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flyrobinflyy · 4 months ago

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A Hundred Days to Become a Wayne by @maccreadysbaby (Dick's Version)

OR: Dick's perspective of 'enlisted'/chapter four

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2.5k words // warnings for gotham typical events // notes at the end

disclaimer: bentley, the main plot line, and majority of the dialogue all belong to the original author! <3

Dick wasn’t even supposed to be in Gotham.

Not really, anyway.

He’d come home to help with a ‘bigger issue’ (in Bruce’s words), which typically meant anything from alien invasions to a few Rogues loose. After everything was dealt with, he thought he might as well stick around for the weekend rather than drive all the way back to Blud. His apartment back there didn't come with three square meals a day, that was for sure.

“N, you’re clogging the line,” came through his earpiece, Barbara’s no-nonsense tone drawing a snort out of him.

He knew he was clogging the line with his never ending chatter, but he was bored out of his mind. The day after bigger disturbances in Gotham always tended to be quieter, and with Batman, Robin, and Spoiler out as well, there was hardly anything to do.

“Yeah, what she said. Shut up,” Jason muttered, background noise revealing that his territory was having a much busier night than Gotham was. “Don’t even think about asking to come over here – stop that – either.”

Dick grumbled, pressing down on his comm to let out one more dramatic ‘Whatever!’ before growing quiet again. It was starting to rain, so he stood from his spot on a chimney and headed for somewhere more covered.

Everything got slippery once it started to rain, so he skipped over different vantage spots in hopes of finding one that would give the lowest likelihood of tumbling down onto the street. Not that his suit didn’t provide any grip, it did, but the combination of rust, mud, grime, and water would catch anyone off balance.

Once he situated himself beneath pieces of long-forgotten scaffolding, he tugged off a glove to check his watch.

It slowly flashed 12:40am back up at him, meaning he had about two more hours before he’d typically head back for the night. Surely he would be able to find something to do for two hours.

Twenty more minutes passed before Robin and Spoiler signed off, the latters goodbye a lot more enthusiastic than the former's.

By 1:15am, Dick was growing incessantly restless. The wood above him was rotted to the point that water began leaking through, and his back was cramping from being folded up so tightly. Sure, he could move, but that would require finding another spot – one that wasn’t already occupied by other people or animals. (He’d already run into some type of animal that was very much not native to Gotham in the process of finding this spot)

Only five more minutes passed before he gave up on not looking for somewhere else, jumping from his current rooftop onto the next. He’d pause every few steps, listening for anything on the streets down below, but it seemed like most people were keeping themselves covered from the rain.

Then, just barely, he heard the scream of a child. It was muffled, but he could still make out enough of ‘leave me alone!’ and ‘get off of me!’ to start rushing towards the noise.

There was no lack of it either, the sound of bottles being crushed, cans being kicked, and, most hauntingly, flesh against flesh filling the air.

Dick peaked over the ledge just in time to see someone thrown into a wall. Someone small. He leapt down without hesitation, hands moving to grab onto the men that were swarming the red-head before his feet even grew close to the ground.

There were three of them, one standing over the kid, hand still wrapped around his neck, while the other two hung a few feet behind him. He went for those two first, both of them being in just the right spot to nearly land on top of.

With a few well timed maneuvers, he was able to get both of them into zip-tie cuffs and tied to a pipe without too much of a fight.

The last of them was still standing over the kid, having only just turned to face Dick at the sound of his companions protests.

Baldy, Dick decided to dub him, looked between the crowbar on the ground and Dick’s face several times before attempting to reach for the piece of metal. Which was a big mistake on his end, because it allowed Dick to rush in and slam his knee into the man's head.

A short scuffle later, Baldy joined his friends on the pipe.

“Oracle, I need a perp pick up at…” He squinted in an attempt to see the street signs, but the rain was making it too difficult to see even twenty feet in front of him. “Wherever my tracker has me, but call when I leave. There’s a civilian here.”

Barbara responded quickly, the sound of her keyboard slipping through. “Don’t want the cops to talk to them?”

A sequence of quiet sobs filled his ears. Dick’s voice came out more clipped than intended when he replied. “Nope.”

The kid squirmed in front of him before curling himself into a ball, visibly shaking from feet away. A crack of lightning rang as Dick stepped closer, both of them flinching at the sound.

Carefully, he crouched down two or three feet away. He didn’t want to scare the child more than they already were by overcrowding, but also knew he’d need to be close to be heard over the storm.

“Hey – hey there, kiddo. Can you open your eyes for me?” He moved only a touch closer, holding his hands out. There was blood pouring down the redhead's forehead, and there had to be other wounds lying beneath, too.

Dick had to work to hold back at flinch when the kids face tilted up at him. He looked like Wally. The red hair, the messy splatter of freckles, everything.

Staying as still as possible, Dick let himself be studied. He probably looked ridiculous, sopping wet with hair that was just a bit too long; it was needing to be shoved out of his face more often than he preferred.

Neither of them moved for a moment. Narrowed brown eyes traveled from Dick’s shoulders to his outstretched hands, growing wide when he twitched his fingers.

Abruptly, the kid lurched up into a sitting position, scooting impossibly closer to the brick wall and tucking his knees up to his chest. He looked a little green for a moment, the injury to his head definitely being more than just a small cut.

After a few more beats of quiet, a small voice weakly broke the silence between them. “Nightwing?”

Dick let out a short breath of relief. Sometimes, in very unlucky situations, out of towners would get caught up with something in Gotham and not recognize Nightwing, or any of the bats, which turned into a whole additional issue. It’s not very easy to explain you're the good guy to a terrified toddler when half of your face is covered and they just watched you electrocute someone.

“Yeah, it’s me,” He smiled softly, watching the kid wipe at his face with his hoodie sleeves a few times. It wasn’t doing much, seeing as it was still pouring. “You took a hard hit, kiddo. Can you tell me your name?”

“Bentley,” the kid whispered slowly, like he was unsure about it.

Dick mentally jotted that detail down for later, noting it as another sign of the very likely concussion. “And how old are you, Bentley?”

Bentley shifted a bit to rest his head on his knees, wincing while he did so. He stared at the ground while he answered, “Jus’ turned ten.”

Basically Damian’s age, Dick winced. “Let me get you home so you can get your noggin’ checked out, okay?”

“No!” Bentley yelped immediately, tilting himself in the other direction. “No. I mean, I…”

Dick frowned at the new wave of tears running down the child's reddened cheeks, mentally adding another tally to the symptom list. He didn’t doubt that the poor kid was crying purely because he was terrified and in pain, but it was still something for him to note.

“My parents are dead, I don’t…I live out here,” Bentley added quietly, now turned completely away.

“Oh,” Dick murmured. That definitely lowered the possible options he had. He was really hoping to avoid going through other measures, for the kids sake. He glanced up at the sky, as if that would tell him what time it was. All he got was a face full of water, but it was still super dark out, so Leslies clinic should still be open. She tended to keep…non-conventional hours. “Alright. Why don’t I get you to a doctor, then?”

“No!” Bentley repeated, pushing a hand out in Dick’s direction as if trying to prevent him from growing closer. A few hiccuping sobs spilled out before he spoke again. “If you take me there, they’ll just call the cops and-and send me off to live with someone else. Someone pretending to be my mom and dad. Please- I don’t…please don’t make me. I don’t want to…”

That was…understandable. Gotham didn’t have the greatest foster care system in the world, not to mention the greatest track record with said foster care. In some situations, it would be safer for the kid to be out here then in there.

He knew first hand about fearing someone would just pretend to be his parents, too. He’d gotten lucky with his own case, Bruce seemed just as baffled at the prospect of parenting a child as Dick was at being parented by him.

Leslie wouldn’t push the idea of foster care, she’d probably push the card that he was leaving tucked away for now instead, but he wasn’t going to force the kid into anything he didn’t want to do.

“Okay, alright,” Dick moved his hand closer, pulling it away when Bentley nearly jumped out of his skin. He grit his teeth for a moment, trying to magically come up with some other safer option than what he had in mind. He had no doubts he could help the kid out himself, but there was the lingering concern that things were worse off than they looked to be. “Okay, I won’t take you there. Promise.”

Bentley’s eyes flicked to him for a split second, returning back to the spot he’d been watching on the ground. Beneath his wet clothes he was practically vibrating, the nightly New Jersey chill making matters worse.

“Can I sit with you?” Dick asked. His calves were starting to cramp up in his position, and he hoped that not being perched in front of the kid would help them both out a bit more. His eyes caught Bentley tense just slightly, so he quickly added on, “If not, that’s okay. Whatever you’d prefer.”

Bentley sniffled, wincing and bringing a hand up to his head after he did so. It didn’t seem like he would be saying anything else, and Dick couldn’t blame the kid.

It’s never a good thing when you end up blacked out in an alleyway in the first place, but especially not when you’re a homeless ten year old.

Dick stayed where he was, subtly moving a hand back to rub at the knot on his calf. “How long have you lived out here?”

He gained another wet sniff in response, followed by a new wave of shivers.

“You must be really cold, kiddo,” He added. Even in his Nightwing suit, which was made for pretty much all types of weather, he was feeling the combination of the rain and cold.

Bentley curled up a little tighter in response.

“Tell you what,” Dick began, unintentionally dropping a bit closer when he lost his balance. “Your head probably hurts pretty bad, and I’m sure you’re tired and hungry. I’ll take you somewhere where we can get you patched up, fed, and out of the storm.”

“Just me and you, no one else,” He promised.

The words hung in the air for a beat before Bentley began to unravel his arms from his knees and straightened himself out a little more. He seemed to mull over what Dick said for a few more seconds before shakily responding, “Okay.”

A flash of relief flew through Dick. One of the safehouses was fairly closeby, and it was the same one he’d stopped by only days before – meaning it should be particularly habitable. Not naming names, but some people were less capable of leaving their places better than they found them than others.

Bentley lurched forward, pulling his feet beneath him and doing his best to stand up before careening into the wall behind him. He was crouched now, hands coming up to his head with a small whine.

“Okay. Alright,” Dick cautioned. He shifted his weight, preparing to pick the child up if need be. The last thing he wanted to do was make Bentley uncomfortable, but he knew this whole idea of walking wasn’t going to play out very well. “Want me to carry you?”

He’d carried plenty of children in his time, still scooping up his siblings like they were toddlers (and typically facing the consequences through knees to the stomach or fists against his back). Bentley seemed to be a very small kid, so he had no doubts it would be an easy walk to the safehouse from where they were.

The question was very quickly shot down with something that sounded like the mix of ‘No.’ and a yelp. Bentley started to his feet again, this time getting all the way up. He still was relying on the wall behind him to hold himself on his feet, though.

Dick took a breath, keeping his hands at the ready incase the kid started to sway. “Hey, I know you’re scared, kiddo. It’s okay to be scared. But I…don’t think you need to be walking.”

He closed the gap between the two of them save for a foot and a half, hands outstretched. Bentley eyed them suspiciously, but didn’t flinch or try to move away. Dick took that as a good sign, lowering himself to one knee so he wasn’t towering over him anymore.

“I’ll carry you exactly where I said, just me. I promise. And I won’t touch you until you’re ready,” He stuck his left hand out flat, offering it to Bentley. “Whenever you’re comfortable.”

After several moments of a very heated glare being shot at Dick’s hand, Bentley took it.

Bentley was far easier to scoop up than he should've been, the difference in expected weight versus the present situation jarring Dick's grip just slightly. He pulled the kid up so he was pressed against his chest, wrapping his hands around his legs to support the weight. “Take a breath, kiddo. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

There was no response apart from a shuddered breath, but after a few steps Bentley tucked his face into Dick’s shoulder. It was probably in an attempt to ease the nausea, but he was going to take it as a sign of trust, returning the act by rubbing a hand across the redhead's back.

He really hoped Bruce was still awake.

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i've never really written anything like this before and this is pretty loosely edited (seeing as i usually only write after 1am, my confidence in catching grammar/spelling errors is not very high </3) but! alas!

i also have 'a little tlc'/chapter five somewhere in my drive... i think.

this isn't something i normally do (aka have never done), but the storyline consumes my thoughts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner often enough to warrant it lol <3

anywho, thank you @maccreadysbaby for giving permission to do this! and for writing the original story, of course!!

#me: has published multiple fics before #also me: *nervous*#a hundred days to become a wayne #cade writes #not really sure what to tag this??#let’s not notice my struggle with ending things…

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