The Ordinary and The Bird

Prologue

Dick Grayson felt an overwhelming sense of pity. His eyes kept glancing over to the young girl sitting on the curb bawling her eyes out. He knew he was supposed to be paying attention to the detective in front of him, Larry Kurt, from homicide. Dick tried to keep himself focused on the case at hand because Batman couldn't afford to be distracted. Batman needed to find the killer of that young girl's parents. 

"Hey, um, Batman, could we talk in private? You know, without the kid around?" Larry Kurt asked.

"Whatever you have to say can be said here, I'm not some sensitive child that needs coddling from adults," Robin had said with a sharp tone in his voice.

Dick grimaced on the inside as Robin aka Damian Wayne spoke to the detective. Dick knew that it was going to be a while till Damian learned some manners but it wasn't coming soon enough. He knew that Damian didn't take kindly to those who thought of him as a kid but he hoped that by now Damian wouldn't be so quick to the defensive. 

"I don't mean you. I mean the other kid," Larry said pointedly.

Damian huffed and Dick sighed on the inside. Batman, however, ignored Robin and turned his focus back to the matter at hand.

"Of course, detective, we can talk in private," Batman said to the detective.

Larry had already begun to walk to the other side of the street. Damian began to follow him but Dick stopped him. Damian turned to look at him.

"Go wait with the girl, Robin," Dick said.

"Why!" Damian had demanded more than asked. 

"Someone needs to stay with her," Dick explained.

"Someone already is," Damian said.

"No, they aren't," Dick pointed out, as there were no longer any other officers near her. They had all moved onto the crime scene or were with Detective Kurt.

"Listen, just go over there," Dick said, cutting off whatever Damian was going to say.

"Fine," Damian said in a huff.

***

When Damian saw the girl he was in charge of staying with, she was sobbing in a rather quiet manner. She was sitting down on the curb with her knees tucked into herself and her head down. Her head had perked up though when he had approached her. Her eyes were watery and red. She had begun to wipe at her eyes with not much success. 

Damian could only stare at her as he stood above her, he wasn't quite sure what exactly he was supposed to be doing. Grayson had only told him to stay with her and so he was. Damian stood there for a moment looking at her briefly before he turned to look at Grayson and Detective Kurt. He was trying to decipher what was being discussed that was so secretive. He only turned back when he realized that he wasn't getting anything that made sense. He turned to the girl only to find her staring right at him. 

"What are you looking at?" he asked her.

The girl jumped and quickly averted her gaze down to the ground. He hadn't meant to make her scared like that, he just wanted to know why she was looking at him. He hadn't realized his tone was a bit biting. 

"Nothing," she said, so quietly that Damian almost didn't catch it.

The girl was still looking down at the ground but she was fiddling with a small rock in her hands. Damian watched as she twirled it around in her fingers and as it traveled between her hands. The whole time the girl looked down at the ground. Damian wondered for a bit what the girl had found so interesting on the ground until he heard it. 

It was the sniffles that gave it away, that the girl had been crying as she was before. Damian's immediate action was to scoff at her show of emotion. It was a show of weakness to him, but Grayson's voice rang in his head reminding him that the girl had just seen her parents gunned down. At that moment, he remembered that he was here as Robin to help people rather than judge them.

At that point, Damian had made a conscious effort to sit down next to the girl and offer his condolences. 

"I'm sorry your parents died. Batman will find your parents' killer," Damian said staring across the street.

The girl was completely quiet but she did one thing that Damian hadn't expected her to do she stopped crying.  Damian wasn't sure if it had been his words that stopped her crying but at least she wasn't crying anymore. It was now silent. 

"What's your name?" Damian asked suddenly, surprising both himself and the girl.

Again, he almost missed it because of how soft her voice was. Marian. That's her name. 

"How about yours?" a very quiet voice asked.

"Robin," he answered her.

It was pure silence once again.

***

Dick had returned to find Damian sitting next to the girl. They were both sitting in silence but Dick noticed that the girl wasn't sobbing anymore. He felt a little relieved that she had been able to calm down a bit. 

When Dick approached the pair, Damian stood up to meet him. The girl's eyes shot up from the ground to look at Damian. Damian looked down at her. The girl still looking at him said, "Goodbye, Robin."

Damian seemed to be just as surprised as Dick but for different reasons. Dick was surprised because the girl had mustered a little smile when telling him goodbye. Damian was surprised because she spoke with more volume in her voice than he thought her capable of doing. 

Damian told her goodbye and walked back over to Dick. Dick and Damian walked back to the Batmobile, where a haunting truth loomed over him. He'd have to follow it up later but at least knew that girl seemed to be as okay as she could be in a situation like this. 

***

It's been four years now since that terrible night happened and Marian Kurt now lives with detective Larry Kurt who took her in after the case. She has been integrated into the Kurt family as one of his three daughters. She now attends Gotham Academy and has a completely normal life like any other fourteen-year-old girl. And there is nothing that going to change that, right?