Young Justice -:- Roots

Summary: Every hero has a tragic back story. This is the story of Robin; how one circus brat and extraordinary aerialist became the crowned prince of Gotham by day and the Boy Wonder by night. Was it happenstance that led to the world's first sidekick…? Or was this story already written in stone…?

Setting/Spoilers: Set pre-series obviously, as this is my take on Robin's origin story – mainly using the canon taken from the show (as shown in the comic) mixed in with some Robin: Year One and Nightwing (New 52).

Pairings: None (He is nine)

Genre/Rating: Family/Tragedy/Drama… Rated T because I may get a bit graphic in places

Disclaimer: If I owned Young Justice, it would have been called 'Robin the Awesome and his Band of Merry Protégés' – and there wouldn't have been a single episode where he was not the star. I mean… who wouldn't watch that?

Author's Note(s): Hello again! Just to confuse people, this next story in the series is actually the first, and we're going right back to the beginning to find out how Dick became Robin in the first place. Everyone knows the cliffnotes version, so I'm not going to spend too long on the facts that you know – this fic is all about the random headcanon that I've come up with to flesh out the gaps.

We are in first person past tense for this fic; with Dick telling his story to us. Generally, I despise first person perspective and avoid it like the plague. I find that it limits the writer to the intelligence and vocabulary of the character, and that if I spend too much time in a single person's headspace I get frustrated with them and just want to yell at them to get over themselves. But I digress. Besides, Dick's too awesome to get annoyed with :P

I know that in the show, Haly's Circus is American and Robin refers to their shows in Europe as a 'foreign tour' – but I think that most people in this fandom quite like the idea of Dick being Romani and as such Haly's would most likely be European, or maybe International? I'm not really sure. Basically, instead of using Google translate to put all the dialogue in Romanian, (and other various languages), everything is in English but [bracketed] if not actually in English... make sense?

Okay, the author's notes are over now… Enjoy!

Chapter One

Every hero has a tragic back story. It's practically an entry requirement for the world's most exclusive clubhouse. Mine is the ultimate rags-to-riches story that most of Gotham knows thanks to the power of the press – Circus Kid orphaned and then adopted by the city's most eligible Billionaire. But that's not the whole story… the small bit about me moonlighting as Robin isn't common knowledge for starters…

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Dick Grayson, and I have been Robin, in one sense or another, since I was nine years old. I was the first protégé, taken on by the Batman (the least people friendly hero ever) before anyone even knew what a sidekick was. Over the years, a lot of people have questioned his decision because of my age – Commissioner Gordon, the League, even our loyal butler Alfred… But that's because they don't understand.

They don't know the whole story.

It all began over a year before the Flying Graysons performed their final show – long before a billionaire took pity on an orphan – with a little girl called Annie Trudeau.

Her mother was a fortune teller from New Orleans that Pop Haly had picked up on the circus's first US tour. Madame Trudeau wasn't a part of the main show, but she was one of the welcoming attractions, entertaining the audience members before they even entered the Big Top. She was a hit with the punters who were eager to part with their cash to hear her often scarily accurate predictions, but amongst the circus folk her 'talent' was mocked and labelled a con.

This prejudice applied to her daughter as well.

There were tons of kids at Haly's Circus. Some were the children of the performers, like me, while some were orphans from previous acts that had been taken in without question. Some of them were runaways that had just shown up one day and never left. But even in a group of outcasts and freaks, there were still the bullies and the bullied.

That day it was Annie's turn to bear the brunt of the name-calling and cruel jibes. I was sitting on the roof of Jimmy Sr. the clown's trailer (I always have had a thing with high places) reading a book that I had 'borrowed' from the last city's public library. Most of the kids couldn't read or write – we never went to school or had a proper education – so the fact that I had self-taught myself basic literacy was one of those things that would most likely get me beaten up if the others knew. So no one did, it was one of my most closely guarded secrets.

I could hear the kids calling the usual names, and scooted to the edge of the roof to check it out. I saw little Annie Trudeau sitting on the grass with her knees pulled up to her chin as the bigger kids surrounded her and started singing. It was a stupid rhyme that basically called Annie's mother a whole lot of not-nice things, and before long the six-year old girl was crying and trying to avoid the odd kick that came her way.

My cousin John would always tell me not to get involved. As usual, I ignored him.

From my vantage point I scanned the sea of trailers and tents that surrounded the Big Top that was currently in the process of being dismantled so that we could move on to the next city. Typically, there wasn't a single adult in sight, which meant that unless I wanted to take Annie's place I would have to find a way to distract the horde of kids. Salvation came in the form of an undefended popcorn stand, and I grinned.

"[Guys!]" I yelled in my native language, leaning over the edge like a lookout on a pirate ship. I had to shout again, even louder this time in order to get their attention, but soon I had all eyes on me. Most of the kids didn't speak Romani, but there are certain things, like 'free popcorn', that translates well in all tongues. "[Old Harry's left his cart unguarded – it's a free for all!]"

All the faces below turned from angry sneers to excited smiles – the mob mentality shattered by the promise of buttery goodness. Within seconds the crowd was gone, and I smiled smugly at my own genius. But then I heard Annie, still curled up on the ground and sobbing quietly, her face buried in her arms. Without another thought I performed an impressive somersault off of the trailer (so I was a show-off… sue me) and landed lightly right next to her.

There wasn't really a default language at Haly's. It wasn't a Romani troupe – Pop Haly was American, my Aunt was Portuguese, my Mom was Russian... The circus was pretty much just made up of a whole bunch of people from all over the place. So, naturally, growing up there I had picked up a little of a lot of different dialects. Annie only spoke two languages; English and French. I wasn't exactly known for my proficiency in either, but I decided to give the latter a go anyway. I dropped into a handstand in front of her so that I could see her face. "[No cry is bad – it's done over now.]"

Annie looked shyly at my upside-down face and giggled between sniffles at my butchering of the French language. And then she rambled something in rapid-fire French, her southern accent so completely different to the Parisian of Jacques the Clown that I had learned that it was practically another language.

"Er…" I muttered intelligently, before making a show of losing my balance and flopping gracelessly onto the grass. Hopefully it distracted her from the fact that I had no idea what she had just said, but somehow I don't think that it worked. "[Yeah...?]"

She smiled at me and scrubbed at her tears with the back of her hand. And then she switched dialects. "I know that you can speak English."

I blinked stupidly at her. That was my dirty little secret (well, another one). Only the top adults, like Pop Haly and my parents and a few others could properly speak English (because it's a stupidly hard language to learn with all its stupid rules that don't make any sense and... ahem, I'll get to that rant later). It was the language that they used when they didn't want anyone else to know what they were talking about – so I had made it my mission to learn it too (kinda) so that I could eavesdrop on them. I had listened to whole conversations before that they didn't think that I could understand and learned loads. Only my cousin John knew, and I had sworn him to secrecy. He'd never tell anyone.

So how did Annie know?

"I won't tell, I promise," she whispered conspiratorially. Her gaze grew distant as she stared off somewhere over my left shoulder; something about her hazel eyes making me shift uncomfortably. "It's good that you can though. It will help. Make things a little easier."

I didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

She scoffed slightly, her face looking completely crestfallen, like someone had just told her that all the popcorn was gone. "What am I talking about? Nothing's going to be easy. I wish that it didn't have to happen… not to you. You're the only one that's nice to me."

She was freaking me out, but I tried very hard not to let it show on my face. She had just been bullied after all; I didn't want to be as mean to her as the other kids. "Umm… what?"

Annie blinked as if she was coming out of a trance, and then looked up at me with eyes that looked far older than her six years. I knew that her mother was a fortune teller, and a damn convincing one at that, but I didn't really believe in all that hocus pocus. I thought that it was an act, a con, like everyone else. But looking at that girl right then, not a trace of a lie marring her features… I totally believed that she had seen my future. And it wasn't exactly a happy one.

But I was also an eight-year-old boy with the attention span of a goldfish. In a few months, Annie and her mother would leave the circus, and I'd forget all about the odd little girl with the hazel eyes. I wouldn't even think about this weird encounter again for another year. By which point, it would be too late.

I sat on the grass, looking very confused as Annie climbed to her feet and brushed off her dress. She smiled sadly and said,

"You'll never stop flying, Robin."