Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Dick Grayson wins the 63rd Hunger Games at 14 years old, the most he feels is dizziness. 

He sits, catching his breath, as he looks up to the sky and waits for the familiar sound of the hovercraft to descend upon him once more. He does not look at his red stained hands, or the wire cast to the side of him, or the body of the boy he had just beaten and strangled to death. 

He should feel - regret, perhaps, or maybe joy, relief? Something, at least. He does not feel much of anything. Perhaps he had already bled out his emotions the past three weeks, the terror he had felt when his name first picked out of that jar, the devastation when he had to say goodbye to Jim and Babs, the determination to come back to them, the disgust and horror when he had first killed someone by his own hands. 

He needed to get back to his family, he couldn’t leave them behind - could he? He’s had a choice, and he’d chosen his life over the other children in this place. Was he a monster, now?

Finally, he drags his eyes back to the cooling body next to him, he at least owes him that. District 2, he recalls. 18 years old, built like a tank. A score of 10. The favourite to win, just after the reapings. He probably had a family, Dick mused. He was a volunteer, but he probably still had people waiting at home for him, who were now going to have to watch their son’s killer be one of the Capitol’s darlings, a victor. 

He could not tear his eyes away from the broken boy even after he was lifted from the arena, from the prolonged nightmare he had been forced to endure. It was only after the doors shut and all he could see was the Capitol’s tech that he became aware of the blood seeping out from his rag of a t-shirt, and a sudden overwhelming tiredness came over him.

He let his eyes shut, falling into the oblivion as a blanket of hands and voices fussed over him.

__ 

“Come on, kid. Can’t sleep forever.” 

He was dreaming of lights and performances and trapezes, laughter and love surrounding him.

“They’re getting impatient for you to wake up. Could just wheel you out force your mouth to open for you.” 

He was dreaming of screams, of peacekeeper gunfire, of running and caring hands and new friends made.

“I’ll go soon, you know? Trust me, you’d much prefer to wake up to me than some Capitol fanatic, no matter how much you hate me. They won’t stop raving on and on about you, kid. Youngest ever victor - they’ll never get enough of you.”

He was dreaming of bodies and blood and they were on him, on his hands, and he would never be able to get rid of it, he was a killer and a murderer and he was - 

He opened his eyes, vision blurry. “Don’t hate you, Slade. You’re just an asshole.” his mouth felt dry. He was lying on soft sheets he hadn’t felt in a fortnight, with just his mentor in the room. Distantly he recognised that he was no longer on the hovercraft. He had returned to the Capitol. 

He should never have left that arena. 

“Can’t argue there, kid. Glad to see you’ve still got that spunk in you.” He paused, and reached over to pass the glass of water sitting on the table beside him. Dick took it gratefully, hand shaking slightly as he brought it to his cracked lips. “Knew you could make it.” 

Dick wanted to frown at the implication, that Slade had known he was capable of killing and winning these games. Their mentorship had mostly been scattered with arguments, with Wilson detailing all the way Dick would take down his enemy, and Dick just wanting Slade to tell him how to survive - he wasn’t the killer Slade Wilson was, he’d protested - who had famously cut down the majority of his fellow tributes in his own games, even with double the amount. But the emotion that required - it didn’t seem to be present, anymore. He just kept looking at his old mentor - he wondered, did Slade try to help him? He certainly hadn’t gotten very far with sponsor gifts. Maybe he just hadn’t been very popular on the outside? Or maybe Slade hadn’t cared enough to help him. “What happens now?” 

Slade - he looks at Dick with impossible sadness in his eyes, when he simply replies, “Now? You get to live the life of a victor.”

—-

His scars had been removed. One below his right knee, that he had gotten when he first did a quadruple flip, was now silky smooth skin. One that was on his shoulder, after chasing Barbara into a bush, was now gone as well. He mourned the loss of these memories. 

He was skinny - so skinny. But not horribly so, not what he had been like in the last few days. 

He looked in the mirror. At least his eyes - his Father’s eyes - were the same. 

__

“Is there usually this many?” Dick whispers to his stylist team, looking out at the masses who have arrived for his ceremony, where he is to watch the worst moments of his life. There are seemingly as many people as possible packed into the stadium, some holding banners proclaiming their love for him, all making incredible noise. 

“No! It’s so exciting,” Aurel whispered back, eyes sparkling. His team had taken to him straight away, as a tribute, and it seemed that they all had been very worried about him throughout the games. 

It also seemed that half the capital had been taken with him throughout his games. 

“You were all anyone talked about, you understand. And, well, with your charm and your skills and your looks, how could anyone not fall for you?” She remarked, slightly dreamily. 

I’m 14, he wanted to scream. No one should be falling for me. I’m a child. I’m a killer.

But he remembered Slade’s advice, before and after the games. You’re their darling, kid. Act like it. Or get thrown to the dogs. 

So he wasn’t Dick, former illegal circus-kid, anymore. Not here. He was Richie Grayson. Desirable and available to all. 

The music began, and he moved to his position, practised and ready winning smile on his face. 

—-

At his victory party, he feels a sense of delirium when he is faced with a banquet of foods he has never even seen before - and is reminded of the hunger he had faced in the last few weeks, and before then, during the time when his mother and father would reassure him that things would be better after winter had passed, when the hunger pans hit them. 

He looks at those around him, who are all staring in his direction. He wants to go home. 

They begin eating, and he feels incredibly alone. He had not seen Slade since he woke up, and did not think he would until he got back to District 3. There is chatter all around him, of TV shows he has never heard of, of other Capitol celebrities, of different victors, of the Batman.

He is a ghost, they whisper. A heretic. He deserves death, one announces, and they rush to agree with him. He is helping the districts - inciting rebellion, maybe? Capitol based, but - it is the districts to blame for him, surely.

Dick wants to go home.

—-

“Mr. Grayson,” President Snow greeted him, as an Avox poured his tea. 

“President Snow,” Dick returned cordially, echoes in his head of his mother’s voice saying hell is cold, Dickie, and Snow is the devil. He sat down opposite the President.

“Congratulations on your win, Mr. Grayson. You must be very happy.”

Dick tensed, hiding his fists as they clenched, feeling the blood that would not leave them.

“Thank you,” he grinned back, feeling perverse as he used his old performance smiles on this man. “Though the Capitol festivities are a bit much for me, I’m afraid. I’m eager to go home now, I think. See my family.”

Snow’s corner of his mouth twitched. “Ah, yes, your… family. You were taken in a few years ago, I believe, by the District 3 mayor? And his daughter?”

A sense of foreboding dread swept over him. “That’s right,” he replied, smile straining. 

“You understand, of course, that it is… worrying, that I have heard rumours of a previous home, of yours. One that broke district borders freely, and provided heretical entertainment for criminals.” 

He froze. You’ve already solved that problem. You’ve already killed them all. 

“Of course, they are long gone now. But I heard that there were only two of the acrobats killed, when there were three. The Flying Graysons. Of course, that moniker is more apt now, from your time in the arena. Quite impressive, using the trees like that.”

“What do you want from me?” Dick whispered, smile finally fading. 

“I’m sure you are aware that tensions are running high these days. The so-called Batman -” he said the name as if it left a bad taste in his mouth “- has been a minor annoyance in scaring the people of the Capitol. And if they were to know that I have allowed an uncultured, uneducated, heretical freak to live and be worshipped - it would not do.” 

Snow sipped his tea calmly, as Dick’s palms bled from his nails digging into skin.

“But I can’t just kill you, of course. My people, my children, are quite enamoured by you. I have already had some patrons, ah, interested in meeting you. To see what you can do. And you will meet them, I will make sure of it.” 

He felt sick. 

“I only want you to know, Richard,” Snow leaned forward, mouth stained with red, “that I will do whatever it takes to make sure you know your place in Panem. That James and Barbara Gordon are not safe from me, and that I killed your parents, and if you do anything I have not told you to do, they will join them.” 

—

Dick was high when he first saw him. The Batman.

He had refused the drugs, at first. But after one, two, three months in the Capitol, and still not being able to go home… well, it was easier. When hands covered him and his innocence - the little he had left - was taken from him, against his will, he thought, maybe it would be better. Maybe they would make him forget. 

They didn’t. But they made him feel… number. And that was something. 

He was at yet another Capitol party (did they ever do anything else? Had they ever worked in their lives?) and he knew that tonight one of Panem’s richest men, Bruce Wayne, had paid for him for the evening. 

He wondered where the money went. What Snow did with it. Maybe the next arena, he thought, smiling loopily. How ironic. 

“What are you smiling at, Richie?” the woman next to him asked. He didn’t really know who she was, but she was soft and had hair that reminded him of Barbara, so he didn’t mind when she pressed him back into leaning into her neck. She had been telling him Capitol secrets - who was sleeping with who (he didn’t care), what the Arena is rumoured to look like next year (he really did not want to know), and she had been telling him about the Batman (the Dark Knight, some were calling him. Weird name. Weird guy. Dick wanted to meet him).

“Nothing! I don’t have any thoughts in my head, lady!” he continued to grin up at her, and she beamed back. 

“Excuse me? May I sit here?” They both looked to the source of the voice, and it was clear that Bruce Wayne had arrived. He was attractive at least, Dick mused, if double his age and then some. Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad, maybe he would be gentle, at least? He glanced to the champagne in the man’s hand, now knowing that this particular brand cost more money than he would ever see in his life, including his victor’s winnings. Nevermind. The rich never had a reason to go gentle, and they were paying not to have to worry about the damage they might inflict on the goods. 

The woman tittered and made attempt at conversation with him, batting her eyelashes and leaning forward so her low-cut dress would show off her assets. Dick focused his gaze slightly past Mr. Wayne, willing the drugs to kick in so he wouldn’t have to think about this world of meaningless politics and sex and violence. Eventually the red-headed woman got up, kissed him on the cheeks and said her goodbyes. Dick watched her go, wishing she could have stayed with him a bit longer. He turned to Mr. Wayne with a crooked grin as he sat in her place. 

“I don’t think we’ve made acquaintances, have we? I’m Richard.” 

They made their way to one of the rooms allocated to - to people like him, and Dick could not help the familiar fear that came over him. Even when he was not sober, he did not think the dread would ever go away. 

Mr. Wayne had been polite, in their conversation. He had asked Dick about his home, and seemed genuinely interested when Dick described District 3 to him, and even had refrained from making remarks on the depravity of those in the districts, which Dick was grateful for. He could not stand not being unable to fire back at those people. 

But now, as they rose up the levels in the elevator, that friendly disposition had disappeared, replaced with an intense look. He had not attempted to feel Dick up at any point in their encounter - he must not be a fan of - of foreplay, one man had called it. 

When they entered the bedroom, Dick could not help but tense up as Wayne turned to him, fierce look still in his eyes. After a few moments of silence, Dick began, “So…” 

“Agent A, I require more towels.” 

Dick and Mr. Wayne stared at each other for a few moments. Dick’s brain started to feel funny. “Am I Agent A…?” he wondered out loud. 

Mr Wayne stared some more, now slightly judgemental. Dick raised an eyebrow, pulling the most somewhat-cheeky expression he had dared to pull since he had become Victor. 

“No, you’re not. That is, um, a code I say, to make sure the cameras and bugs in this room start a feedback loop. It lasts for a few hours.” Wayne sat down on the bed, his hand reaching up to pull at his head. Dick continued to stand, waiting for an explanation, trying not to think about the cameras he had previously been unaware existed. He knew about the bugs, Slade had warned him of that at least, but cameras? (he guessed it didn’t matter, now. His privacy had already been ripped away from him).

“You want me without anyone seeing?” Dick wanted this to start already. Then it could be over. 

“What? No. I don’t want you, at all, like that. I promise.” 

Dick frowned. Was this a trick? It is a new one. Did Wayne want Dick to seduce him…?

“I have paid for this hour because I know that someone else would have. I need - I need you to know that I have no desire to ever have - have any relations, with you, like that, and I never will.” his voice was urgent, insistent. 

Dick looked into his eyes, read his body language. He knew liars, always had a good read on people - and Wayne seemed to be telling the truth, impossibly. 

Dick was so confused. “I’m confused,” he admitted.

“Right. Richard, um. Grayson. I don’t know what I should call you.” Wayne started. Dick blinked. Where had the suave, charming billionaire gone? Dick did not give him an answer. He didn’t care what name the man had for him. “I am so, so sorry I had to meet you like this - it was the only way I could get you alone.” Wayne cringed at himself. “I would never, ever - anyway. That’s not important.” the man looked up at him. “I want to help you.” 

Dick stared. Now he was the judgemental one. “You want to help me.” 

“I should have done this sooner, but I never, ever thought that even Snow - I mean, of course I’ve always known what a despicable man he is -” 

Dick made a small noise of surprise. Who was this man, to speak badly about the president?

“- but you’re so young, I mean look at you, and they - “ 

“I know what they have done.” Dick interrupted. He didn’t want to hear about what this man thought of his current situation. 

“Right. Of course.” Wayne kept his eyes on him, and Dick wanted to look away, but he would not give him the satisfaction. “I want - I have been - helping people like you. Well, not you exactly - but people from the districts. And those from the Capitol that are deemed undesirable.” He grew stronger as he spoke, intelligence clear as he gathered his thoughts. “I decided, long ago, that I was going to do something about this country. Progress has been - slower, than I wanted. But I am slowly building contacts, and I am determined to make change happen. The games are something I have never been able to control, and the thought of them has always disgusted me - something I admit has occasionally reflected on my opinions of the Victors - but watching your games -” he broke off, lost. “You’re just a child.” 

Dick, amazingly, felt tears prick at his eyes for the first time since that first night he had laid with a stranger. He had not been called that - could not have been called that, since it was surely no longer true - since he had been reaped. He wanted to refuse, to argue the claim, but resisted. Maybe he could still be a child. Maybe this adult - this man - would take care of things for him. Maybe he would actually help him. He would be disbelieving, he would not have dared to hope for these things, but - 

“I think… I think I know who you are.” 

Mr. Wayne did not look surprised. In fact he looked - impressed? “Oh?”

“You’re…” Dick looked at his wide frame, obvious muscles showing beneath his suit. He thinks of Wayne’s speech, of his casual disparaging of the president, of his hacking the surveillance. “The Dark Knight.” 

Wayne smiled, if you could call it that.

“I’m the Batman. I want - I’m going to fix this.”