-In this, Dick is abou 8/9-

"Debate team semi-finals! Are you excited?"

Dick nodded shakily. "Yeah, this is big."

"I know I'm not supposed to be back here, but I wanted to check in before the championship."

"Thanks," Dick smiled. "I think we're meeting up in a few minutes, so..."

"Okay, I'll get lost until it starts, in the meantime." He passed Dick's a pack of TicTacs.

"Thanks!" He smiled, mints helped him focus. "I'll see you in the audience?"

"Of course!" Bruce said goodbye to his foster son and left to get a cup of coffee before the championship.

Dick popped a mint in his mouth. He couldn't believe his team had made it so far! He wasn't supposed to be on it, except his Math teacher convinced the school to let him join the Grade 7 debate team. Now, here they were: Central City, to face off against one of the other best middleschool debate teams in the country.

"Grayson! We're having a huddle, get over here!"

"Coming!" He ran to his tiny, five person team. They were gonna crush these cenral kids!

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Dick could feel his heart racing as the 'judges' announced each team. He gripped the edge of the table. The other team had already been introduced, and they had A CHANT! The gotham kids didn't have a chant, But they did have blazers (Dick's blazer was a little big though, so he'd cuffed the sleeves and pinned it in the back).

'And a new addition to the Gotham Junior Academy team is a fifth grade student Richard- I believe he perfers Dick- Grayson.' 

A lanky kid with Stupid, spikey snorted at his name.

"Is that funny?" Their teacher escort called out stiffly.

The kid, shook his head, smirking at Dick. "No, sir, it's just allergies." Great, a smartass. "But a fifth grader on their team?... he must be good." He said with more than a hint of sarcasim.

"Dude, Chill, they were desperate. They clearly didn't have enough 7th grade players." A girl on that team snarked.

Dick bit his tongue, looking into the audience. He couldn't see Bruce because of the spotlights. 

It wasn't so bad... he'd survived the introductions. Next, they got their prompt; it was on the serious side, but had been dumbed down for children: Should human cloning exist? The public school had to argue why it was good while the privet school argued why it was bad.

The seperated, given five minutes for planning their points and rebuttles, while the guy doing the announcements individually quizzed team members on what it was like to have worked up to semi finals. The kids, being twelve and stressed, mostly just babbled and asked him to carry on.

Great, he was aproaching Dick. He mentally prepared himself. 'Just act like you do with the press: charming and dismissive' !

"So, Dick Grayson."

"Yea."

"You are the youngest here by two years. Is that scary to you?"

"Nope." He smiled a little.

"No?" Dick shook his head. "So you're pretty confident then?"

Dick nodded. "Well, we're at semi finals, so I think I'm pretty smart at this point!"

There was a sort of chuckle throughout the audience, the kid was cute, and his answer was very to-the-point.

"Just work on your rebuttle!" A voice shouted from the other table, followed by a shush from the teacher escort. 

Dick didn't need to look to know that it was the lanky kid. He just swallowed hard and started proposing an idea to his teammates. His team hadn't taken his ideas seriously until he one them three contests. They still didn't like him because he was smarter than them and he was nine, but if they kicked him off, they wouldn't have enough people to qualify.

He could still hear the kid on the other side mocking him subtly. Dick was having a lot of trouble focussing. At least he took his meds that morning. It was just distracting. He turned to the other table.

"Please work on your points, I want this to be fair." He said as calmly as possible.

There was another quiet, audience-wide reaction to this kid. 

"Alright booster-seat, we will." The other kid snorted. 

Dick scowled, a thin, pink, blush growing over his cheeks. The worst part was; he actually did have a booster seat. 

Dick did the only thing he could think to: he took the TicTacs out of his pocket and crossed the stage. He pulled out the older boy's hand and shook a couple mints into his palm. 

He leaned in and wispered. "You could use them." And silently crossed back to his own team, leaving the twelve year old dumbfounded. 

Bruce realized what was going on, resting a hand over his mouth. Dick had just dissed that kid without even calling him out.

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There was a mid-compitition break for lunch, and the teams were backstage eating their packed lunches.

Bruce arrived at the stage door of the school auditorium to see Dick on the hour-long break. Dick told the teacher where he was and hopped out into the parking lot to see his foster father.

"You did really well in the first half." Bruce scruffed up his hair. "I brought you some lunch." He pulled out a bag and passed it do Dick.

"Thanks!" Dick took it. "Did you like our points? I think that we shouldn't clone people- because- incase the clones come alive and wish they hadn't been cloned! But Alice said we shouldn't add that to our points because the other ones were better..."

"That's very smart." Bruce eencouraged. Nearby, he noticed someone familiar crossing the parking lot, but before he could call out to the man...

"UNCLE BARRY!"

There was a crash as the lanky, redheaded, kid from the other team came crashing through the stage door.

"Wally!" Barry stumbled back as the kid barrelled into him. 

Bruce's suspicions were confirmed, "One minute Dickie." He called in disbelief. "Barry?" 

The man turned and nodded to him. "Bruce, what are you doing here?

"I'm just here supporting Dick, my ward." He reminded. Flash knew Robin, and Robin knew flash, but they didn't really know each other's identities.

Dick watched him timidly, standing closer to Bruce. Bruce had a lot of friends and colegues, so he didn't question the relationship with this guy. Though he did remind him a little of the Flash. And why was he with that jerk?

"Ah- I'm just here with my nephew. Wally? I'd like to introduce you to a... friend of mine: Bruce Wayne."

Wally turned to him. He was surprised by both the size of the man, and formallity of his clothes. His eyes panned down until he saw the kid hiding behind the man's legs.

"Booster-Seat?" He asked before he could stop himself.

Bruce stepped infront of Dick protectively giving the kid a 64% batglare (Enough to scare him quite a bit). He did NOT like this kid. Of course a kid like that was related to Barry Allen.

"Hello, Wally." Bruce said stiffly, keeping Dick safe behind him.

Wally coward back quite a bit, looking impressed. He glanced at Barry and back a few times. "Okay." Was all he could think to say. 

the adults started talking. Dick just started eating his sandwich. The other kid was leaning around Bruce to stare at him.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Your name is Dick?" He laughed a little.

"Your name is Wally?" Dick asked.

He nodded, thinking Dick was going to make some smartass comment about his name. "So what?"

Dick ignored him. "Don't you have a lunch?" 

The redhead scowled. "No, why do you wanna know?"

Dick broke off a large piece of his sandwich. "Want some?"

The lanky kid, Wally, stared at him, doubtingly. Dick held the sandwich out, offering it. He cautiously took the sandwich, pulling back quickly. He took a huge bite, savouring it.

Instantly, the boys demeanor changed. He sat down on the gravel next to Dick, devouring his peice of the sandwich. He groaned and leaned back, a little colour coming to his face. "Thank you."

"Want more?" Dick asked.

"Yes please." Wally muttered.

Dick broke off another peice, passing it over. "Why are you so hungry? Didn't you have breakfast?"

Wally shook his head, taking the second peice of sandwich. "Thank you."

"Did you have lunch?" 

"My dad didn't give me money."

Dick tried to think of why someone would go to a championship without eating. Bruce didn't even let him leave the house unless he'd just eaten. Still, he'd been through bad stuff too. He'd gone whole days without eating. 

"You can have all my sandwich if you want." He said, feeling bad. "I already had breakfast."

Wally shook his head. "Sorry, Booster-seat, You can have the rest. I took too much."

"It's okay, I'm not hungry." He lied, tearing into the remaining third of the sandwich. "Bruce got me a cookie, too, want some?"

"Okay." Wally said cautiously. They split it and watched the adults talking. "So is he like, your dad, or your body guard or something?"

"Yes."

Waly frowned. "Which one?"

"I'm not sure yet."

Bruce finally escaped the conversation, turning to his son. He was appalled to see Allen's kid sitting next to Dick. He grabbed Dick's shoulder and steered him away. "It's almost time for the reprise? Are you ready?"

Dick nodded, trying to turn around and look at Wally. "Yeah."

Bruce held him tighter. "Well, you better go in and  get ready then."

"Okay."

Bruce nodded dismmissively to Barry and guided Dick to the door. "What did he say to you?"

"Nothing?" Dick asked unsurely.

"Okay, Dickie." Bruce didn't buy it, still, he put his hand affectionately on Dick's shoulder. "Good luck, and don't let anything he says get to you."

Dick nodded again. "I won't..."