Chapter Text
Count to ten
Take it in
This is life before you know who you're gonna be
At fifteen
- Fifteen, Taylor Swift
“God, look at this dump,” Jordan sneered as the school bus rolled past an abandoned building, its broken windows dark like hollow eye sockets.
“I can’t believe they’re making us do this,” Sean complained. “I mean, my parents donated like a hundred grand to some charity last year. How is that not enough?”
Dick frowned at his classmates, but kept his opinions to himself. He was the one who had convinced Mr Sloane to take them on this field trip in the first place. He’d hoped that volunteering in a soup kitchen might make his peers a bit more sympathetic to the less fortunate residents of Gotham. In retrospect, that had probably been a bit optimistic. He was still glad they were going though. Even if the experience made an impression on just one of the children who would some day be running the city, it would be worth it.
***
Dick made sure to smile at each person as he handed them their tray filled with generous helpings of chilli, cornbread and beans. He’d read that homeless people sometimes went weeks without anyone looking them in the eye, even though they were surrounded by people on a daily basis.
He was surprised though when he looked up to find a boy about his age accepting the tray from him. Dick smiled at him, but the boy avoided his gaze. He just grabbed his tray and headed to a corner table, as far away from the counter as possible. After a moment, Dick announced that he was taking a break. When the lady next to him agreed to cover for him, he slipped out of the kitchen and made his way to the table.
“Hey, can I join you?” he said as he slid into the seat opposite the boy.
“Free country,” the boy grunted without looking up from his tray.
“I’m Dick.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Dick snorted. “What’s your name?”
“What d’you care?” the boy said, looking him in the eye for the first time.
Dick was surprised to see that half the boy’s forehead was covered in abrasions – like someone had pushed his face into the ground. Catching the startled look in his eye, the boy glanced away quickly, a faint blush colouring his cheeks.
“I brought you some extra cornbread,” Dick offered, sliding over a hefty square on a napkin.
The boy eyed the food, but didn’t reach for it. After a moment, he said quietly, “Why? What d’you want?”
“Uh, nothing.”
The boy shot him an unreadable look before he stood up suddenly. “Thanks but I’m all right.” Then he all but ran away, leaving the extra slice of cornbread and the remaining food on his tray behind.
Dick’s heart sank with guilt, knowing he’d unwittingly cost the boy the rest of his meal, which he’d clearly needed. He had no choice but to return to the kitchen with a sigh.
It wasn’t the only child he’d see that day, as it turned out. There were a lot of them, which surprised him. He’d thought that he was wise to the streets, that he knew more about what was happening beneath Gotham’s glitzy lights and glamour than most. But he supposed that Batman and Robin only saw a certain side to the city too. He wondered if Bruce realised, and if he did, why he never talked about it.
Dick smiled at a couple of kids that looked to be about 6 or 7 years old. Younger kids were usually with their mothers, most of whom seemed sad, scared, and worried. Some bore bruises and other marks of violence. Dick made sure to give the families a bit of extra cornbread, so they could take it away with them, as he knew the kids probably wouldn’t be able to eat much in one sitting. And then there were the kids his age - girls, boys, some a bit younger, some a bit older. They all had the same guarded looks on their faces as that first boy had.
“The little ones are always so heartbreaking, aren’t they?” the lady volunteer next to Dick said as she dished out some beans and handed the tray to Dick.
“Uh, yeah,” Dick said. “There’s so many of them.”
“There’s a women’s shelter down the street, and a youth shelter not far from here,” the lady said. “A lot of DV cases from the women’s shelter, as you can imagine.”
“What about the teenagers?” Dick wanted to know.
“Mostly runaways. Some people think they should just go home. But…you don’t know what they’re running from. I don’t think anyone would choose this, if they had a better option.”
“Maybe they didn’t have any choice at all,” Dick said. It wasn’t hard to imagine how his life might have gone as an orphan, if Bruce hadn’t taken him in.
“Yeah, that too,” the lady agreed. “I’m Lana.”
“Dick.”
“You don’t seem much like your friends,” she said, canting her head at the group of GA students goofing off in the back of the kitchen. “I’m not even sure why they’re here.”
“The school made them.” Dick judiciously omitted the part where he’d instigated it. “I think I have more in common with these shelter kids than those rich kids.”
Lana squinted at him a moment before her face lit up. “Oh, you’re that kid Bruce Wayne adopted! Your picture’s online a lot.”
Dick smiled ruefully. “That’s me.”
“Losing your parents at such a young age must have been really hard.”
Dick shrugged off the sympathy. “Yeah, but it’s all good now.”
Lana nodded. “I’m really glad for you.”
“Do you volunteer here often?” Dick asked, changing the subject.
“I try to get out here once a week, if I can.”
“I’d like to volunteer regularly too,” Dick said. “Where can I sign up?”
“Just speak to Maria, she’ll put you down on the list.”
“Thanks.”
***
Dick quickly learned the names of the regulars, of which there were a few. Most of the people that came through the kitchen were new every week though, and most of them never came back. He was glad for that – he liked to think that they got the help they needed and moved on. Whether that was true or not was anyone’s guess.
He didn’t see the boy again until he’d been volunteering for almost a month. Granted, he was only there on Sunday nights, so the boy could’ve been by on some other night and Dick would’ve missed him. This time, the boy had a big bruise on his jaw, like someone had punched him in the face.
“Hey!” Dick greeted brightly as he handed over the tray of chicken potpie with mash potatoes and gravy.
The boy hesitated, his hands frozen in the act of accepting the tray. His eyes darted between the food on the tray, and the exit.
“Please take it,” Dick said, thrusting the tray at him. “I won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”
The boy bit his lip, but accepted the tray and hurried away without a word.
Dick sighed, but true to his word, he refrained from approaching him again. At some point in the shift, Dick looked up and the boy was gone.
***
It was months before Dick saw the boy again, and when he did, it wasn’t good. Someone had roughed him up, and recently, judging by the proto-shiner, the raw looking cut on his cheek and the splatters of blood still evident on his ragged clothing. He didn’t even notice Dick as he grabbed his tray and shuffled over to the corner to wolf it down.
Dick was torn. He wanted to talk to the boy, to see if he was ok and if there was anything he could do to help, but he also didn’t want to scare him away again.
“Do you know him?” Dick asked Lana, who happened to be working the same shift as him that day. He saw her sometimes, but not as often as he’d expected to initially.
Lana glanced over and nodded. “I recognise him. He’s been in a few times. I don’t think he stays at the shelter though. Most of the kids there know each other, and I’ve never seen him talking with anyone else.”
“Do you know his name?”
Lana shook her head. “He looks in a bad way.”
“Yeah,” Dick said. “I’m going to talk to him. Can you cover me?”
Lana’s only reply was a shooing motion.
“Hey,” Dick said as he approached the table. He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I just want to talk. If you’d rather I leave, just say so, and I will.”
The boy eyed him a moment before he heaved a sigh. “Whatever.”
Counting that as a minor victory, Dick slid into the seat opposite.
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m-”
“What do you want, <i>Dick</i>?” the boy interrupted.
“Hey, you do remember me!”
“Name like that, how could I forget.”
“Harsh,” Dick informed him. “What’s your name?”
“Why?” the boy said warily.
“It makes it easier to talk to you. I could make up a name if you prefer,” Dick said. “You look like a Tristan, or a Jagger, oooh, or a Diesel! Can I call you Diesel?”
“Jesus, it’s Jason, all right?” the boy said in exasperation.
Dick grinned, thrilled with the win. “Diesel is way cooler than Jason.”
“Literally everything’s cooler than Dick,” Jason retorted.
Dick laughed. “Yeah, maybe. It’s nice to meet you, Jason.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Jason said. “What’s your deal, huh, <i>Dick</i>? You chat up every loser you meet in this joint, or you got some kinda hard on for me in particular?”
Dick cocked his head at him. “You remind me of me, I guess, ‘cause we kind of look alike. It makes me think of what might have happened to me if I hadn’t been adopted after my parents died. And I just…I wanted to help, that’s all.”
“What makes you think I need help?”
Dick raised an eyebrow and nodded at the blood splattered down the front of Jason’s shirt.
Jason followed Dick’s gaze down to his shirt. “Ah fuck,” he muttered as he wiped at the blood stains – though they were clearly set in by this point.
“Looks pretty bad – you might need stitches,” Dick said, gesturing at Jason’s face.
Jason touched his cheek and winced. His fingers came away with some bloody seepage. “It’s fine,” he muttered, wiping his fingers off on his jeans. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”
“Come on, let me help you. You look like you could use a win today.”
Jason looked Dick up and down with an assessing gaze, a slight frown creasing his brow. The scrutiny was starting to make even Dick feel self conscious, and he was not generally a shy person. Finally, Jason said, “You got cash?”
Dick blinked, slightly thrown by the question for a second. Then he said, “Not a lot, but you can have it.” He pulled out his wallet and handed over some bills. He wasn’t even sure how much it was, but from the look in Jason’s eyes, it was a lot more than he’d expected.
Jason snatched the money from his hand and shoved it into his pocket. “Jesus, don’t flash that shit around!” he hissed, eyes scanning the room warily. He stuffed the last few forkfuls of food into his mouth and stood up. “Come on.”
Startled, Dick was halfway out the door before he thought to wonder where Jason was leading him.
“You drive here?” Jason asked.
“Er, no.” Dick was suddenly rather embarrassed that Alfred had dropped him off. It felt so wrong to have a butler chauffeuring him around town when there were kids in the city who couldn’t afford to eat.
“All right, I know a place.”
Dick frowned. “Um…where are we going?”
“We can’t do it here,” Jason said. At Dick’s confused look, he added, “Kitchen’s run by the church. If they catch you, you’re banned. I don’t come here all that much, but it’s nice to know it’s here, if I need it.”
“Can’t do what here?” Dick couldn’t tell if Jason was being deliberately cryptic, or if he was just being thick.
“Here we go,” Jason said as he led them down a dark and quiet alley.
“Uh-”
Jason shoved Dick up against the dirty brick wall and before Dick could even comprehend what was happening, Jason had undone his jeans and slid them halfway down his thighs.
“Oh…no…stop! No-oh my god!” Dick’s startled gasp ended in a moan as Jason’s lips wrapped around his rapidly hardening cock. Dick had only had sex twice so far in his life. Both times were with girls, and while they had been fun, this was…something else entirely. “Oh…oh my god!” Lacking anything else to hold on to, he buried his fingers in Jason’s hair, and at the feel of the warm, living person beneath his hands, he came, <i>hard</i>.
“Holy crap. I can’t believe you just did that,” Dick said breathlessly.
Jason pulled up Dick’s pants and rebuttoned them. “Yeah, I’m pretty unbelievable,” he muttered. He stood up and brushed off his knees. “Come on.” Dick followed him to the alley entrance on wobbly legs. “See that street over there? It’ll take you back to the kitchen.”
Dick turned to see what Jason was pointing at, and when he’d turned back around, Jason was already walking away.
“See you around, Richie Rich!” Jason called over his shoulder as he hurried away into the night.