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Two sounds echoed through the woods at once, sending chills down Bruce’s spine: the harsh metallic scrape of a sword against its scabbard, and the sharp cry of a child in pain.
Bruce was dressed in light armour, more prepared for a hunt than for battle, but he directed his horse toward the disturbance without hesitation. Soon enough, the trees gave way to a clearing, at the centre of which stood a man towering over a small child.
The man’s one-eyed helmet was distinctive even from a distance, as were his colours: orange and black.
The bounty hunter Deathstroke.
They both turned at Bruce’s arrival, Deathstroke’s lip curling in displeasure. The child’s wails grew louder.
“Oh, shut up.” Deathstroke grabbed the child by the collar of his linen tunic. “You think you’re fooling anyone, boy?”
Bruce dropped from his mount and drew his sword. “Release him.”
Deathstroke swept the child up and held him to his chest like a shield, sword against his throat. The child’s wrists were shackled together, but his hands still flew to Deathstroke’s, scrabbling against the grip as his legs kicked ineffectually at armour.
“Don’t let this form deceive you,” Deathstroke said, shaking the child lightly and ignoring the cries of protest that pierced Bruce’s ears. “He isn’t a child. He’s fae.”
Fae.
Bruce’s grip tightened on his sword. He had spent his entire life hoping for a chance to speak with one of the Fair Folk. He couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
“Boy or fae,” he said, “bounty hunters aren’t welcome in Gotham. Release him. Now.”
Deathstroke tilted his head slightly upward as his lips pulled into a deeper frown. His one-eyed gaze flicked over Bruce’s form, assessing him. Judging him.
Admittedly, Bruce didn’t like his own odds, should it come to blows. He was a skilled swordsman, but so was Deathstroke, and only one of them was wearing the plate for a battle.
But it was also the case that only one of them was king of Gotham, and it only took a second for Deathstroke’s gaze to catch on the royal crest pinning Bruce’s riding cloak to his shoulder. The trouble that fighting Bruce would bring could not nearly be worth whatever reward he would receive from delivering this fae—something Bruce suspected Deathstroke understood, from the way his stance eased into a slightly less combative position, though his sword was still at the boy’s neck.
“I’d be doing you a favour,” Deathstroke said, and it could have been true. Fae were no friends to humans—any humans. This one could have killed hundreds of men, for all Bruce knew.
But even if that were the case, Bruce could not stand by to let him be captured by an unscrupulous hunter.
“Let him go,” Bruce said, “and get out of my kingdom.”
Deathstroke let the fae go—quite literally, dropping him and leaving him a bound and glaring heap on the ground. “Another time, little bird.”
The fae spat something at Deathstroke in a language Bruce had never heard before, but he could understand from tone that the words were less than kind.
Deathstroke, however, simply seemed amused. “Be careful with this one,” he said to Bruce as he walked past. “Or you’ll be regretting it sooner rather than later.”
Bruce didn’t deign to give him a response, and instead crouched down and looked over the fae’s bindings—iron shackles, linked by a chain only a handspan wide. It would be simple to pick if he had his thieves’ tools, but he avoided carrying them during the day after one too many close calls with accidental discovery. “The key.”
“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Deathstroke said, waving an idle hand over his shoulder, “Your Majesty.”
Bruce couldn’t be bothered to chase him down. He drew his sword, and noted the fear in the fae’s wide blue eyes.
“I won’t hurt you.” He gently guided the fae’s wrists down to the ground in front of him and pushed them apart. “Hold there.”
The fae held the position, and Bruce swung his sword down in a quick motion, slamming the chain against the ground and breaking the links. It wouldn’t negate the iron, but it would give the fae more freedom of movement for the time being.
“I can remove the shackles for you,” Bruce said, “but the tools I need are back at the castle.”
The fae drew his wrists nearer to himself, looking very much the child he was currently pretending to be—if Deathstroke was telling the truth, that was. Bruce suspected he was, if only because he had never seen eyes so blue and bright in any human before.
And then the fae spoke: “I didn’t ask you to free me,” he said, voice wavering slightly. Nervousness? Fear? “There is no debt between us.”
“No debt,” Bruce said, disappointment swiftly replaced by unease at the idea that he was a continuing source of fear for the fae. As Batman, he sought to be a symbol of fear for the criminal element of Gotham, but to an innocent, and especially as Bruce, he wanted to be no such thing.
He stood, slowly and carefully, and extended his hand. “Will you come with me?”
The fae’s gaze darted between Bruce’s hand and the shackles around his wrist—and not, Bruce noted, to Bruce’s face.
“I will come,” he said finally, and ignored Bruce’s hand to stand on his own.
No favours apparently ran deeper than Bruce thought.
“We will take my horse,” Bruce said, careful to express it as a command rather than a kind gesture or an invitation.
The fae hesitated still, and Bruce wondered belatedly if he had ever ridden a horse before. Fae could normally fly, could they not? When not shackled in iron, that was. And Bruce seemed to recall some kinds of stories about animals fearing them—
But then the fae stepped forward, and somehow managed to clamber his way onto Chaya without Bruce’s assistance. Bruce wavered for a moment, certain Chaya would buck him off—she had never taken kindly to strangers, even since Bruce was a boy—but she settled quickly and turned to Bruce, digging her hoof through the dirt in impatience.
“Easy, girl,” Bruce murmured, and swung up behind the fae and took up Chaya’s reins.
It was a quick ride back to the castle, and smooth enough that Bruce concluded this fae must have ridden a horse more than once in the past. Bruce brought Chaya into the stables himself and removed his riding cloak, throwing it over the fae’s shoulders.
“I don’t want anyone to see you,” he explained before the fae could reject it as a gift, and then snuck him through the hidden passageways into the study. If anyone saw them, word would carry to Alfred, and Alfred had been warning Bruce away from the Fair Folk ever since he could remember.
Once in the study, the fae curled up in a dark velvet armchair, drawing Bruce’s cloak around his shoulders as he nestled into a corner. He didn’t seem very interested in his surroundings, staring steadfastly at the ground in front of him, but Bruce supposed a human castle must not seem very magnificent compared to the fae’s own realm.
Bruce retrieved a set of lock picks from the hidden compartment of his desk and knelt before the armchair. “Your hands.”
“This doesn’t seem a very princely pastime,” the fae said as he held out his wrists. His voice was quiet, and had the higher pitch of a child, but not the tone of one.
“I am a king, not a prince,” Bruce said, turning the shackles until the keyhole faced up. “Have you met much other human royalty?”
“Some,” the fae said. A vague answer, but Bruce should have known better than to ask a direct question—fae were always vague when faced with those. It was still an interesting answer, though: some meant at least one, and it was rare for fae to involve themselves in human affairs unless they were making bargains.
Deathstroke may have been right—this fae could be a dangerous one.
The lock made a satisfying click as it released, and the shackle on the fae’s left wrist fell apart. Beneath, his skin was scalded red.
“I have a salve—”
“Leave it,” the fae said, and extended his other wrist toward Bruce.
Bruce took it gently. “You owe me no favours,” he said, not looking into the fae’s face, “but I hope that, despite the hardships you’ve encountered here, you will consider leaving Gotham in peace.”
The shackles fell to the chair, then the ground. The hairs on the back of Bruce’s neck raised, and the air tasted of lightning about to strike.
But the fae remained small and child-like and sad.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” the fae said quietly, and then he was gone.
“Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce snapped his head toward the voice to see a young man standing beside him on the building’s rooftop, wearing a dark blue tunic and loose black pants. He appeared not considerably younger than Bruce, and had long black hair and unnaturally bright blue eyes—the same eyes as the child fae.
Bruce had not given his name, but given who he was, it would not have been hard to determine it. Anyone in Gotham could reveal the name of her king.
Though few knew the name behind the mask he was currently wearing.
“Don’t call me that,” Bruce said. “Not now.”
The fae seemed to take note of his clothing for the first time, and frowned. “What are you doing now?”
His voice was deeper now, matching his older appearance, and had a syrupy warmth to it that Bruce suspected all fae used to lull unsuspecting humans into a sense of comfort.
“What do you want from me?” Bruce said instead of answering.
Some expression flashed across the fae’s face, too quickly for Bruce to identify. Regardless of what it was, Bruce was suddenly keenly aware that, as human as the fae looked, he was still in fact fae—and an angered fae could drag Bruce across the veil and leave a changeling in his place faster than he could blink. As far as he knew, the fae had never courted wars with the mortal realm by kidnapping human royals, but there was always a first time.
But the moment passed, and Bruce remained where he was.
The fae folded his hands behind his back and looked out over Gotham. “You have granted me a favour by saving me,” he said, and hope sparked in Bruce’s chest, “and so I will grant you one in return. Anything you ask, so long as it’s within my power. Not—” he added, glancing at Bruce, “—for free. Everything has a price.”
Bruce kept himself still to not betray his excitement. “I will agree to the price before you grant the request, else I won’t consider it a favour.”
“Agreed,” the fae said. He twisted his hands in front of him, then returned them behind his back—a gesture of nervousness, Bruce was tempted to conclude, except for the fact that the fae should have no reason to be nervous of him. “What would you ask of me?”
There was no point in delaying it. “If you know of me, then I’m sure you have some idea of what I might want.”
The fae did not give any indication of knowing or not. “If you want something from me,” he said, “you must ask me for it.”
“My parents were killed, fifteen years ago.” Bruce looked steadily at the fae as he said it, but the fae did not react to the words. “Could you bring them back? Either of them?”
“I cannot,” the fae said quietly.
It was the most likely response, Bruce knew, but he couldn’t help the way disappointment and a final grief gripped his chest, stealing his breath away. He’d heard stories of fae capable of bridging the gap between life and death, but it was always only ever in the moments after. It had been far too long—Bruce was far too late.
“I require time to decide,” Bruce said, once his voice returned.
The fae nodded, as though he expected that. “Call for me when you’re ready.”
"How do I call you?"
"Leave flowers on your windowsill," the fae said. “Any flowers will do. When I see them, I will come.”
“And what should I call you?"
The fae blinked, as though he had not expected that. He opened his mouth, shut it, then said, “Robin.”
“Robin,” Bruce repeated. He doubted it was the fae’s true name, but it must have been one of his names all the same, because the fae reacted to it, eyelashes fluttering as he turned his face more toward Bruce.
He was, Bruce realised at that moment, very beautiful.
“I will see you soon, Bruce Wayne,” the fae said, and then he was gone.
It was a fortnight before Bruce called for Robin.
He left a few stems of blackthorns picked from the garden on the sill of his bedroom window, and woke in the morning to find them missing. He had little time to search—servants appeared promptly to dress him and usher him down to breakfast—but it turned out not to matter, because Robin was already sitting at the table.
Alfred stepped in front of Bruce’s path. “Master Bruce,” he said. “A word, if you will.”
Robin glanced over, but made no move to interrupt.
Bruce walked with Alfred to the study and shut the door behind them.
“Tell me that you have not entered into a bargain with the Fair Folk,” Alfred said, which answered the question of whether or not he could tell Robin was fae.
“I haven’t entered into a bargain with the Fair Folk,” Bruce said, and when Alfred looked unappeased, said, “It is the truth. I saved him from a bounty hunter, and in return, he will grant me a favour.”
“Their kind does not deal in true favours,” Alfred said, in the scolding tone Bruce had become well-accustomed to over the years. “It is only the means by which they will take from you things you never intended to promise them. Whatever it is that you think you may accomplish, the Fair Folk—”
“I know,” Bruce said, before Alfred could get well and truly worked up. “We have an agreement—I need to agree to the price before I pay it. I am being as careful as I can.”
Alfred’s frown lessened a degree, but it was still a frown. “Be certain that you are hearing exactly the words that are said. The fae may not lie, but they are tricksters nonetheless, and not to be trusted.”
“He has not tried to deceive me yet,” Bruce said. Evaded, yes, but not deceived. “I have no reason not to trust him.”
“I hope, for your sake, sir, that continues to be the case,” Alfred said. But for all his scolding, he had never once directly told Bruce what to do, and he did not do so this time, either.
Robin looked up when Bruce returned alone, Alfred having returned to the kitchens after saying his piece. “He doesn’t like the fae much, does he?”
Bruce grimaced, wondering how much Robin had still heard. “Why did you reveal yourself to him?”
“I was curious,” Robin said, and didn’t elaborate.
Bruce took the seat beside him, at the head of the table, where Alfred had laid out his breakfast. Robin had before him a bowl of oats and milk that appeared untouched. “Do you eat?”
“I do not need to,” Robin said, which was not a direct answer.
Bruce considered him, and the food, and the nature of gifts. He turned to his own meal and said, “It’s impolite to allow me to eat alone.”
He took a bite of bread. After a few seconds, Robin’s spoon clinked against the bowl. Bruce watched him, careful to keep him in his periphery rather than observing him directly. He had good table manners, for a fae; it confirmed Bruce’s suspicion that he’d spent a decent amount of time among—or at least observing—other humans before.
“What is your request?” Robin said, staring into his bowl.
Bruce had spent a long time thinking it over. He had already asked about his parents—however hopeless it was, he would never forgive himself for it if he didn’t at least try. With that no longer an option, he turned his thoughts to other areas. It had felt extraordinarily selfish to use a rare favour from a fae on something that would benefit only himself—as ruler of an entire kingdom, there were surely better uses for it.
But the larger the favour, the more expensive the price, and he knew from all the stories that those prices often negated the favours anyway. What use was ending a drought, if the town would be destroyed by the floods?
That was what it meant, to make a bargain with the fae: to always be at the losing end of the deal.
If he were to accept a favour, he needed to choose one where the price would fall solely on him, and not risk any of Gotham—which meant that the favour could not benefit Gotham in any way, either.
It was rare permission to be selfish—permission he was prepared to take advantage of.
“My parents’ deaths remain unsolved,” Bruce said. “Their murderers never brought to justice. I want to know who they are.”
Robin put his spoon down and looked up. “You want to know who killed your parents.”
“Yes.” Bruce tried to gauge Robin’s expression, but it was otherworldly blank. It seemed like a simple request, to Bruce—no justice or retribution. Only knowledge. The rest, Bruce could take into his own hands. “You can tell me that, can’t you?”
Robin remained silent for a moment—a longer pause than when Bruce asked to bring his parents back to life, which Bruce took to be a good sign. Silence meant consideration, and consideration meant it was possible.
“The price to gain knowledge is to lose it,” Robin said finally. “I would ask for your memories of your parents, but you already lost those long ago.”
Bruce had not told him that, but it didn’t surprise him that Robin knew.
“Your price, then,” Robin said, “is your feelings for them—the love you still have, even if you don’t remember them.”
“My feelings are all I have left,” Bruce said reflexively, before he realised that was the very reason for the price. What good was it to know who killed his parents, if he no longer had his love and grief and rage to hold on to?
Who would he even be, without that?
“That is the price,” Robin said. Once again he was looking at his oats rather than at Bruce, and Bruce wondered if even the fae could pity. “Will you pay it?”
Was it worth it, to give up love for the sake of justice?
It was not a decision that he could make lightly.
“I need time,” Bruce said, “to consider.”
Robin opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it before he did.
He stood, leaving his partially-eaten bowl sitting on the table. “You know how to call for me, once you’ve decided,” he said, and then he was gone.
“How do you choose the price?” Bruce said, the next time Robin responded to his call.
“I don’t choose, exactly,” Robin said, but he seemed distracted by Bruce’s nighttime attire.
Bruce had left blackthorns on his sill the night before, but they were still there that morning and afternoon. He realised Robin had made no promises in terms of how promptly he would respond to Bruce’s call, and so he prepared himself to wait, only for Robin to appear beside him later that night, as Bruce laid in wait on the balcony of an empty hostel.
“What are you doing?” Robin said, staring at the Bat across Bruce’s chest.
Bruce didn’t think he owed Robin an explanation, but perhaps it would only be fair, considering he also asked Robin a question. “Someone at the coat factory across the street has been fencing stolen goods inside the linings. It isn’t the owner, and he keeps a careful eye on operations during the day, so it must be one of the people who enters the factory at odd hours. I’m waiting to see who will come.”
“I was unaware this was what human kings do,” Robin said, and Bruce could not tell if he was being teased or not.
“The fence will lead to the thieves,” Bruce said, deciding to take Robin’s words at face value, “and catching the thieves will make the kingdom safer. Protecting the citizens is what kings do.”
“I see.” Robin looked up at him from beneath his long eyelashes and said softly, “How lucky they are to have you as king.”
Bruce’s heart leapt into his throat; he cleared it away quickly. He didn’t consider himself easily flustered, but there was something to Robin’s demeanour that he couldn’t help but be drawn to, even though he knew fae were prone to manipulating emotions.
It appeared knowing didn’t make him any less susceptible.
“If you don’t choose the price,” Bruce said, returning them to safer ground, “then how do you decide it?“
Robin leaned against the balustrade next to Bruce. “It’s the nature of an exchange. We have to correct the imbalance the gift would cause.”
“So you inherently know the answer?”
“It isn’t that simple.” Robin climbed onto the balustrade and sat cross-legged on top of it facing Bruce in defiance of gravity. “Think of it as a scale,” he said, holding his hands apart, palms up. “What you want has a fixed cost—” he dipped one hand lower, “—but what you choose to balance it with can be different. A pound can be made up of apples or gold. Two fae can ask different prices.”
“So if I were to find a different fae,” Bruce said.
Robin dropped his hands. “They may ask for the same thing I did. Or they may ask for all the images of your parents that have ever been made, so that they will be unknown, in exchange for having their killers known. There are no better exchanges,” he said gently, meeting and holding Bruce’s gaze, “only different ones.”
If Bruce didn’t know any better, he would say Robin felt sorry for him.
“I understand,” he said, turning his attention back to the factory.
There was silence between them for a long moment, as Bruce watched the factory and Robin watched Bruce.
Finally, Robin hopped off the balcony and drifted closer, until his arm was a hair’s-breadth away from brushing against Bruce’s. “Have you decided?” he said, quietly.
“No.”
Robin tilted his head, hair falling into his eyes. He didn’t move to brush it back. “You have no decision? Or your decision is no?”
Bruce turned to face Robin. “My decision is no.” In truth, he had known it from the moment Robin proposed it. “It isn’t worth the price. I’ll think of something else.”
Robin smiled, and the sadness of it curled at Bruce’s chest. “I think you will find there are very few things that are worth the price,” he said, and then he was gone.
“Why are you here?” Bruce said to Robin a week later.
Robin flitted by his head in the small, feathery form of his namesake and chirped a rising, puzzled tone. You called for me.
Robin had appeared at night again, this time in the middle of a fight, and Bruce had ordered him to hide. In response, Robin didn’t hide, exactly, but he did change form into a bird—a common robin, the kind Bruce often saw around the castle.
Little bird, Deathstroke had called him, that day Bruce encountered them. It must have been this form that he was referring to—and perhaps this was the form that Deathstroke had caught him in.
Robin certainly looked more defenceless, as a bird, but it didn’t make him any easier to catch as he flew into the thieves’ faces, pecking at them while Bruce handled their compatriots. The thieves swatted and grabbed at Robin, crying out about a demon bird, but he deftly evaded every blow.
After the gang of thieves was taken care of, Bruce took back off into the night, Robin chirping at his shoulder. The sounds were in no way human, but Bruce understood them—not in the sense that the chirps turned to words in his mind, but that Bruce could understand the meaning conveyed by the sounds, even if he could not respond in kind.
It was an altogether strange feeling, and Bruce’s real brush, he thought, with magic.
“I meant,” Bruce said, “why are you on this side of the veil?”
Robin continued to keep pace with him as he sailed over the rooftops, but Bruce could almost see the droop of Robin’s wings mid-flight. When Robin whistled again, a moment later, it was to a more forlorn tune. There is nothing for me on the other side.
Bruce frowned as he dropped down into the well that served as an entrance to the subterranean passage back to the castle. “I thought you all belonged to courts,” he said after he’d landed.
Robin flew down after him, and in his descent, Bruce noticed that the wobble he’d attributed to emotion was more likely attributable to injury. “You’re hurt.”
I’m fine, Robin whistled, but he toppled into Bruce’s waiting hands, left wing twitching.
Bruce ran his thumb over it. No obvious break, but that didn’t preclude other injuries, and Bruce was hardly an expert on bird anatomy. He pressed the wing against Robin’s body lightly, keeping him still, and wordlessly carried him down the passage.
Robin’s feathers ruffled—in protest, Bruce presumed—but he didn’t try especially hard to break free, and so Bruce held him fast until he settled.
Robin stayed silent on the walk back to the Cave, wings occasionally brushing against Bruce’s fingers as he shifted back and forth, ever restless. Bruce set him on a table and turned to fetch a soothing salve.
When he turned back, Robin was the young man with the piercing blue eyes once more, sitting with his legs dangling off the table and holding his left arm at the elbow.
“May I?” Bruce said, holding out a hand, and Robin released his arm for Bruce to inspect. A minor fracture. This, at least, Bruce could tend to.
He gathered the necessary supplies, pulled up a chair beside the table, and began to work.
“I wasn’t born fae,” Robin said, in a voice so soft that Bruce could just barely hear it. His hand stilled on the lid of a jar of salve, and he forced himself to continue opening it as Robin’s voice picked up again. “My parents died when I was a child. My great-grandfather was fae, and he took me to the Owl Court. I was still young enough that it wasn’t long before I was more fae than human. And they had been waiting for me. They hadn’t had a child in the court for decades, and they wanted me to…”
The silence hung between them, suspended for a too-long moment, and then Robin concluded the story in two words: “I escaped.”
“You’re in hiding.” Bruce finished applying the salve to Robin’s arm, and wiped the excess onto a nearby cloth before retrieving his roll of bandage. “Was Deathstroke working for the Owl Court? Have they found you?”
“If they find me, it will not be here,” Robin said quietly. “I won’t bring trouble to your kingdom.”
Shamefully, that was not what Bruce had been worried about. Robin could hardly be considered his friend, and the dealings of the fae courts were hardly Bruce’s concern, but he couldn’t help his alarm at the thought of something happening to Robin.
“I’ve evaded them for years,” Robin said. “The fae don’t want it known, but we don’t have nearly as much power on this side of the veil as we do on the other. As long as I’m careful with my magic, they won’t find me. Don’t worry; you will have your favour.”
Bruce frowned, both at the accusation and the implication, and stared hard at the bandage he was wrapping around Robin’s arm. “Won’t you need to use magic, to grant my favour?”
“I can handle myself.”
It was an indirect answer, but an answer nonetheless. Granting Bruce’s favour would place Robin in greater danger from his court. That was the price.
Was it worth it?
“It is the way of the fae to restore balance,” Robin said, and suddenly his fingers were on top of Bruce’s on his arm, his touch gentle and warm, so warm. Bruce didn’t know why he had thought it might be cold. “You will not save me by leaving me in your debt, Bruce Wayne.”
“Surely I can absolve you of your debt,” Bruce said, looking up into his face, “being the one to which it’s owed.”
“You cannot argue a scale into balance with your words,” Robin said. “But if you wish, you can transfer the debt to someone else—”
“No.” Bruce would never call himself a perfect man, but at least he knew that he could trust himself not to push the limits too far. It chilled him to consider what the wrong person might do with Robin’s power in their hands.
He just needed to find a simple request, one that would not push the limits of Robin’s power—perhaps something deeply frivolous, like a single fruit from a tree that had currently yet to bloom.
Robin reached out with his right hand and brushed a lock of hair back behind Bruce’s ear. His touch lingered. “You’ve never wanted for much,” he said, “have you?”
Bruce supposed it could seem that way—as king, he had more riches and power than perhaps any one man should. But his memories began with the news that his parents had died, and he’d spent the rest of his life almost completely alone, mourning loved ones he could not even remember.
“My memories,” he said, and Robin’s fingers stiffened against his head. “How difficult would it be to return my memories?”
“Your memories,” Robin echoed, arm dropping to his side. “Are you certain?”
He had never questioned any of Bruce’s requests before, and it gave Bruce pause. Robin had known before Bruce mentioned it that Bruce no longer had his memories of his parents; was it also possible that Robin could already see them—could already know what Bruce’s mind was keeping hidden from him—and was reluctant to reveal it?
“I’m certain,” Bruce said, because if there was one thing he didn’t fear, it was his own past. “Well?”
“It isn’t difficult,” Robin said, with some reluctance.
“And the price?”
Robin was silent, for far too long—long enough that Bruce began to fear that even something as simple as this would have a price too steep for him to pay.
“Even knowing your memories, you cannot change them,” Robin said finally—quietly. “The price for returning them is that you can never forget them again—through magic or otherwise.”
Bruce exhaled. “I accept that price.”
Robin didn’t move for a long moment. There was an unnatural stillness all around them: no air flowing through the tunnels, no water dripping from the cave’s roof—not even the fluttering of wings of the ever-present bats.
Only silence.
“There is no going back, once you do this,” Robin said, and Bruce knew for certain that there was something Robin did not wish for him to see.
“I understand.”
Robin reached out again, with both hands this time, and cupped Bruce’s face, thumbs brushing over his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Bruce had half a second to feel alarm before Robin pressed their foreheads together, and Bruce remembered everything:
His parents walking with him in the gardens, him swinging off his father’s arm.
His mother smiling at him as she read a book aloud and he lay comfortably bundled beneath a thick blanket.
A bird with a broken wing that he carried in his cupped hands all the way back home and nursed back to health in his bedroom.
A boy, around his age, with dark hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that could light up the entire castle.
And that night, the night that started and ended it all—
His parents shouting and clutching him between them as the axle gave way and their carriage toppled over to the ground.
The sounds of swords and slaughter and his mother crying, “Thomas, no!” as the highwaymen yelled, “Where’s the boy? Don’t let him get away!”
The pain bursting in his chest, and the rich coppery taste of blood in his mouth, and his mother screaming and screaming his name, before there was nothing.
Then him, opening his eyes.
It was cold and dark. His mother was sprawled on the ground beside him, pale and lifeless, but unwounded. “Mama?”
“Bruce.” It was the boy with the black hair and the blue eyes, clutching onto his arm with both hands and pulling him away. “Bruce, don’t look—”
“Mama!” Bruce screamed, and suddenly saw the ring of mushrooms that had sprouted around her.
The fairy ring.
Bruce turned his cries onto the boy. “What did you do to her?” he demanded, and suddenly remembered the blood and the pain. He ran his hands over his chest and stomach and found no wounds, but the blood was still wet on his shirt. He grabbed the boy by the front of his tunic, leaving streaks of red. “Tell me you didn’t, Dick! Not for me! Tell me!”
He was screaming, and they were both crying—big, heaving, terrible sobs.
“It’s okay, Bruce,” Dick said, and reached for him with hands that were just as bloody. “It will be okay.”
His palms touched Bruce’s cheeks, and then he was gone.
Everything was gone.
Dick was not there when Bruce came back to himself, standing in the cave surrounded by a ring of mushrooms, and he did not return, even as Bruce left flowers on the sill night after night.
“There was a boy,” Alfred said when Bruce asked him, feigning a dim return of his memories. “Young Master Richard, I believe it was. You were rather inseparable in your youth.”
Richard—Richard John Grayson, Bruce remembered, was Robin’s very human name. “What do you remember about him?”
“I’m not quite sure where you met,” Alfred said. “A friend of your mother’s, I’d assumed—she was rather fond of the lad. He was an orphan, if I recall. She had hopes of bringing him into the family.”
“To adopt him?”
“Or something of the sort. It never came to fruition,” Alfred said, and left the reason for that unspoken. “And then after your parents passed… I do wonder what ever became of him.”
“He never visited?” Bruce said.
“If he did, I was unaware of it,” Alfred said. “He rarely ever came through the front door. He was an excitable lad—climbing in through windows and dangling off the chandeliers. Gave me a great fright, though your parents never seemed overly concerned.”
“I suppose they wouldn’t have been,” Bruce murmured. They must have known Robin’s secret—they must have all known. “Are there pictures?”
Alfred hesitated. “Perhaps,” he said, with reluctance, “in your mother’s things.”
Bruce had never been able to bring himself to go through them. He did try, once—opened up a volume of his mother’s journal and leafed through a sketchbook—but it was as though he was looking through a stranger’s belongings. That he could not remember her no matter how hard he tried tainted the whole experience with a bitter grief and frustration, and he had sealed the boxes away.
But he was ready to try it again.
The first thing he noticed, this time around, was that his mother had a remarkable amount of reading material on the fae in her collection. Some were scholarly and exact; others were of a more artistic nature, spinning tales that painted the fae in a softer light.
There were illustrations, as well—of animals, and of humans, and of otherworldly creatures with long, spindly limbs and paper-like wings.
He found himself in one of the images, sketched in his mother’s familiar hand. He was sitting cross-legged next to another boy, each of them weaving a crown of flowers. The boy, he recognized from sight and memory, was Dick.
There were more drawings of them both in his mother’s sketchbook, always smiling or laughing with their heads bent together. There were also some of Bruce alone, and of Dick, and one of his mother, drawn in an unfamiliar hand. Happy Mother’s Day is scrawled on the side, along with a signature that clearly begins with D.
Dick also loved her, Bruce told himself. He wouldn’t have killed her, and certainly not without reason.
Near the bottom of the pile sat a crumpled paper containing a ritual for summoning fae, written by his mother. He read over it carefully, deemed it possible, and spent the rest of the day ignoring his kingly duties in favour of finding the ingredients—a combination of flowers and seeds and crushed animal bones.
He took the whole mixture into the garden, poured them into a circle, closed his eyes, and then, feeling somewhat awkward, said three times: “Richard John Grayson. Richard John Grayson. Richard John Grayson.”
When he opened his eyes, the spell circle had sprouted mushrooms, and Dick was sat in the centre of it. He seemed so much smaller than in Bruce’s memories, even though his physical form had been younger then. The radiance that Dick once had, the presence that could fill the castle, was no longer there—had not been there, ever since they’d been reacquainted.
“Dick,” Bruce said helplessly from his place outside the circle.
Dick crossed his arms over himself and looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry.”
Something inside Bruce ached to comfort Dick—the part that had loved him all those years ago, when they were both boys, as well as the part that had come to care for him in these past weeks, when they met again as strangers.
But there were things between them that must be said, first.
“Why did you take my memories?” Bruce said. “To protect yourself?”
Dick’s lips were pressed so tightly together they were white.
“Answer me,” Bruce said. “I am owed that much.”
When Dick answered, his voice was quiet. “It was not to protect myself.”
“Then who?”
Dick’s expression twisted. “What good would it do you to know this now?”
It was by no means an answer, but it felt like confirmation regardless of the theory Bruce was unwilling to face was likely the truth. “It was her, wasn’t it,” he said. “My mother. She asked you to do it.”
Dick looked miserable. “I couldn’t refuse.”
“Couldn’t?” Bruce said. “Or—”
Dick snapped his head up fully, face flushed with anguish. “Do you think I wanted to do it? Just because she wasn’t my mother doesn’t mean I didn’t love her, too. If I could have refused, I would have.”
“Even if it meant letting me die?”
“I knew it wouldn’t have been what you wanted! The only reason I was forced to was because you—” Dick silenced himself abruptly, but it was too late.
“I rescued you from the forest, but never asked you to repay the favour owed,” Bruce said, because he remembered that much. He followed the train of thought to its natural conclusion. “And so when I died, it transferred to her.”
And then, no matter what she asked, Dick could not refuse.
He could only name the price.
“Even if it hadn’t,” Dick said, small again, “she… she couldn’t imagine living in a world without either you or your father.”
“And so she left me alone instead.”
Dick shook his head, though Bruce thought there was no denying the charge. “You were a child. You had your whole life ahead of you. And she knew you would have Alfred and—”
The silence hung longer, that time.
“Why did you leave?” Bruce said quietly.
“You hated me.” Dick’s eyes were squeezed shut. “You still hate me. You’ll hate me for the rest of your life. How could I have stayed?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Bruce grabbed his arm and Dick’s eyes flew open, startled. “If I was lying, you would know it.”
Dick’s lips parted and closed, his expression twisting in clear bewilderment as he registered Bruce’s statement. “I killed her,” he whispered, and even though it was a truth Bruce had already acknowledged, it still sent a jolt of pain through him.
He pushed past it. “She was the price.”
“And you,” Dick said. “Or, part of you. You’re not… completely human. You may have noticed it—the way you can fly through the night, and see in the darkness. We can’t truly bring someone from the dead, the way a necromancer might.”
Bruce—had noticed that, yes, but had thought it to be a result of his training, and not supernatural forces at work. “I’m a changeling?”
“I… suppose you are.” Dick laughed humourlessly. “That’s part of what they wanted me to do, you know. Take children from their homes and replace them with changelings to spread the Court’s power. I ran away to escape it, and yet, in the end, King Gotham is mine. They must be proud.”
“Dick—” Bruce said, and stopped. He did not know enough of the fae or the courts or Dick’s life in those intervening years to offer any comfort beyond platitudes. He switched tack. “I don’t hate you.”
“But you’re angry at me.”
“I’m angry that you didn’t stay,” Bruce said, because he could not deny that completely. “That you left me alone. You, my only friend.”
“Bruce,” Dick said helplessly, “I killed your mother.”
“Not by choice.”
“But I still did it!” Dick said, tears welling in his eyes. “I can still see your face that night—the betrayal in it. Even if I’d stayed, you never would have forgiven me.”
“I would have!” Bruce grabbed him by both arms. “In time, I would have. I know it.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I can, because I have already forgiven you!” Bruce said, and Dick flinched back as though he’d been slapped. Bruce lowered his voice. “From the moment I remembered it, I had already forgiven you. If you had only stayed, I would have told you that from the start.”
Dick’s lip quavered, and then he fell forward into Bruce’s arms, face pressed against Bruce’s chest. His back trembled under Bruce’s hands, and Bruce buried his face in Dick’s hair as he shook.
“I wanted to return,” Dick said between tears. “I wanted to see you. You don’t know how many times—”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I cannot lie,” Dick said, “about anything. While you could no longer remember me, I could no longer be your friend. That was the price. My price.”
“Now that I have my memories back—” Bruce began, but Dick was already shaking his head.
He looked up, chin brushing Bruce’s chest. “It was my magic holding your memories at bay, and so it was my magic that was released when your memories returned. The Owl Court knows where I am, and I swore not to bring them to you. My trail must lead away.”
Bruce’s arms tightened around Dick reflexively. “You don’t mean to leave again.”
“I must,” Dick said. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“I refuse.”
Dick pulled back slightly, and wiped at the tears lingering on his eyelashes. “Refuse?”
“If that’s the only reason,” Bruce said, “then I refuse to accept it. You will stay. If the Owl Court comes, we will face them together.”
Dick smiled—truly smiled. It was small, but it was such a familiar and yet long-forgotten sight that it sent Bruce’s heart fluttering. “I do not take orders from you, human king.”
“It is not an order, but a request.” Bruce took Dick’s hand and pressed the knuckles to his lips, and then to his chest. “I’m sure that even a fae might have use of a favour from a human king.”
Dick appeared flustered by the action and the words, and Bruce smiled, charmed.
“Do you know why I never asked for the favour, when I was a boy?” Bruce said.
“As I said, you have never wanted for much.”
“That is true,” Bruce admitted. His childhood, up until that night, was the happiest a childhood could be. “The only thing I truly wanted was for you to stay. And I knew that, after you granted my favour, you would no longer have reason to.”
Dick’s lips parted. He smiled, watery. “That was silly of you.”
“Was it?”
“The joy I felt with you was the first I’d felt since my parents died,” Dick said. “I would have stayed, for as long as you wanted me.”
“I want you now,” Bruce said, and squeezed his hand. “So stay now.”
“You should not underestimate the Owl Court,” Dick said, but it was a warning more than it was a protest, and so Bruce did not care.
“You have evaded them for fifteen years on your own,” Bruce said. “I do not fear the odds, if we must face them together.”
Dick laughed. “I wish I had your confidence.”
“Stay with me,” Bruce said, “and all I have will be yours.”
Dick’s eyes gleamed. “You should have learned by now to be careful when making promises to a fae.”
They will take from you, Alfred had warned, things you never intended to promise them.
“If I said it,” Bruce said, “it’s because I meant it.”
Dick fell silent, his fingers flexing on the tops of Bruce’s arms. Despite all Dick’s protesting, he was still there—in the half-embrace of Bruce’s arms, in the centre of a fairy ring in the gardens of Wayne Manor. He was no longer bound to Bruce’s favour, but he was still there.
Because he wanted to be.
Bruce put his hand against the side of Dick’s jaw, and felt the gentle pressure as Dick leaned into it. “Stay,” Bruce said, softly.
Dick pressed his hand over Bruce’s. “Yes,” he said, voice just as soft, and fell into Bruce’s arms.
Bruce held him close, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his hair.
And they stayed—forever, together, they stayed.