A/N: I don't own Batman.
Bruce had wanted to spend the night hunting down Zucco. He couldn't get the image of the tiny black haired boy who'd just watched his parents die out of his head. He remembered all too well the helplessness of that moment. He hadn't been able to save Dick's parents, but maybe he could at least get him justice.
He'd wanted to spend the night hunting down Zucco. Unfortunately, he ran into someone else first.
Someone wearing a Flying Grayson circus uniform with a carefully cut out letter "R" safety pinned to the chest and an all too obviously handmade felt mask around his eyes.
"Dick," he said in flat disbelief.
The boy skittered backwards, and - they were on the roof. They were on a roof five blocks from the orphanage. How had Dick gotten here? "N-nope. Not me. Not sure who you're looking for, but - "
He reached out and grabbed the boy's arm. "Dick. What are you doing out here?"
The boy's shoulders caved. "I"m looking for Zucco."
"You're going back to bed."
Dick's head snapped up stubbornly. "He killed my parents!"
"I know. I'm taking care of it. Go back to bed."
"I need to bring him to justice!"
"You're nine."
"I could be useful!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
That was pretty much how things went for the next three nights.
Batman loomed over the small boy. "The more time I have to spend tracking you down, the less time I can spend tracking Zucco."
Dick perched on the edge of the building, plainly unimpressed by the loom. "So stop chasing me then."
"No. And get down from there."
"I'll just keep doing this until you let me come."
"Then Zucco will never be caught."
Dick slumped. He pointed to the "R" on his chest. "You know what this is for?"
"No."
"It stands for Robin. That was my mom's name for me. Only she's never going to call me that again, because she's dead. Zucco killed her. If it was your parents, wouldn't you want to be there?"
"I did want to go after my parents' killer," he confessed after a long moment. "But I waited until I was an adult." He placed an awkward hand on the boy's shoulder. "Go home. I'll come tell you when I've got Zucco."
"Don't got a home," the boy muttered. "But okay."
A germ of an idea grew in Bruce's mind.
Zucco went down. Bruce took Dick in.
Both of those were good things.
Dick finding the Batcave . . . not so much.
"You're Batman!" Dick crowed. "I knew it! I knew it! Why else would you take me in? Can I be your sidekick?"
Bruce didn't even have to think about that one. "No."
"I'd be a great sidekick! I can do all sorts of cool stuff! Look - "
After three weeks of watching Dick do death defying stunts all around the manor, Bruce didn't really need the demonstration, but he got the point. "Impressive. Still no."
"You could teach me how to fight better first," Dick conceded.
Bruce paused. "I probably should do that," he admitted. "You need to know how to defend yourself."
"Asterous! So - "
"Still no."
"But why?" Dick whined.
Bruce sighed and knelt down so that he could look Dick in the eyes. "Because I'm trying to keep kids like you safe in this city, not drag them into battle. I don't want you getting caught up in all this so young."
Dick's eyes gleamed. "And when I'm older?"
"When you're eighteen, you can do what you want. Until then, no capes." His tone was final.
Or, well. As final as things ever got with Dick, anyway.
"Flash has a sidekick now. So does Green Arrow."
A raised eyebrow. "And?"
"They're okay. I'd be okay too."
Kid Flash had been kidnapped just last week. Roy Harper had gotten shot on the rescue mission and had gotten a wound the doctors said would scar.
"You train the Teen Titians," Dick continued relentlessly. "You work with them. Why not me?"
Yes, he trained them. Relentlessly. Savagely. Determined that if he couldn't talk their mentors into doing the right thing and forcing their kids out of their capes, then he could at least do his best to keep the kids alive.
"Come down to the Cave after I get back from patrol for a week or two," Bruce finally said. "You'll see why."
Dick's eyes widened. "You're letting me into the Cave?"
"Don't make me regret it."
He was absolutely going to regret this.
The first few nights were totally asterous. Alfred let him listen to Bruce's comm for a couple of hours, and Dick got to help arrange the medical supplies, just in case. Plus he got to stay up way past his bedtime.
And okay, he was a little tired at school afterwards, but if Bruce could manage it every day, then so could he. This was Gotham on the line. This was Bruce on the line. Bruce went out every night, all alone. What if something happened to him? Dick couldn't let that happen.
The fourth night was where it all went wrong.
There was an Arkham breakout. The minute the news went down, Alfred took the comm from him and gripped the chair's arms with white knuckled hands. Dick hurried to get the bandages out.
And Bruce needed them. When he finally got back, he stumbled out of the Batmobile dripping blood. Under the cowl, his face was littered with bruises.
Dick followed Alfred's instructions in white faced silence.
When the last of the wounds were bandaged, Alfred began to tidy up the bloodied workspace. "Perhaps it is time for you to go to bed, Master Dick," he suggested quietly.
Bruce's eyes, closed for the last few minutes, shot open. "No. Not yet." He grabbed Dick's wrist. "This is why," he said intently.
For a moment, Dick's mind was still stuck in the shocked blankness it had been in for most of the night, but reason slowly trickled in. "You think I'll get hurt." Looking down at Bruce, he had to admit that it wasn't farfetched.
Bruce nodded, wincing at the pain, but took the point a step further. "What would your teachers think if you came into class with bruises like this?" He didn't wait for an answer. "They'd think I was abusing you. And if I let you out at night to fight criminals, they'd be right."
"Okay," Dick said quietly.
Bruce leaned back against the pillow, relief easing the lines on his face.
"But you've let me into the Cave now," Dick continued. "And I can still help from in here."
Dick decided to interpret the moan that followed as one of agreement.
"So." Dick's voice was carefully neutral. "Batgirl."
Bruce restrained a sigh as he looked down at the newspaper laid not-quite-accusingly on the breakfast table.
"She's helping," Dick continued, voice still carefully flat.
"You're helping," Bruce said automatically. He had a line of stitches in his arm that could speak for that.
"She's fighting," Dick countered. "With you."
"She interfered in the fight," Bruce corrected. "After which, I tried to talk her into putting up the cape for awhile."
Dick raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"She wouldn't listen," Bruce admitted reluctantly. "So I threatened to tell her father."
"Her father being . . . ?"
"Commissioner Gordon."
Dick choked on his bacon. "Barbara's Batgirl?"
Bruce raised an eyebrow in unspoken question.
Dick . . . blushed. Interesting. "We talked at the police ball," he muttered. "She's - nice."
Very interesting.
"Well, the threat worked," Bruce said dryly, "so her evenings should be free if you'd like to ask her to dinner sometime."
Dick choked on his bacon again.
In hindsight, Bruce shouldn't have encouraged them to date. Because they weren't just dating.
They had joined forces.
"We want to help."
And Bruce just wanted the children he was more or less responsible for to live to adulthood. Was that too much to ask for?
"You are - "
"Dick is," Barbara interrupted. "I want to help too. I'm good with computers. I've hacked into Gotham's security cameras before. I can do it again. That way, we can keep an eye on you, and a lookout for crime to steer you towards."
Bruce wasn't . . . enthusiastic about the idea of the kids getting a good look at some of the more violent crime in Gotham, but he was pretty sure Dick was sneaking looks into his case files anyway, and maybe this would strip some of the glamor from vigilantism. "Fine."
The year Dick was seventeen was - tense.
Dick stepped up his self-defense practice. Bruce pretended not to notice.
Dick started sketching out what looked suspiciously like costumes. Bruce pretended not to notice.
Dick started studying his case files openly, and Bruce pretended not to notice right up until he caught Dick looking at footage of the Joker's latest atrocity, and at that point he had to step in.
"You want to go out," he said quietly from behind Dick's place at the Cave computer.
Dick jumped, but he didn't let himself get distracted. "Yeah," he said firmly. "I do. You keep getting hurt. We almost lost you last month. You need backup, Bruce. And in two months, per your own words, if I want to go out and do that, you can't stop me."
Bruce let out a long breath. "Barbara?"
"She wants to stay in the Cave and keep running the tech. But she wants to start calling herself Oracle."
Bruce grunted. "Fine."
"Fine to which?" Dick asked cautiously.
"Both."
"Because I remember what you said and - Wait. What?"
"Fine." He stepped back. "We've got two months to go. That's not much time to pack in more training."
Dick beamed.
His senior year of high school, Robin reappeared on the streets of Gotham. Dick knew he had to be stealthy, but the first time he went out in the costume, he couldn't help but let out a whoop that could be heard for blocks around.
And if Bruce was still a little smothering, well. At least he was finally out here.
"You want to be a cop."
"A detective," Dick corrected. "I just have to work my way up through the ranks first."
"So you're . . . quitting vigilantism?" Bruce asked with dying, desperate hope.
Dick looked at him blankly. "Why would I do that?"
"Fighting crime at all hours of the night and day," Alfred said dryly as he removed the dinner dishes. "You cannot, at least, fault his dedication to the mission."
"I've got a lot of time to make up for," Dick said brightly. He took one last swig of his drink and bounded up. "Well, I've got to go. I've got an apartment to go look at."
Bruce watched him go with dismay. "Commissioner Gordon's daughter is studying library science. Commissioner Gordon's daughter stays in the Cave. Where did I go wrong?" he moaned.
Alfred patted his shoulder consolingly. "I know what you mean, Master Bruce. I know what you mean."