landed at Tim’s side. “Give him time, Timbourine. He’ll come around.”
Tim watched Bruce make his way back to the medical bed before looking at the ghost boy next to him. “What did you just call me?”
“What? You like ‘Timbo’ better?”
“Uh, no.”
“How about ‘Aflac’?”
“What!”
“Fine, we’ll settle for ‘T-D.’”
“I guess I’ll just have to call you ‘Dick.’ ”
“Oh, like I haven’t heard that one before.”
*^*^*
Meeting Batman—weird.
Meeting Robin—unbelievable.
Being Robin—Priceless.
Meeting the Teen Titans—the best friends of the first Robin—uncomfortable.
Dick was right as usual when it came to matters about
Bruce, Tim realized with a slight cringe as he stood before the slightly taller
and definitely more experienced Teen Titans in the JLA headquarters. At
sixteen, they all appeared huge compared to the newly trained Robin, but the
boy didn’t let his fear show. He didn’t need to. Even though he felt the
appraising gazes of the Justice League of
“They’re cool. Trust me,” Dick offered, a hand upon his new brother’s shoulder. “They’ll come around.”
Kid Flash, Wally West, crossed his arms and let out a long sigh. “And just who do you think you are?”
Tim smirked. “I don’t think. I know I’m Robin.”
“Robin was my best friend. Trust me. You’re no Robin.”
“Bet I know him better than you.”
Which at the moment was actually true.
Dick, however, simply slapped the boy on the back—or tried at least. “Wally’s just busting you, testing your limits. Tell him you know his weakness.”
Tim did, content that his voice didn’t waver.
Kid Flash cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? Let’s hear it.”
“Chili dogs,” Dick snickered.
Tim cast his brother an incredulous glare.
The ghost cracked a wide smile. “Hey, I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”
Tim agreed. “Chili dogs,” he muttered, trying not to sound too skeptical.
A transformation occurred in a matter of seconds as Wally’s face smoothed of its tension wrinkles. His mouth opened briefly, and he simply stared at the boy across of him who knew his secrets, forgetting the new Robin before him.
Dick smiled. “Don’t worry, Tim. It’s going to be just fine.”
“So, you’re okay with this?”
Dick’s smile immediately faded. His eyes ricocheted about
Wally snorted. “Good. It’s not just me.”
“Seriously? You’re okay with this? The Bat’s not, like, pressuring you to help this kid or something? Because I will totally kick his freakin’ ass if he is.”
That, for the moment, didn’t matter. Dick lunged himself at Roy and Wally— “YOU CAN SEE ME!”—and fell right through his friends. He only managed to retain some dignity by diving into a roll.
His eyes settled on Roy, who dropped his hands from his biceps. The older teen had gotten cold abruptly.
“Yeah, I just didn’t want to believe I was crazy. If I am, I’m not the only one, am I?”
“
Dick looked away.
“I might be a prick for saying this, but dude, am I the only one who doesn’t want to catch that be-ach?”
Surrounded by his mentors, his friends, his brother, and
his father, Dick saw
*^*^*
The rapidly falling drops of steaming water burned the dead skin off of Bruce’s shoulders and back as he pressed his forehead against the tile of his bathroom shower. Another night of endless nights, another year passed for all of them, and what had been a dynamic duo became a family.
The night-terrors still came full force, something he would never get over, and the agony he thought could not be any worse was. He’d learned to survive after he lost his parents; he wouldn’t have had truly lost his elder son.
As he stepped out of the shower, the coldness of the room didn’t compare to the coldness he’d felt for the brief moments during the time of Dick’s death and the boy’s reemergence in his life.
Roy Harper had said what he had wanted to the last four years, and that realization renewed every time he stepped out of the shower and saw Dick laying stomach-down on his bed.
“Conan!”
Now alongside his brother.
“Letterman!”
“No, Conan!”
“No, Letterman, and I’ve got the remote!”
“No fair. I can’t get the remote.”
“Oh, well. Sucks to be you.”
“Wait until tomorrow. Then it’ll suck to be you.”
Tongues appeared, and Bruce shook his head with an apparition of a smile. There wasn’t much about matters of the heart Bruce could get right, but he knew his elder son was lonely and needed someone. And Tim Drake, the boy who hung a poster of Dick Grayson in his bedroom, had yet to give up his idol. Now he never would.
With a soft grin upon his face and awaiting the first dawn to grant him another day with Dick, Bruce swiped the remote from his younger son and flipped the channel.
“Leno.”
Dick and Tim both moaned.
The End