I am Dick Grayson and I am 8 years old.

Tonight, I have no parents.

I am Richard Grayson and I am 8 years old.

Tonight, I am a 'ward of the state'.

I'm not really sure what that means. All I know is this bedroom is bigger than the one I had in our trailer, but twice as nasty. Still, it is better to be in here where I can lock the door than out there with the other boys. They make fun of me; call me 'Circus Boy' like that's a bad thing. I'd give just about anything to be a 'Circus Boy' again.

I am Richard Grayson and I am still only 8 years old.

I have figured out what being a ward of the state means.

It means Gotham is my mother now. She's not a nice mother, but she is the only one I have, I guess.

I wonder if all of her rooms are a dirty and grey as mine? I want to go home so bad; I miss my mom, my real mom, and my dad so much. I can barely even think of them without seeing them on the ground again.

This room is so grey. Are all the rooms in Gotham so grey? My old room was colorful; I had posters from mom and dad's old shows and even some with me in them. And I had toys. Not a lot, but they were mine. Apparently, you don't get toys when you are a ward of the state. I guess Gotham can't afford to buy toys for all the boys here.

I wish she could have let me keep mine though. My mom made some of those stuffed animals out of her and dad's old costumes. I wonder what happened to my things? Where do things go when they're owners go away?

Gotham doesn't make a good mother, but unless someone wants to adopt a poor orphaned circus boy, she's all I'm ever going to get.

I am Dick Grayson and I am 8 and a half years old.

I know this because it is almost October, and almost-October is when dad stopped telling me that I was not whatever and a half years old yet. He used to tell me to stop trying to grow up so fast. I wish I'd grown up faster, because, if I had, then I would've spent more time with them, right? If I'd grown up faster, then they could've seen me turn 10 years old like I always wanted, because 10 is a very grown up age. When you're 10 and people ask how old you are, you can use all of your fingers when you tell them. My parents are never going to see me get to use all of my fingers.

Maybe Mr. Wayne will though.

He told me he's been trying to get 'custody' of me ever since he saw me at the circus and that soon I'll be able to come live with him if I want to. He said that his parents were killed when he was a kid too and that he's going to make sure Tony Zucco gets brought to justice.

I like the word justice, I know what it means. I like the way it feels in my mouth when I say it.

Mr. Wayne says I should call him Bruce, but I don't really know him. It would be weird to call a grown-up by their first name, especially when they are practically a stranger.

I am Dick Grayson and I am still 8 and a half years old.

I moved into Wayne Manor today. It's a really big and fancy place, much bigger and fancier than Haley's Circus. My room is bigger than my old room and my Gotham room combined and my bed is bigger than my parents' was. I'm almost afraid I'll get lost in it. Why does one person need such a big bed? Won't it be cold, that big space all by myself? Even my parents' bed was big enough to be cold without them in it. I used to sleep with them sometimes, when I had bad dreams.

I have more bad dreams than ever now, but there's no one to sleep with anymore. I just have to lay in the dark. Most of the time I can't go back to sleep because of all the strange shadows, so I just cry until the sun rises.

I wonder if breakfast is still around sunrise here at Mr. Wayne's house? Or do I just eat whenever I want to? I wonder if I can have the same cereal I used to eat with mom and dad? I liked that cereal, it was colorful and tasted like fruity stuff, but I forgot the name. Fruit rocks? Fruity-O's? It was something like that.

Mr. Wayne has a butler, you know. I guess that kind of makes sense, since his house is like a mansion. He said his name was Alfred and called me 'Master Richard' until Bruce told him I preferred Dick. Then he called me 'Master Dick' and told me that they normally have dinner at six. That means I should go down to the kitchen at six, right? Or would it be a dining room? We didn't have a dining room in our trailer, but I saw them on TV sometimes. A big place like this would have a dining room, wouldn't it?

But this place is so big, how will I ever find the dining room by six o'clock?

I think I'll just stay up here instead. Maybe someone will come get me if I don't show up for dinner. I think about sitting in the desk chair, but if there's nothing on the desk that seems kind of stupid. So I lie on the bed. I lie in the middle and stretch my arms and legs out as far as they can go, but it's no use. I can't reach the edges.

I am Dick Grayson and I am 8 and three-quarter years old.

My dad taught me about three-quarters. He said that by Christmas time a half wasn't right anymore, because my birthday was too close.

I've never been sad at Christmas time before, but I've never been an orphan before either. I kind of wonder if I still an orphan if I'm Bruce's ward.

If Gotham is my mother when I'm a ward of the state, does that mean Bruce is my father now that I'm his ward? Am I a 'ward of Bruce Wayne'?

If Bruce is my father, he's almost as bad at it as Gotham was at being my mother. He never knows what to say and he's never around. I never get to talk to him or anything. If anyone is my father right now, it's probably Alfred, but I don't think it counts when you are paid to do it. Alfred really seems like he cares a lot though and, even if Bruce doesn't love me, he sure does love Alfred. I never heard of people being so nice to their butlers before. Maybe everybody is and I just didn't know because I wasn't rich.

I'm at a Christmas party that Bruce was invited to. I wasn't really invited, but I think he was trying to spend time with me. He's doing a bad job of it, because that lady is taking all of his attention. I really just would like some punch, but some loud people told me that they were only serving grown-up punch tonight. I really want some though, I'm so thirsty. This suit Alfred dressed me in is too hot. If I was outside then I would be glad to be warm, but it was already warm in here.

I sneak some punch anyways, the loud people aren't very smart or 'observant'. Observant is a word Alfred taught me about a month ago, he said I should always be observant so I'll know what is happening around me. I knew what was happening at the circus, but that didn't do me much good. Still, maybe Alfred knows something I don't. Maybe he's just better at being observant than I am. I bet if it was him, he could've saved his parents.

I drink the punch.

It's the nastiest punch I've ever tasted in my life and I cough and spit it back out into the cup. Everyone sees and they make a really big deal out of it. I guess grown-ups don't like to share their nasty punch. Maybe they just don't want kids to know that punch gets nasty when you get old.

I expected Bruce to be angry at me, but he's really not. He gets me some water and throws the punch away. He tells me if I want anything to eat or drink, all I need to do is ask him.

I want to say that I don't want to ask him for anything when he's hanging out with ladies that glare at me every time I get close to him. I want to tell him that I want to go home, back to Alfred, because Alfred will know what to say. I want to say a lot of stuff to Bruce but I just nod my head and stare down into my water. Who needs punch anyways?

But maybe Bruce is smarter than everyone says he is, because we do leave not long after that. He asks me in the car if I'm okay.

I'm not, but not because of the punch. I'm not okay because it is December 23 and I am 8 and three-quarter years old and my parents are dead. And they will be dead on December 24 and 25 and all the days after that. They will be dead when I turn 9 years old and they will be dead when I turn 10 years old and can use all the fingers on both my hands.

I can't stop the tears from falling and I don't stop Bruce when he puts his arm around me and pulls me up against his side. He doesn't say anything and he doesn't cry, but he looks like he might if he weren't a grown-up.

On December 24 I go to bed early, because at least Santa isn't dead for Christmas, and when I wake up, Santa had come and left me all sorts of presents. It was more than ever before and I think Santa might know my parents are dead and this is his way of saying sorry. I would tell Santa it's okay and he doesn't have to feel bad for me if Santa stuck around, but he doesn't, so I hope he knows. He can see me all the time, so he must know, right?

The best present didn't come from Santa.

Batman caught Tony Zucco last night and Bruce says that my 'testimony' will make sure that Tony Zucco can never kill anyone's parents ever again. And that's great. It would be even better if he hadn't killed my parents, but that's the past. And you can't change the past. I know that because there are lots of times when I would mess up in a show, just a little mess up, but any mess up was bad. I got so angry but mom said that the past is the past and it is always behind us.

Batman left another present for me in a big brown bag under our Christmas tree. It was all of my stuff from my old room. I put a bunch of my posters up in my new bedroom. There doesn't seem to be as many but I counted them and they're all here. I guess my room is just so much bigger that they don't cover everything like before. I put all of my old stuffed animals in the bed with me and, with my new toys from Santa, they take up so much room that I can pretend I'm not in such a big bed. Or maybe that I'm not alone in such a big bed. Both are nice.

Bruce is sleepy all day, but grown-ups always are on Christmas. He smiles a lot though, so I guess he's happy. I know he's happy about justice and Tony Zucco. He gave me a big hug. It was nice. It was a lot different from my real dad's hugs, because my dad wasn't huge like Bruce, but it was a good kind of different.

I am Dick Grayson and I'm still 8 and three-quarter years old.

A New Year has started. Mom and dad used to tell me that whoever you spend New Year's with are the people you will spend the rest of the year with. I don't really believe that anymore, because last year I spent New Year's with them. Maybe it doesn't count if they get murdered? Maybe it's really more like 'spend the rest of the year with them unless something goes terribly wrong'?

I spend the New Year's Eve with Alfred mostly, but Bruce had a party here, so technically, you could say I spent it with all of these rich people too. I don't really want to spend a whole year with these people though, I don't really like them and they don't really like me.

I'm starting to think that Bruce doesn't like them either. I don't really know why, because he still acts the same but there's…something. Like a shadow. I don't know.

I'm really excited for tonight though. I finally figured it out, how to find Batman. I've been working on it for a while because I heard Batman was trying to catch Zucco, but now that he has, I want to thank him more than ever. I've been following him in the news and on an old police scanner I found in the manor. And, based off where he normally apprehends common criminals, I think I've figured out his patrol route.

I'm going to wait on one of the roofs so I can thank him for leaving me my stuff and for catching Zucco. Bruce and Alfred probably won't want me to, but that's why I'm not going to tell them. Getting out of my room will be easy, the outside of the Manor has lots of things to grab on to, and Bruce and Alfred will be tired from the party and will go to bed. I'll be back before they wake up.

Getting out of my room is just as easy as I thought it would be. I printed off a MapQuest page from Wayne Manor to where I need to go and I pull that out.

Gotham is even dirtier and scarier than I had thought after I leave Bruce's property. I've only ever seen it from inside cars or out the window before. Even the place I was before when I was a ward of the state wasn't anything like this. Gotham is like a nightmare city, like everything bad in the world had to all go to one place so that the rest of the world can be happy and that they picked this place. I wonder why anyone would chose to live here. I think I'll ask Bruce that tomorrow when I get back. He's too nice for such a bad place.

I've only walked about two blocks into Gotham. I've walked much further by myself in other cities; mom and dad would sometimes send me to get things while they were practicing, back before I got to be part of the act. But that was in places like Metropolis, where one scream would have Superman flying over to check on you, especially if you were a little kid. Gotham isn't anything like Metropolis, though, and I don't feel safe.

I run into a Waffle House and sit down at a booth. I have five dollars in my pocket and buy a soda so they won't kick me out while I think about what to do. I can't just walk all the way there like I planned to, if I try that, I probably won't be back before Bruce and Alfred wake up. In fact, I probably won't be back at all.

After a couple of minutes, I look across the street and see a fire-escape. The ladder is put up, but I can jump high enough to grab it, I'm sure. I used to jump up higher than that at the circus on the parallel bars. If I can get on the roofs, then I should be away from most of the bad guys. The gaps between roofs don't look very big. I'll be okay. The building I picked is only a few blocks away and I was going to have to get on the roof anyways.

I'll be okay.

Everyone keeps telling me I'll be okay. If so many people think so, then it must be true, but it's really hard. I miss my mom and dad. Bruce says I always will and he would know.

It works out just like I thought it would until I have to cross over to the next roof. It didn't look like a big gap from the ground, but up here, it looks pretty far. I don't really want to fall and die like mom and dad. I think that would be just about the worst way ever to die right now. It would make Tony Zucco happy if I were to fall and die, and I hate that idea most of all. But mom always said to say thank you when someone does something nice for you. I'm going to thank Batman if it's the last thing I ever do. And that means getting to the right building without dying first.

I imagine there's a net to catch me, but that dad will shake his head and be disappointed if I fall. Disappointing him used to make me so I upset that I would wish there hadn't been a net. I would never wish that now. I wish they'd had a net.

I back up a few steps and then run for the edge. At the last second, I jump. I imagine I'm reaching for dad's hands, that this is all just part of the act. When my feet hit the top of the next roof, I'm almost shocked. It wasn't hard, not at all. I need to work on landing though. I'm glad I'm wearing pants, but I still scrapped my knees. I'm okay, though. I'm going to be okay.

The building I picked is taller than all these other ones. I can't jump to that roof. I climb down this fire-escape and then up that one. It's a long walk upstairs.

There are gargoyles on the edge of the roof and they look scary, but kind of cool too. I think I saw a show about gargoyles coming to life once, but I can't remember. Maybe Bruce knows about it? I don't think these will come to life, though. They're kind of broken. They would probably be really hurt. I wonder if gargoyles came alive and were hurt, would they bleed? Are they still made of stone after they come alive?

I see a huge shadow at the other end of the roof. It moves.

"Ah!" I can't help it, I scream. It's a gargoyle!

"What are you-Dick?" The shadow growls before it says my name like it's confused and then I realize, that's not a gargoyle, it's Batman!

"Batman!" I say.

"What are you doing up here?" Batman says. Batman sounds awfully confused and not at all like I thought he would. I thought he would sound angrier.

"I wanted to thank you for bringing me my things and catching Tony Zucco. He killed my mom and dad." I say. I feel shy, because this is Batman and he probably helps people and catches murderers all the time, so he probably didn't think anything about helping me. But people should get thanked when they help you.

"How did you even get here?" Batman says. He still sounds kind of strange. In fact, he almost sounds like Bruce when he's trying to act like a dad. He's not very good at it, so he always just sounds confused and little upset.

"The roofs. The streets were scary, so I jumped across the roofs until I got here. I had to climb the fire escape for this one, it's really tall. But I knew you would come by here! There are no really bad guys out right now, so you would have to do a patrol. I knew you would come here!" I'm actually really proud of myself, I had to be really observant to find Batman, but it worked. I found Batman!

"You jumped across the roofs? Why?" I wonder if Batman knows he's supposed to sound scary? He's supposed to be all like 'I am the night!' and stuff. He's not supposed to sound like Bruce when he's upset about something.

"To tell you thank you! I had to tell you thank you, because you did something nice for me. My mom said so!" I don't know why, but it made me sad to say that to Batman. I don't really want to cry in front of Batman, it's embarrassing, but I can't stop myself, so I just try not to make noise when I do. Maybe Batman can't see the tears since it's so dark.

"Are you crying?" Batman says and he almost sounds scary because he says it more like a demand than a question. He sighs when I don't answer. "Come on, I'll take you home."

He steps forward, slowly, like I might run away from him. That would be silly. He's Batman and Batman is a good guy, who brought me my things and caught Tony Zucco. He picks me up and I notice his outfit is really thick. It doesn't feel like skin at all. It feels like a thick something over the top of something hard, like metal. Maybe it's like armor, so no one can hurt him. I wish my parents had been wearing armor. That's kind of silly, because my parents didn't fight bad guys, so they didn't need armor. I wish everything didn't remind me of my parents. The past is behind me, but I think it's trying to catch up.

"Hold on." Batman says and now he sounds like Batman. I must have just shocked him. That makes me grin a little. I shocked Batman! No one is ever going to believe that! I can't wait to tell Alfred! Except I can't, can I? Then he'll know I snuck out.

Suddenly, Batman's jumping off the roof and we're falling. I'm sure he has a plan, but it's hard to remember that when you're falling. I hold on as tight as I can and push my face against Batman's neck. His neck has armor on it too, but not as much. I guess that makes sense, if your neck was all covered in armor, you probably couldn't move it much.

There's a smell, though, underneath the neck armor. I can just barely smell it and the wind keeps blowing it away but I'm sure I know what it is. If I could just get one more little smell of it, I'm sure I could tell. We stop on the roof of Wayne Manor and, without the wind, I can smell it.

I was right, I do know this smell.

It's Bruce's cologne.

He smells like it every time he hugs me. It's not really a normal smell, Alfred says the cologne is some fancy rich people stuff. Bruce wears it because it was the same kind his dad used.

Maybe Batman's rich and buys the same kind?

No, I don't really believe that. That's a 'coincidence', Alfred taught me that word right before Christmas break. Bruce was walking by when Alfred was explaining and said that he didn't believe in coincidences.

Plus, hadn't I just been thinking that Batman sounded a lot like Bruce? And didn't Bruce go to late night meetings all the time? And Batman brought me my things and caught Tony Zucco, even though he normally catches much worse people, like the Joker or Two-Face.

Bruce told me he was going to bring Tony Zucco to justice. And Batman had done just that.

"Bruce?" I said, making sure my voice sounded half-asleep, so if it wasn't him I could claim I thought he was Bruce and that it was all just a dream.

"Yes?" Batman said back automatically.

Then he froze.

"What?" he said and he sounded almost like he was choking. Guess I shocked him again.

"I knew it." I whispered and suddenly, Batman wasn't trying to take me inside anymore. Instead, he went under the house.

It was the Batcave and it was under Wayne Manor. Wow.

"Alfred!" Batman called when we walked in; sitting me down in a chair in front of the biggest computer I've ever seen in my life.

Alfred appeared almost like magic and, when he saw me, he didn't look too surprised.

"Master Bruce, did you borrow my Batman costume again?" Alfred said.

I didn't believe that either. "Nuh uh!" Alfred shook his head and smiled.

"How did you find out?" Batman said and his voice definitely sounded scary like it was supposed to. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

"You told me just now. I smelled you cologne." I said, giving both the answers.

"My cologne?" Bruce asked, because he was Bruce now. He pulled off the Batman mask and was taking off his armor. Now he was Bruce and Bruce wasn't scary. He wasn't a good dad, but he wasn't scary.

I should be answering his question, but all I can think about is the fact that Gotham is a bad mother and is scary too. Gotham just isn't cut out to be a parent, I guess.

"It's special. Fancy stuff. Why would Batman wear fancy cologne? He wouldn't to catch bad guys, but he would if he was just at a fancy party." I say and leave out all the other things, like him always being gone, or how Batman caught Tony Zucco or any of that stuff. The cologne was enough.

Suddenly, I was very tired, though. It was a long time pass my bedtime and I had done a lot of stuff. Jumping across the roofs was fun and all, but it wasn't exactly easy. I yawned.

Bruce sighed and picked me back up. He was dressed in normal clothes now, a tank top and sweatpants. He looked like he did after he came out of the gym. I liked Bruce's gym, it had lots of neat stuff in there, but my favorites were the equipment he told me he bought just for me. Rings and parallel bars, just like I practiced on with mom and dad. These were much shinier, though, and smoother. Mom and dad's were old, they'd had them for forever. I knew every way those bars felt under my hands, spinning and spinning. Well, actually I was spinning. It doesn't really matter.

Bruce was carrying me to my room as I thought about all of this. I look up and he's staring straight ahead. I hope he's not too upset I found out about him being Batman. I hope he doesn't send me back to where I was before, when I was not a ward of Bruce Wayne and was a ward of the state. Gotham is not a good mother, not at all. Bruce is a much better father than Gotham is a mother, that's for sure.

He sets me down on my bed and goes to leave. He looks like he's thinking really hard and I'm scared. I'm scared of going back. I'm pretty sure Bruce doesn't love me, but Alfred sure does seem to like me a lot and Bruce loves Alfred. Alfred will stop him from giving me back, right?

Without meaning to I've started to cry again and I wasn't as quiet as I was last time. And last time Batman had still seen. Bruce isn't looking, but he can hear me, because he turns around.

"Dick?" he says and begins to walk back over when I don't move. I want a hug so bad, but Bruce probably won't hug me anymore. I've ruined everything. At least before, I had Alfred. Bruce was nice and gave me everything I asked for. Now I'm going to have nothing, they probably won't even let me keep my things, since they didn't before. I'd just gotten them all back and now I've ruined everything. Another loud sob pushes pass my lips even though I try to keep it in.

"Dick?" I hear Bruce say again. I can't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry." I whisper. I would say it louder, but maybe if I whisper I can act like I'm not crying. I hate crying, I feel like such a baby. I have no mom and dad to take care of me, so I can't be a baby. I have to be grown up.

"What?" he says and I'm not sure if he didn't hear me or he just wants me to explain what I meant.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to find out. I'm sorry! I just wanted to say thank you, I'm sorry! I won't tell, I promise. I'll forget, I'll never say anything ever again! Please don't make me go back, please! I'm sorry, I'll be good!" I don't yell, because yelling won't make Bruce want to keep me because who wants a kid who yells? Nobody. Nobody wants me anyways, but they'll want me less if I yell. Instead, I try to speak normally but the longer I talk, the faster I go until all of the words are spilling out of me so fast I can barely tell that it's me speaking.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." On and on and I can't make myself stop talking or crying. I hate myself. No wonder nobody wants me. I ruin everything.

Somehow, Bruce is hugging me now. I don't remember him getting close enough to do that, but I just hug back, because didn't I want a hug a minute ago? I still can't make myself stop talking, but I'm barely even whispering now. I'm getting Bruce's shirt all wet. Who wants a kid who gets their shirt all wet? Nobody.

"Shh, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Bruce keeps saying it over and over, like if he says it enough it'll be true. He's lying, I get it now. They've all been saying how I'll be okay but they're lying because I'm 8 and three-quarter years old and my parents are dead and I'll never be okay. Never never never.

I must have fallen asleep because I wake up and the sun is out.

I hope it was a nightmare, but I'm still in my clothes from last night. When I fell asleep in my clothes when mom and dad were still alive, they would change me out of them and tuck me in. I've never woken up in yesterday's clothes before. I guess that means it was real. I am kind of tucked in though. Not very well because the blankets in the big bed are wrinkled and are going a million different directions, but they are covering me and I know I didn't do that.

I take my favorite stuffed animals from before and hide them in the bottom of my bag. When they tell me to leave, I'll sneak them out with me. I think about taking a poster too, but I think they'll notice that.

I hear footsteps in the hall and try to run back to the bed because I don't want them to know I'm awake yet, Bruce or Alfred. I don't make it in time.

"Master Dick, you're awake. Why don't you come down and have some breakfast? Master Bruce is already up." Alfred says and I can't say no. I mean, I could say no but why? I follow Alfred.

Bruce is sitting in his normal spot and I wonder if I should still sit next to him. Maybe I should move down a seat. There's no way he wants anything to do with me now. I hesitate and Alfred pulls out my normal chair for me. I guess I'll sit in the normal place.

"Dick." Bruce says before I can eat anything and this must be it. When he tells me I have to go. I look at him and try to prepare myself. "How did you find my patrol route?"

That wasn't what I was expecting.

"I-um…Research?" I start and then back up, because Batman would probably want a better explanation than that. "I kept your old newspapers and got online too. When Batman wasn't stopping big bad guys like the Joker and stuff, he stopped the little bad guys. I followed all the news, but they didn't report everything. Then I found a weird looking radio in one of the studies you don't use and it was a police radio. After that, I just figured out the area you left bad guys in most often and picked the tallest building, because you can see everything best from high up." Bruce and Alfred were just looking at me so I kept talking.

"I thought that if I got on the roof, you would definitely see me, because, even if you didn't go there, you had to go near there to get all those bad guys and would see me up there and check it out, because sometimes Clayface pretends to be little kids. Then I could thank you."

Bruce and Alfred are still just looking at me. They look at each other after a minute and then back at me.

"That was a very smart thing to do, Dick. If I gave you a map, could you draw what you think my patrol route is?" Bruce asks and there's something strange about his voice. I just nod.

"Ok. Eat up, Dick, we've got a busy day ahead of us." He says and takes a big bite of his own food.

I start eating too, but I can't help but think Bruce sounds different this morning. He doesn't sound like Batman, he's just sounds a little more serious, less goofy and stuff. He always acts a little more goofy at parties and all of his other 'events', but now he's not doing it at all.

As soon as I finish breakfast, Bruce takes me up to his favorite study and puts a map down on his desk. I sit down and, after a minute, I've drawn what I think is his patrol route based on all the work I did trying to find him. Bruce looks at it for a long moment before he pulls over another chair and sits down.

"You did a pretty good job, but I actually have three different routes I use, instead of just one big one. Like this." He starts drawing on the map and I can see how some of the things I'd left out before because there weren't enough of them fit in now.

Bruce asks me things like that all day long. He asks me to show him how I got out of my room, how I jumped across the roofs, and a million other things. He asked me what I would've done if he hadn't come by there, what I would've done if a bad guy had found me. I answered all of his questions the best that I could and, at the end of the day, he looked happy in a really serious way.

"You're smart." Bruce says forcefully, like it's a fact instead of just something to say. "Very smart."

"Thank you?" I say back, because I really don't know what's going on. I thought Bruce was going to kick me out today, but this is the most time he's ever really spent with me all at once. I liked it, but what if this is all just to get ready to send me away?

"You're too smart to let it go to waste." Bruce nodded like we'd agreed on something.

"Okay?" I just said and he smiled but it wasn't like his normal smiles. It was….a smirk. That's the word. It's a smirk.

"Tell me, Dick. What do you think about computers?" he asks.

"I like them?" I say, because I don't understand where this is going, not at all.

"Want to learn how to hack things?" he asks and I can't help it, I grin, because hackers are cool. I've seen them on TV and they get to do everything.

"Yeah!" I yell before clamping my mouth shut. I hope I haven't been too loud. Grown-ups don't like loud kids, remember? I hope he'll still teach me to hack, how cool would that be?

Bruce frowns and kneels. "Why do you do that?" he says.

"Do what?" I say back.

"Try to act like you're not excited. It's okay to be excited, you know. It's hard to be good at things you aren't excited about." Bruce says.

"I don't want to be too loud." I say and Bruce doesn't seem to understand. "Grown-ups don't like loud kids, so I'm trying to be quiet so you don't send me back."

"Dick, I'm not going to send you back. I like having you around. You can be loud if you want to. Kids are supposed to be loud." Bruce says and puts his arm around me. "Besides, you're too smart for that place. You're going to do great things, chum."

I am Dick Grayson and I am 9 years old.

Today is my birthday. The party was okay. We had it at Wayne Manor and all the kids from my class at the fancy school came to it. Bruce had to act stupid in front of everyone else, just like normal, but he didn't act as stupid as normal since all of the pretty ladies were married with kids. I guess that's one good thing.

The other good thing was that, even though I had to invite all of these kids who I don't really like, I got to invite Babs too. I don't like these kids because they pick on me at school, call me 'Circus Boy' and 'Charity Case' and say their daddies say that Bruce does things to me at home and that's the only reason he keeps me around. I'm not really sure what things they are talking about, but when someone says things that certain way, you know they aren't good things that they are talking about.

But Babs is different. She's Commissioner Gordon's daughter. Commissioner Gordon and Bruce are good friends, but they are even better friends when Bruce is Batman. Commissioner Gordon doesn't know Bruce is Batman, but they are still good friends anyways.

Since they are friends, I got to meet Babs and she's all sorts of fun. She's a little bit older than me but she doesn't treat me like a little kid and she smiles this smile like she knows all the best secrets about everything and she'll never, ever tell. At least, that's what I think that smile means. All the other kids at my party are jealous, because even if I'm a Circus Boy or a Charity Case, I still get to live here in this big house that's way fancier than theirs and my party is way better than theirs' were and an older girl is my friend and she likes to hang out with me, not just because her daddy wants her to, but because she likes me.

I grin. I like to make the other kids jealous, it serves them right. Babs knows that grin and she smiles her smile and together we laugh and laugh, like we're having the most fun ever because we are. We're having so much fun watching them be jealous and the more fun we look like we're having, the more jealous they get.

After the party is over and all of the kids go home, it's just me and Babs. I don't have to be super smiley and happy with her, because she understands. I let the smile fall off my face.

"Happy Birthday Dick." She says with a small smile. She opens her arms for a hug and I hug her a little too hard I think, but she doesn't say anything, so neither do I.

"Barbara, time to go!" Commissioner Gordon says. He messes up my hair when he walks by. I smile at him, just a little one. I'm tired of big fake smiles today. I'm ready to be sad now. I think everyone left understands that, though.

They leave and now it's just me and Bruce and Alfred. I've already opened all my presents. I got everything I could ever want and more stuff I never even thought I would want but is pretty neat now that I have it. I don't really want to play with any of it right now. I sit on the couch and turn on the TV.

I watch for a long time. I'm not really sure what's on. I just think to myself that I'm 9 years old. It's my birthday but there's no special performance just for me. There's no trapeze set up for me to perform a special move for everyone. There's no big top tent. There's no little cake with 9 little candles.

My cake today was big so it could feed all the kids and their parents. I've never had such a big cake. My cakes have all been small and round and the icing was always a little bit uneven because dad would distract mom while she was icing the cake so I could try and stick my finger in the frosting. It never worked, but it made mom laugh and the icing was always wavy from her laughing.

Bruce walks in almost 2 hours later. I guess he thought I needed some time alone. I did, but not that much time. All I did was make myself sad after a while. I tried to watch TV, but I couldn't focus on it for long. I'm glad Bruce came in.

Bruce has been different since I found out he was Batman.

He is still pretty nice, that didn't change, but now he doesn't act like he's so stupid all of the time. He spends more time with me too but now, instead of standing around trying to be a dad, when he spends time with me, he teaches me things. Mostly, he teaches me things about his big computer in the Batcave. According to him, I'm really good at hacking and all of that computer stuff, but it's not so hard. After you learn it, it's pretty easy. I like the computer a lot, because I can make it do what I want it to do. It doesn't do things I don't tell it to do and, as long as I'm perfect, it always does its part perfect too.

The real world isn't really like that. You can be as perfect as you want, but the rest of the world doesn't have to be perfect back. No matter how hard you try, you really can't do anything. That's why the computer is so great.

That's not the only thing Bruce teaches me though. He says that, as long as I want to learn, he'll teach me just about anything. So, right now, he's teaching me 'martial arts'. I actually told him I wanted to learn karate and be a ninja, but he said that it would be much better to learn all of the martial arts instead of only karate. He's says I'm pretty good at that too, since I'm already so strong from being in the circus.

When he started teaching me all of that he said he had to teach me 'first aid'. He says that if I learn how to hurt, I have to learn how to help too, because if I know what I'm doing to someone, I won't do it 'foolishly'.

Foolishly is another new word. It's got two add-ons at the end, but it starts with fool. Fool is a good word to describe Bruce at parties. –ish is sort of the same as 'kind of like'. So 'foolish' is 'kind of like a fool'. And then –ly means something like 'being'. So that means, all together, 'foolishly' is the same as 'kind of like being a fool'.

I definitely don't want to do anything foolishly, so I learn the first aid. I don't like it, though. Blood really isn't my favorite thing right now, I don't think it ever will be.

But Bruce says that sometimes, to do one thing you really want to do, you have to do something you don't want to do to get to do that thing. Did that make any sense? He says Batman is like that. Because Batman just wants to get rid of crime, but he has to hurt the bad guys to make them stop. He doesn't want to hurt them, but he has to hurt them to keep them from hurting other people with their crime.

When Bruce told me that, I thought it sounded like a something a dad would say. I guess the real Bruce, the one who doesn't have to behave foolishly to keep me from thinking he's Batman, is a better dad. I'm glad. If he was still a bad dad after I knew he was Batman then he would probably be pretty scary.

Bruce doesn't say anything when he walks in and sees me watching TV. He just sits down next to me.

That's nice for a couple of minutes. But I have a question and he's the only one who can answer it.

"Bruce?" I say and he looks over at me.

"Yes?" he says.

"Does it ever stop hurting?" I ask and he is quiet for a minute. He shifts so he is facing me instead of the TV.

"No, it doesn't." I almost start crying, because I don't want to hurt forever, but he keeps talking. "But, after a while, you get numb to it. It still hurts, but it's hard to feel it anymore."

"When will that happen?" It would be really great to be numb right now.

"I can't tell you. It's different for everyone. One day, you're going to be just going about your business and you'll realize that you haven't thought about your parents for a while. And it will make you angry at first that you could ever not be thinking about them. But, after you stop being angry, you'll be glad to be able to live without everything reminding you of them." Bruce says.

I'm disappointed that there isn't something that someone can do, because I would like to be numb , I really, really would, because I'm so upset it almost feels like I'm actually hurt, like someone has stabbed me with a knife of sadness.

Right now, though, I'll take a distraction.

I sniff a little because all of this trying-not-to-cry is making my nose run. "Could you defeat the Joker if you stabbed him with knife of sadness?"

"What?" Bruce says and he sounds so confused. I laugh, but it is hiccup-y. My body really wants everyone to know that I should be crying, I guess.

"The Joker's always happy because he's crazy. If you had a knife that made people sad, wouldn't that defeat him?"

Bruce rolled with it. "No, then instead of basing all of his plots on bad jokes and setting up shop at abandoned carnivals, he'd base them on sad songs and make a homeless shelter his base or something idiotic like that. The Joker would still be crazy after all."

"What about if you could make him 'apathetic'? Then he wouldn't care. What about that?" I ask and Bruce gives me a strange look.

"Apathetic? Where did you learn a word like that?"

"Alfred." I say back and he shakes his head. He's smirking, though. Bruce doesn't really smile unless he's acting for all of the people. When we're by ourselves, he mostly smirks. "Hey, Bruce, if apathetic means 'not caring', then why doesn't pathetic mean 'caring'?"

"Dick, why are you doing this?" I guess Bruce got tired of word games.

"Doing what?" Maybe he's not talking about what I think he is, but he's using his serious-and-trying-to-be-a-good-dad voice.

"It's okay to cry, you know. I did. For years." He says.

I still try not to. I'm so tired of crying. I'm especially tired of crying in front of him, because he's Batman and I don't really believe him when he says he cried for years.

I can't help it, though. He gave me permission to cry and I don't want to, but I can't help it. I try to keep it inside but it doesn't want to stay there. I release a loud sob before I can stop myself. Bruce pulls me against him.

"The difference is, I didn't have anyone. Alfred's great, but he couldn't help. I'm going to make sure you aren't alone, Dick. You don't ever need to end up like me."

I am Dick Grayson and I am 9 years old.

I've been thinking about this for a while now and tonight was the final straw.

Bruce came in hurt again, he just keeps getting more and more hurt on his missions, even when no real big bad guys are out. And it's so stupid too. People just sneak up on him. He's not like I thought Batman was, some sort of super, all-knowing, all-seeing thing, he's human. Batman is human like me.

That's the part I've been thinking about. 'Like me'. He's human just like me. Batman is just like me.

I could be Batman, anyone who tried hard enough could be Batman.

Bruce is bleeding. He's bleeding and Alfred is stitching him up and saying English-things under his breath. Bruce is bleeding because he's human just like me and he doesn't have eyes on the back of his head and someone snuck up on him.

If I were there, no one could sneak up on him. I would warn him.

Batman is human. I could be Batman. Why can't I just help Batman instead.

But it's not going to be that easy. Bruce isn't that foolish guy he makes everyone think he is. He's cold like ice and smart. And he's a big old party-pooper too. He'll never let me help him if I don't make him see I can help. So I will. I'll make him see and then, right when he has to need help, there I'll be. And he does need help sometimes. He never asks for it, but he needs it sometimes, I can tell. When I watch him on TV, he gets hit by the stupidest stuff, just because he's human.

I could be Batman, but instead I'm just Dick.

And I'll always be Dick, but Batman needs someone too.

Until I'm sure I'm ready, I'll think about my superhero name.

I am Robin and I am timeless like the night.

How cool is that?

I am Robin.

But I'm also Dick Grayson, who is 9 years old.

Bruce is my father, because I am actually a ward of Bruce Wayne.

But Batman is Robin's dad and Gotham is his mother. Alfred says Batman is married to Gotham and he's promised to always protect her. I promised to protect her too, I already didn't protect one mom.

I can do better now though.

I'm not ever going to fail Gotham or Batman, I'm going to make them proud. And I'm going to do my very best to make sure that no one else ever has to lose their mom and dad like me.

Except, Robin has lost no one. Robin still has everything, a mom and a dad, even if they aren't very good at it. Even if Gotham is the kind of mom that hurts you, over and over. Batman says it's because she's sick with crime and 'corruption'. I guess that makes me and Batman like a flu shot.

Dick Grayson just has Bruce and Alfred. They aren't so bad. They're not like my mom and dad, but I don't think they know how. I don't want them too anyways, my mom and dad are the only ones I want to be like them, so I can always remember them without mixing other people in by accident.

Alfred is worried about me being Robin. Bruce might even be worried too, but Batman isn't. Batman seems like he knows everything will work out okay.

But Bruce keeps coming up to my room and telling me that I don't have to do this. He tells me that I can just be a normal boy, that I don't have to go out and fight criminals, that that's his job. He says that me being Robin won't save anyone and might get me killed.

I don't really believe him, because I don't think he believes himself. Besides, I've seen the blood; I've seen Batman take off his mask. Batman is human just like me. Batman is human just like mom and dad. I thought nothing could ever hurt them either. Look how true that turned out.

The thought kind of makes me want to cry, but I'm not Dick right now, I'm Robin. And Robin can't cry. Robin doesn't cry.

Sometimes I tell Bruce that I'm going to save him, that he's somebody who Robin will keep safe. He doesn't really like that answer.

Sometimes, I don't say anything at all. It's those times that he sighs and starts talking again.

He tells me that I will see horrible things. He tells me about bodies and blood, about men frozen solid, or rolling in the street laughing until they spit blood. He tells me about plants and a man with only half a face. He tells me about the little children that you have to deliver to the police when you are too late, how they cry so loudly or, even worse, when they don't cry at all.

It sounds scary.

He's trying to scare me away, but I won't let him. I won't let him because I can hear his voice change when he's telling me. He hurts inside just like me, because he's human just like me and if he can handle it to help people, so can I.

Batman needs a Robin. I know he does.

I'll face every criminal there is until my second family, Mother-Gotham, Batman, Bruce, Alfred, and all, are safe. When that day comes, Dick Grayson will rest easy.

But, until then, Robin will soar.

My first, and possibly last, venture into the Young Justice fandom. I have slight idea for a Roy-centric piece, but I'm not sure I know enough about him to do it justice.

Before I leave you all, I just want to justify this particular piece for a moment. If you aren't interested, feel free to move on.

I've been reading a lot of Robin fics these past couple of weeks and, while lots of stories go into Robin's past, I still found myself...unsatisfied. Children don't think like adults, they don't understand things the same way. However, by the time we see Robin in Young Justice, he is far from a child.

But that change, from child to adult, it couldn't happen immediately following his parents' deaths. The human mind doesn't work like that and I've been frustrated with the stories that either portray him as overly young, like a very small child, or overly grown up.I wanted to write something from his point of view, showing how he grew up, little by little, it the year following his parents' deaths. I hope I achieved that.

I would like some feedback, if you could take moment to review. If not, thank you for reading!