Dick Grayson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daringyoungman) wrote2013-06-16 11:24 pm
daringyoungman) wrote2013-06-16 11:24 pm
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Every Father's Day, the flying Graysons would take the day, wherever they happened to be, and go into the nearest town. They would have lunch at a cheap, family friendly restaurant that served burgers and milkshakes and more fries than any of them could eat. They'd go see a movie. Mary would help Dick pick out a present for John.
They would spend time as a family, for ten Father's Days in a row.
Today, Dick is in a house bigger than the Big Top, with only a stuffy English man for company. Mr. Wayne, as usual, is away 'keeping unusual hours.'
It's the first Father's Day Dick has spent by himself.
He wants to go to the bar, to get away from it all, but he knows he'd just come back to Father's Day in Wayne Manor. Keep coming back to the fall. To the cut rope.
To his father. To the accident.
“Always check the ropes,” he'd say, over and over and over again. Dick watched him. Every day, every performance, check the ropes. The Graysons had never had an accident, in all the years they'd been flying.
They always checked the ropes.
It couldn't be an accident.
Desperately fighting the 'go to the bar' urge, he wanders the house aimlessly until he finds a big, stuffy bedroom that looks like it once belonged to a lady. A lady and a man, he realizes: a couple. Mr. Wayne isn't married so it can't be his.
He picks up a silver hairbrush and looks at the hairs still stuck in the bristles. They could be his mother's, although she never owned anything this fancy. He's still staring at it when Mr. Pennyworth comes in to usher him out. This isn't a place for little boys, Dick is told. It belonged to Mr. Wayne's parents.
They died, when he was a boy.
“So, we're both orphans.”
He slips out after dinner, taking advantage of Mr. Pennyworth's distraction in cleaning up, and heads out to the circus, still in Gotham but soon to head out. He intends at first to go there and say goodbye to everyone, to see King Richard the lion and the elephants and the tigers, but he can't bring himself to approach anyone from his former life. Not now, not when he knows he can't have that life back.
Instead he keeps out of sight, and scoots around to his parents' equipment, now packed up and ready to store. The trailer, he supposes, will be driven by a volunteer until someone new moves in. It hurts, but not too much; it's only a trailer.
But even when he unpacks and searches, he can't find the broken rope. Maybe the police took it away? Frustrated, he returns home.
A few hours later, Dick has left the manor to get some air, by crouching on the Manor's roof. That's where Batman finds him, and somehow manages to startle him.
“I keep thinking about what happened. My father always checked the lines. It couldn't be an accident.”
“It wasn't. The trapeze rope that snapped. It was made to look like it was worn out. But I found traces of an acid on the rope. And I've seen what that acid can do to people...”
“I want to help.”
“You will. When the time is right. I promise.”
“I remember seein' a guy talk to Mister Haly at the circus,” Dick says, quickly and urgently as the memory hits him. “He said something about how it's be a shame if anything happened to my...”
He can't complete the sentence.
“He was a big fat guy,” he adds weakly.
The cops haven't done anything, but that's expected because cops hate Dick's people. But maybe the Bat-Man can? It's worth a try, and he at least seems to want to help.
And Dick needs help right now. Help he's not getting from Mister Wayne of Pennyworth, no matter how they think otherwise.
Dick needs Batman.
They would spend time as a family, for ten Father's Days in a row.
Today, Dick is in a house bigger than the Big Top, with only a stuffy English man for company. Mr. Wayne, as usual, is away 'keeping unusual hours.'
It's the first Father's Day Dick has spent by himself.
He wants to go to the bar, to get away from it all, but he knows he'd just come back to Father's Day in Wayne Manor. Keep coming back to the fall. To the cut rope.
To his father. To the accident.
“Always check the ropes,” he'd say, over and over and over again. Dick watched him. Every day, every performance, check the ropes. The Graysons had never had an accident, in all the years they'd been flying.
They always checked the ropes.
It couldn't be an accident.
Desperately fighting the 'go to the bar' urge, he wanders the house aimlessly until he finds a big, stuffy bedroom that looks like it once belonged to a lady. A lady and a man, he realizes: a couple. Mr. Wayne isn't married so it can't be his.
He picks up a silver hairbrush and looks at the hairs still stuck in the bristles. They could be his mother's, although she never owned anything this fancy. He's still staring at it when Mr. Pennyworth comes in to usher him out. This isn't a place for little boys, Dick is told. It belonged to Mr. Wayne's parents.
They died, when he was a boy.
“So, we're both orphans.”
He slips out after dinner, taking advantage of Mr. Pennyworth's distraction in cleaning up, and heads out to the circus, still in Gotham but soon to head out. He intends at first to go there and say goodbye to everyone, to see King Richard the lion and the elephants and the tigers, but he can't bring himself to approach anyone from his former life. Not now, not when he knows he can't have that life back.
Instead he keeps out of sight, and scoots around to his parents' equipment, now packed up and ready to store. The trailer, he supposes, will be driven by a volunteer until someone new moves in. It hurts, but not too much; it's only a trailer.
But even when he unpacks and searches, he can't find the broken rope. Maybe the police took it away? Frustrated, he returns home.
A few hours later, Dick has left the manor to get some air, by crouching on the Manor's roof. That's where Batman finds him, and somehow manages to startle him.
“I keep thinking about what happened. My father always checked the lines. It couldn't be an accident.”
“It wasn't. The trapeze rope that snapped. It was made to look like it was worn out. But I found traces of an acid on the rope. And I've seen what that acid can do to people...”
“I want to help.”
“You will. When the time is right. I promise.”
“I remember seein' a guy talk to Mister Haly at the circus,” Dick says, quickly and urgently as the memory hits him. “He said something about how it's be a shame if anything happened to my...”
He can't complete the sentence.
“He was a big fat guy,” he adds weakly.
The cops haven't done anything, but that's expected because cops hate Dick's people. But maybe the Bat-Man can? It's worth a try, and he at least seems to want to help.
And Dick needs help right now. Help he's not getting from Mister Wayne of Pennyworth, no matter how they think otherwise.
Dick needs Batman.