Once in his room, Dick went straight to his bed and put his head into his pillow before screaming as loud and as hard as he could. He slammed his fists against the bed as he did, kicking his feet too until he didn't feel as awful anymore. Being stuck in a time he couldn't quite to gets to grips with and everyone focusing on something he knew for a fact would not work was frustrating, to say the least. His previous solution of just pretending to be okay and acting more like the man they lost didn't work to ease that anger either. It only pushed it down and it was bound to spring open. He'd barely been keeping the lid on it and their library intervention was the final straw. So it didn't matter how hot his face got as he buried it further into his pillow or how lightheaded he felt from hardly sucking in any air. In fact, that just made it all so much worse so he had to continue. 

A year ago in his time (a little part of him died every time he had to correct himself by adding "his time") he came to the Manor and had so many emotions. He'd just lost his parents and been ripped away from his life in the circus. He spent nights locked away as though he was a criminal and somewhere deep down he felt like it was a deserved punishment because he'd failed to notice the damaged wires. Then he was moved into a massive Manor with a despondent mentor and a butler who was a stickler for the rules. Of course, now he understood that Bruce was busy with Batman and Alfred wanted to give him some routine, but at the time it was simply too much. He was out of control and felt trapped after finding out that life was unfair and there was nothing he could do about it. Dick felt angry a lot of the time and was always slamming and throwing something or yelling about never even wanting to be there. He'd feel that red hot heat of anger prick against his skin uncomfortably and so horribly mad but then he'd get so worked up that he didn't know how to stop himself. Had he been himself a year ago he would be raining hell on his bedroom and maybe dragging everyone else in the Manor down with him.

He wasn't himself a year ago though.

Now he knew there were less destructive ways to blow off steam but that didn't make coming down from feeling so frustrated any easier. It was sort of like an out-of-body experience. He could see that he was getting engrossed in his emotions and that what he was doing currently was only making him uncomfortable which then made him mad yet that didn't stop him. Dick wished he was in his own time where he could've trained alone instead of having to keep himself in his room to avoid everyone. He didn't want to deal with their attempts at making him feel better or the way they looked at him or the quiet conspiring about options they had. So he screamed and thrashed.

An hour or so had passed and he still felt just as frustrated as when he began but now he had a headache and his throat hurt. He still kicked out and had thrown some of his pillows around but his screaming had devolved into quiet exhausted cries. His face was uncomfortably wet from tears and he just wanted to peel his skin off to let out some of the hot rage that lay beneath the surface. Dick jumped when he heard a knock at the door although he didn't have the energy to do much more than glare at it. Then when it opened he was painfully aware of how pitiful he must've looked as Bruce regarded him with an uneasy expression as though he was a snapping dog. 

"Are you done?"

"No!" he shouted croakily on instinct. Then after some consideration, he wasn't so sure of his answer. "Maybe! Leave me alone!"

"Do you want to be left alone?" He shrugged and sniffled as he flopped down onto the bed. "I thought so. You know, there are some people here who will understand your anger."

"I don't care. I don't want other people to tell me how to feel."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Did you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know." Bruce slipped inside the room and shut the door before sitting beside his ward. He reached out carefully and when he saw there was no sign of Dick leaning away, he cupped his face and wiped away some of the tears there. He sighed softly before letting go and heading to the bathroom. The acrobat watched him curiously and raised an eyebrow at the wet flannel he returned with only to be pleasantly surprised when it was dabbed against his warm skin to clean away the tear tracks.

"You know, people don't think of you as very angry. They know you have a temper but it's never the first five things they say about you," Bruce commented with a wistful tone that only went to aggravate the boy. 

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he asked bitterly. "Because it didn't. I'm not the person they're talking about. He is and he's not here."

"Just a comment," his mentor answered defensively although it was very clear he'd intended for that to be comforting. "I suppose I'll be doing this a lot. Telling you about yourself."

"Well, I don't want to hear it." 

"Dick-"

"You're just making it all so much harder B. I just want my dad. My version of you. Not his. Can't we just pretend he doesn't exist for five minutes a-and we're back in my time where none of this is happening? Please." He knew that he sounded helpless but that's exactly what he felt like. Nothing was in his control and everything he found familiar had changed. It was like a toy he'd forgotten outside and rediscovered months later covered in dirt and aged by the sun. For once, he wanted something to be completely the same, unchanged by time. "I need control again."

"I can't give you Robin if that's what you're asking, it's already taken," Bruce replied. Dick screwed his face up and picked up one of the remaining pillows before hitting the man around the head with it. "Hey!"

"Are you deaf? Did you get hit in the head? Because I asked for five minutes where we pretend things are fine and you just remind me of everything all the time!" He hit him again but there wasn't much power behind it as he would've liked because he was an over-tired nine-year-old trying to knock over a man in his mid-forties with a soft pillow. 

"We don't hit."

"Oh yeah? You hit him." Maybe it was a low blow but the anger was still flooding through his system and Bruce's hypocrisy had always been a thing that pissed him off. It proved to be a hard enough hit to make the man give up any attempt at making him feel better as he got up shaking his head. He walked out of the room but the adrenaline of getting a reaction drove Dick to follow him into the hallway. "Since you don't want me in the first place, I'm gonna give you a real reason not to! I'm going to raise hell and I'll make every day with me worse than the last until you finally realize your Dick Grayson is dead!" When that didn't get a response he fumbled for something else even more scathing. "I'm gonna make you regret your stupid fostering an orphan PR stunt! I'll make everyone regret meeting me. You'll wish Slade kept me!"

"I struggle with you so much no matter how old you are but one thing I will never wish upon is keeping you in a dangerous situation," Bruce snapped. "I understand that your anger-"

"You don't understand my anger! I don't even understand it!"

"Oh, chum."

"You stay away from me and you go tell the others the same. You don't want me here any more than I want to be here. When you figure out you can't change me back I can't wait to go back to juvie and show them all my cool new moves. Let them mess with me then." He turned and went back into his room, slamming the door behind him before running to his bed for round two of his tantrum.

Burnout hit like a bitch. If Dick wasn't feeling bad after his first come down then he definitely was now. Everything hurt and yet even after it all, he still felt that shallow sick feeling that sat at the bottom of his stomach. He'd guess it was guilt. Guilt for yelling at Bruce and finding some joy in seeing the man affected by what he said, guilt for trashing his room despite knowing how to deal with his anger properly and guilt for being such a burden. Over the course of the last few hours, he'd smashed photo frames, thrown clothes his older self had worn out the window and caused a large crack along his dresser from where he'd hit it with his lamp. His sheets were a mess, most of it lying off the bed, and his pillows were all over the place. Somehow one ended up in the bathtub although he hadn't remembered putting it there. The attached bathroom wasn't free from his anger either as he'd covered the mirror in toothpaste and shaving foam. 

Upon sobering up, he looked around at his work and alongside the sick feeling he was attributing to the guilt he felt a surge of panic at someone coming in and finding it. He didn't really want to go back to the juvenile detention centre even though he'd yelled about it before. He was terrified of the place and especially now that he was years in the future with no clue what kids these days were getting locked up for. As much as he wanted to avoid them, he did like this family he'd been stuck with and didn't want to lose them because he'd lost his temper. He could already hear Bruce's disappointed tone and he'd accepted his punishment for getting out of line but that didn't mean he wanted one. His heart was beating so hard against his chest that he thought it would burst out and add to the mess he made. Dick felt his chest constrict painfully, his breath leaving him faster than he could suck it in, and his hands instinctively making their way to his hair. He was vaguely aware of how hard he was tugging at it and he noticed it was sore so he must've done it before but couldn't place exactly when in his tantrum he had. He found himself backing into the bathroom and closing the door, quietly thankful that his older self was now allowed a lock on the door. He then moved to the bathtub, climbing inside and pushing himself until he was the furthest place away from the door. Bruce always told him he was safer with his back to the walls and one entry point to focus on. He didn't know why he needed that knowledge right now but he did. It made his speeding heart slow down ever so slightly though.

Dick didn't know how long had passed. The last thing he remembered was staring at the door but at some point, he'd unfocused his eyes and stopped seeing. He'd retreated back to his mind, coming up with stories where he'd show all the other kids at juvie who was boss and got fostered by a really lovely family. He played with the idea of being a hero in some of them but most of the time he focused on the comforting family stuff where they'd tell him he belonged there and they loved him. It was due to this retreat to a fantasy that he wasn't aware of anyone coming into the room and occupying the space in the doorway. God knows how long Damian had been standing there until he finally called out his name. Even then, as Dick recognised him standing there, he couldn't say anything. The teen looked frozen in place as his eyes wandered over the mess he'd created and later intended to clean but had been too panicked to do so. 

"I'm getting Father," was all he said before disappearing. In the back of his mind, Dick knew he needed to say no and plead for him not to let Bruce know but his jaw was locked in place. All he could do was stare. Why was he like this?

Again, Dick lost track of time until someone called his name and he was once again victim to the sudden crushing guilt of all he'd done. Bruce had appeared in the doorway with that same shocked look his son had worn before. His real son. God his mind hadn't even ventured down that road yet and now definitely wasn't the time to think about it but his mind was never really a fan of listening to him. Tears bubbled up in his eyes and he wasn't sure if it was from the embarrassment or from his new thoughts about his legitimacy as a Wayne.

"I'm so sorry," he choked out.

"I didn't think someone so tiny could cause such a mess," he heard Jason mutter from his bedroom. Damian said he was only getting Bruce but the others must've followed and were now bearing witness to the chaos. He couldn't even remember doing half of it. All he remembered clearly was feeling so angry that he thought he could explode into a million little pieces. Bruce stepped into the room but put his hand on the doorway to stop his son from entering alongside him. Something about that terrified Dick to his core and he tried to scramble further away despite already having his back pressed against the furthest wall. His reaction made his mentor pause and he took that time to apologise profusely in hopes of making up for it all.

"I know y-you taught me how to calm down I just- I couldn't. I'll clean it all up I promise I don't wanna go back to juvie. I promise I'll be good!"

"Chum, you're gonna make yourself sick breathing like that. Just concentrate on taking a nice deep breath for me. We can deal with the rest later, okay?"

"Not going to juvie?"

"You're never seeing the inside of that place ever again," Bruce told him firmly. He sniffled and rubbed at his eyes, nodding and believing him simply because it was better than not taking his promise at face value. "You're going through a lot right now so how about we work on getting this cleaned up and then put it all behind us."

"Clean slate?"

"Yeah, a clean slate." They'd done this before when he'd smashed a vase out of anger. He was ready for the punishment back then, ready for anything other than Bruce asking him why exactly he'd done it. A case worker had talked disapprovingly of his family and the next thing he knew, that worker was gone and he'd been given a clean slate. Dick knew they'd kept doing it through the years although it was increasingly done because of something Bruce did rather than his own actions. "All you have to do is tell me. Remember?" He chewed his bottom lip and sniffled as he thought about how to word it properly. 

"I'm stuck here and you guys don't want me. You want him and it's not fair. None of it is!"

"We do want you," Bruce soothed.

"No, you want the older me! The one who knows stuff and looks after your kids. I've read his journal, I know who you want and I can't! I'm nine Bruce and there's nothing I can do. You're all focusing on some wild goose chase and I'm sat here waiting for it to click and for you to not want me and-"

"Before you even say it, I'm not giving you up and you are never going back to where I found you. I'm not expecting you to do anything you would've done if you were in your twenties right now. You're nine and adjusting and struggling. We'll focus on that."

"What? And then everything will just work itself out? Everything will be okay?"

"Not everything but a good portion and we'll deal with what doesn't turn out okay. That's what families do."

"You promise?"

"I promise." Dick sighed and wiped at his eyes. Yeah, they'd deal with it. Not much else they could do.