Homecoming
Tim may only have been up front talking to Jason for a few minutes, but those minutes were long enough. Long enough for Dick Grayson to finally close his eyes and fall asleep at Bruce's side.
And as he does so,
It had seemed like a really cool idea at the time. Go and live in a massive mansion, and want for nothing. It did. And the man called Alfred was kind, if a little hard to understand sometimes. But now he's here, and it's dark, and he's scared. Everything is so big, so empty. Even the bed is intimidating, with its ancient-looking carved woodwork, stretching up into an endless sky. This room alone looks bigger than the entire trailer he's spent the entirety of his life in up until now.
And then, perhaps for the first time since his parents died, drawing his knees to his chest as he lies in the middle of an sea of expensive blankets, he realizes.
He's alone.
All alone, for the first time in his young life. No parents, no friends, no warm, soft lion or tiger cub sharing his room. There's no comfort here. Only the unending silence.
A silence broken only by the sobs of an eight year old boy.
And as he does so,
It had seemed like a really cool idea at the time. Go and live in a massive mansion, and want for nothing. It did. And the man called Alfred was kind, if a little hard to understand sometimes. But now he's here, and it's dark, and he's scared. Everything is so big, so empty. Even the bed is intimidating, with its ancient-looking carved woodwork, stretching up into an endless sky. This room alone looks bigger than the entire trailer he's spent the entirety of his life in up until now.
And then, perhaps for the first time since his parents died, drawing his knees to his chest as he lies in the middle of an sea of expensive blankets, he realizes.
He's alone.
All alone, for the first time in his young life. No parents, no friends, no warm, soft lion or tiger cub sharing his room. There's no comfort here. Only the unending silence.
A silence broken only by the sobs of an eight year old boy.