The manor was too big for one boy.

Dick had figured that out within the first night. Every sound carried—footsteps echoing down endless marble corridors, the hollow tick of clocks that seemed louder than his own breathing. He’d been here a week, and still hadn’t gotten used to it. He ate little, mostly pushing food around his plate, and he’d barely spoken. Alfred would try to coax something out of him during meals, but Dick never had the words. Every time he thought about opening his mouth, he heard the crack of the ropes, the sickening silence after the fall. His throat tightened, and all he could do was shake his head.

Bruce Wayne, his new “guardian,” was hardly around. At least, not in any way that mattered. He drifted through the manor like a ghost, silent, distracted, eyes far away—always shadowed with something Dick didn’t understand. Sometimes the boy would catch glimpses of him at the long dining table or disappearing into the wing of the house he never visited, his face pale in the dim light, lips pressed in a tight line. He never tried to talk. And maybe Dick was glad for that. He wasn’t sure he could take the effort of answering him.

It was Alfred who made sure there was food on the table, Alfred who reminded him to rest, Alfred who stood in the doorway of his room in the evenings with a cup of warm tea he rarely drank. The man wasn’t soft-spoken—his words carried that sharp edge, every syllable clipped with discipline—but there was something steady in him. Something that kept the whole house from collapsing under the weight of grief.

On the seventh night, Dick sat at the long dining table, untouched soup cooling in front of him. His shoulders were hunched, eyes fixed on the silver spoon, too tired to lift it. He heard footsteps—heavier than Alfred’s usual stride. When he glanced up, Bruce was there, standing in the doorway. The man looked just as unsettled as Dick felt, his jaw tight, his hands shoved deep into his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched, suffocating. Then, finally, Bruce broke it—his voice low, awkward, rough around the edges.

“I know… it doesn’t feel like home,” he said, eyes flicking to the boy and then away again. “But… you’re not alone here.”