I don't own Batman or Robin or Bruce Wayne or Dick Grayson. Though I wish I did. This idea sort of ambushed me, so I figured I should write it. Sorry for the long absence from fanfic…..hopefully this is the start of a return.

Sorry if there are typos, I have no editor. Also, I'm going to post this as fast as I write it, so that my attention doesn't waver and you don't end up with an unfinished story.

Thank you all for the comments. Here is the final chapter. Thank you so much for reading.

-ff-

Dick held his breath as he slipped into the hall. Inside the house, Alfred was just as silent and just as omnipresent as Bruce was on the streets of Gotham. If he could make it to the cave without being seen, it would be some sort of miracle. Dick smiled to himself, if he could make it to the Cave, it would be only because of his training and a little bit of luck. The boy had no desire to meet with Alfred's wrath just yet, that could wait after Sean had been taken care of.

Somehow, Dick made it down to the Cave without being seen. The rest would be easy, well, easier. He pulled on his Robin uniform, did his best to walk without a limp, jumped a few times to make sure he could without complete pain and went over to the motorcycle that had been his present for his fifteenth birthday.

Sure, most boys didn't even have access to driving the family car with their parent in the passenger seat, but most boys weren't out in the middle of the night fighting back against the plague of crime and evil on the streets of Gotham.

Dick had no illusions of not being tracked the instant his cycle hit the streets. He knew there'd be an APB out for him as soon as either Bruce noticed the cycle left the cave or Alfred noticed his absence, but it was far too late to go back to bed. He slid his helmet on, took a breath, smiled and sped out of the Cave.

The night air was cool and slightly damp as he raced down the streets. Adrenaline and happiness and determination flooded his blood and he finally felt back to his old self. He was once again that agile and immaculately trained young man who was raised on the dark streets of Gotham under the firm and vengeful hand of Batman. There was no stopping him and he would finish what he set out to do.

-/-

Alfred walked down the silent halls of the manner. He had a mug of hot tea on a tray for Master Richard if the boy was not yet asleep. He knocked on the boy's bedroom door and heard no answer.

Slowly he pushed open the door and saw the empty bed. "Master Richard, you will be the death of me."

He turned on his heel and went down to the cave. He paused for a moment and hit the communication link to Bruce.

"Alfred." Bruce's gravelly voice came over the speaker.

"Master Richard is not at the house. I believe his uniform and motorcycle are missing as well." Alfred's hand was clenched in a fist, the only sign of his anger at the breaking of the rules.

Bruce sighed. "I can guess where he's going."

"Please make sure he is safe. He is not fully recovered nor up to his usual speed." The anger was simply just misdirected worry, Alfred knew that.

"I'll let you know when we're on our way home." Bruce ended the call before Alfred could say anything else.

Alfred turned and went back up to the house to wait.

-/-

Dick stopped his motorcycle in a deep shadow of the parking lot. Most of the smaller tents of Haly's Circus had already been packed up. All that remained were the animals' cages and the main tent. Men worked quickly and efficiently over the entire grounds. Nobody noticed Dick as he leapt from shadow to shadow. He remembered the nights where they pulled out of town, remembered how everyone would help until it was done. Even the children of the performers had jobs to do, nobody was allowed to sleep until everything was packed away and the only things left on the grounds were a few flyers and half empty popcorns.

His leg throbbed regularly as he moved, but it was nothing he needed to worry about. He had worked with worse, besides, he had a job to finish.

"Oy, rube, coil that rope!" Timmo, the strong man yelled.

All new people taken in by the circus were 'rubes' until they either found their place as a performer or a worker. Even then, the name sometimes stuck until a batch of new rubes were added.

"I'm on it." Sean yelled back.

"Sometime tonight. We leave in a cuppla hours, with our without you!" He laughed.

Dick's attention focused at the sound of Sean's voice. Finally he was wearing the right uniform to do what he had wanted to do the entire time. He moved as silent as the shadows he kept to until he was a few feet away from Sean.

Sean struggled to coil the heavy rope that was tangled at his feet. He cursed under his breath.

"Heard you like to kidnap little boys." Dick hissed.

Sean turned, his eyes wide was he tried to peer into the darkness.

Dick moved around so he was behind Sean once again. "Like to poison them and blackmail their parents for money. You thought you got away with it."

"You got me confused with someone else."

"Don't be a hero, boy, heroes only get people killed." Dick saw the brief flash of fear in Sean's eyes. "Well this hero is only gonna get you killed."

Sean pulled out a gun from the waistband of his jeans. He turned from shadow to shadow as he searched for the body to go with the voice.

"You think if you shoot that, the new friends you made will come help you? You're just a rube, a bit of trash stuck under the truck." It was almost too easy. "Until you prove yourself, they would just as soon be rid of you than take you along."

Sean cocked the gun. "Perhaps, but I'm a damn good shot and they won't help you either."

Dick stepped out from the shadow. "You'd be surprised."

Sean wheeled around to face him. The gun was held level with Dick's eyes. The boy didn't even so much as blink, he even smirked.

"From this distance, I can't miss." Sean thought he had won.

"Neither can I."

In less time than it took Sean to blink, Dick had dove forward and knocked Sean off his feet. The gun tumbled away into the tall grass and the night. Sean rolled, the breath knocked from his lungs. He landed on his back and gasped for breath.

Dick placed a foot over Sean's chest and pressed down. "Apologize, Sean."

"I'm sorry." The words were forced out in a gasp for breath.

"Say you'll never do it again."

His face was flushed with the effort to breathe. "Never."

Dick was aware of the people gathered along the edges of the tents that watched. He had been right, nobody had stepped in to help Sean. For a moment, Dick felt as tired as he should have been, he had just gotten out of the hospital that morning.

The man twisted under Dick's foot, but the boy pressed down harder to keep him still. In a last ditch effort to survive, Sean swung a fist up and caught Dick's thigh. If the boy wouldn't have had a bullet wound a few days old, it wouldn't have brought him down like it did. He went sprawling off to the side as pain like fire wrapped around his leg.

Sean rolled to his feet, a hand pressed against his chest. Dick knew he had to get up, knew he had to get the situation back under control. This was his fight and he damn well was going to finish it. Sean grabbed Dick's ankle and started to pull the boy over.

Dick waited until he was pulled close and then fought like he was trained. Sean was pinned beneath him a few seconds later. Dick pressed his knees into Sean's elbows and watched the man squirm.

"This is for Ryan." He punched Sean across the face. "And this is for Nathan." He hit him again. Blood poured from Sean's nose and he fought for consciousness. "And this is for Richard." He hit him again. His leg burned with pain and he had the faint suspicion that one of the stitches had broken. He raised his arm to punch again.

"Robin."

Dick knew the voice behind him and didn't look forward the conversation they would be having later.

"The police are on the way to take him into custody." Bruce walked over and helped Dick to his feet.

The boy then heard the distant sirens grow closer. The crowd of people around the edges had stepped back upon Batman's arrival.

Bruce met the eyes of C.C. Haly. "Make sure this man is taken in by the police. Don't let him get away."

C.C. nodded. "Yes, sir. Timmo, tie him up."

Timmo stepped forward with a rope and a smile.

"Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure." Bruce turned with Dick following behind.

"Batman." C.C. called after him.

Bruce paused.

"Thank you."

Bruce and Dick disappeared into the dark and the shadows.

The Batmobile was parked next to Dick's motorcycle. Bruce eyed the boy. "Can you get yourself home, or do you need to ride with me."

Dick kept his chin up and his eyes hard. "I can get back. I had to do this."

"We'll talk about it later." Bruce got into the Batmobile and drove away.

Dick took a slow breath and started his cycle.

-/-

Bruce sat in the library, once again in civilian clothes. Dick came into the room with Alfred's hand around his arm as support. The boy eased into a chair, a faint grimace of pain flickered across his face. Alfred had put a fresh bandage on the wound and a piece of tape to hold the pulled stitch. Dick would be fine.

Alfred set a cup of tea in front of Bruce and Dick before he sat down in a chair himself. Dick's jaw was set hard and stubborn, he raised his eyes up to meet Bruce's.

"Would you like to just yell at me, resulting in my imminent grounding and ban from Robin, or would you like me to explain first?"

Bruce didn't move. Anyone could have mistaken his relaxed pose for something passive, but Dick knew better. Finally, Bruce leaned forward.

He took a drink of tea and set the cup down. "What you did was foolish, arrogant and dangerous. You could have injured yourself further, could have gotten yourself killed." His words were deceptively calm. "You put Haly's Circus at risk, had Sean fired his gun or gotten away from you."

Shame and guilt burned somewhere above Dick's stomach and just below his heart. He wanted to lower his eyes, but didn't.

Bruce sighed. "But I know why you did what you did."

"It wasn't just to get Sean for what he had done." Dick muttered and looked away to reach for his tea.

"It wasn't?"

"That was part of it." He took a drink and looked somewhere just to the left of Bruce's shoulder. "But mostly I didn't want him leaving with my h – with Haly and his circus family. I didn't want him able to hurt any of those people." Dick's cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

Both Bruce and Dick knew that the boy had almost said "home" when he was speaking of the circus.

Nobody spoke for a while. Alfred stood and took the cups of cold tea away into the kitchen.

Bruce looked at his son. "You are grounded for a month, if you are not at school or home, then you are with me. You are grounded from being Robin until your leg is fully healed. Fully healed."

"Yes, sir." Dick had expected that.

"Go to bed."

Dick eased himself to his feet and limped from the room. He paused in the doorway and glanced back at Bruce. "Bruce?"

He looked up.

"I want you to know, I am home. Here. This is my home." He lowered his gaze and went up to bed.

Bruce smiled a little to himself because there was a moment, when he was sitting next to his son at the circus, when he didn't wonder if Dick would chose them over him.

Dick stood in his room and looked at his reflection in the mirror. There was a time when he was Little Dicky Grayson, but that was a lifetime ago. He was now Robin and that was something he had earned, not something he was born into. As much as he missed the world that knew him as Little Dicky Grayson, he belonged to the one that knew him as Robin. And he would protect that world, both of them.