Chapter Text
The first time Dick steps foot in the Manor, he has to pause to catch his breath. It’s big. It’s huge. He always thought the big top was the biggest space that existed, besides the sky of course, the sky is the biggest, but this place…this place is almost like the sky except that Dick knows it doesn’t go on forever. He can see the ceiling when he looks up, even if it looks very far away. Dick wonders how many trailers he would have to stack to reach the top of the ceiling. He’s always been good at that game. His dad is always asking him how many olives are in the jar, how many caravan cars from here to their next stop, how many – was. His dad was always asking him. Dick feels tears start to well up and he stares down at his feet.
Somehow the drive up to Wayne Manor didn’t startle him. Everything was feeling kind of muffled, like someone had dropped a blanket over all his sights and sounds and feelings. It was only after mechanically trudging up the front steps and stepping through the door that Dick’s surroundings registered and he couldn’t help but gasp.
Next to him, Mr. Wayne clears his throat. “Alfred will show you to your room. You are welcome anywhere in the Manor.” He pauses. “Except for my study.”
Dick blinks up at the huge, strange man who just took him into his huge, strange home. He doesn’t seem to know how to act around kids. Dick almost has the urge to reach out and pat him on the arm, assure Mr. Wayne that Dick won’t be any trouble, and that he’s not so little after all, but he doesn’t have the energy. He lets the man who drove them here – Alfred – lead him toward the stairs with a “Right this way, young sir,” and only later realizes why the moment feels so strange. He didn’t smile at Mr. Wayne. He always smiles.
***
Dick spends his first few weeks at Wayne Manor holed up in his room, emerging only when Alfred calls him down for meals. He eats at the big, formal dining table, alone. He sits on his giant, fluffy bed, alone. Sometimes, he moves to the window seat and looks out at the endless grass and trees, alone. He has Zitka the Stuffed Elephant to keep him company, but Zitka can’t talk back. Dick cries himself to sleep most nights, thinking about his parents, about Mr. Haly, about Bonkers the Clown and Arturo the Strongman and Nellie the Fortune Teller and Zitka the Real Elephant. He dreams about his parents falling and wakes up right before they hit the ground, sob caught in his throat and heart pounding wildly in his chest. He wonders why Mr. Wayne agreed to take him in if he’s never going to be around anyway.
One morning, Dick wakes up with a vibrating under his skin. Itchy feet, his mama would have said. The idea of sitting in his room all day is suddenly and completely unbearable, and Mr. Wayne did say Dick was welcome in any part of the Manor. Dick decides once and for all that he’s not going to let himself bathe in his bad feelings (another thing his mama used to say). There must be a lost treasure or two hidden around such a large place. Maybe even a spirit or ghost that needs help making it to the other side. Nellie the Fortune Teller was always talking about freeing trapped spirits. The most important part, she said, is making sure that they feel at peace with whatever is holding them on this side, even if you forget all of the chants and all of the materials you need for the rituals. Dick isn’t entirely sure what this side or the other side is, but he feels confident in his ability to help a lost soul along if they want to go. He’s good at putting people at ease.
The next few months are spent roaming around the Manor and grounds. Dick doesn’t find any lost souls, though he does find plenty of treasure. A tiara that shimmers in the sunlight when Dick yanks open the dusty curtains in a room on the third floor. An old-looking glass bottle that has a sweet-smelling liquid inside it. A single slipper, now faded but clearly once a brilliant red. Dick doesn’t want to remove anything from where he finds it – he doesn’t know how Mr. Wayne or Alfred will react – so he draws himself a map and carefully marks where he finds each object.
When he’s not exploring, he’s either practicing his acrobatics on the lawn or hanging out in the kitchen with Alfred. Alfred refuses to sit with Dick when he eats, but he doesn’t mind if Dick keeps him company while he’s preparing Dick’s meals. Dick tries to tell him he doesn’t need to do that; Dick knows how to boil eggs and pickle just about anything. At least he thinks he can pickle just about anything. People were always saying that about his mama, and he helped her pickle things often enough. But Alfred always insists that Dick can just sit right where he is, though he’s welcome to help sift the flour or wash the lettuce if he wants to. Dick always wants to. The smells are different, but the kitchen still reminds him of the circus, where Arturo the Strongman would often trap small animals to roast, and Bonkers the Clown produced roasted potatoes seemingly out of nowhere, and Renaya, one of the contortionists, had an endless supply of herbs to offer.
Alfred’s kitchen is quieter than Dick is used to, but sometimes Alfred hums while he works, and Dick tries to pick up the tunes so he can hum along. The first time he does it, he doesn’t even notice. He glances at Alfred in alarm as soon as he realizes he’s humming out loud, but Alfred doesn’t seem to mind, so Dick keeps humming. Sometimes he offers tunes of his own and, sometimes, much to Dick’s delight, Alfred joins in.
When Alfred’s not humming, he’s telling stories. He tells Dick about the English countryside. He tells him fables and legends that his mum told him as a boy. He tells him about the generations of Waynes that have lived in the Manor. Mostly, he tells Dick about Master Bruce. Dick still doesn’t see much of Mr. Wayne, but he learns from Alfred about the time Master Bruce scraped his knee in the shape of a butterfly when he was seven. He learns that his favorite dish is meatloaf. He has lived in this house his entire life, except when he went away to school. He’s a writer. His parents died when he was ten.
Dick has so many questions. “What is meatloaf?” “How did Mr. Wayne’s parents die?” “What kinds of things does Mr. Wayne write?” “How do you scrape your knee in the shape of a butterfly?” Mostly, “Where is Mr. Wayne?” Alfred answers all of his questions in his calm, unwavering manner, only occasionally rebuffing Dick with a prim, “That’s not mine to tell, my boy.” Dick wonders how something to tell can belong to someone. He wonders if Alfred means it’s Mr. Wayne’s to tell. And if that’s the case, will Mr. Wayne ever be around to tell it? He wonders what writers do all day. He wonders again why Mr. Wayne took him in in the first place.
***
One particularly gloomy day starts just like any other. Dick finishes breakfast in the kitchen with Alfred and then goes back to his room and consults his map. His map has grown to sprawl across multiple pages taped together, and today Dick is moving onto the second page from the right in the middle row, the second floor of the East Wing. Alfred helped him sketch out the outline once Dick realized he was starting to draw in a spiral. As he makes his game plan for the day, Dick realizes with a mix of excitement and dread that he’s almost finished with the whole house. He’s found a total of 42 treasures so far, each marked meticulously with a small drawing in the room where he found it. He only has the second floor of the East Wing left.
Dick folds up his map and carefully places it in his new backpack. He never had a backpack in the circus, but he likes how it lets him carry things with him and still leaves his hands free for exploring. Dick goes through three rooms that have nothing but furniture and a few vases that Dick considers but ultimately decides aren’t special enough to be treasures. Interestingly, this part of the house seems to have a lot less dust and fewer white sheets than the rest of the wings Dick has explored. In his fourth room, which has two couches, a leather armchair, and one of the ugliest, frilliest lamps Dick has ever seen, Dick finds what seems to be a plate with ancient crumbs. He excitedly notes it on his map and wonders which Wayne last sat here and left a plate. Maybe it was Great-Aunt Angeline. She seems like the kind of person who would sit in a room like this sipping tea and nibbling on cookies. Biscuits, Alfred would call them.
Dick moves on to his fifth room of the day. He pushes open the door, expecting to find another stuffy sitting room, and freezes. It is another stuffy sitting room, or at least, it has a couch and heavy curtains and another ugly lamp, but there, sitting at the desk in the corner, is Mr. Wayne. Dick is frozen in place, his eyes wide, his hand still on the doorknob. Mr. Wayne glances up at the intrusion, momentary surprise flitting across his face.
Oh no. This must be Mr. Wayne’s study. This is the one room in the Manor Dick isn’t allowed in.
“I-I’m sorry,” Dick stutters out. “I didn’t know- I mean, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Sir.” He means to close the door and back away, but finds himself stuck in place.
“It’s alright, Richard, you can come in.” Mr. Wayne’s voice is a deep rumble. Not friendly, exactly, but not unkind either.
“Oh no, uh, no, that’s okay. You- you must be busy.”
Mr. Wayne smiles a bit. “It’s alright,” he repeats. “You’re welcome to come in. And, please, call me Bruce.”
Dick feels trapped. He really just wants to continue his exploring for the day, but it would be rude to turn away now, wouldn’t it? Mr. - Bruce seems to think he came in on purpose. With nowhere else to go, Dick steps the rest of the way into the room. He lets his eyes wander around, taking in the elegant desk, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the stacks of books on Bruce’s desk and on the little end table next to the couch. He wonders how many treasures he could find in here.
“Did you want something, Richard?” Bruce interrupts his thoughts.
“Dick,” Dick responds automatically.
“I’m sorry?”
“My name. I go by Dick.”
“Oh,” Bruce seems taken aback, but hides it quickly. “Yes, of course. My apologies. Is there something I can help you with, Dick?”
“Oh, um,” Dick’s mind starts reeling as he searches for some excuse for why he’s in the room. “What are you writing?” he blurts out.
Now Bruce definitely looks startled. “What am I writing? I’m working on a sequel to my book, The Bat Man.”
“The Batman?” Dick scrunches up his nose as he contemplates this information. “What’s a sequel? And what’s a batman?”
For the first time since Dick has come to the Manor, Bruce smiles in earnest. He doesn’t look so scary that way, Dick thinks to himself.
“A sequel is a book that continues the story of a previous book,” Bruce explains. “And there is no such thing as a batman. The Bat Man is a metaphor for the inner demons of man. It’s also the name of the protagonist of my book. Or rather, the alter-ego of the protagonist of my book.”
Dick doesn’t understand all of the words Bruce just used, but he nods seriously.
“Here,” Bruce opens a drawer of his desk and pulls out a thick hardcover book. “Would you like to read it?”
Dick steps forward to get a better look at the dark blob he can make out on the cover, when Bruce frowns.
“On second thought,” Bruce says uncertainly, “perhaps it’s not an appropriate book for a child.”
“That’s okay,” Dick says assuredly. “My mama says I’m mature for my age.” Said, Dick corrects himself mentally. But he cuts off that thought before it goes too far.
Privately, Dick is a bit nervous about reading a book this size. At the circus, he liked solving math problems with his dad as they helped set up the big top and learning about lion biology from Billy the Lion Tamer, but he’s never liked to just sit and read. They had a few tattered textbooks that his mama would sometimes have him work through, and a few weathered paperbacks that were passed around the caravan, but mostly his parents were content to let him do his lessons while moving. He would swing while Arturo recounted classic Italian tales or wander into the meadows around their campsite to look at the local wildlife. The longest book he’s ever read was The Secret of the Old Clock, but most of that his mama read aloud.
The book Dick holds in his hands now is heavy. It’s long. But Dick determines that he will read the entire thing, whatever it takes. Maybe Bruce will want to spend time with him when he knows they can talk about his book.
He looks up from the book in his hands. “Thank you, Mr. - Bruce! I’m going to read this whole thing!”
Dick thinks Bruce looks pleased.
That night, Dick settles in his gigantic bed and pulls his gigantic book into his lap. He furrows his brow in concentration as he opens to the first page. The letters seem to dance around and he has to squint to make sense of anything. Slowly, he begins to read.
Some say cities are like people. They are temperamental. They are full of contradictions. They offer themselves differently to you, depending on how you give yourself to them. There are good cities and bad cities, but mostly, there are cities with good hearts and misguided intentions.
Gotham is no exception, if a little more misguided than most. She sits defiantly under her coat of grime and her blanket of smog as she waits for her glory days to return to her. Her heart remains as pure as it ever was, though she has allowed her demeanor to soil. Criminals run freely in her streets. Leaders squabble in her halls. Her very infrastructure is on the brink of ruin.
There, atop her spine, at the very height of Wayne Tower, sits her protector. He is only a man, yet he is somehow more and somehow less. He has devoted his life to ridding Gotham of her layer of filth and in doing so, he has given up his status as man and evolved into symbol. Devolved, perhaps. With the sirens screaming from the east and the distant cries ringing up from below, the Bat Man crouches on his perch and prepares to soar into the night.
Dick pauses his reading to rest the book in his lap. Though a lot of the words he just read confused him, he gets enough to paint a picture of the dirty city and the powerful hero ready to save her at all costs. He can just imagine it - the Batman wears all black, of course. His mask has bat ears and his gloves have bat claws. Do bats have claws? His cape is long and thick and strong. The symbol mentioned in the chapter must be on his chest. It’s black, too. No, that’s silly, then no one would be able to see it. It’s yellow. Yes, a yellow bat painted across the black armor Batman wears across his chest. Wow, Dick can see it now. Batman is a savior. He’s a protector. He’s kind, and strong, and funny, and everything a hero should be. Wow, Dick can’t wait to see what happens next. Wow, Bruce Wayne must be really, really smart.
Dick falls asleep somewhere about halfway through the first chapter. There are lots of descriptions of buildings and so far Batman has only jumped off of one of them, but Dick is still hooked. His dreams that night are a hazy jumble of flying and fighting and strong arms wrapping around him while a cape flutters in the breeze.
***
Bruce looks up at the knock on his study door. He knows, by the timidness of the knock, that it’s Dick at the door. Alfred always knocks three times, firmly.
“Come in,” Bruce calls.
Dick pokes his head around the door. “Hi Mr…, uh, Bruce,” Dick stammers. He is beaming. Bruce has never seen him smile so widely, he realizes.
“I read the first chapter of your book last night!” Dick is saying. “Well, most of it, anyway. It’s really, really good! Batman is so cool. I can just see him leaping off buildings and swooping down to catch the bad guys, and then bam!”
By this point, Dick has fully entered the room and is standing in the middle of Bruce’s great-grandfather’s rug clutching the book under his arm. Bruce opens his mouth to let Dick know that he has misunderstood. This is not a kid’s book. The Bat Man does not leap or swoop or ‘bam’. But Dick is still going.
“Anyway, I was thinking, maybe I could sit in here and read some more while you’re working. I’ll be quiet, I promise! But that way I could ask you about any of the big words I don’t know or anything that doesn’t make sense. But not a lot! Just whenever the really big words come up.”
Bruce is so stunned by the request that for a moment he doesn’t know what to say. Dick, a child, sit in his office while he works?
He is saved from a response by three sharp raps on the door. Without waiting for a response, Alfred enters the room with a tea service. Bruce frowns, Alfred never brings tea at this time. But as usual, his timing is impeccable. Alfred will know what to say to get Dick to leave without hurting his feelings.
“Tea, Master Bruce? Master Dick?” Alfred asks. Without waiting for a response, he places one cup at Bruce’s elbow and another on the side table next to the couch.
“Ooh, I love tea! Thanks, Alfred!” Dick exclaims as he clambers onto the couch and settles in.
Bruce can only look on in dismay as Alfred pours them each a cup and leaves the teapot on the tray on Bruce’s desk.
“Enjoy the morning, sirs. I trust I will see you both for lunch.” At that, Alfred gives Bruce a pointed look and excuses himself from the room.
For a long moment, Bruce can only sit and stare at the side of Dick’s head from where he sits. Dick has the hardcover copy of The Bat Man that Bruce had given him last night splayed across his lap. Bruce watches as he squirms a little in his seat and then picks up his teacup and attempts to take a sip, but recoils when the hot liquid burns his tongue. He opens his mouth and pants a few times, then replaces the teacup and goes back to the book.
Bruce…isn’t sure what to do. He can’t possibly work like this. It would be too much of a hassle to move his computer and all of his printed materials and notebooks into another room. Perhaps he could bring just his notes and do some writing by hand…but, no, that has never worked well for him in the past. Eventually, he resigns himself to working from his spot and getting little done today. He will have to speak to Alfred about this later.
“Um, Bruce?” Dick asks about twenty minutes later.
Bruce resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Dick?”
“What’s oh-sten-tah-tee-us?”
“Ostentatious,” Bruce replies. “It means gaudy. Seeking to attract attention.”
“Oh. Okay, thanks.” Dick returns to his book.
“Over-the-top,” Bruce supplies about five minutes later.
Dick looks confused for a minute, then his eyes light up. “Like Madame Trelski’s shawl! It had all these jewels and swirly designs and my mama always said it was ‘over the top.’”
Dick looks back down at his book happily and Bruce resumes writing.
He lasts about 15 minutes this time. “Hey, Bruce?”
This time Bruce does sigh. “Yes, Dick?”
“I was thinking, Batman should have a sidekick.”
“The Bat Man,” Bruce corrects, then can’t help but ask, “A sidekick?”
“Yeah, you know, like a helper. A superhero in training.”
“I know what a sidekick is, Dick, but I hardly think –“ Bruce cuts himself off when Dick plows on.
“Batman is all dark and serious, right? So his sidekick should be bright and cheery. I mean, who’s going to comfort all the crying kids otherwise?”
“The crying kids?” Bruce asks and then mentally kicks himself. He’ll never get anything done at this rate.
“Yeah, there’s gotta be crying kids! Who got stuck in a tree or- or who ran away from home. Or maybe they got lost! And Batman saves them!”
“That is not the type of crime that the Bat Man is fighting, Dick.”
“And I was thinking,” Dick continues undeterred, “he could be an acrobat!”
“Oh, could he now?” Bruce feels the corners of his mouth twitch.
“Yeah! Because then he could keep up with Batman when he’s jumping off buildings and stuff.”
“He wouldn’t happen to be about eight years old, this sidekick, would he?”
Dick thinks for a moment, then nods slowly. “Eight and a half. Eight’s too small, but a eight and a half year old is almost nine.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you, Dick.”
Dick nods once seriously and turns back to his book.
***
Despite Bruce’s repeated appeals to Alfred for assistance, Dick continues to sit in Bruce’s office to read. He does more fidgeting and talking than reading, in Bruce’s opinion. On one particularly memorable occasion, Bruce is startled by a crash and turns to find Dick with his back on the floor, his feet on the couch, and his book on his face.
“Oops,” Dick says sheepishly as he clambers to his feet.
“Dick?” Bruce asks with some alarm and no small amount of confusion. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine! I was reading upside down and the cushion slipped, is all.”
“You were rea….” Bruce heaves a deep sigh. “Well, as long as you’re alright. Try reading in a normal, seated position next time.”
Bruce gets absolutely no work done all summer aside from some minor editing. He hardly knows why he tries. His only consolation is that Dick will have to start school soon. As he had arrived in late spring, Bruce and Alfred had decided to wait until the start of the following school year to enroll him in Gotham Academy. Dick has spent all summer begging to study with Alfred instead and is absolutely horrified by the school uniform, but Bruce is firm in his decision. School will be good for Dick.
“Hey, B?”
“Yes, Dick?” Bruce no longer sighs when Dick interrupts.
“I have a question.”
Bruce waits patiently.
“When Batman takes his Batmobile back to his Batcave, how come people don’t see where he’s going and find out where he lives?”
“His…Batmobile?”
“Yeah, mobile is another word for car,” Dick explains patiently.
Bruce suppresses a smile. “I wasn’t aware the Bat Man had a name for his vehicle.”
“Well, obviously. Every superhero does. So how come?”
Bruce has to think back over the last few seconds of conversation to track Dick’s line of questioning. He smiles slightly. No one has thought to ask him this before. “There are a series of tunnels leading to the Bat Man’s lair. He can enter from various places and continue underground where no one can follow him. There are security measures in place, of course, should anyone try to enter with him at any point.”
Dick considers this for a moment. “Like a force field! Or a body scanner! Or - or maybe a waterfall that turns into a wall for anyone who’s not Batman. Or Robin, of course.”
Bruce has long since given up trying to dispel Dick’s misconception that the Bat Man is a children’s superhero with all the gadgets and improbable fighting techniques that Dick likes to imagine. For the most part, he lets Dick conjure up whatever unlikely scenario he would like, though sometimes Bruce’s curiosity gets the better of him. “Robin?” he asks now, a little bemusedly.
“Batman’s sidekick, Bruce!” He leaves the “duh” off, but it’s implied.
“I see,” Bruce says. “Why a robin?”
Dick doesn’t answer immediately. When Bruce looks up from his computer, he is alarmed to find Dick staring dejectedly at his hands. His eyes are beginning to well up with tears.
“...Dick?” Bruce asks cautiously. “What’s wrong?”
Dick sniffles and swipes a hand under his nose. “My…my mama used to call me her little robin. ‘Cause my birthday’s the first day of spring,” he says in a small voice.
Oh. This, Bruce understands at his very core. He is suddenly, achingly thrown back to those first months after his own parents died, when his grief had been so strong he was sure it would come roaring out of him and consume him and everything else, like a flash flood. He had figured out quickly how to shove his torment in a box deep inside him, even then, but it had taken so little for the box to spring a leak. The smallest reminder – a whiff of a daisy, the snap of a rubber glove, a glimpse of a pearl – was enough to send him careening off to his room or any number of other lonely corners of the Manor.
The boy in front of him is so unlike him – so bubbly – that Bruce forgot how very like him Dick really is. It’s the reason he worked so hard to foster Dick Grayson, aerialist extraordinaire, after that fateful night at Haly’s Circus. Bruce recognized the look in Dick’s eyes when he watched his parents fall to their deaths and some wild, visceral part of Bruce had thought “No,” and "I will do something,” without ever forming coherent thoughts at all.
Now, here sits Dick, so clearly suffering in a way that is intimately familiar to Bruce, and yet, Bruce has never been at more of a loss for what to do. He casts desperately back in his mind, flipping through flashes of memories of the insincere platitudes he had received from Gotham socialite after Gotham socialite, before landing on a snippet of a warm coat being placed around his shaking body. Then, a thin, British hand resting on his shoulder and squeezing gently.
Bruce stands from his desk and approaches the back of the couch where Dick is sitting. He places a tentative hand on Dick’s shoulder, and when Dick doesn’t jerk away, he squeezes. He is startled by sudden movement and blinks at the blubbering 8-year-old who has somehow turned himself around and latched his arms around Bruce’s middle. Bruce stands there, flabbergasted for a moment, before slowly bringing both arms to Dick’s back and resting them there gently.
Dick sobs for what feels like an eternity, but what Bruce knows logically can only be a few minutes. Bruce’s shirt is soaked by the time Dick’s sniffles taper off and the boy slowly raises his head, but Bruce finds that he doesn’t mind.
Dick’s eyes widen in horror when he pulls back and catches sight of Bruce’s shirt. He lifts his eyes up to meet Bruce’s, but Bruce cuts him off before he can say anything.
“Shh, it’s okay, chum” Bruce soothes, rubbing one hand up and down Dick’s back.
Dick hiccups a little and rests his head on the back of the couch, seemingly content to let Bruce continue comforting him.
***
The rest of the summer falls into a pattern, after that. During the day, Dick sits on the couch in Bruce’s study, reading The Bat Man and throwing out suggestions for its sequel, only leaving for an occasional romp around the grounds or when Alfred calls him away for a meal. Bruce joins him in the dining room most days.
Most nights, Bruce – forever a light sleeper – awakens to the sound of small feet shuffling towards his bedroom door. He shifts over in bed to make room for the teary-eyed boy who slowly pushes open the bedroom door, stuffed elephant in hand.
The first time this happens, Bruce is once again at a momentary loss. He can’t say he’s surprised, exactly, to find a grieving boy at his door in the middle of the night, but he didn’t think Dick would come to him. He is… pleased, he realizes.
Now, they have a routine. “Nightmare?” Bruce asks. And when Dick nods, Bruce pats the space next to him in bed. “Want to join me? I saved a spot for you.” Dick shuffles forward and clambers into bed, burrowing his head into Bruce’s chest and hugging his elephant to his own chest. Sometimes Dick wants to talk, but mostly he curls up and falls asleep within minutes. Bruce arranges the blankets carefully around both of them and does his best to sleep himself with the addition of the mini space heater nestled against him.
Most mornings, the two make their way down to breakfast together, to find Alfred already setting out a cup of coffee for Bruce and a cup of milk for Dick, a warm smile in his eyes. Dick chatters happily with Alfred, about the bird’s nest he found the day before, about the yellow bat logo that Batman absolutely has to add to his costume, about how elephants have thousands of muscles in their trunk, while Bruce uses the reprieve to read the morning paper.
As predicted, Bruce gets almost no writing done all summer. On Dick’s first day of school, Bruce is eager to get back to his study and begin writing his sequel in earnest. He ends up staring at the blank Word document on his computer screen and making more trips than are necessary back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. He is relieved when Dick gets home from school and makes a beeline for the study.
“What’d I miss?” Dick asks without so much as a hello. He drops his backpack on the floor and plops himself down into his usual spot on the couch.
Alfred is right behind the boy, exasperation on his face. “Master Dick,” he reproaches, “surely you want to have a snack and change your clothes before ‘talking shop,’ as it were. Perhaps you will join me in the kitchen and tell me about your first day of classes over a cucumber sandwich.”
Dick’s face flushes and he glances between Bruce and Alfred.
“It’s alright, Dick,” Bruce encourages. “I’ll still be here when you’re done.”
Dick follows Alfred back to the kitchen. He sits on a stool at the island, swinging his legs as he munches on a tray of mini sandwiches Alfred had already prepared for him.
“Schlwuzzwerd,” Dick says over a mouthful of cucumber.
“Finish chewing first, my boy,” Alfred admonishes.
“School was weird,” Dick repeats, after obediently swallowing his mouthful.
“Oh? How so?” Alfred raises an eyebrow.
Dick shrugs. “They make you sit at a little table and write on worksheets all day. The math questions were really easy. Art was kind of fun, I guess.” Dick shrugs again.
He shoves the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly. “Can I go back to the study now, Alfred? Please?”
Alfred sighs. He doesn’t think The Bat Man is suitable reading for a young, energetic boy, but he knows a futile task when he sees one. “Very well,” he replies. “I suppose there’s no keeping you away any longer.”
“Yes!” Dick whoops. He dashes out of the kitchen, only to stick his head back through the doorway a moment later. “Thank you for the snack, Alfred!”
“You’re very welcome,” Alfred says, but Dick has already vanished.
***
After three more days of staring at his computer screen and drinking inordinate amounts of coffee, Bruce sighs. He has the peace and quiet he has been craving all summer and yet he has hardly written ten words. He has no idea where he wants to go from here, he realizes. He has hit a wall.
Bruce thinks back to the comments from his long-time editor when he approached her about a sequel to The Bat Man. Leslie had sighed.
Bruce furrowed his brow. “It was a critically acclaimed novel. I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” she said. “But you know the sales weren’t what the company was hoping for. It’s a great book, Bruce, but it didn’t seem to resonate with the average reader.” She paused. “Maybe you could consider injecting a bit of levity into a sequel. I’ll see if I can run it up the chain.”
Bruce scoffed at the time. Levity. If people couldn’t appreciate his masterpiece for what it was, he wasn’t going to degrade himself and his writing by stooping to their level.
Now, though, now, he can’t stop hearing Dick’s voice in his mind as he sits at his desk.
“Who’s Batman’s arch-nemesis, Bruce? All superheroes have to have one!”
“I think Batman must have little ears on the top of his costume. Otherwise he wouldn’t really look like a bat.”
“Where does Batman store all the supervillains once he catches them?”
“Who’s going to comfort all the crying kids?”
“Batmobile!”
“Batcomputer!”
“Batarang!”
Maybe you could consider injecting a bit of levity into a sequel, Leslie had said. A bit of levity.
Hmm. Maybe Bruce does have an idea of where he wants to start. It would be an entirely new direction. Hardly a sequel at all, really. He’ll have to reach out to Leslie to get her thoughts before he continues too far down this path. It’s a crazy idea…. Completely out of character…. Bruce starts to type.
The first time Dick steps foot in the Manor, he has to pause to catch his breath…