ABOUT THE STORY: I might follow up this chapter someday with Dick's opinions on the Batman, in the same (or different) style. I'm experimenting with writing styles at the moment, so sorry if it seems kind of bad. There will be no romance, maybe I'll hint at the cannon pairings, but I doubt it. I'm not a romance person, so please don't ask for pairings. You can tell me what you want me to write, but just remember that I'm under no obligation to write what you want me to. Thank you, and sorry that you had to read this long paragraph.

He's standing, waiting...

His parents are free, flying...

There's a snap...

He closes his eyes, and Dick can see his parents falling, can see the blood and hear the sickening crack as their bodies bend in ways that even he can't perform.

"You'll get over it." The child worker assures him, features twisted in sympathy. She looks hesitant to approach him, as though he were made of class.

Maybe he was. He felt like one touch could crack him like an egg.

"It'll be okay," The adults all say, all torsos and legs, he can't make out their faces, too high and blinded by the light. "In just a while, you'll barely remember this happened."

He finds that hard to believe, because every time that he breathes, he can imagine their bodies crumpled on the ground, like a photograph, clear and precise.

"It'll never go away." Bruce is different.

Sympathetic, but not pitying him.

Honest, but not painfully so.

Distant, yet somehow understanding.

"It won't?" They're watching the circus pack up, Dick doing a handstand in the hopes that all the blood rushing to his head will somehow make his brain stop thinking about them, Bruce there in a clean suit, looking so out of place that before the accident, Dick might have laughed at him. "Never?"

"Never," Bruce agrees, his voice weary, as though he's thinking about something but also trying not to, just like Dick. "But that's not a bad thing. It's true that it'll never go away... those imagines in your head, the memories, the knowledge that they're not here anymore. But do you really want to forget them?"

He crouches down, and Dick feels that Bruce is trying to stay on his level, unlike the other adults who were just so high up, tall as mountains.

"If it makes the pain stop." Dick replies, and he feels that he should be ashamed to sound so pathetic, but he mostly feels numb, like this is all just a dream.

"But they are a part of you." Bruce's voice sounds odd, as though he is repeating somebody else's words. (Later, Dick thinks it must be Alfred who said that originally.) "To forget is to lose a part of yourself."

Dick wouldn't like that, but part of him thinks that as long as the choked feeling in his chest is gone, he doesn't care if part of his soul is, too.

"Have you forgotten something?" Dick asks curiously as he springs back, legs bending smoothly so that he can stand up.

There's a slight pause, as though Bruce is thinking very hard about something, and then a quiet, "I don't know."

That makes sense, Dick supposes. "Do you think that you've forgotten something?" He asks promptly, hands folded over each other as he straightens, feeling oddly dirty next to Bruce.

"No..." Bruce shakes his head, thoughtful and old. "I don't know. The man who raised me says that I'm looking for something to complete me."

Like a puzzle. "What are you looking for?" Dick wonders if he also needs something to complete him, and his fingers tap nervously against his leg. He doesn't like the thought that he's incomplete.

Bruce stares at him, still thoughtful, still old. "I don't know." His voice is as rough as grating copper, and yet oddly hollow.

"You don't know much, do you?" Dick asks, unsure if that's rude or not.

A small attempt at a smile lifts up the corner of Bruce's lips. "No, I suppose not." He half laughs, still crouched down.

Dick wonders if Bruce can help him to complete himself.

The next time that he sees Bruce, they talk some more.

They talk a lot.

Then the day comes where, instead of acting cool and confident, Bruce seems rather nervous.

He keeps glancing at the old man waiting by the door, eyes darting back and forth, like he's trying to look at everything, but nothing at the same time.

Finally, they settle on Dick, and he speaks in a voice of one who's thought a lot about how much they could fail, "Dick, how would you like to live with me?"

Dick gapes, because he hadn't really thought this to be possible, hadn't really considered it, but before he knows it he's dashing towards Bruce and wrapping his arms around him and yelling something incoherent, but he thinks that it must be a yes, because that's what the light feeling in his chest is singing.

He glances at the old man by the door, and catches a fond smile on the old man's lips.

"...Alfred?" He asks, because he thinks that this could only be one man, the one that Bruce is always speaking so fondly of, and the one from whom so much wisdom seems to come.

The old man approaches, and dips into a bow. "Master Richard."

His voice is gravelly, and posh, but Dick likes it, and giggles at the formality. "Should I call you Master Alfred?"

Alfred assures him (very seriously, which makes Dick giggles some more) that doing so is not needed, but Dick has already decided that he'll call Alfred 'Master Alfred'. (He's not quite sure why, but he loves the idea, it's like he's playing pretend.)

Arms still wrapped around Bruce's neck, Dick pulls away to wrap his arms around Alfred, who seems a little stiff, but returns it with fond sincerity.

He casts a glance at Bruce, then unwraps one arm to beckon him closer.

Bruce isn't Papi, Dick thinks.

But Bruce has somehow become very important to Dick, all the same.

A/N: So... yeah, another random fic in a random fandom. Sorry, guys. For those following me, this'll be a bit like Scars, a side project, but with an indefinite amount of chapters. (So I could update like, every day for one month, then take two months for another update, but then it could build up to something like a million chapters if you're patient enough.)