5-30-14

Hello, everyone! Wow, look at me...two new stories in one night! :D The other one is a one-shot called "I Never Got to Say Goodbye." There has been much Dick!whumpage this night...

Anyway, I was originally going to post this story all in one block. But then everything started getting REALLY long, and I decided to just make it a chapter story.

So this is basically a "Five times he couldn't, and the one time he could" sort of story. I've read lots of these, and TOTALLY love the idea, so I thought I'd do one of my own.

Now this is based on a head canon that Dick would be hesitant to get back in the air after watching his parents fall to their deaths. Not because he's afraid of flying, but because he's afraid of the alternative: falling. I'm pretty sure something like this has been done before, but hey, here's my spin on it.

Woo, long author's note...

Enjoy!

Gotham City
April 14, 13:04 EDT

It was stupid. It was irrational. Dick knew that. There was no good reason for him to be afraid; he had been doing this for most of his young life. And yet...

His fingers flexed around the white bar in his hands, sweat forcing its way through the protective layer of chalk on his palms. He'd checked the lines. He'd checked them twice. He stared down over the twenty foot drop below him; in all reality, a very low height compared to what his parents used to do, and they didn't even have a safety net.

His parents.

Dick's breath hitched as their flailing bodies appeared in his mind's eye, falling, falling, falling, crashing into the hard packed ground below, their limbs twisted unnaturally as their dead, glassy eyes stared up at him.

He let go of the trapeze like it had caught fire, stumbling away away from the edge until he bumped into the wall on the other side of the platform. Anything to get away from that drop. He sank to the ground, unable to meet the eyes of the man standing a few feet to his left.

"I—I—," Dick stammered, struggling to stop his lips from quivering as tears clouded his vision.

The man stepped toward him, and Dick involuntarily flinched, half expecting to be scolded for his cowardice. But the man just knelt down beside him, a large hand lifting his small chin up until Dick found himself looking up into the dark eyes of Bruce Wayne.

"I know," Bruce said softly. "It's okay, Dick."

Against Dick's will, the tears began to fall. He sniffled softly, wiping a small hand over his eyes and getting chalk on his face in the process. He hated showing weakness in front of the man who had taken him in, hated the fact that he couldn't seem to do what had used to come as easily as breathing to him just a few weeks ago: flying like a bird. He could almost hear his mother's voice, crooning softly to him, calling him her little robin...

Despite his best efforts, Dick began to sob, the pain of losing his parents just thirteen days ago still fresh in his heart.

Bruce hesitated for only a moment before pulling the distraught boy awkwardly onto his lap.

Dick burrowed his face into Bruce's chest, clutching the fabric of the man's sweater tightly in his fingers as he tried to control the heartbroken sounds erupting from his mouth. Why'd they have to die? What did Dick ever do wrong to deserve this? It took a long time, longer than Dick would have liked, but finally his sobs calmed to the occasional sniffle.

He pulled his face out of the man's shirt, now soaked with Dick's snot and tears. A wave of fear rolled through him; what if the man was angry that Dick had ruined his shirt? What if he would send him back to the orphanage? What if—

"Are you ready to go back down?" a gruff voice asked.

Dick glanced up, his red-rimmed blue eyes still twinkling with tears. He was startled to find that the man didn't look angry in the slightest; in fact his expression seemed...sympathetic. In the few days he had lived with this man, he hadn't seen him show hardly any emotion; he'd begun to think of him as a brick wall: silent, unmoving, and grey.

"I—I'm sorry," Dick whispered. "I didn't mean to ruin your shirt."

The man raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised at his statement. "I've got plenty more."

There was a slightly awkward silence while Dick attempted to wipe his dripping nose on his unitard.

"It's about dinner time. Alfred will be waiting," Bruce said, moving to stand up.

Dick quickly scrambled off his lap, not wanting to push his luck too much. He still wasn't sure what the proper way was to act around the billionaire, and Bruce didn't seem entirely sure how to deal with him either. It was clear that Bruce had no experience raising a child, and Dick didn't have any close up experience with what his dad had called "city folk." All the same, Dick was grateful the man had taken him in; he just wished that he was more like his father.

Dick watched apprehensively as Bruce began to climb down the ladder bolted to the side of the platform.

Bruce seemed to sense his hesitance, stopping partway down to look up at the young face staring down at him, eyes wide with fear. "Come along, now," he said, trying to sound as gentle as he could. "I'll be right here to catch you if you fall."

Dick paused for a second longer, than cautiously swung his leg over the edge and onto the top rung of the ladder. He slowly began to climb down, flinching every time the rungs creaked under his weight, checking behind him occasionally to make sure Bruce was still under him. When his feet finally touched the ground, he let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Bruce standing over him, as impassive as always, the rare display of emotion already a distant memory.

"Let's go get you cleaned up," Bruce said.

Dick looked down at the soaked front of his unitard, reflexively brushing his hands over it in an attempt to wipe it off, but only succeeding in adding chalk to the mess. "Sorry," he whispered again.

A heavy hand placed itself on his shoulder and Dick flinched.

"Nothing to be sorry about, kid."

Dick allowed himself to be steered out of the vast gym, taking one last look at the lonely trapeze still hanging above the platform before Bruce closed the door behind them and it was lost to sight.

So what do you think? Too dramatic? Unrealistic? Let me know in a review! Constructive criticism is accepted and appreciated.

Okay, so here's the deal: I have two out of five chapters already written for this story. I know, I know, I really should finish my stories before I publish them, but I just couldn't help myself! I'm hoping that by publishing the prologue, it'll get my fingers flying for the rest of it.

Expect the next update within the next couple of days depending on my progress! And by the way, the chapters will be WAY longer than this.