-UPDATE!!!! Happy holidays y'all. Donate to PCRF-

A hand grabbed him around the arm. Dick was too afraid to open his eyes ad he was pulled up from the snow.

"AH!" He hissed in pain as his weight shifted onto his right knee. He collapsed back into the frigid snow, trembling.

"Master Dick!" The hand took him again. "What on earth did you think you were doing?!" Through bleary eyes and painful limps the boy felt himself being guided into the manor. "Now," Alfred sat him on the bench in the foyer, shutting the door quickly. "Where does it hurt?"

Dick barely held in the tears, gesturing to his knee. 

Alfred pulled the boy's pyjama leg out of the way, assessing the damage with silent severity.

"Alfred? Alfred!" From the corner of his eye Dick saw his guardian shoot out from the grandfather clock, skidding to a halt on the tile besides them. "What happened?"

Bruce paced the drawing room, obsessively tidying, at risk of breaking everything he touched from the sheer energy of the night.

"If it hadn't been for the snow you'd have broken your leg." Bruce said, watching Alfred as he clicked the boy's dislocated knee back into place, his sprained ankle already wrapped taught in creamy white bandages. 

"Ow..." Dick hissed, leg propped up on an ottoman.

"What were you-- Why would you go out there?"

"Bruce, I saw him." Dick begged. 

"Saw him?"

"Crane! I chased him but he escaped through a gap in the fence."

Dick expected yelling, scolding, maybe even a grounding. Bruce just sighed, sinking into the chair opposite. "Of course." He rested his face in his hands. "Of course. "

"You... you don't believe me." Dick muttered, staring up at his mentor.

"I believe you." He forced out. "I believe you."

"Really?"

"Alfred? Take Dick back to bed will you?"

"Yes sir."

"And lock the window."

"Yes sir."

Dick didn't go to sleep. He leveled his breathing until Alfred left, but he could never sleep. Crane was out there-- possibly still on the property-- and he couldn't even walk. Alfred had left the door to the hallway open, which he appreciated, Dick went back and forth between watching out the window and checking the corridor.

Crane was going to come back. He knew it.

It was almost four am when Bruce came to his senses, dozens of tabs about CPTSD and child psychiatrists flooding his laptop. 

He rubbed the bridge of his nose irritably. It's too early to lose hope. He reminded himself. It's probably a phase. Still, he didn't close any of the tabs. 

Dick had jumped off the roof of the manor, convinced he was chasing some shadow man. He should have known, he should have taken the accusations the boy made seriously. Dick didn't lie to him, if he said he saw Crane, then that's what he saw. 

That reality was worse than one where he lied, because this meant Dick truly believed it all.

In a way, Bruce couldn't help blaming himself; training the child, twisting his fragile mind until it saw danger in every shadow and evil in every person.

Bruce closed the laptop. He needed sleep.

Dick didn't talk at breakfast the next day, his crutch leaning against the table by his mostly untouched plate. Bruce was just as reserved as the boy was, staring down at his own place setting.

"I know you two are at odds," Alfred began, "But at least one of you had better start eating your breakfast."

"Thanks, Alfred," Bruce stood. "I think I'll take mine upstairs. I have work."

Dick began pushing his chair back, but a firm hand stopped his escape. "Finish your plate, please"

"I'm not hungry." The boy replied. 

"You weren't hungry last night either." Alfred scolded. "Master Dick If you don't eat something soon..."

"I know, I know." He toyed with his eggs. "It's just... The thought of Crane being out there... I feel sick."

"Your nervous system is recovering from last night." Alfred said sympathetically. "You took quite a shock." Dick nodded. The butler hovered at his shoulder. "That being said, you will need to eat eventually."

Bruce barely touched his food. He barely touched his work either, flipping through his father's psychology books and supplementing them with a website on childhood development. He was out of his depths with Dick, he always was, but especially now. He needed a specialist, someone with experience...

There were only so many people he could find on short notice, and being chairman of the university, most of them were professors, not therapists.

He felt a twinge of guilt going behind Dick's back like this, but Dr. Crane was renowned for his study of emotional responses and phobias. Dick didn't have to know. He'd just ask the professor for advice. The ends would justify the means...

Dick scrutinized his homework, trying to guess the book report questions with his cursory glance through the novel. He was just searching for his pencil when he saw it; a glint of chrome in the corner of his eye. Setting down his copy of War Horse, Dick turned to look out the window.

A car. A silver car, with a dent in the bumper.

Dick went to open the window, but Alfred had locked it. He watched through the frosty glass as the car was snaked up the drive way towards the house.

"Bruce?" He grabbed his crutch, hobbling from the room. "Bruce?"
Downstairs the door shut.
"Bruce?" The boy gripped the railing, hopping down the stairs.

He stumbled down the last two steps, just as the drawing room door shut.

Dick knocked twice and opened the door. Bruce sat across the room, facing a figure in the arm chair. "Dick?" Bruce stood sharply. "I thought you were doing your homework."

"I was, but... I saw a car..." Dick limped into the room. "I swear, It was the same one from yesterday, the one that--"

The person in the arm chair stood, turning to face him. The body stretched upwards, slender and towering over the boy. The crooked jaw smiled down at him. "Ah, young Richard. I've been hoping to run into you again."

"Bruce..." The boy failed to hide the distress in his voice. "Bruce?"

"Dick, go back to your room." He said. "I'm just having a conversation with the professor."

Dick staggered back several feet, almost dropping his crutch. "Why is he here?"

"We're just talking, Dick."

"Your guardian tells me you've been having some incidents..." Crane beheld him, something hungry in his gaze. "How'd you hurt your leg?"

"What do you want?" Dick demanded, trying to brace himself, though his voice wavered with the words. 

"Dick, go upstairs."

"Why have you been trying to break in? Why were you trying to get into Bruce's room? why--"

"Dick!" Bruce silenced him with the word. "Go upstairs."