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Dick Grayson regarded Bruce with slivered, suspicious eyes -- Bruce remembered wondering, in Dick's place, who his friends were, and who among his well-wishers were just trying to prey on the Wayne fortune.
Dick, by all reports, didn't have a nickel in his pocket, but that didn't stop the sharp look of assessment. "Hey," the boy said finally. "I didn't expect to see you again."
"I wanted to see how you were doing," Bruce said. "Ms. Doherty says you're just staying here for a little while."
"Can't keep him," Marge Doherty said. "Couldn't keep an eye on him anyway. Kid needs two parents. They just knew I didn't have anybody now, so here he is until they find something better. Somepace in the country, maybe. Kid's into everything." Marge's tone implied that Dick was an oversized dog -- one of which she could grow fond, but which had to go back to the pound nevertheless.
"I'm okay," Dick answered him, rolling his eyes a little at Marge behind her back. "You know. Oh. I wanted to say ... thanks for going to the funeral."
"I hate funerals," Bruce said reflexively, and Dick's nod was fervent. "I didn't want to remember you from there." Bruce could feel Marge's glare on the back of his neck -- wondering what interest he had in an orphaned gypsy child, wondering if he was somehow unsavory. He doubted he could explain to her that he simply liked the boy -- that he thought of Dick as a friend, despite their brief acquaintance and vast differences in age and experience.
Call me Bruce, he'd said when she opened the door.
Half my neighbors work for you, she'd replied. I'll call you Mr. Wayne.
"I don't really remember it," Dick shrugged, referring to the funeral.
"Cindy Pierce says it takes some time," Marge offered. Bruce supposed she referred to the Social Services worker who'd led Dick away the night the Graysons had been murdered. "There's a period of denial --"
"Anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance," Bruce finished for her. "I'm familiar with the process." He meant to alienate her, and it worked; she muttered something about dinner in the stove and please-make-yourself-at-home.
Well, good. "You shut her up," Dick said with approval.
"You're a person, not an Irish Setter."
Dick had made himself very small, curled up on a kitchen chair. "Thanks for noticing."
"I didn't know what kind of situation they'd find for you," Bruce said. "I confess curiosity."
"You don't even know me," Dick said. "You were just there when it happened. There were like twenty thousand people in the stadium, and none of the rest of them even gave a rat's ass."
"Don't swear," Bruce said automatically, and endured Dick's rolled eyes.
"Seriously. You came over and made sure somebody had got me a blanket and that people were taking care of me, and then you came to the funeral -- like you had any idea who my parents even were -- and now you come here. Why? Don't you own, like, half the city?"
"You're assuming that wealth precludes understanding." Bruce picked at the centerpiece of silk flowers on Marge's table. "I own about twenty percent of Gotham, more or less."
Dick gave a low whistle and a gesture that meant see?
Bruce couldn't find anything else to look at but his own tight-clenched fists. "I inherited it when I was nine. After I witnessed my parents' murder."
Dick stared at him a long minute, then bent his dark head into his knees, curling up even more tightly. After a moment, he looked up again. "Oh," was all he said -- but in that moment Bruce felt an understanding forged in blood, across any other consideration.
Bruce could only nod as he addressed the wall over Dick's head. "They're all telling you you've got to take time, and embrace the process, and eventually you'll feel better."
"They're full of shit," Dick said. Bruce didn't correct him this time.