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The woods always come with a warning: you will be changed here.
That’s never frightened Dick. Change is the peach-pink sunrise, the rotted branch becoming the hearth’s warmth, the wild abandon of the first spring daisy popping into life. Change has always blessed him. Madame Missy says Dick was born lucky. She doesn’t always mean it nicely but it makes Dick giggle every time. Papa calls Dick his fearless boy wonder, but Dick knows Papa fears. He worries about the woods all the time. Mama, too. If you lose focus for one moment, they’d say before letting Dick go play, you’ll get lost.
Dick only pretends to believe them. They were afraid but he wasn’t. Fear is utterly foreign to him. It is not a part of his world. No, his world is laughing upside down from the tallest branch on the tallest oak. It is befriending the bees and the bears alike. Anything the sparkling daylight touched in the woods is his home. Nothing can hurt him here.
But his parents–
When the bandits emerge from the dark brush, his parents don’t even have time to scream. The arrows hit their targets soundly. Mary and John Grayson die in the same breath; twin arrows pierced through their twin hearts. Everything next is calamity. Screaming. A rain of fire. Arrows hit their targets and ignite, turning wagons into blazes. The crowd scatters. They dart for the trees, but the bandits wait for them, taking all that they have, even if it’s just their lives.
His parents always said the meadow was safe. The woods were supposed to be his home. Both have betrayed him. Bandits surround him on all sides.
Dick has never felt more flightless. He sinks to his knees, holding one hand to Mama’s head and the other to Papa’s. He hears the arrows whizzing past him. Feels something warm and wet splatter across him. A man yanks on Dick’s arm. His bracelet. The pretty gold one with two robins kissing on it. It was supposed to be a gift for Mama but it was much too small for her, so he wears it now. It never slips off his wrist. Not even now, as the bandit yanks and yanks at him. When the ugly man raises his sword, Sando the Strongman pummels the thief into the ground.
Dick knows this is all happening, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to him. This isn’t his meadow or his woods or his circus. It’s a different place, a foreign country. Not his world. He doesn’t think he has a world anymore. He used to. It used to be Mama and Papa’s hands, catching him as he flew through the air. Now their hands lay limp at their sides. Mama and Papa are gone, and he’s gone with them.
Dick might not have ever left their bodies if not for Madame Missy. She hauls Dick into her arms and sprints towards the woods. Dick’s never seen her run before. She is the kind of old woman who seemed born old. Dick had told her that once. Madame Missy had just cackled and said that once she had been a child, too. Her grandmother had been a changeling, had danced in the underworld with the fair folk in the mossy glens. Madame Missy was her granny’s favorite grandchild, and she had blessed her with extra sight. That’s how Madame Missy knows who you would marry or if your ship of goods would survive the storm. That’s how she knew when all the bandits had emerged from their hiding places. That’s how she knew the perfect time to take off running.
She carries him deep into the woods. The further Dick gets away from Mama and Papa, the louder everything seems. The angry crackle of fire. The distant screaming. The sickening crunch of the autumn leaves under Madame Missy’s feet.
No, not just her feet.
Dick raises his head over her shoulder. Not so far away, and getting closer all the while, is a band of bandits. Their blades are raised as high as their torches.
Higher than them is the sky. The last little bit of sun abandons them. It is true night now. And night, Dick knows, is a transformation. This is not his woods. The trees are knotted and gnarly, thrashing fists against them. The ground is a dark abyss. No step is promised, but Madame Missy keeps running. Dick exhales. Even the air tastes different. No longer the cozy cold of autumn’s night, but something older. A winter’s chill. Above them all, a dark cloud smothers the waning moon.
Madame Missy stills. She places Dick back on the ground. If Dick had any strength left, he would have fought to stay in her arms. He knows, instinctively, that the ground here intends to eat him up.
But his strength died with Mama and Papa. He is rooted to the ground again, a prisoner.
Madame Missy squeezes his shoulders with both hands.
“You must run, child. Do not look back. Do not look him in the eyes. Run, and don’t stop running until sunrise. Do you understand, little bird?”
Dick shakes his head. He’s shaking all over. He doesn’t understand. He wants the warm arms of his Mama. He wants the bright sunlight laugh of his Papa. Is this his punishment, for thinking he had been so fearless?
The wind kicks up, raging against the trees around them. Dick looks up again. It’s not the wind, but a swarm. Thousands and thousands of bats in the sky. The night’s air chills him, deep inside, in places that have only ever felt warm and good. He’s crying again.
Madame Missy wipes his tears. She opens her mouth to speak, but whatever words she intended for him are lost to the screaming. It surrounds them. Chokes them. It’s not the distant cries of their circus, but something guttural and uglier. The bandits. They beg for their lives.
“Run!”
Madame Missy pushes him down the hill.
Dick falls and falls, but he is good at falling. When the ground levels out, he obeys. He runs.
Truthfully, he doesn’t know how long he runs for. He is beyond time, or maybe racing against time itself. He can only mark the changes. How the roar of the fire fades. How the blue night grows darker and darker. How, eventually, even the screaming stops.
The darkness is still and terrible. In it, even Dick changes, too. There is something new on his heart. It’s painful. Like bird talons’ carving deep into him. This horrible new bird means to rip his heart right from his chest and carry it away, only it’s trapped in the cage of his chest.
Dick hasn’t just met fear. It lives in him, now.
The moon emerges from the clouds. She looks down at Dick impassively but her light is a gift all the same. And what he sees makes him more afraid. Dick isn’t in the woods anymore. It’s opened into an ancient forest.
Dick is a stranger here. The trees are older than any he’s ever met. The nightingales singing on their perches don’t recognize him at all. The owls follow his every step with watchful eyes. Everything feels meaner here. Hungrier.
He calls out for Madama Missy. For Sango and Zitka and Pop Haly. He even calls out for Mama and Papa, begs them to come take him beyond the veil where they are, so at least they’ll all be together.
But no one answers.
Dick promised to keep running, so he does. He runs after the creek until it becomes a river and follows the river until it becomes a waterfall. It’s from that height that he finally sees a parting in the forest. In the distance, rising like a dark spire of black smoke, is a castle.
Hope. For the first time in this endless night, hope flutters in Dick’s chest.
He’s always liked castles. The circus performs in lots of them. They’re never allowed to call a place that fancy home, but royals usually let them stay on their grounds for a little while. And there are so many fun tall places to nest and jump from in a castle.
His sore legs carry him faster than ever. The forest ends abruptly, an artificial clearing, into the farm grounds of the castle. There are fields, but no cows or horses. Even the farmer’s huts look empty. It’s strange. Castles are usually overflowing with life. And this one has the buildings for a big bustling town – the farms and the farmer’s huts and the marketplace and even the gallows. But there is no one, human or animal, in sight. Dick runs stumbling to the castle gates.
There are no guards.
Is it because the castle itself is enough to frighten all who approach? Dick looks up. He has met volcanoes more kindly than this obsidian behemoth. Metropolis’ castle is shiny and fun; Tamaran’s castle is white and cutely round. But this castle, like the forest that surrounds it, looks mean. Everything is spikes. All the gargoyles are horrible screaming monsters. The closer Dick gets to it, the more the castle seems intent on devouring the sky around it.
Its door is a great, terrible steel mouth. Dick knows on sight that it’s too heavy to open. It’s meant to be drawn by fancy guards with machinery. Dick pushes his tiny hands against it anyway. It has to open. He needs it to open. This is his desperate prayer.
Then, a great rumbling. As if the ground itself was splitting open.
But it’s just the door, parting for him in a burst of warm light.
Dick steps inside. He expects to see the castle as empty and terrifying as the rest of the grounds. But it’s beautiful. Dick enters into a grand hall, clearly a receiving room of some sort. Every torch is lit, and there is fine art and tapestries hung everywhere. This is someone’s home.
It’s still so big. Dick’s never seen so many stairs before. Dick’s eyes catch a flicker of movement. On the stairs, a panicked man walks briskly nearer. Dick could almost sing with joy. In the dark forest, it felt like he would never see another person again. This man is old, like Madame Missy, and he wears a servant’s uniform. Even from a distance, Dick can spot how finely those clothes are spun. To outfit his servants in such garb, the King of this castle must be very rich and very kind. Hope beats its wings against Dick’s chest again. Surely someone like that wouldn’t mind taking in an acrobat for just one night?
The servant draws closer, torch in hand, gasping at the sight of him.
“Dear lord!”
Dick looks down at himself. His pretty performance costume has been ruined by blood and dirt. Tears well up in his eyes. He and Mama spent so much time working in all three of Dick’s favorite colors, and Papa put so much love into sewing every one of its stitches. And now it’s ruined ruined ruined, just like them.
No. Not in front of the audience. Dick must swallow his grief.
He runs towards the old man.
Dick meant to smile. He meant to sing or dance or flip. Anything to show off his performer skills. Anything to earn a warm home safe from that cruel forest tonight.
But all he can say is the word bandits before he breaks down crying at the old man’s feet.
The smell of fresh baked bread wakes Dick from his sleep. Any of the nightmares that followed him into dreamland cannot compete with such a delicious scent. The aroma warms him from the inside out. It smells like every good thing about home.
But it’s not Harry the clown frying dough on the campfire nor is it the extra special flakey pastries Mama and Papa buy when they perform in Paris. Dick’s not with his circus. He’s in a bed the size of a wagon, in the biggest sleeping room he’s ever seen in his life. Dick runs a hand down the sheets. His bracelet is still there, the golden robins twinkling at him. The sheets are as soft as silk. But they are freezing everywhere he hasn’t slept on, which in a bed that big is a lot of places.
Dick’s natural curiosity about his surroundings is overcome by the delicious smell. There’s a small table near the bed with the fanciest and prettiest looking tray Dick’s ever seen in his life. On the tray, a cute little basket covered in linen napkins. When Dick picks through it, the scones are so warm and steaming, they feel like a fistful of embers in his hands. Next to the basket are little gold bowls of jam and butter. Dick takes one finger to the jam and nearly jumps to the ceiling. The jam is heavenly; so tart and delicious. Dick’s as happy as the bird who eats the first berry of spring. He feasts on his present breakfast, full of warm thoughts of the woods in spring bloom.
It’s only after he’s had his fill that he notices his clothes are different. His performance outfit is gone. Dick’s heart pangs. It was probably ruined beyond repair but still, it was a gift from his Mama and Papa, and he swore to always treasure it. He touches his bracelet, thankful that at least this gift still remains. His new clothes, even if they aren’t as shiny, aren’t bad. They are two of his three favorite colors: a red tunic and green stockings. The stockings are kinda scratchy, but the tunic is surprisingly warm and soft. Another gift. It makes Dick smile, even though he’s still sad about his performance outfit. No matter what, there’s so many kind people in this world.
Dick is certain this is the work of the kind elderly servant from yesterday. He has to find the man and thank him. Dick has the vaguest memory of being carried to bed last night. But he also remembers vividly the shadows from the moonlit windows tucking him in; the tendrils were inky black and cold as frost. But Dick often gets memory and dream confused. Papa would say it was because he’s so young. Then he would laugh really loudly at his own joke until Mama would shush him. Dick never got the joke, but he would give anything to hear Papa’s laugh again.
No, there’s no time for sad before gratitude. Dick exits the bedroom and wanders the halls of the castle. Luckily, he doesn’t have to venture far. He chases the warmth until it leads him to the grand entrance, where the elderly servant is stoking the fires. He is a tall, lean man, with only a little hair around his head and it’s all white. Between that and his white shirt and gloves, he looks a little bit like he’s been snowed on.
Dick puffs out his red chest, like he does before every performance.
“Hi!” Dick waves.
The servant neither applauds nor boos.
“Good morning, lad,” he says, neutral and refined. With a thin perfectly groomed mustache and high cheekbones, he’s as fancy as the breakfast tray for this morning. Dick needs to be fancy, too.
“Thanks for letting me sleep here,” Dick says. It doesn’t feel like enough. He tries to remember all the fancy manners Mama and Papa taught him for important people. He could always remember the lines of a play script better than any book of manners. But still, a memory of Mama curtsying in front of the King of Metropolis, shines brightly in his mind.
“I am called Dick Grayson,” Dick announces, “of the Flying Graysons.”
Dick dips low and with crossed legs, a stage curtsy.
“And I am Alfred Pennyworth, son of Jarvis Pennyworth, groundskeeper of Wayne Castle. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grayson.” He bows too, but it’s ramrod and straight, and not very deep at all.
Dick giggles, anyway. No one has ever called him Mister before.
“Thank you for everything this morning, too,” Dick says, with another small curtsy.
“Think nothing of it,” Alfred replies. “This castle has always been a safe haven for the innocent.”
Dick tilts his head. If that’s true, then why is the castle so empty? It’s not like he could be the first innocent. But Alfred told him not to think of it, and since Alfred gave him a warm bed and clothes and scones, thinking nothing of it is the least he can do in return.
“Do you know the way to Metropolis from here?” Dick asks instead. “I need to find the rest of my troupe.”
Metropolis is their next stop. He could meet them there. Haly’s Circus has always taken the same performance tour across the continent. For as long as anyone can remember, their tour has only changed once, hundreds of years ago after the fall of Gotham. Haly’s has outlived kings and kingdoms alike. Dick can’t be the only one who survived that night. He refuses to believe that.
Somewhere, the show is still going on.
“I do. But heed my warning, child, Winter has come early this year. If you leave now, you’ll perish before Spring.”
“No way!” Dick says, forgetting all about manners. He runs across the big room to the nearest window and yes, there before his eyes, snow has choked out the pretty reds, yellows, and greens. Goodbye, his favorite colors. It’s only white for as far as Dick can see. Unless he squints really hard, and makes out the harsh brown blacks and dark evergreens of the forest. It surrounds the castle like prison walls. All hope and joy and warmth drain out of Dick. Just yesterday, Dick had rolled around in a pile of freshly fallen leaves. How could Autumn leave in just one day?
Two hisses in the air. Two thuds of bodies. Dick squeezes his eyes shut. Lots of things can be lost in just one day.
Tears well up in Dick’s eyes. He beats his little hands against the stinging, swallowing down any cries. Hopefully Alfred is too far away to hear him hiccup. Dick puts his performance face back on and flips towards Alfred. It’s a good diversity of flips – cartwheels and roundabouts and backflips. He sticks the landing, like he always does.
“I have a solo performance,” Dick offers, still in his ending pose. It’s pretty good, he almost says, but he doesn’t want to sound immodest.
The lines crinkle around Alfred’s eyes, but his mouth is still a thin flat line. Dick wavers. No smile, no money. That’s what Pop Haly always says.
“I’m afraid there isn’t anyone here to entertain, Mr. Grayson.”
“Really? This whole big castle and it’s just you?”
It’s true Dick hasn’t seen anyone else but Alfred, but he thought there had to be a few more servants scuttling about. A Mrs. Alfred and Alfred Jr. at least!
But Alfred merely nods his head in the affirmative. He doesn’t have a family or a circus.
“That must be so much work!” Dick can’t help but say.
Finally, there’s a small smile. It’s really tiny. Other people might have missed it, but Dick’s been watching Alfred’s face closely.
“It’s not a bother. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything. My work keeps me busy.”
Dick cocks his head. So Alfred thinks work is fun? That’s a little strange. But who is he to judge? Dick’s met stranger people.
“I can do chores, too,” Dick says, puffing out his chest again. “We all had to help out at Haly’s. It was my job to feed and clean the animals. They love me.”
“That I am sure of, lad. You would make a wonderful stable boy.” With one last poke to the fire, Alfred wipes his hands (even though they are gloved) and returns the poker to its place beside the mantle. He speaks to the flames. “Alas, I’m afraid only the bats call this place home.”
Dick deflates. He’s tended to elephants and lions and cobras. But bats are as independent as the night itself. No one needs to feed or clean or care for bats. This castle doesn’t need smiles and it doesn’t need work either. What will Dick do? That forest is so big and mean. Dick doesn’t know if he’ll be able to find another settlement before the white snow eats all his colors, too.
A hand, big but very gentle, lands on top of his head. Even though the glove is white, the touch is warm.
“How are you with your dusting?” Alfred asks.
In the following weeks, Dick gets really good at dusting. He also excels in sweeping, moping, and washing. And like everything Dick is good at, he turns it into a game.
Dick’s favorite one is Come Find Me. It goes like this: while Dick’s cleaning, he’ll find a really good hiding place. Usually somewhere up high, in a shadowy corner nook in the rafters that only the spiders know about. Then, when Alfred comes by to check on him, Dick will throw his voice in the opposite direction. Dick’s really good at throwing his voice. He knows how to make it echo and pitter out. And while Alfred’s following his ears, Dick will follow him.
“Boo!” Dick says, hanging down from the rafters. Before he used to throw himself on Alfred’s back, but Dick learned pretty quickly that wasn’t fun. Alfred may look as sturdy as an iron rod, but he’s very old and frail. Like the fancy white plates he’s always polishing. It’s not like the circus, where everyone – even Tombo, who is shorter than Dick is – could swing Dick around like a sack of flour.
But this is still fun in its own way.
Alfred never screams or jumps, but his shoulders do get hitched up very high, and his forehead gets new frowny wrinkles.
Dick giggles. It echoes all around them. “Tricked you!”
Alfred turns around. He’s not giggling.
“Indeed.” His eyes are closed; he’s trying to stop the forehead wrinkles. “Now will you please come down from there, Mr. Grayson? The walls were not built to be scaled by children who fancy themselves billy goats.”
Dick laughs. It would probably be pretty fun to be a billy goat.
“Just a minute, Alfie, I missed a spot!” Dick takes his rag and wipes clean the highest tip of the window he had climbed up here to reach. From this angle, he can see above Alfred, into the room he’s locking up. The door isn’t closed all the way yet. There’s a sliver of something red and pretty in there.
Dick realizes it’s a room he’s never seen before. It’s hard to keep track of all the rooms in a castle this huge, but he would surely remember something in one of his favorite colors.
Dick swings across from rafter to rafter, landing at Alfred’s feet. The old man’s shoulders hitch all the way to his ears, but Dick doesn’t laugh this time. He’s too interested.
“What’s in here?” Dick asks.
“You needn’t worry about this room. I shall clean it myself. It has particular needs.”
Dick perks up. That’s a new phrase. Usually, Alfred’s answer to any of Dick’s questions about the castle is ‘everything has a proper place’. He said eight times in one day once, Dick counted.
The newness only enflames Dick’s curiosity more. “What kind of needs? What’s so special about it?”
Alfred closes his eyes. On his exhale, he says, “It belonged to our King.”
“Doesn’t everything in a castle belong to the King?”
Alfred’s lips to do the pulling thing where he’s either really mad and trying to hide it, or secretly really amused and trying to hide it. Alfred turns to look down at Dick directly, so Dick thinks it must have been the latter.
“This room was very special to him. His Majesty spent much of his time in his study. Now that he has passed on, his presence remains the strongest there. You see, lad, places have memories just like the rest of us.”
Dick tries to think if he has any places like that. It’s a new question. He’s never been much concerned with favorite places. He liked all the stops on their tour well enough; they were all fun and exciting in different ways. But Haly’s Circus never stayed longer than a fortnight. Even the wagons of the circus came and went with the seasons. The only constant in Dick’s life was Mama and Papa. And they weren’t a place. Dick loves the woods, but it was also a person like Mama and Papa. The sky, maybe? Or was that too big? He touches his bracelet. It’s not big enough to be a place, but does it remember Mama, too?
Alfred sighs. “I supposed it can’t be helped. To dissuade you of any mischief, I will give you a short tour. But you will be obedient, won’t you? No tricks?”
Dick nods eagerly, with his whole body.
“Very well,” Alfred says and opens the door.
Dick nearly gasps. It’s huge! Every room in the castle is big, but this one looks extra big because it is so full of stuff. There are big bookshelves lining every inch of wall, and each shelf is double stacked with books. It’s more books than Dick thought existed in the world. Surely all the knowledge of all time must be in this room. Dotted along the room are beautiful velvet red chairs and couches. Dick would love to nap on them, but they are probably too special. The wall facing the door is nearly made up entirely of windows. Peering out of them, Dick can see almost the whole expanse of the forest. It looks never ending. Is it true? Had he really run all the way here? Or is he getting dream mixed up with memory again?
Dick spins around. At the north wall, there is a cozy but still ornate fireplace. It has no wood and no fire, which is sad, but it was still beautiful in its gilded splendor. Above the mantle – Dick nearly gasps again. It’s a portrait! It’s huge! Bigger than Sando. Dick can’t believe he’s just now seeing it. On second look, it feels like all the furniture in the room is pointing to the portrait. There’s a gravity to it. Like it wasn’t just the whole room that faced the portrait, but the whole world.
Dick is pulled closer.
He has to crane his neck really high to see the portrait fully, but he does. He takes it all in with wide, wide eyes. It’s a family. A pretty chestnut-haired Mama and a handsome Papa with a bushy black mustache. And a boy. He almost looks like he could be Dick’s age. Maybe a couple years older at most.
The awe coats his voice like honey. “Who are they, Alfie?”
“His Majesty King Thomas Wayne of Gotham, Her Majesty Queen Consort Martha and their only issue,” Alfred pauses, a dark sadness crawls into his voice. “His Royal Highness, Prince Bruce.”
The fact that he’s been in Gotham this entire time flies right over Dick’s head. He’s too enchanted. He’s never seen a portrait painted with such devotion to realism. Every color is the exact correct one. All the lights and the shadows behave perfectly. It’s like the King, Queen, and Prince are here in the room with them. Dick wishes he could climb up and touch the portrait itself, to make sure it was really paint there and not skin. But he promised Alfred no tricks.
So Dick just stares. Every inch of the portrait is bewitching, but Dick’s eyes always return to one place: the prince’s eyes. They are such a peculiar shade of almost blue. The exact color of a frozen lake.
“He’s so beautiful,” Dick sighs out, “but why is he so sad?”
Alfred smiles at Dick. It’s bigger than ever before, but sadder, somehow, too. Dick is beginning to understand that Alfred is always very sad.
“That was just the prince’s way,” Alfred explains. “He was winter’s child and always had a touch of her melancholy. I know it’s hard for a spring chick like yourself to imagine, but he’s quite happy there. He was never more content than at his parents’ sides.”
“I was born in the Spring!” Dick chirps excitedly. “How did you know?”
“Such things are quite obvious at my age, lad.”
Wow! Dick wonders what he’ll be good at knowing when he’s as old as Alfred. He stares at the portrait more, wishing he could get older faster to learn all its secrets right now.
So quietly, Dick could mistake it for a will-o-wisp, Alfred says, “You remind me of him.”
“Really?” Dick bounces happily from the comparison, but the more he looks, the more he doesn’t see it. The prince is really pretty, and Dick knows lots of people call him pretty too, but they are very different. Where Dick is golden and sun kissed, the moonlight has claimed the prince’s fair skin. They both have black hair, but the prince’s is sleek and straight whereas Sando the Strongman turned Dick upside down and used his fluff for a mop once. They both have blue eyes, but Dick’s are as bright and electric as a robin’s egg, and the prince’s are muted, blue and grey waltzing together in his eyes.
But he likes the prince. A lot. He thinks they could be friends, if they could ever meet. Maybe they could even be best friends. That would be nice. Dick’s never had a best friend before.
“When will they come home?” Dick asks.
Alfred stands straighter. There’s not even the memory of his sad smile left on his face.
“They are already laid to rest with their noble ancestors in the castle’s crypts.”
Devastation. As hot as his parents’ blood had been on his hands, and as cold as their faces had been when he had tried to kiss life back to them. Grief courses through Dick’s body. Again, he knows loss.
But someone always survives. There is always Spring after Winter.
“All of them?” Dick asks, desperate. “Even the little prince?”
If Alfred is usually a fancy plate, then now he is a cold, hard glacier.
“Yes. The vermin spared no one that day.”
The pure hatred in Alfred’s voice makes Dick wince.
Alfred continues on, “You must understand, our king was a good man. A great one. But he was a scholar and healer, not a warrior. When war came to our kingdom’s doorsteps, he sent for peace and diplomacy. But there was rot in his own kingdom. A plague of cruelty. Those knights who longed for war did everything to make it happen, including turning their sworn swords against their own King. None of his line were spared. Not even His Royal Highness.”
By the end of Alfred’s story, his pale eyes are glistening.
Dick understands now. This is what Alfred really meant, when he said Dick reminded him of the lost prince. It wasn’t about appearance at all. It was about suffering.
Carefully, as to not break him, Dick hugs both of his arms around Alfred’s leg. Tightly. The tighter the hug, the more sad goes away. That’s what Mama taught him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, looking up at Alfred.
Alfred doesn’t hug back, his Mama must not have taught him about tight hugs, but he pats Dick on the head.
“It’s not your fault, lad. This tale was written long before you were ever born. And there was justice. The plague ate the traitors alive; rotted their bodies just as it did their hearts. And those of us who had failed in our duties…” Alfred closes his eyes. When he opens them again, his voice is thick with defeat. “We are paying for it, in our own ways. This kingdom once had the blessing of a good and noble family. It betrayed them. Now it suffers from the curse of that, forever more.”
Dick looks around Alfred’s torso, to the windows. It’s one of those rare winter days where the sun is shining, a bright and faraway diamond. The forest is a little spooky, but then again, don’t all barren trees look a little spooky in Winter? That doesn’t make them bad trees. And the castle is still so big and beautiful. It has the best groundskeeper anyone could ever ask for.
“This place doesn’t seem cursed to me,” Dick tells him.
Alfred almost laughs, but it’s still a little too sad to be a real one. He pats Dick’s head again.
“You’ve brought back a warmth here that’s been missing for a long, long time.”
Dick blinks. He doesn’t feel particularly warm. In fact, he’s almost always chilly in the castle. It’s why he has to run around so much. The warmth Alfred is talking about doesn’t come from Dick, it’s in Alfred’s own eyes, pale and gentle like a lovely meadow stream.
Alfred moves his hand from the top of Dick’s head to Dick’s cheek, caressing it fondly. Dick’s a little stunned by such a display of affection.
“Now go on,” Alfred says, pushing Dick by his shoulders and out of the hug. “Finish up your chores before supper.”
That night, Dick dreams and knows he’s dreaming. He’s at the circus, like he is in most of his dreams, and the crowd is joyous and loving. Mama and Papa are there. They are performing their third couple routine, the one they toured during their honeymoon to great acclaim. Dick doesn’t join them. He’s the next act after them. He’s got tummy butterflies like it’s his first ever solo, but there’s confidence and peace within him that tells Dick he isn’t doing this act alone. With elegance and grace, he soars up the ribbon rope to the trapeze platform. The crowd cheers. Grasping the handle tightly with both hands, he swings out into the beautiful oblivion. In the air like this, he’s circling the whole world, flying and flying and flying. And just when he’s about to fall, soft hands grip him.
They fit perfectly around his wrists. Not Mama or Papa. These hands are the same size as his own.
Dick looks up and sees Prince Bruce’s pretty frozen lake eyes, watching him intensely.
Dick smiles up at him.
Unlike in the portrait, this Bruce can smile back.
The next morning, Dick wakes up to a letter and the prettiest present ever wrapped up in a big red silk bow. The letter is from Alfred. It wishes him a merry solstice and tells him that no chores or housekeeping are permitted for the next three days. He is free to roam the castle grounds to his heart’s content as long as he is back before last light. The package is his solstice gift. It’s almost too pretty to open, but Dick opens it with relish anyway.
And oh, the insides are even more beautiful than its outsides! It’s a new winter cloak. Big and fuzzy and so warm Dick could roll around outside in the snow all day and never so much as shiver. The wool is dyed a yellow as bright as canary feathers. He loves canaries so much! Dick eagerly wraps the cloak around him, pulling the hood tight over his head. With his red tunic and his green stockings, now he gets to wear all three of his favorite colors again!
“Thank you!” Dick says to no one, jumping up and down and spinning in delight. If Alfred were here, he’d jump into Alfred’s arms, which is maybe why Alfred didn’t want to give him his gift in person.
Dick decides the best way to show gratitude to Alfred is through his obedience. He runs outside to play in the castle’s shadow. It’s his favorite kind of snow right now. Big fat flakes that fall softly and gently. Lazy snowflakes, Papa used to call them. When Dick scoops a big hug of the snow already on the ground, it packs tightly together with a satisfying crunch.
Dick has a brilliant idea. Haly’s circus travels to avoid the snow as much as possible, but sometimes Winter cannot be outrun. On those days, Mama and Papa used to roll big balls in the snow with him. He’s determined to not let that memory turn into more sadness. He’ll carry on that legacy, even if he has to do it alone. No, not alone. Mama and Papa can be the snowpeople he’s making!
Dick spends hours getting the shape of them just right. It’s only when it’s time for the final touches that he realizes he has no materials for the final touches! No carrots or twigs or coal. Oh, he’d really love some shiny black rocks for Mamasnow’s eyes. But the best place to find them would be –
Off in the horizon, the forest looms. Dick’s starting to forget why he had been so afraid of it when he got here. Alfred warned him forever ago that he was forbidden from entering the forest alone. But does it really count if he only goes a couple feet in? Just to get some twigs and some pretty rocks? Besides, isn’t the forest part of the castle’s grounds, too?
Dick looks up at Wayne Castle. It’s not as scary as Dick first thought it was, either. Strong and huge, it feels like a big guardian shield, an obsidian watchful eye. Surely nothing can hurt him if he stays within the castle’s sight. He’ll be back before Alfred notices he’s gone, and he’ll definitely be back long before last light, which Alfred always says is bedtime for little boys.
Dick enters the forest with as much joy as he used to enter the woods. His new cloak has great big pockets, perfect for rock collecting. Even with all the snow, Dick finds lots of cool things, too. He even finds some tasty mushrooms! But they’re lined up so nicely in a circle on an oak’s trunk that Dick doesn’t dare disturb them. Instead, he picks up the fallen twigs near the tree’s roots.
Up above, a dart of black slashes across the cozy grey sky. Dick can’t resist running after it. He’s always liked things that fly. It’s why he first loved Mama and Papa so much.
A wave of sadness hits him so strongly, Dick almost tumbles over. He tries to shake it off. Solstice is for celebrating! From the last day of Solstice celebrations onwards, they’ll be a little more sun each day until Summer, and isn’t that beautiful? He has two snowpeople waiting for him and a pretty yellow cloak and an Alfred. Isn’t that joy enough? But all the shiny rocks in the world won’t be Papa’s sky-blue eyes or Mama’s warm brown eyes. Snowpeople cannot fly or flip or twirl with Dick and neither can Alfred. He’s still alone.
There’s no audience to pretend for. Dick curls up into himself and cries.
He might have been crying for a long time. He’s not sure. He only remembers the moment when something heavy and warm lands on his shoulder.
Dick finally lifts his head. It’s a fruit bat.
“Hi,” Dick says, wiping his eyes, “you’re not usually up at this time, are you?”
The bat shakes its head.
Dick smiles. Bats may not need caretakers, but they are still animals, and all animals like Dick. It’s been so long since Dick last made a new friend, he’s practically bursting with eagerness. He talks nonstop. He tells the little bat all about Haly’s circus and Alfred and how good he is at dusting, now. The bat is a very good listener. His eyes are red and intense. But red is one of Dick’s favorite colors and intense does not mean unkind. He even tells the little bat about his parents and the rocks in his pockets. And when Dick gets a little sad again, the little bat nuzzles his face against Dick’s cheek.
It’s so much fun to have a flying thing to talk to again that Dick loses track of time. It’s not until the chill of night blows past them that Dick realizes the sun has started to set!
“Oh, I have to go,” Dick says to his little bat buddy, snuggling him closer. “I promised Alfred I would be home before dark. Will you come visit me tomorrow, too? I had so much fun today!”
The little bat nods.
Dick lets out a squeal of affection. He presses a kiss to the creature’s head and leaves without knowing what he’s done.
On the second day, the solstice spirit is fully bloomed inside of Dick. As he gets ready to go to the forest again, Dick sings all the best solstice songs. Dick has had a lot of practice. Mama and Papa always loved to sing. Around the campfire, Mama and Papa would always perform the most famous solstice duet for the rest of the circus. Dick makes a valiant effort to hum both parts as he skips towards the tree line. Acting it out helps. He hops to the right or left side, depending on if it was Mama or Papa who was supposed to be singing.
The forest welcomes him in. The big great trees don’t look so scary anymore. Without their leaves, they look like the spikey Wayne Castle, a friendly and protective guardian. Covered in their snow blankets, they almost look cute. The evergreens aren’t spooky. They’re friends, filling the sharp winter air with a fresh, pleasant scent. Dick finds the oak tree trunk with the circle of mushrooms. He sits on its thick roots, out of the snow, and waits for his new bat friend. He saved some raspberries from supper last night to share with his little buddy. Dick rolls them around in his pocket. He wants them to be friends for a very long time.
Up ahead, a familiar streak of black. Dick waves. But his little bat doesn’t stop, he keeps flying, so Dick chases deeper into the forest after him. Soon, more streaks of black cut against the clouds. Dick’s chasing down a whole swarm of bats. In such a big cloud, Dick can’t pick out which one is his friend or not.
He calls out to the sky.
“Little Bat! Fuzzy black buddy?”
The swarm replies. It turns and descends toward to Dick, whipping and whirling together like a black tornado. The sound of their screeching makes Dick cover his ears. He’s never seen anything move so fast. The bats spin faster and faster until they coalesce into something…else.
From the swarm, rises up a monster.
“Oh,” Dick says, because his mouth runs faster than his sense. “Big Bat.”
The first thing Dick sees clearly is wings. They are massive. Leathery with a hooked talon on top, like bat wing’s thumb only huge. It glistens against the smothered winter sun like a knight’s blade. The forest isn’t as dense as the woods, but the creature is just so big, Dick thinks it must only ever spread its wings in the sky. Right now, they are wrapped tightly around its body, like a cloak made of itself. And the creature is tall. So tall. Taller than Giganta, or Sando, or even the forest’s tallest white pine.
It’s not of the human world.
Dick isn’t afraid yet. He’s seen a lot of strange things in the circus, stranger things still in his dreams. But an uncharacteristic bout of shyness does overtake him. He looks at the ground, fiddling with the hood of his cloak for courage.
When he finds it again, he puffs out his chest.
“Hi there!”
Humans aren’t the only people who appreciate being greeted.
The wings uncurl, ever just so slightly. As they lower, the creature’s face is revealed, and no, he is definitely not of this world. Where there should be a head, there is only helmet, made of something blacker and even smoother than obsidian. It has two terrible curled horns, like bat ears, or maybe Alfred would say like the Devil himself. Where there should be a face, there are only eyes. Eight eyes, as scarlet and blazing as wildfire. No nose or mouth or chin. Just eyes and inky darkness. The parts of its body not hidden by wings are also armored, like a knight ready for battle. On its chest plate, Dick sees his little bat friend staring at him, frozen with his wings spread and teeth gnashing. It doesn’t seem like he’s in pain though. He watches Dick with the same intensity as he did yesterday. It gives Dick a much-needed sense of familiarity.
There are no strangers here. Only new friends.
It’s like Dick’s dreaming. Everything has that special dream shine to it, and Dick feels like he knows a lot more than he usually does. Like, the Big Bat has no mouth, but Dick knows that it’s looking down at him with amusement all the same. He can feel it.
Well, you never had much to fear from a crowd that laughs at you! Dick smiles back.
“Are you my friend’s Papa?” he asks.
When it speaks, the world shakes. Pine needles and powdery snow shower down on him. Roots crack and break beneath his feet. It’s not painful for Dick, but it hits deep. Resonant. Like Dick’s a bell that’s been rung.
“I am the night’s vengeance, the swift bat wing of justice, the endless unconquerable winter.”
Boy, that’s a lot of names.
“I am the one true King of this world and all it touches. The King to end all Kings.”
A king! He should bow. He should definitely be bowing.
Dick bows. He’s not really sure how long he should stay in the pose, but this is how he does it at the end of the show when people throw them flowers if they had a good performance, so he can hold this one for a really long time.
Eventually, the creature speaks again. It hurts him and the world less, but the power is undeniable.
“Name yourself.”
More than the booming, it’s this demand that tells Dick the creature isn’t lying about being King. Only a King demands answers where a question would be more appropriate. Well, this isn’t the first dangerous king Dick’s performed for. He knows the routine. Give them everything they want but not a drop more.
“I am but a humble acrobat,” Dick names himself, “staying here for the winter out of the kindness of the groundskeeper.”
“An acrobat? Hm. I suppose that’s why they brought you to me.”
Dick giggles despite himself. He just loves puns so much. It’s like words are playing tricks on themselves.
The Bat King’s many ruby eyes narrow with interest.
“Are you not afraid?”
Dick knows better than to lie. “Only a little, and only because you’re so big and I’m so small. But I think we could be good friends, like me and the little bat are! Especially since you’re the…the…” Dick tries to remember the exact phrasing, since that’s also important. “The King to end all Kings.”
“Kings have either loyal subjects or enemies, little bird.”
And something in Dick preens at the nickname. It’s a good one, very true, and no one has called him that since he was separated from the circus.
“We do not have friends,” finishes the Bat King.
“I can be the first!” Dick bounces on his feet. “I’m first in lots of things. I was the first boy to land a quadruple summersault. Ever. I learned how to juggle and sword swallow faster than anyone else in the circus! And – and,” Alfred told him something once, something that sounded important even if he still doesn’t really understand it. “I was the first innocent back in Gotham. So I can definitely be your first friend!”
The Bat King’s many eyes blaze down on him, like eight suns that orbit only him. It makes Dick feel prized and caged at the same time.
“And if I have no use for a friend, what will you be instead?” The Bat King asks. “My loyal subject or my enemy?”
What a silly question!
“Oh, I’m not worried about that!” Dick says. “We will definitely be friends. You haven’t had one yet, so you don’t know how useful they are.”
“Such certainty. But where is the proof of your claim?”
Dick frowns. No one has ever asked him for proof of his intentions before. He’s always just said that he will accomplish a thing and then he’s accomplished it!
Dick finds his thoughts as he speaks. “Because if you’re the King of this world, you have to be a just King, because this world is mostly good! And you must have lots of mostly good worlds in you! And good people love having friends. Friends play with you and laugh with you and teach you lots of cool, fun things. They cure loneliness. And everyone gets lonely sometimes! Even kings!”
“Almost well-reasoned,” the Bat King says.
“Almost?”
“Yes. Almost.”
There’s that amusement again. Dick wants to bask in it, but it drifts away, like warmth pushed out by the wind.
“Your argument is founded on the assumption that this world is mostly good.”
Dick sputters, “Well, yeah.”
“Is it? What evidence do you have for your conclusion?”
Dick pouts. That’s an even meaner push back than before! How could this world be anything but mostly good? It has circuses and warm pretty cloaks and a sun that always returns to them every day, even if it has to fight the clouds. Dick knows this world is mostly good. He knows it like he knows all his fingers and toes, like he always knows precisely what day a tree will start budding, like he knows his Mama and Papa loved him truly with all their hearts.
But Dick doesn’t have words for any of those feelings. Instead, he remembers Madame Missy, what she would always say when the villagers doubted her sight. Dick shakes his head, channeling her old lady assuredness.
“I just know,” Dick says. “I have a way about me.”
“Indeed.”
The Bat King says it like Alfred says it, fond even in his complete and utter disbelief. Dick hasn’t won the argument yet, but he’s suddenly distracted by a new thought. The sweet raspberries in his pocket.
“Oh, I brought your little bat a gift!” He reaches a fist into his cloak and pulls the berries out to show the Bat King, so he knows it is not a trick. “May I feed him?”
The Bat King lowers and spreads his wings, ever so wider.
Dick has to climb a nearby maple to get high enough, but eventually he’s eye level with the breastplate. One by one, he feeds the raspberries into the waiting bat’s mouth. They’re red like all bats eyes and Dick’s tunic. They match! When Dick’s finished, the little bat flaps his wings in delight and returns to his frozen position.
“Bye, bye,” Dick says softly. He looks up at the Bat King. “I’m sorry. I did not know you yet, so I didn’t bring you anything.”
The Bat King’s reply is simple and indulgent. “You will repay me another time.”
Dick smiles, because he likes the promise of meeting him again, but then the word repay rings uncomfortably in his chest. He hadn’t known he had accrued any debt to start.
The Bat King must have sensed Dick’s trouble, because a hand comes down to pat his head. It’s not like with Alfred. Or rather, a claw. This claw is too huge for Dick’s head. Dick receives just one tip of a talon, just barely grazing his head, and even that is almost as big as him. Up close, Dick can see the hand is armored and spikey, like a knight’s gauntlet, and as vivid black as the moonless midnight. More blackness, like dark tangled roots, twist up the arm. The talons look as sharp as the finest sword displayed in the castle.
Dick reaches up with little hands to touch all he can.
“Does it hurt?” Dick asks. There’s no answer, so Dick tries again. “Your hands?”
Snow starts to fall. It drifts gently all around them. The Bat King is silent. There’s only the soft exhale of the wind. Dick waits. He can be patient for something this important.
“A strange question,” the Bat King says finally, “from a strange bird.”
Dick laughs. “Hey, it’s not strange! Hands are very important.”
At the circus, life was stored in the hands. That’s where Madame Missy read your palms, that’s how you tied the horses to the wagons, or washed Zitka. Even at the castle, how would he ever help Alfred if he couldn’t dust or mop or sweep? Even in his dreams, the world is his hands. Dick is always on the trapeze. He is always swinging out into the vastness of the sky, waiting for another pair of hands to catch him.
“On the trapeze…” Dick tries to explain. “If your hands hurt real bad, you wouldn’t be able to throw me.”
The black roots untwist themselves from the Bat King’s arms. Like snakes. And just as quick as vipers they wrap around Dick’s ankles. It happens much too quickly for Dick to even panic. Soon, he’s being launched high into the air, past the naked tops of the trees. He never touches the ground. The black tendrils always find some limb to spin and swing instead.
“I’d manage,” the Bat King rumbles. But this high above the earth, Dick can barely hear him over the peals of his own laughter.
So much time passes playing this way that day turns to dusk right in front of Dick’s eyes. He promised Alfred he would be back in the castle before last light, and Dick always keeps his promises. Regretfully, he eventually flips away the Bat King’s tendrils and lands on solid ground. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. For as much fun as he had with his little bat buddy from yesterday, the Bat King is even more fun! He wishes they could play together forever.
But he shouldn’t be selfish. Kings must be very busy.
Then again, tomorrow isn’t a usual day. It’s the true Winter Solstice.
“Will I see you again tomorrow?” Dick asks, twirling with his cloak to expel his nervous hope. “It’s the solstice.”
The world of Mamas and Papas and circuses is not the only world there is, and it’s also not the only one with solstices. All the worlds exist on top of, and over, and under, and beyond this one that revolves around the sun. Maybe even Bat Kings get a day off to play?
Eight glimmering eyes examine Dick in what feels like eight different dimensions. Ten when Dick counts his little bat buddy.
“Yes,” the Bat King replies. “I will find you.”
Dick jumps with joy. The Bat King is so big and armored and still mostly wrapped up in his wings. There isn’t an easy way to hug and kiss him like he did his little bat. So Dick just does a couple cartwheels around him, and then runs off to beat the night back home to Alfred.
Dick’s sleep is restless, but filled with joy. He has many dreams but they’re all the same, all about the Bat King in their forest. What games they play changes, but the ending never does. The Bat King promises to find Dick. Except, in his dreams, Dick hears the promise of always.
Dick’s so eager to return to his new friend he wakes with the dawn. He scurries out of the castle as soon as the sky is pink enough to see by. Dick runs to the forest. He has no time to sing or dance his way there. He simply runs as fast as his little legs can carry.
It’s routine now, to find their big oak tree. It’s becoming as familiar as Dick’s room in the castle, or Mama and Papa’s wagon. Dick sits on the thick roots and waits.
But the Bat King doesn’t come quickly. The longer Dick waits, the more he realizes that the Bat King had actually said he would find Dick, not the other way around. The thought makes him wibble. He so wants to see him right now. But maybe it would be a better idea to find another game to play for the time being…
Just as Dick rises to leave, he sees a familiar streak of black in the sky. His little bat buddy! And then behind him the swarm of all his bat kin. Like yesterday, the swarm turns into a tornado as it descends for the forest. Dick cheers for its arrival. The bats move faster and faster until the darkness merges into something more than all its flying parts.
From the swarm, rises a man.
He is a dark knight. Taller than Papa or Alfred, but not taller than Sando. His armor is fine, definitely suited for a king, but it also looks very of this world, all leather and obsidian. The gauntlets are just gauntlets. No talons or living shadow tendrils writhing on his arms. When he finally turns to face Dick, a bat is engraved into his breastplate. It has rubies for eyes. His helmet has two horns on it, reminiscent of the creature Dick saw yesterday but still so clearly just a helmet.
The dark knight takes off his helmet.
And he is a man.
Or, almost.
The pointed tips of his ears reveal himself right away. But the truth is everywhere else on his face, if you look closely. His skin is not just kissed by moonlight, it is moonlight, fair and pale and shining. The sharp planes of his face look chiseled from marble. His eyebrows even look a little like batwings. His hair, despite the helmet, is combed perfectly. Not one ebony strand out of place. And his eyes. Dick could stare at them forever trying to guess the exact shade. They are too grey to be blue, yet too luminescent to be grey. They burn with a cold fire.
Dick feels like he did when Alfred showed him how to polish the Queen’s dowry fancy plates. He’s so beautiful, it scares Dick, just a little.
“Bat King?” Dick asks, curtsying hesitantly.
A snort.
Dick grins.
That was almost a chuckle. He’ll win a laugh, yet!
“That is not my name, little bird.” There’s a bit of a scold to his tone, but a small smile tucked in the corner of his lips, so Dick doesn’t mind being teased. He’s just so happy to see him!
“But it is you!”
The Bat King nods once, prim and proper. Dick’s been trying to master that. Alfred says he wobbles around too much when he nods.
With a gait so graceful it doesn’t even leave footprints in the snow, the Bat King walks towards Dick. He sits where Dick had been sitting. With Dick standing, and the Bat King sitting, they can almost see eye to eye! The newness of it all makes Dick giddy.
“And who are you today?” the Bat King asks, in kind.
“It’s me!” Dick says. “Your new friend from yesterday!” Dick does a cartwheel to jog his memory. He gets some snow in his face, but it’s worth it.
“Yesterday,” the Bat King repeats. He turns his head, gazing at something in the distance that Dick can’t see. “Has it truly only been one day for you?” There’s an eerie quality to his tone. An echo of a voice, rather than a voice itself. It’s sad and scary at the same time.
Dick rushes over to his side. He scoots next to the Bat King like two birds sharing a branch. He longs to comfort him, but he doesn’t really know what the sadness is yet.
“How long has it been for you?” Dick asks.
“Incalculable. Time has no domain on the battlefield.”
“Are you hurt?” As he did yesterday, Dick touches his gauntlets. They are just as frigid to the touch as Dick remembers, but it’s easier to bear now that he knows to expect it. Hands have to be tended to. They are always the first place to get hurt. Dick knows he’s not a real healer, but he does know a lot about bandaging breaks and scrapes. Besides, the final touch to all wounds was a big kiss, and Dick has lots of those, too. He presses one to the metal knuckle, a gift freely given.
“You are too generous with your concern,” the Bat King replies. Dick can’t tell if it’s a compliment or an insult, so he decides to take it as a compliment.
“It’s a friend’s job to worry,” Dick tells him. He clearly has a lot to teach the Bat King about friends. In a way, it’s nice. Dick’s never gotten to be someone’s teacher before.
The Bat King smirks. His lips are as pretty as a red rose. He’s much more expressive when he has a mouth.
“So it is,” the Bat King allows. There’s a fondness sparkling in his eyes that makes Dick feel all bubbly inside, like daisies waiting to pop. But as soon as that sparkle appears, the fondness leaves, and he shakes Dick’s small hand away. His eyes are a cold day again.
“Your worry is unnecessary. I was victorious. I always am.”
Dick honestly didn’t know much about battles. Haly’s circus tried to stay out of the affairs of kings and generals. As far as Dick’s concerned, swords are for swallowing, not fighting.
“Well, what did you win?”
“Vengeance against the corrupted; I make my wealth from their agony. Justice for the innocent, who I escorted beyond the veil.”
Beyond the veil…
Dick’s eyes widen. He knows that story well. Mama and Papa taught him that there were lots of worlds over, under, and through this one here that they could see and touch. Some of those worlds were not for any humans at all. That was the world underneath this one. All of the worlds were separated by a veil, which is very thin, and sometimes you pass through it without even realizing. But the world beyond the veil, that’s where the dead live. As a human, you only ever cross into that world once. That’s where Mama and Papa are now.
“Do you do that often?” Dick asks, voice on the edge of breaking.
“Yes.”
Dick fidgets with the hem of his yellow hood. “And you meet lots of people that way?”
“Yes.”
“And they are all sorts of different kinds of people? Since you’re the King of everything?”
“Enough,” the Bat King says, but he doesn’t sound that mad. “Ask the true question in your heart, little bird. I shall answer it.”
Dick inhales a big breath. The cold rattles in his lungs.
“Do you know my Mama and Papa?”
“Yes.”
It’s a revelation big enough to freeze Dick completely still. Besides him, the Bat King removes his gauntlets. His hands are human shaped but so much smoother and softer than any human knight’s would be. He offers Dick his hand.
Dick takes it. The touch is automatic to him. The Bat King engulfs him fully, as the snow blankets the green earth. Even in this form, Dick is too small to hold him back.
“Would you like to see them again?” the Bat King asks. His face has never looked so kindly, so princely. “I could bring you there, for one last goodbye.”
Tears well up. How many nights has he spent wishing he could just hug Mama and Papa again? Not even forever. Just for one moment more.
Wishes are beautiful and real but they always, always come with a price.
“If they’re beyond the veil,” Dick says, “I won’t ever be able to return.”
“To this world, yes. But there are many others. Better ones, full of music and revelry. What waits for you here but the long winter?”
So much! Alfred and the daisies and tulips and Metropolis and Haly’s and the sun. Every day the sun! There’s still so much about this world he wants to see and experience. Mama and Papa were like that, too. They never wasted a day. They wouldn’t want him to trade away his, either.
It’s a kind offer. But Dick must refuse it.
“Thank you,” Dick says and means it. “But no. I want to stay here. Even if it’s without them–” With his free hand, Dick rubs the tears out of his eyes. “I still want to stay here.”
The Bat King’s hold on Dick’s right hand tightens. Dick finds it comforting. It helps him be brave.
“But they’re okay?” This has been his big secret worry. One he didn’t even tell himself until now. His last memory of his parents is drowned in blood and screams. “They’re not hurting anymore?”
The Bat King hums in the negative. “Souls as bright as theirs dance in the fields forever. The closest thing they know to pain is anticipation. They wait for you as the abundant Spring expects but does not hurry the full flush of Summer.”
Dick listens with rapt attention. It’s so much to take in.
“They are not lonely,” the Bat King assures him. “They have each other.”
The Bat King squeezes Dick’s hand tighter. It’s everything Dick could bear to wish for.
Dick, without thinking about what is right and proper, throws himself on to the Bat King. Today, the dark knight is small enough to at least try to hug. Dick can’t hold and squeeze like his Mama would him, but it’s enough to be pressed close to him. With his gauntlets off, the hands that soothe him are almost human. More affectionate and gentle than even Alfred’s, even though they are still too big. There must have been a Bat Mama, once upon a time, who hugged the Bat King lots. She’s gone too, Dick realizes, tears biting at his eyes. He lets them spill. He cries for them both. For all the people in all the worlds who have lost Mamas.
The Bat King’s big hand brushes away his tears.
“It’s this world that causes your pain,” he says. “Why do you refuse to leave it?”
“It hurts sometimes,” Dick says, hiccupping a little as he finds steady breath again. “But there’s lots of fun things that you can only do here. I’m really glad I live here. Don’t you like it, too? Isn’t that why you’re always visiting?”
The Bat King’s beautiful, kind face turns stormy. It’s an instant transformation. His bones are sharper, his mouth crueler, his eyes more red than blue.
“I loathe this world. I return here for my duties. Nothing more.”
Dick’s shocked. The lie is startlingly obvious. The Bat King came back here, just to visit him.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Dick says, choosing his words carefully. “You came back to visit me! I’m not a duty. And you’re so powerful, if you really hated your duties you would find a way not to do them. So, I think, deep down, you must like them.”
The more Dick speaks, the more confident he is that he’s right. Just a few moments ago, the Bat King wiped away his tears, just to comfort him.
“I think you like making places better. If you didn’t love this place, you wouldn’t want to rule it!”
The Bat King stares at him for so long, Dick’s confidence starts to wane. Maybe he really did overstep this time.
“Almost well-reasoned.”
Dick smiles, bashful, at their shared joke.
His smile isn’t returned. The Bat King’s face is as blank as a tundra.
“Ruling is just a means to an end, little bird.”
“Well then, what’s the end?”
The Bat King closes his eyes. The darkness smooths out of his face, like he’s reliving a sweet dream.
“Stillness. Justice. Peace. There are many names for it. This world will enter a deep slumber and I will reign eternal.”
“And then what?”
The Bat King’s eyebrow twitches in confusion.
“And then nothing. It’s eternity.” He opens his eyes, directing his piercing stare right at Dick. “Surely, I don’t have to explain eternity to you.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that really boring? Just the same forever and ever?” Dick stands up on the tree roots, putting his hands on his hips like Papa. “My Papa always said you’ve always got to have one new goal every year! Take me for example. My new goal is to get to Metropolis! When Spring comes, I’m gonna go there and rejoin the circus.” Dick twirls. “And then we’ll go all over the world again!”
Dick sits back down, kicking his feet shyly. “You could come watch me perform? I can do a lot cooler tricks with the right equipment.”
“Show me now,” the Bat King demands.
“Huh? Here?”
The Bat King nods. With a wave of his hand, the forest ripples away. Shadows consume the sky, like a big top coming down overhead. Except this fabric blocks everything – the sun, the wind, the trees – everything. There is only darkness. But it isn’t still. The darkness constructs. It builds a new world around Dick, pillar by pillar, until Dick is in Paris again.
It’s the Théâtre de la Rivière. The most famous theatre in all the realm. It’s every circus performer’s dream to have a show here. Haly’s has only made the cut three times. Dick was lucky enough to have his first solo performance ever on this stage. It was the best performance of his life so far.
Everything looks exactly how he remembers it. Dick is standing on top of the trapeze rig. There’s a stage to his left, but his performance doesn’t use it, they swing right out there in the yard. Surrounding him in a semicircle are the great audience stands. They rise up as high as a forest, three great wooden tiers, getting prettier and more spacious closer to the top. Even the little details are right. The stands are littered with bottles, oyster shells, and nuts. Everything smells sweetly of wine and people laughing. Which isn’t a smell, but Dick has always smelled it anyway.
Dick closes his eyes, clasps his hands tight around the swing, and leaps.
The Bat King isn’t a great audience. He doesn’t throw roses or applaud or hoot and holler. It unsettles Dick greatly at first. But then, as Dick practices more and more, he realizes the Bat King is an amazing teacher. With his coaching, Dick nails the triple twisting double backward somersault. It’s been his dream to do this move since he mastered the quadruple summersault, but Mama and Papa wanted him to get bigger before he tried it. But the Bat King believes in him. And that’s all the belief Dick needs to make it true.
It feels like they’ve been together for decades, and also only just five minutes. Dick looks up to the sky, trying to judge the time. But it’s frozen in the golden hour right before sunset. Something crawls on the back of Dick’s spine, creeping up like frost in the dawn. That can’t be true. Dick squints, looking past the sun, and sees a tear in the sky. A glimmer of the world Dick calls home. And that sky is almost completely dark. He needs to go home now. He promised Alfred.
Dick uses the pretty silk rope to spin down to the ground. He walks the aisles towards the Bat King. He’s the only person sitting in the audience seats. The dark knight’s presence is so overwhelming even the shabby wooden stands look like a throne around him. Dick is bursting with fondness for him. He hopes they meet again someday.
But for now, he has other promises to keep.
“I have to go back now,” Dick says, not even trying to hide his sadness. It’s okay to be sad when sad things happen. Dick doesn’t have any regrets. Today was a beautiful day, even if it had to end, and he’s grateful.
The Bat King stands. He looks down at Dick, regarding him with the intensity Dick has come to associate with all bats. His face is so, so beautiful.
So absolutely without mercy.
“No,” he says.
“No?” Dick echoes, confused.
“No.”
The power in that word is like a blade to Dick’s throat. Dick instinctively shrinks away. It only makes the Bat King rise up. He’s so tall. Up on the trapeze, Dick had forgotten, and now that he remembers, he feels himself getting smaller and smaller.
“Tonight, you return home with me,” the Bat King orders. His pretty rose mouth is a thin regal line. It seems impossible now, that Dick thought he ever saw him smile. “It’s past time to take your place in my court, little bird.”
Dick’s not stupid. He knows which court he means. Dick likes having friends from all over, but that doesn’t mean he wants to run forever in the fields with the fair folk. And he definitely doesn’t want to serve in the Unseelie court, no matter who is King.
Dick swallows down his rising panic. He has to find the perfect words to refuse the Bat King without offending him more.
“I’m not from where you’re from,” Dick tries to explain.
“Liar!”
The Bat King’s bellow is a storm. It unleashes howling arctic winds that knock Paris down, each plane of the fake world falling like a tree in a blizzard. The cold is real and biting. They never left the forest. Snow flurries smother everything. The world grows whiter around Dick with each hard-earned breath.
He huddles into the warmth of his yellow cloak. He has to try again. They’re friends. With the right words, he can make the Bat King understand. Dick opens his mouth and –
“I do not suffer any voice that lies to me,” the Bat King rages.
I’m not lying! Dick tries to say but no words come out. The Bat King has stolen his scream right out of his throat.
“I have indulged your game long enough.”
The Bat King dons his helmet once more. It melts over his head, oozing molten lava. It runs down his chest, his arms, everywhere. It hardens into obsidian and then something even darker than that. There is no skin left. Only darkness.
Was it the pretty man that had been the real mask? Was the monster always a monster?
In that swirling darkness of a face, eight bloody wounds open. It’s too many eyes. How will Dick ever escape from that many eyes? Oh, what had he been thinking. What kind of bat, no matter how small and fuzzy, is ever out in the daytime?
“I have been patient.”
Each sentence the Bat King speaks is another vicious wind that whips Dick.
“I have been kind.”
The force of the gale pushes Dick over.
“I have even offered you one last visit to those you called parents.”
Dick scrambles away as best he can, but the Bat King grows larger and larger with each step.
“You may refuse my gifts but you will not refuse me.”
The darkness from underneath the Bat King’s feet spreads. It spills out, as vicious and hungry as blood. But it never stops. The more it devours, the faster it spreads. It’s not of this world, but from the one underneath it.
It’s everything his parents ever warned him about.
“I want to go home,” Dick sobs.
“You have no home but my will.”
That’s not friendship. There is nothing but the purest and most singular possession in those words. The sheer unending promise of them sends Dick heart racing. He’s beyond fear now. There is only panic and desperation. He runs. The castle. The castle will protect him.
“I own that castle.”
A tendril lashes on to Dick’s ankle. He flops headfirst into the snow. It’s not pillowy soft like before. The ice cracks and cuts his skin. The tendrils that played with him like gentle garden snakes yesterday are crueler, too. Boa constrictors now, strangling him, yanking him back towards the Bat King. Dick claws his little green mittens into the ground. The snow does not save him. It puffs away into white nothing as he’s dragged back.
“I own this forest,” the Bat King says, rumbling louder than Dick’s cries for help.
The tendrils deliver Dick to the feet of their master. The Bat King looks bigger than any mountain Dick has ever seen and far more cruel. All his terrible eyes are fixed on Dick.
A massive claw descends down towards him. Dick tries to run again but it’s useless. The claw snatches him up into the sky by the hood of his cloak. Dick’s feet kick hopelessly in the air. Oh, if only he could really fly.
The claw pulls him up higher and higher until Dick is face to face with all those eyes.
“And you, little bird. You, I own most of all.”
Dick shakes his head. It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true. Dick belongs to no one but the wide-open sky!
The Bat King has no mouth to open. But somehow, one opens anyway. His roar unleashes a thousand furious bats on to the world. They scream in unison with their master.
“You’ve eaten my food, Robin.”
That name.
No one but Mama has ever known that name.
It gives Dick the power to transform back. He lets go of his arms. He needs wings right now. He shrinks out of the prison of the Bat King’s grasp. All his clothes, even the pretty yellow cape Alfred made just for him, fall away. Just his Mama’s bracelet changes with him.
He’s already above the clouds before the Bat King realizes he’s gone.
The roar that comes in the aftermath of his escape shakes the whole world. Trees are felled, dams burst, homes collapse. It’s the worst storm in one hundred years. So much suffering. He can’t help anyone. He can barely help himself. And all he can do is fly harder. Keep above the winter clouds, as close as possible to the moon, the one place where the Bat King’s darkness can’t reach him.
It tries though. Thousands of bats swarm after him, bringing with them the greedy fury of Winter’s blizzard. But Dick is faster. He is Robin, the first of all the worlds’ fliers, and he can out fly anything with wings.
“Robin!” the cold earth itself seems to bellow. “You belong to me. By all laws and rights! I will have what I am owed!”
The bats and the winter and the night chase him.
Robin flies and flies and flies until his wings give out, and then he falls.
Under the rosy gaze of dawn, Robin finds sanctuary in the hollow of a lonely birch.
He remembers now.
The old days. When Mama had just been a little girl, traveling with the Cirque romanes de Paris. He loved her right away. She was so pretty twirling in the air. When Robin visited her, she would sing with him every morning, feeding him lots of sweet berries. Each spring he would find her again, and it was such a fun game because she was always in a different place every time. Yet she always had the same beautiful smile for him, the same lovely song, the same pretty dance in the sky. Her life was always changing. That was his favorite part. He watched her get older and meet Papa. Watched them tease and laugh and dance with each other. He saw their first performance on the trapeze together and he sang at their wedding. He grew to love Papa just as Mama did.
So great was his love for them both that when their pretty baby was born, he came to gift the baby something special. But when Robin peered into the crib, the poor thing was already cold and icy. He nested right on its heart, trying to share his warmth with the baby’s.
When he woke up, the pretty skydancer called him by his true name and a new one, too. Dickie. Richard John Grayson. She called herself Mama and she called Papa Papa that’s what they became to him. He loved them so much. More than he’s ever loved any humans before. And Robin now understands that he is actually very old. If he ever forgets anything again, he promises it will never be them.
It was just so easy to forget everything that came before the Flying Graysons, because Robin was having so much fun. Humans do not understand their own luck. Their lives are brief but they are fully lived, because they are fully theirs.
Robin is a prisoner. There would be no Metropolis. Not next spring. Not ever. This place…Alfred had misunderstood. The place itself is cursed. The veil is torn here. The Bat King has claimed it as his infernal territory. Robin’s eaten the food. Whether humans acknowledge Gotham on their maps or not, he’ll never be able to leave its borders.
He wasn’t human anymore, so he couldn’t cry. Birds can only sing.
So Robin sings a dirge all throughout the day.
At dusk, Robin feels the pull on his essence. His master demands him. Up in the sky, all the bats heed their kind’s call. With a heavy heart, Robin follows them back into the forest.
From the swarm, rises a monster.
Robin takes his perch on the Bat King’s armored shoulder.
A small tendril strokes Robin, from the top of his feathery head down his tail feathers. A strange comfort from a creature who cannot decide whether to be kind or cruel.
The Bat King speaks with the smugness only known by those who have never met defeat.
“I knew you would return.”
“How?” Robin didn’t even know he would. He thought he would keep running forever. Even if it would just be running in circles. He didn’t think he would ever come back to the Bat King’s side willing.
The tendril continues to pet him. They are bonded now. Robin feels the satisfaction of the Bat King burn in his own chest, like this is his great victory too. So that’s why the bats are so obedient. It feels good to make the master feel good. But only for a moment. The feeling after is empty and cold. Nothing like the love Mama and Papa had for him, a love that has kept him warm all winter.
“Everything has its proper place, little bird,” the Bat King tells him. “And yours is here. With me.”
A proper place. Yes, that’s what Alfred is always telling him, too.
Robin’s never agreed. When the Owls were in power, they tried to bring Robin to heel. He’s never been entertained by the politics of the Unseelie Court. Since the beginning of creation, he’s only wanted to fly free.
And just because he was made in the underworld, that doesn’t mean that world owns him. Or if it does, then surely this world, with all its pretty humans and fun games, this world that taught him that he has three favorite colors and that he loves to dance, surely this world owns some part of Robin now, too.
Like the sun breaking through the eastern sky, an idea rises within him.
Robin flies free of the tendril’s touch. It doesn’t pull him back once it senses Robin transforming. He shakes his wings out into arms. Sheds his feathers for hair. The bracelet stays. He remembers now. All the little errands for Pop Haly were not enough to buy a present so fine. So he made it for his mother out of his own soul’s magic. She had been lying, when she said it didn’t fit her. She knew what it was – what he was – all along. Mama did not run away in fear. And she did not bind herself to him for eternity. Instead, she gave him a flurry of kisses all over his face and a big thank you hug. She loved him. In that way only humans can. She loved all parts of him, from all the worlds.
He is Robin. He is Dick Grayson.
And he’s not the only one with two names.
“I know your name, too,” Dick says. “Bruce Wayne.”
The winds start up again, not a storm yet but the threat of it. The Bat King’s rage burns colder than the night before, but it is no less terrible. Dick does not run. He’s not going to run again. That pleases his master enough to dull the rage into a cruel amusement.
“Almost clever. That name changes nothing for you. I am already your master.”
“I mean,” Dick says, rocking on his heels, “only kind of.”
“I thought you learned,” the Bat King glowers with all eight of his eyes. “I will not tolerate lies.”
The frigid winds pick up around Dick. His changeling outfit is only spring leaves and red gardenias. But he’s not just Dick, he’s Robin, too, and the cold can’t devour him. He is Spring incarnate.
Dick throws up his hands. “Hey, I’m not lying! I just think you’re missing some finer points of the deal.”
Dick dances around the Bat King as if he were a great big terrible Maypole.
“It’s not you that really owns me,” Dick says, throwing flowers into the air that turn icy and pale before they hit the earth. “I belong to the grounds. And the grounds belong to the kingdom. And the kingdom belongs to the King. And that just happens to be you!”
Dick raises no swords, just his words. “You know, for now.”
A snort. Not anything close to the laugh Dick’s still determined to win from him someday. This noise is more condescension than humor, more threat than tease. Dick’s not dissuaded. The Bat King may always win his battles, but Dick’s always accomplishes his goals.
“And will this be your next futile escape attempt? A coup against me?”
“No,” Dick swears. “Never. I’ve met a lot more of our kind than you have, you know. Most of them are much worse than you. You’re still my favorite.”
It’s not even a lie.
The Bat King can tell. The winds die down, and his ruby eyes sparkle with a familiar patient intensity.
Dick’s still on his stage.
So he twirls.
“But something could happen, you know? Someone could defeat you in battle, or an invading king could conquer Gotham when you’re not looking. Why risk it?” Dick looks up at him, imploringly, offering him a hand like a partner waiting to be waltzed. “Wouldn’t you rather I be bonded to you over some dusty old castle?”
Dick can see the calculation in the Bat King’s eyes. Dick is already his, but what if he could be more his? Greed is inherent to their kind. Got ‘em, Dick thinks.
“What do you propose?”
“Free me from Gotham. Bind me to your heart instead.”
The yes drifts softly in the air between them, a lazy snowflake. But it is not voiced, and the deal cannot be struck until it is.
“Bruce,” says Dick, “to speak sincerely – with enough time, I will find a loophole out of Gotham. That’s my nature. But if I was your heart, I could never leave you. Not in sleep, not in death, not even at the end of all things. I would always be carried in your chest. Forever.”
The Bat King unfolds his wings. They are so great the trees bow to him, making room for their whole span. But it’s not a yes. Not yet. There’s something more Dick still has to give him.
“I remember, you know,” Dick assures him. “Who I was before. I know the shape of eternity and the weight of this promise.”
“And you would still make it?”
“Yes.” Dick looks up. His eyes are bright and guileless. “Only to you. Only for you.”
The Bat King’s claw descends from the sky, opening in front of Dick’s feet. Inside it, bright red and perfectly preserved, are the six raspberries Dick fed to his little bat buddy, oh so long ago. Dick touches them. They are real. Cold, but real.
“Forever,” the Bat King demands.
“Forever,” Dick promises and eats the raspberries. They burst in his mouth, tart then sweet. So much sweetness. Everything he tastes after this will always carry this promise.
Dick swallows. He knows it has worked right away. He feels lightheaded, like he’s just been released from forty-ton shackles. He feels like he could fly around the entire world before night ends. And yet the thought doesn’t make him happy. It makes him lonely.
Dick curtsies.
“The exchange has to be equal,” Dick says, removing his bracelet.
It’s such a lovely gold, spun from the sunlight itself, enchanted to sparkle in any light. He kisses it right where the two beaks of the two robins meet. All along, he had thought the birds represented him and Mama. But, no, Madame Missy had been right when she said that the future screams at us from the past. We just don’t have ears to hear it yet.
Well, if this is his destiny, being a double act doesn’t sound so bad.
Dick offers up his soul. “Bruce Wayne, I give this to you as a token of submission.”
“Accepted.”
The Bat King’s talon comes up, dangling the bracelet on a single, spindly claw. The gold melts down the length of it, traveling down until it reaches his wrist. There, it snaps shut. Not a bracelet but a golden shackle.
“I didn’t say my submission.” Dick finds his oldest smile again. It’s big and bright and victorious. His voice chimes as sweetly as wedding bells. “Tricked you.”
“No.”
The winds quiet under the weight of the Bat King’s disbelief. He pulls and pulls at his shackle, but the bracelet won’t ever come off. For as much as Bruce owns him now, Dick owns him, too. Even at the end of all things, Dick will be there. He will be Bruce’s heart. And no man, no creature, no bat is master of their own heart. That’s the promise.
“No!” The Bat King roars.
In the wake of his fury, all the bats fly from him. His infernal powers are weakened in submission to Robin’s. The bats take the Bat King’s tendrils and his armor and his eyes. Blackness floods up into the sky, a great eruption. All that is left is the littlest bat on the breastplate. He flaps his wings pitifully, landing in a small heap at Dick’s feet.
His little bat buddy; his first best friend. Dick cherishes him, too, but he’s not the Bruce that Dick most wants to meet now.
The little bat melts back into the boy he always was and has always been. The lost prince. He’s maybe only two years older than Dick Grayson, which is no time at all to Robin. He’s a little taller than Dick but far daintier, his features delicate and sharp. Dick could probably throw him like a sack of flour.
Dick giggles at the thought. The prince is just so cute. Affection is pouring all throughout Dick, like Spring’s first warm rain shower, like the tenacious sun surging through the Winter’s clouds. This boy. Dick does not want to ever be rid of him. He just doesn’t want to be mastered by him. He wants to be able to love him, like humans do.
The boy collapses to his knees. He wraps his arm around his torso, struggling to breathe. When he finally has the strength to look up, his half blue, half grey eyes burn with hatred. They aren’t the exact same shade as the portrait. They have a luminescence to them that betrays Bruce as one of their kind. That’s okay. Better, even. All things that change belong to Robin.
“Liar,” Bruce rages. “You promised me forever.”
Dick kneels down in front of the boy. He could never chain Bruce without chaining himself, too. It would be against the rules.
“I did. I promised you forever and I meant it.” Dick assures him, stroking his hair. It’s soft and fuzzy, just like the bat’s. “I can’t take that back.”
Dick puts his little fist to his heart. “Don’t you feel me there, Bruce?”
Bruce copies the motion. After three steady beats, the anger drains from his face. He is very pale. Almost porcelain, but not quite. There’s too much life in the veins under his skin. To Dick, he’s never looked prettier.
When Bruce opens his eyes again, they are intense and calculating, but not hateful.
“Why have you done this?” His snarl is more at his own powerlessness than at Dick. “I would have sat you on the throne beside me. We would have ruled together forever.”
Dick blows a raspberry. “Ruling is boring. And forever is so, so, so long. Can’t we play as humans for a little while?”
Like Mama used to do to Papa, Dick nuzzles his nose against Bruce’s.
“Wouldn’t it be fun to grow up together?”
Bruce is so much more expressive than the Bat King. He has thousands of little, small expressions, and they all fly across his face quickly, like a swift swarm of bats. Hurt, anger, hope and back again. Dick understands now. Bruce has had a lot of time, but barely any life. Before he was the Bat King, he was the son of King Thomas and Queen Martha, the prince who never grew up. Dick can feel Bruce’s own memories bleeding into his own. He sees that horrible night from Bruce’s eyes. When the council locked them in King’s study and their traitor knights turned their sworn swords upon them. One of their kind, a bat, had been drawn to the pandemonium. On his hands and knees, dying in the moonlight, Bruce made his first deal in his own blood. He gave up his humanity to learn from the fair folk the powers of revenge.
But he never got to grow up.
Underneath all the armor and darkness, he was still this boy. The prince from the portrait, who looks at Dick with his sad frozen lake eyes.
Dick finally gets to do what he’s been wanting to since he first met him. He pulls that little boy into a hug.
It’s a perfect fit. Dick rests his chin on Bruce’s shoulder, humming the song Mama sang for him when he was first reborn. Sitting down and swaying like this, their miniscule height difference is nonexistent. They can be the same here. Two half-bound, half-free changelings. They can be equals. They can belong to each other.
“And you won’t leave me?” Up against his ear, Bruce’s voice is not a roar. It’s something softer, but still dark, like a whisper. It’s nice. Dick snuggles closer.
“I’m yours now,” Dick chirps sweetly. Even if Dick were to ride the winds away from Gotham, Bruce would always be able to call him back. Dick couldn’t ever break that part of the deal. It was an easy trade. Dick is sure now of his feelings. He loves Bruce. He’ll hold him as long as forever, if that’s what it takes to banish all his sad away.
And given how long and how tightly Bruce hugs him in their snowy forest, forever might be exactly how long it takes.
“Alfred,” Dick calls out in the stony halls of Wayne Castle, throwing his voice so it finds the old servant wherever he is. “Come quick! I have a late solstice present for you!”
Luck blesses Dick, like it usually does. Alfred responds right away.
“Honestly, Mr. Grayson, how many times must I tell you not to ye-”
Just as they hear Alfred’s even footsteps approaching, Dick pulls Bruce out from behind the pillar. He’s been as rigid as wooden plank about all this, but Dick can feel in their shared heart how happy Bruce is to be home.
“Ta-da!” Dick says, posing on his knees in front of Bruce like he used to at the circus when the ferocious lions were released on stage. Bruce merely stands there, as straight as a statue.
“Hello, Alfred,” Bruce says, all prim and proper. “Thank you for taking care of the castle for me.”
It’s Alfred who loses his composure. He falls to his knees in a bow so low his nose touches the floor. And when Bruce commands him to rise, he only rises up off the ground enough to pull Bruce into a tight hug. It’s quite the sight. Alfred is trying not to cry, and Bruce is trying not to blush, and Dick’s smiling so much it hurts his face.
This is the kind of happiness that can only be found in the human realm.
Over Bruce’s shoulder, Alfred looks at Dick, gratitude etched in every line of his weary face.
“You brought him back to me?” Alfred asks. It’s a strange question. But all these years serving the castle and eating its food, Alfred might be a bit of changeling, too. It even makes Dick wonder if he always knew what Dick was, from the moment he had first asked for alms. Dick could probably figure it out, but he decides it’s more fun if it’s a mystery.
“I brought him home,” Dick simply says with a wink.
Alfred’s in a tizzy for the rest of the week. Maybe for the rest of his life, it’s too soon to tell. Lots of fancy pigeons are sent out immediately. Too much time has passed for Bruce to return as Bruce, so he gets to return as Bruce II, long lost grandson of Bruce I.
After that day, everything changes. The days get warmer. Alfred doesn’t call him Mr. Grayson, but Master Dick, like he’s a noble. It’s silly. But Bruce says it’s important that Alfred call him the proper thing, so Dick lets him. There’s lot of silly things about Gotham.
Like, Bruce does not appreciate the pretty bracelet Robin made. He says that only girls wear bracelets. When Dick says he wore that bracelet all the time and he’s a boy, Bruce gets all red in the face like a steamed tomato. It’s really cute. So Dick transforms his soul into a pocket watch for Bruce, so the boy can always keep the twin robins close to his heart. It makes them both happy. Dick always gets a thrill seeing Bruce use it and he does often. Time is always being counted by the Prince. Bruce takes his royal studies extremely seriously. It’s very boring, but Dick tries his best to keep up with Bruce in all he learns, because he promised Bruce that he would never be lonely again.
The news of Bruce II attracts many of Gotham’s refugees back to the castle grounds. Most of them are too young to remember the land at all, but it remembers them. And with Dick here, it forgives them, too. The wheat grows strong and tall. Soon, everywhere from the farms to the marketplace to the interior of the castle itself flourish with life.
It turns out that Dick really likes Gotham, as long as it’s his choice to stay. He sends out a fancy pigeon to Pop Haly, inviting him to perform for the Prince’s 10th birthday next year. He misses them, but he’s really happy here, too. There is so much newness springing up all the time. Change has always blessed Dick and Dick has always liked to pass on those blessings. The circus doesn’t need him, not like Bruce does.
His best friend is the slowest in the world to change. Dick can feel the Bat King plotting within Bruce, forever just one veil underneath him. Robin is happy to keep playing human forever, but Bruce’s eyes are always searching for more. He was a prince and then a king. His hungers and ambitions are so foreign to Dick, who was a bird and then a boy. Bruce is more powerful than Dick will ever be, would ever even want to be. But Dick’s trickier. They are pretty evenly matched, which is good, because they have to play together for all eternity. Not knowing which one of them would win was the fun!
Well, part of the fun. Because there were so many other fun things, too. Like teaching Bruce how to cartwheel or Bruce teaching him how to make the piano sing. And definitely building pillow forts with the good furniture when Alfred wasn’t looking. And that was all the stuff happening right now! There was still so much future ahead of them.
Bruce whispers his plans to Dick late at night, under their shared covers. One day Bruce will be a master sword-fighter and wear his father’s crown. He says he’ll be a good king, this time, because Dick will rule by his side. And Dick tells him that next winter he’ll teach Bruce the solstice duet, and someday, when they are big enough to wed, he’ll teach Bruce how to perform Mama and Papa’s honeymoon trapeze act. They’ll sing and fly together. They talk all through the night like this, just dreaming of all the bright, shiny, things they have to look forward to.
Even with all that hope on the horizon, Dick’s number one favorite thing hasn’t changed. It’s still the shape of Bruce’s hand. Just big enough that it covers Dick’s completely, but not so big that it overwhelms him. It’s still a little cold, sometimes even clammy, but when Dick squeezes it, Bruce always squeezes back.
It’s the only eternity worth having.