[ Bruce knows. Dick risks a look and it's a mistake, because the moment he meets that sharp gaze that's what he sees. Every half-baked lie he'd been working on dies inside him. Bruce will know.

Maybe it's better this way. Maybe. He takes a breath. ]

...That sit-down you had with the people in charge here. Where they explained the whole... alternate reality thing? [ He's just going to silently pray right now that Bruce didn't skip out on orientation. ]

I'm from... one of those other realities. From another version of Gotham. [ There's no real way to know that for sure yet, but it's probably best to start there. It speaks to separation. A distance. Not an inevitability in the life of a boy barely into his teens.

He needs Bruce to listen. ]

Bruce Wayne is a friend of mine.