#bruce was very proud of him since youth and rightfully so

[farshootergotme]

De-aged Dick Grayson fics are good, specially when we get the reaction of others who hadn't met him when he was still a young Robin, but there's a lot that get one thing wrong and it's when they forget Dick wasn't a normal 8-12 yo kid. And I'm saying this because I've read quite a few in which Dick was too dumbed down. And, I mean, I get it, of course he isn't going to be as good as he will be in the future, but one's gotta consider the fact that this kid was solving cases back and forth with the Batman; fighting wasn't the only thing he was good at. He helped Bruce to find clues and leads and despite not having the same amount of training Bruce had, he was very competent at it.

Like, think about how this is the same kid that, when he was about 11 years old, infiltrated without any help in a school for young assassins and managed to stay undercover for a while before he was discovered only for sneaking out to give Bruce the information he collected.

And on top of all that, he wasn't much older when he was already leading the Teen Titans. I'd say he was around 13-14 yo in the original team (I can't find sources that indicate a specific age, so I'm just going with what it looked like to me).

All of this takes knowledge, undercover and leadership skills. He was both intelligent and wise. He wasn't your average youngster.

In conclusion, if you're writing child Dick Grayson, don't make him helpless or incompetent. He can act his age, but his skills can rival those of adults. He's smart, agile and adaptable, and that's been that way since his early days to the present.