A/N: What. I'm not even sorry. I wrote this at 2 AM, you can ask people. It might not even make sense. In fact, I haven't read it over since then, and I might hate it.
WAIT COME BACK
Be gentle with the young.
- Juvenal
Had he actually seen it? Had it happened, right there, right in front of his eyes, (so small, still too short to skip rungs on the rope ladder)? Maybe he'd been turned around. Arms stretched and feet together like a good boy, bowing for the crowd.
He could remember the snap clear as a bell. Clear as a lion escaped from a zoo, like churches on a Sunday morning, and that funny feeling between the noise and the thud of his parents on the ground, Dick remembered that. But had he turned around or just looked down?
Most nights, the moment itself seemed lost to him forever.
His nightmares had come with a thousand different versions for him to pick from. Behind him, in front of him. Because of him.
He focuses on the tightness in his legs, on Dad's words that afternoon: keep your knees together when you're in the air or it looks sloppy. One perfect leap, an extra little somersault because it's his last performance tonight.
Lands with his feet together and every muscle in his body is scrunched or stretched, and he's maybe a little lazy on the touchdown and his ankle slips a little, but he regains his grip, and it's fine because he can try again tomorrow.
Tonight he turns around and there is blood.
mom is dead
dad is dead
somebody screams but he still stands there with his arms stretched out to absorb the crowd
everyone watches Dick Grayson: Future Star of the Grayson Family Circus in his greatest moment
his heart is in his belly and his ears and his throat and everywhere except for his chest which is wide open and sucking in the screaming and he makes the mistake of looking down again, and their blood pools out like a spilled cup of grape juice on the counter and their blood pools touch
people don't die parents don't die he thinks, over and over again, and waits for somebody to yell cut
but they don't, and he doesn't put his arms down but he looks at the broken veins in Mom's eyes and the tongue sticking out of Dad's mouth
and he falls, and there is nobody but the ground to catch him, this time.
He woke up breathing hard and felt the tear tracks down his temples, a drying wetness quickly being retraced. His chest moved up and down so hard the blankets rustled with it.
This was his ninth night in this bedroom, and the ninth time he couldn't make it through.
Dick's gasps devolved into little choking breaths, huh-huh-huh-huh and then a huge inhale. He put his palms against the corners of his eyes and tried to dig out the crying, but that just made him cry harder.
Boys don't cry.
Especially not when they're in rooms so big they could fit two old family trailers in them, a door down from Batman. Batman! Bruce Wayne, who was probably sleeping just fine and didn't want to bother hearing the stifled sobs of a kid he'd taken in on a whim.
No; no, Dick couldn't cry, because he'd wake up Bruce Wayne or the butler and they'd kick him out. That would end him.
He sat up in bed and focused on the window, where the wind tickled the curtains and gave him flashes of the moon and ivy vines like spider webs. He would just sit here until the nightmares faded. And then - go back to sleep somehow and hope it didn't happen again.
He leaned against the headboard and watched the hill leading up to Wayne Manor for a while; he didn't know how long. Long enough for the tears to disappear and leave just a tightness on his cheeks and a stinging in his eyes.
Dick Grayson, trapeze artist. Dick Grayson, acrobat. Dick Grayson, performer, gifted youngster, child prodigy. Dick Grayson, orphan, ward of the richest man in the city who didn't seem to like him at all. He remembered being curled up in the passenger seat of the car dazed and numb, and how Bruce Wayne hadn't even looked at him but growled something about personal strength and run a red light. Why bring home a boy you didn't want?
Dick took in a shaky breath and slid his legs out of the covers to pace. His feet didn't make much noise on the thick carpet, and he was used to walking lightly. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the hallway, sitting down by the staircase and grabbing the bars of the banister. Between them he could see, on the wall of the half-rise where the stairs turned, a painting of the Wayne family from the turn of the century. He knew Bruce Wayne had lost his parents, too, a long time ago - but still, it must have been nice to have the connection to your family.
And then, well, Dick started thinking about how the closest thing he'd ever had to a Wayne Manor was the family trailer, and how that was going to be auctioned off or given to the next ringleader if the circus continued, which it might not, and Dick didn't even have a home to go to or an aunt to take him in. And here he was barely a week after his parents had been killed for reasons he didn't all the way understand, in a stranger's house with no end in sight. And he couldn't call him mom to come pick him up.
The circus would fall apart, and they'd give away all of his books and his stuffed bear and his mom and dad would be buried far away and Dick was so, so alone.
So little and so alone.
He put his head into his bent knees and just cried a little more, not out of fear from his bad dream but just out of sadness at something he couldn't wake up from. Boys don't cry, but he couldn't help it.
"Master Grayson?"
He pulled his head up to stare at Alfred, who looked as disheveled as he ever got - just a button down shirt and clean black pants. It almost made Dick laugh, but it did just as well to remind him he was nothing like these people. Dick opened his mouth to say something but he knew it would come out garbled. It was hard to talk with loneliness stuck in your throat.
"Oh, dear," Alfred said gently, and hurried next to him. He put a skinny hand on Dick's shoulder. "I know that look when I see it." Suddenly crouched knees filled Dick's line of sight, and he looked up at Alfred. "Nightmare? Just nod or shake your head."
He almost cried out with gratefulness, but he just nodded and sniffed to get the lump further down his throat. His jaw shook a little.
"Ah." Alfred smiled. "That's all right. There's no shame in a bad dream, is there? We can go down to the kitchen and get some warm milk, and I promise, it will seem better in the morning."
It was like something Mom would say, only more formal. Some part of Dick wanted to start crying all over again, big loud ugly sobs into Alfred's shirt with warm hands petting his back and quiet words in his ear. But if real life was offering him milk and nice smiles from across the kitchen table he'd take it in a heartbeat.
"O-okay," he managed. A gross leftover hiccup of his crying spilled out of his mouth, and he clapped a hand to his face.
Alfred looked like he was going to say something sweet and too much again when the other door opened with a shadow of the sinking realization Dick was getting used to.
"Alfred? What's — oh."
Bruce Wayne, Batman — the Batman — grumpy and unshaven in his pajamas, scrubbing his face with his hand in his bedroom doorway.
So much for feeling better about any of this.
Because that was it, wasn't it? Alfred was a nice old man, but Bruce Wayne? Everything Dick had seen about him pointed to a man who was angry and cold, if a good actor. And now he'd woken him up with his loud crying. He must have been like a wet cat to Bruce Wayne - something you picked up out of pity but promptly shoved outside when it started to mewl for food.
"Is everything all right?" he asked. It sounded like an accusation.
"Fine, Master Bruce," Alfred said, and smoothed his thumb over Dick's shoulder. "I should think you're quite familiar with this part," he nodded to Dick. "Though you're much taller now."
"What are you…" Dick turned around to face the music, brought his eyes up to meet Bruce Wayne's. "Oh. Okay."
They were all quiet for a long minute before Alfred cleared his throat. "I was just going to take Master Grayson downstairs for some milk, and then back to bed."
Bruce Wayne stared at Dick for a second. It felt like forever. He looked tired — Dick recognized sore muscles when he saw them — like he hadn't slept the whole night through for a while, either. His eyes were still cold and assessing, but there was something else there.
"No, Alfred, I got it," he said. "If you don't mind, Dick?"
Dick shook his head and kept his lips pinched.
"Very well, Master Bruce," Alfred said. He stood up, straightened his shirt and smiled at Dick one more time before disappearing downstairs.
So now Bruce Wayne came to stand next to him and instead of crouching, he knelt, then gave up and sat like Dick with his knees bent.
"Bad dream, right?"
Dick stared at him and willed the heaves to go away, to go all the way down and hide again. He nodded.
"Yeah." Bruce cleared his throat. "I remember those."
Dick nodded again, unsure what to say and convinced he wouldn't be able to say it anyways.
"I remember the whole, uh," he coughed. "Alfred and milk thing, too. It was nice but not…" he trailed off. Dick turned away and looked at the painting again, and he smiled a little.
"You know. But then I'd have to get back in bed, uh," he said. "I'd have the nightmares again. Seemed like kind of an ass-backwards way of — don't say that word." Bruce Wayne - Bruce Wayne, the Batman, billionaire who adopted kids to look good in the presses Bruce Wayne - sighed a big human sigh and said, "I'm not good at this. It's not something you can really…train for."
Dick just didn't know what to make of that at all.
He tried to nod and smile back at the guy, but it came out all wrong. Bruce's face twisted up and he blinked. "Oh," he said. "…listen. Do you want to come sleep in my bed? Some nights that's all I wanted."
Not to go to sleep alone. Yeah.
Dick nodded for real this time, too much and too hard and he blinked more tears out of his eyes. That got Bruce to smile back at least. "Sounds good. I mean, if anyone can keep you safe, it's Batman, right?"
He wanted to do more than just thank the guy right then; he was sad and things were awful, but Bruce was right. He had Batman up at stupid o'clock in morning offering to let him sleep in his bed. Dick wanted to wrap his arms around Batman's chest and never let go. Keep the bad things out. His own tall angry dreamcatcher.
So Bruce Wayne crawled into his bed and then scooted over and he - he lifted up the covers so Dick could crawl in. He felt about five years old again. The bed was the same size as his own, but it felt so much warmer, less lonely, than before. His world was darkness and covers and Batman's pillows, which didn't look very well-used at all.
And there he was. Dick Grayson, Orphan Extraordinaire, whiling away his nightmares in Batman's bed.
Which should have been perfect. And more than enough.
But Bruce Wayne fell asleep, and Dick Grayson was alone, again.
And he started to think about how Batman was good and great and scary and awesome but he wasn't Mom, and how he would never crawl into Mom's bed after a nightmare ever again.
It was awful. You needed people the most once they were dead. You needed them to help you cope with how they weren't there anymore.
Dick sniffed again and rolled onto his side, facing away from Bruce, and stuck a fist in his mouth to keep the sobs from resonating. He couldn't help it, if his shoulders shook a little.
It was stupid.
You're in Batman's bed, he thought. You can't cry in Batman's bed. Kids would kill to have a sleepover with Batman. You can't get snot on his sheets!
Dick almost laughed, but the laugh turned into a shaking again and he put his other hand over his fist to keep it there.
Behind him, Bruce moved and mumbled something. Dick breathed in narrowly through his nose. Just get through the night, he told himself. Get through the night, don't go back to sleep, just lie here. Tomorrow I'll stay in my room when I have nightmares, and I won't give him a reason to kick me out.
But then Bruce Wayne rolled over and tapped his shoulder, and when Dick didn't respond he gently flipped him over and Dick tried not to bite his fist so hard it bled.
"Hey. Whoa," Bruce said. "It's okay, all right?" He put one big arm over Dick's skinny chest and brought him close. "It's okay, kiddo. I know. Sometimes it...gets to you. Trust me, I'm familiar with the concept."
Dick didn't start crying, exactly. Not again.
Boys don't cry.
But he sighed, long and low. Whatever was whimpering stifled in his belly came out and filtered through Batman's sheets. It — left, at least for a while. Dick went limp and stared at Bruce's chest, nothing like his dad's. Too hard and lean and tired from all the wrong things.
Dick was so, so tired.
"…thanks," he managed, curling up and closing his eyes.
He heard Bruce's laugh through the fog of sleep. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah."
A/N: reviews are a...pitiful author's best friend?