In Dreams, Ch. 8
Pairing: Bruce/Dick (x2!)
Summary: I finally went through with my threats plans to write that thing where Regular!Bruce & Dick (I'm using a mix of Grant Morrison/New 52, only Damian isn't dead because that'd suck donkey balls) meet Bruce & Dick from Frank Miller notorious (and glorious XD) All-Star Batman and Robin. Sparks fly. Fists, too.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Abuse, angst, creepiness, idiot plot, purple prose, underage sex, violence.
Notes: Written for the Bruce/Dick Ficathon 2013. Wonderful cover art drawn by Lokiet! Thanks so much!
You can read it on AO3 HERE.
----
VIII.
"… I can't walk."
"Sure you can walk. We've walked all the way here. Don't be a brat."
"But …"
The teen in the dark hoodie and sunglasses clutches the brown package he's holding, and peeks out of the dark alley, at the hobo lurching around right in front of the Gotham Gazette's building. He licks his lips. Doesn't seem too long ago that both his lips and tongue have been on Batman's balls (feels like he can still taste them, despite the popsicle he's received for compensation), but the large man in the trench coat behind him apparently has already moved on from it.
"Almost done," he growls, in what resembles an encouraging tone.
Dick takes a deep breath and asks the same dangling question he's been asking over and over since they've wrapped up shooting.
"What'll become of me once it's done?"
He hears a dismissive snort. "You've been singing me that song for an hour. It's getting stale," Batman huffs, in lieu of an actual answer. But then: "… we'll talk later."
Dick's heart skips. Batman's been dodging the question from the get go, and he's sorta still doing it, but that's … that's a start. He'll take it. Dick'll take what he can get. He cranes his neck to gaze up at him with a cheeky grin.
This seems to fluster the big man. He shifts in his disguise. "You remember what you're supposed to do?"
It's Dick's turn to snort. "Walk over to that homeless guy, hand him fifty bucks, tell him to drop this off at the front desk? Think I can handle it. I'm not dense."
"You're not," Batman agrees to his pleasant surprise. "But you sure like to be asked twice." Except for in the bedroom. "Now move."
Turns out, getting his rocks off makes Batman a little less of a hardass, but not that much. Dick gives up grinning at him, and steps out into the open. He keeps his head down, though he isn't quite sure for whom. The plaza looks freaking deserted, apart from the man in rags shoveling through a trashcan. The early morning hours are traditionally Gotham's deadest hour. The criminal syndicates have already wrapped up their bloody business, and the good citizens aren't up yet. The only people awake are the first responders, the nurses and doctors and cops and firemen, 'cause those poor devils are always up. The Gotham Gazette's front desk is manned, though, and that's the important thing. In a few minutes, the woman hanging over the counter will receive a package that'll wipe that sleepy look off her face.
In a few minutes, Dick knows, he'll also have crossed over into irredeemable villainy. He'll kill this world's Batman and Robin (… right, Nightwing), who have done nothing to him, and he's not gonna look back. He figures, after all he's pulled in the past few months, it's not that big of a step.
His little walk over seems endless, though. And it's not only 'cause he feels as sore as if he'd been riding a horse for the last hour. (Turns out, his Bruce is way more selfish in bed than the other one was; but he's also even fierier, and Dick has to admit he digs that a little.) It's as if his feet are resisting him. His heart feels heavy. A part of his brain is screaming at him to throw the tape to the ground, then jump up and down on it until it's unusable. Batman would be so pissed, but when is he not. Dick doesn't fear his wrath that much anymore. It's his indifference that terrifies him now. But really, so what if Batman ditches him here; he's ditched him before, and Robin has always found his way back. He'll always find his way back to him.
He wants to be strong enough to do that now. He wants to be strong enough to defy his mentor, then turn around and demand he be taken home, anyway. Batman has always respected strength, perhaps he'd respect him, then.
He's so caught up in it that he doesn't even notice that the man he's doing all this for, the man who's waiting for him in the dark alleyway, suddenly gets yanked back with a startled grunt and a wire around his neck.
"Gramps, huh," the older Batman hisses in his ear as he drags him away.
But Dick doesn't see it, he doesn't hear it. He's got his eyes on the man in rags. The hobo interrupts his trash dive with a quizzical hum as the teen approaches. Dick understands why he's alarmed. He sure wouldn't be the first homeless man to get beaten up by a juvenile delinquent in this town. He looks out of it, too, barely able to stay on his plastic-wrapped feet. Dick steps closer, clammy hands clutching the brown package to his chest.
"Hey -"
Aaand he chokes.
He can't do it. It's wrong and he knows it. But he can't bring himself to turn around and face Batman's disappointment, either. He freezes, breaking out into a sweat, until someone else makes his choice for him.
When the homeless man moves, it's at a startling pace. Dick sees a flash of silver appear out from under his rags, and his brain kicks into gear a moment too late to tell him -
Run
And then, a strong hand reaches for his wrist, the cuffs snap shut around it, and a familiar voice mutters, "All right, lad, let's have a sit-down."
-----
"A word," Bruce says calmly, after slamming Batman into the wall a third time for good measure.
He hears something rattle in Batman's throat, and then a fleck of spit flies at his face. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't avoid it, either. He almost wants to thank him. It's deserved. It seems only appropriate that it's coming from himself.
It hits his puffy cheek, and he remains stoic while it slowly dribbles down his chin. Batman abandons his fruitless rage to take a good look at his bruised face for the first time. It makes him snicker. "Nightwing got you good," he assesses, not without satisfaction. But he starts glaring again when it gets no reaction from Bruce.
"Coward," he snarls. "Fight me."
"No."
Bruce looks at his own sneering, arrogant face. Young, proud, somewhat insane, seething with righteous anger. No fear, no shame. He hates him, and he envies him. But that's not important now.
"You don't want to fight me," he declares in a tired voice. "You don't think I'm worth it."
Batman snorts in agreement. "You look like a dead man," he points out.
Bruce doesn't doubt it. He doesn't feel as if he wants to live. He doesn't want to die either, he never does (too much unfinished business still), but he's not sure how to live, now. He's lost himself, he's lost whatever love Dick might have left for him. He's wearing the cowl, but he's disgusted with himself for doing it. He can't imagine getting up tomorrow, he can't imagine looking at his face in a mirror without wanting to break both. He so badly wants to lie down and play dead. The only thing he wants more than that is to end this, without bloodshed, and without more suffering. He owes it to Dick. He owes it to Robin. And that's why his hand stays locked around Batman's throat like a vice.
Batman had been right. He'd started it, he has to end it. After that, he can still fall down that steep, ragged dark hole that's opened up inside him.
"How," Batman growls at him, his curiosity overriding his desire to treat him like trash for a second, which makes sense. In his place, Bruce would want to know too.
He'd known that putting Damian on portal watch would have never been enough to truly stop them; it had been a diversion more than anything else, a sad attempt at saving face in front of his son. After his talk with Dick (the results of which he's trying to bury deep in the back of his mind for now, lest he'd start clawing the skin off his face), he'd been prepared to scour the entire city for them. But then, Batman had unexpectedly come to his aid.
"You went on a burglary rampage through some old Wayne Tech facilities," he reminds him, "Stealing some very specific things. And once I saw -" He hesitates, shudders, presses on. "I knew what you'd do."
Of course he did. They're not identical, obviously, but they share the same, catastrophic brain chemistry. How could he not know. "And I knew you wouldn't mail it."
Batman flashes him a cold, unimpressed smile, but it's masking something else, something buried deep, and shameful. "I only finished what you started."
Bruce resists the urge to slam him into the wall again. "I'd let you ruin me. But I won't let you ruin him."
"How nurturing." Batman tilts his head as well as he can with his throat in a deadlock. "It's not gonna make him crawl back to you," he says, soberly and without cruelty. "Not that one. Tell me you're not that pathetic."
Bruce doesn't even try to mask the pain pouring across his face. It's fine, he might as well see it. It's not as if he has any dignity left that's worth defending. He nearly says I know, but it's not as if either of them needs it.
Batman's red-rimmed eyes narrow. "What'd you do with the boy?" He now asks, attempting to crane his neck in the direction Robin has disappeared into. The note of real, possessive concern in his voice makes Bruce cringe with familiarity. "Where is he?"
"He's safe. I wouldn't harm him. But the tape is mine. And you'd have to cripple or kill me to get it back."
Batman's hands curl into fists in their heavy gauntlets. "Why does everyone here insist I won't kill? You are one man. You're old. I can take you."
"You'd have to try both of us, though. How 'bout that?"
Hearing his chipper, mellow voice from above sends a shock through Bruce's system. They both react to it, looking up at Nightwing peering down at them from the fire escape, wiggling his finger at Batman.
"I kicked your butt once," he says, "Don't make me do it again."
He's wearing that daredevil grin, but Bruce can tell that he's acting. Beneath it, he looks pale and miserable, and it makes his heart clench with guilt.
"Nightwing." It's hard to speak to him, but he's not ready to give up on it yet. "You should rest."
"You think I'd miss this?" Nightwing quips, but there's no warmth, no affection to it. It's not lost on Bruce, and not on Batman.
"Look at you," he barks up at him. "You're even worse off than the old perv who made you. A girl scout could take you."
"You know? You're right." Dick shoots him a sardonic smile. "I lost a lot of blood thanks to you. Actually, if you tipped me right now, I'd fall over. But I came anyway, to offer my moral support," he says, not once looking at Bruce. He points at the alley's entrance. "To him."
Batman's gaze follows his pointing finger, and then Bruce feels his body slump under his hands. His expression goes from sneering to startled little boy, and Bruce knows that, for once, he's made the right call.
"You didn't -" Batman croaks, and it sounds as petulant as it does defeated.
In the alleyway stands Alfred Pennyworth, with a handcuffed, pouting Robin flung over his shoulder and a stern look on his face. He's still in his homeless man's costume, which somehow doesn't make him seem less dignified in the slightest.
"I'm sorry, boss," Robin squawks. "He - he got the drop on me …"
"Whatever," Batman mumbles, mortified. He's barely able to look at the butler, who must be a perfect doppelganger of the man who'd raised him.
Bruce almost cracks a weak smile. The inspiration for this had come from Dick, like it had so many times over the years. Bruce came up with it after Dick mentioned in his grudging report that the only kind word Batman had spared had been for Alfred. Which wasn't much, on its face, but combined with what Bruce knows about himself, what he had gleaned from Robin's behavior …
Alfred Pennyworth is the one person that all four of them love, care for, and respect. He's the constant. He's the secret weapon.
But in order to get him to do this, of course Bruce had had to do something first. He'd had to disappoint the man whose respect, next to Dick's, had meant the most to him.
It seems as if his face is still ringing from the massive punch Alfred had delivered to him when he'd told him the truth about himself and Robin. (He hadn't slapped him; he'd outright punched him.) It corresponds with the swelling of his busted lip and cheek from where Dick has hit him earlier. It hurts, but nowhere near enough.
"Alfred." Bruce lowers his gaze, mirroring his other self. It's almost as difficult to look at his oldest friend as it is to look at Dick. "Excellent work, as usual."
The butler doesn’t answer him. "Master Dick," he says to the young man dangling from the fire escape. "I told you to stay in bed. You're in no condition to be scaling walls!"
"Apologies, Alfred." Dick sounds genuinely guilty. He slides down the stairs, hitting the ground a little more heavily than usual. "But I had to at least check on mini-me." He limps over and ruffles Robin's hair. The gesture isn't unfriendly, though harsh enough to make the boy wince. "Even if he's a brat."
"You're … not mad?" Robin squeaks, twisting his neck to look up at his counterpart. It'd be easy for him to wrestle out of the butler's grip, but he doesn't, which is another point for Bruce's theory.
"Eh," Dick says noncommittally, still with that biting smile on his face.
"Enough." Alfred uses one hand to balance Robin on his shoulder, and puts the other on his hip. "This has gone on long enough. We will resolve this once and for all, and we will do it in a civil manner, in a civilized environment. If I'm not mistaken, we have a safe house right around the corner. We'll resume this conversation there."
Dick gestures at Robin. "Want me to take him?" He offers.
"I appreciate it, Master Dick," Alfred says, shifting the boy on his shoulder with a soft groan, "But please, not in your current state."
"I could -" Batman grumbles.
"Or me, if you -" Bruce starts.
Dick gives both a consternated look while Alfred pierces them with stern, hard eyes. "Not you two," he snaps, extending a warning finger.
"Hey, I can walk," Robin protests weakly. "Let me down? I'm not gonna run, I swear."
Alfred seems skeptical for a moment, but ultimately relieved. "Very well, young Sir. I'll take you at your word."
He puts him down with a small huff, and Robin doesn't run. "Thank you, Mr Pennyworth," he says meekly, dusting himself off.
"The package is secured," Alfred informs Bruce, without seeming like he actually wants to talk to him, patting the bag he wears around his shoulder. "Now gentlemen, if you please."
He turns, and they all fall in line behind him, of course they do. Robin is in handcuffs, and Batman is flanked by Bruce and Dick, but Bruce isn't fooling himself; they could probably take all three of them in combat, if it came to it, and there's no telling who'd be left standing at the end. But the point is that they aren't going to try, not now, not after Alfred has gotten involved. Bruce knows Batman well enough to be sure. He might get into fights with him, might yell at him, and this version is probably even young and crude enough to shove him or even grab him by his impeccable collar. But even he wouldn't dream of harming him. And they both know it.
"Tattling to Alfred," Batman growls next to him, "What a bitch move."
"Worked well enough, didn't it," Bruce mutters back between clenched teeth, but his attention is on Dick, who quietly keeps in step with them, but seems less than thrilled to be in their presence.
"Stop it, Master Bruce," Alfred says, without turning around. "I'm not above putting you across my knees if you try my patience."
"Which one," they both ask in unison, before exchanging a nasty look.
Alfred makes a merciless noise in his throat. "Both."
And Dick doesn't even laugh at it.
----
Next Chapter
Summary: I finally went through with my threats plans to write that thing where Regular!Bruce & Dick (I'm using a mix of Grant Morrison/New 52, only Damian isn't dead because that'd suck donkey balls) meet Bruce & Dick from Frank Miller notorious (and glorious XD) All-Star Batman and Robin. Sparks fly. Fists, too.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Abuse, angst, creepiness, idiot plot, purple prose, underage sex, violence.
Notes: Written for the Bruce/Dick Ficathon 2013. Wonderful cover art drawn by Lokiet! Thanks so much!
You can read it on AO3 HERE.
----
VIII.
"… I can't walk."
"Sure you can walk. We've walked all the way here. Don't be a brat."
"But …"
The teen in the dark hoodie and sunglasses clutches the brown package he's holding, and peeks out of the dark alley, at the hobo lurching around right in front of the Gotham Gazette's building. He licks his lips. Doesn't seem too long ago that both his lips and tongue have been on Batman's balls (feels like he can still taste them, despite the popsicle he's received for compensation), but the large man in the trench coat behind him apparently has already moved on from it.
"Almost done," he growls, in what resembles an encouraging tone.
Dick takes a deep breath and asks the same dangling question he's been asking over and over since they've wrapped up shooting.
"What'll become of me once it's done?"
He hears a dismissive snort. "You've been singing me that song for an hour. It's getting stale," Batman huffs, in lieu of an actual answer. But then: "… we'll talk later."
Dick's heart skips. Batman's been dodging the question from the get go, and he's sorta still doing it, but that's … that's a start. He'll take it. Dick'll take what he can get. He cranes his neck to gaze up at him with a cheeky grin.
This seems to fluster the big man. He shifts in his disguise. "You remember what you're supposed to do?"
It's Dick's turn to snort. "Walk over to that homeless guy, hand him fifty bucks, tell him to drop this off at the front desk? Think I can handle it. I'm not dense."
"You're not," Batman agrees to his pleasant surprise. "But you sure like to be asked twice." Except for in the bedroom. "Now move."
Turns out, getting his rocks off makes Batman a little less of a hardass, but not that much. Dick gives up grinning at him, and steps out into the open. He keeps his head down, though he isn't quite sure for whom. The plaza looks freaking deserted, apart from the man in rags shoveling through a trashcan. The early morning hours are traditionally Gotham's deadest hour. The criminal syndicates have already wrapped up their bloody business, and the good citizens aren't up yet. The only people awake are the first responders, the nurses and doctors and cops and firemen, 'cause those poor devils are always up. The Gotham Gazette's front desk is manned, though, and that's the important thing. In a few minutes, the woman hanging over the counter will receive a package that'll wipe that sleepy look off her face.
In a few minutes, Dick knows, he'll also have crossed over into irredeemable villainy. He'll kill this world's Batman and Robin (… right, Nightwing), who have done nothing to him, and he's not gonna look back. He figures, after all he's pulled in the past few months, it's not that big of a step.
His little walk over seems endless, though. And it's not only 'cause he feels as sore as if he'd been riding a horse for the last hour. (Turns out, his Bruce is way more selfish in bed than the other one was; but he's also even fierier, and Dick has to admit he digs that a little.) It's as if his feet are resisting him. His heart feels heavy. A part of his brain is screaming at him to throw the tape to the ground, then jump up and down on it until it's unusable. Batman would be so pissed, but when is he not. Dick doesn't fear his wrath that much anymore. It's his indifference that terrifies him now. But really, so what if Batman ditches him here; he's ditched him before, and Robin has always found his way back. He'll always find his way back to him.
He wants to be strong enough to do that now. He wants to be strong enough to defy his mentor, then turn around and demand he be taken home, anyway. Batman has always respected strength, perhaps he'd respect him, then.
He's so caught up in it that he doesn't even notice that the man he's doing all this for, the man who's waiting for him in the dark alleyway, suddenly gets yanked back with a startled grunt and a wire around his neck.
"Gramps, huh," the older Batman hisses in his ear as he drags him away.
But Dick doesn't see it, he doesn't hear it. He's got his eyes on the man in rags. The hobo interrupts his trash dive with a quizzical hum as the teen approaches. Dick understands why he's alarmed. He sure wouldn't be the first homeless man to get beaten up by a juvenile delinquent in this town. He looks out of it, too, barely able to stay on his plastic-wrapped feet. Dick steps closer, clammy hands clutching the brown package to his chest.
"Hey -"
Aaand he chokes.
He can't do it. It's wrong and he knows it. But he can't bring himself to turn around and face Batman's disappointment, either. He freezes, breaking out into a sweat, until someone else makes his choice for him.
When the homeless man moves, it's at a startling pace. Dick sees a flash of silver appear out from under his rags, and his brain kicks into gear a moment too late to tell him -
Run
And then, a strong hand reaches for his wrist, the cuffs snap shut around it, and a familiar voice mutters, "All right, lad, let's have a sit-down."
-----
"A word," Bruce says calmly, after slamming Batman into the wall a third time for good measure.
He hears something rattle in Batman's throat, and then a fleck of spit flies at his face. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't avoid it, either. He almost wants to thank him. It's deserved. It seems only appropriate that it's coming from himself.
It hits his puffy cheek, and he remains stoic while it slowly dribbles down his chin. Batman abandons his fruitless rage to take a good look at his bruised face for the first time. It makes him snicker. "Nightwing got you good," he assesses, not without satisfaction. But he starts glaring again when it gets no reaction from Bruce.
"Coward," he snarls. "Fight me."
"No."
Bruce looks at his own sneering, arrogant face. Young, proud, somewhat insane, seething with righteous anger. No fear, no shame. He hates him, and he envies him. But that's not important now.
"You don't want to fight me," he declares in a tired voice. "You don't think I'm worth it."
Batman snorts in agreement. "You look like a dead man," he points out.
Bruce doesn't doubt it. He doesn't feel as if he wants to live. He doesn't want to die either, he never does (too much unfinished business still), but he's not sure how to live, now. He's lost himself, he's lost whatever love Dick might have left for him. He's wearing the cowl, but he's disgusted with himself for doing it. He can't imagine getting up tomorrow, he can't imagine looking at his face in a mirror without wanting to break both. He so badly wants to lie down and play dead. The only thing he wants more than that is to end this, without bloodshed, and without more suffering. He owes it to Dick. He owes it to Robin. And that's why his hand stays locked around Batman's throat like a vice.
Batman had been right. He'd started it, he has to end it. After that, he can still fall down that steep, ragged dark hole that's opened up inside him.
"How," Batman growls at him, his curiosity overriding his desire to treat him like trash for a second, which makes sense. In his place, Bruce would want to know too.
He'd known that putting Damian on portal watch would have never been enough to truly stop them; it had been a diversion more than anything else, a sad attempt at saving face in front of his son. After his talk with Dick (the results of which he's trying to bury deep in the back of his mind for now, lest he'd start clawing the skin off his face), he'd been prepared to scour the entire city for them. But then, Batman had unexpectedly come to his aid.
"You went on a burglary rampage through some old Wayne Tech facilities," he reminds him, "Stealing some very specific things. And once I saw -" He hesitates, shudders, presses on. "I knew what you'd do."
Of course he did. They're not identical, obviously, but they share the same, catastrophic brain chemistry. How could he not know. "And I knew you wouldn't mail it."
Batman flashes him a cold, unimpressed smile, but it's masking something else, something buried deep, and shameful. "I only finished what you started."
Bruce resists the urge to slam him into the wall again. "I'd let you ruin me. But I won't let you ruin him."
"How nurturing." Batman tilts his head as well as he can with his throat in a deadlock. "It's not gonna make him crawl back to you," he says, soberly and without cruelty. "Not that one. Tell me you're not that pathetic."
Bruce doesn't even try to mask the pain pouring across his face. It's fine, he might as well see it. It's not as if he has any dignity left that's worth defending. He nearly says I know, but it's not as if either of them needs it.
Batman's red-rimmed eyes narrow. "What'd you do with the boy?" He now asks, attempting to crane his neck in the direction Robin has disappeared into. The note of real, possessive concern in his voice makes Bruce cringe with familiarity. "Where is he?"
"He's safe. I wouldn't harm him. But the tape is mine. And you'd have to cripple or kill me to get it back."
Batman's hands curl into fists in their heavy gauntlets. "Why does everyone here insist I won't kill? You are one man. You're old. I can take you."
"You'd have to try both of us, though. How 'bout that?"
Hearing his chipper, mellow voice from above sends a shock through Bruce's system. They both react to it, looking up at Nightwing peering down at them from the fire escape, wiggling his finger at Batman.
"I kicked your butt once," he says, "Don't make me do it again."
He's wearing that daredevil grin, but Bruce can tell that he's acting. Beneath it, he looks pale and miserable, and it makes his heart clench with guilt.
"Nightwing." It's hard to speak to him, but he's not ready to give up on it yet. "You should rest."
"You think I'd miss this?" Nightwing quips, but there's no warmth, no affection to it. It's not lost on Bruce, and not on Batman.
"Look at you," he barks up at him. "You're even worse off than the old perv who made you. A girl scout could take you."
"You know? You're right." Dick shoots him a sardonic smile. "I lost a lot of blood thanks to you. Actually, if you tipped me right now, I'd fall over. But I came anyway, to offer my moral support," he says, not once looking at Bruce. He points at the alley's entrance. "To him."
Batman's gaze follows his pointing finger, and then Bruce feels his body slump under his hands. His expression goes from sneering to startled little boy, and Bruce knows that, for once, he's made the right call.
"You didn't -" Batman croaks, and it sounds as petulant as it does defeated.
In the alleyway stands Alfred Pennyworth, with a handcuffed, pouting Robin flung over his shoulder and a stern look on his face. He's still in his homeless man's costume, which somehow doesn't make him seem less dignified in the slightest.
"I'm sorry, boss," Robin squawks. "He - he got the drop on me …"
"Whatever," Batman mumbles, mortified. He's barely able to look at the butler, who must be a perfect doppelganger of the man who'd raised him.
Bruce almost cracks a weak smile. The inspiration for this had come from Dick, like it had so many times over the years. Bruce came up with it after Dick mentioned in his grudging report that the only kind word Batman had spared had been for Alfred. Which wasn't much, on its face, but combined with what Bruce knows about himself, what he had gleaned from Robin's behavior …
Alfred Pennyworth is the one person that all four of them love, care for, and respect. He's the constant. He's the secret weapon.
But in order to get him to do this, of course Bruce had had to do something first. He'd had to disappoint the man whose respect, next to Dick's, had meant the most to him.
It seems as if his face is still ringing from the massive punch Alfred had delivered to him when he'd told him the truth about himself and Robin. (He hadn't slapped him; he'd outright punched him.) It corresponds with the swelling of his busted lip and cheek from where Dick has hit him earlier. It hurts, but nowhere near enough.
"Alfred." Bruce lowers his gaze, mirroring his other self. It's almost as difficult to look at his oldest friend as it is to look at Dick. "Excellent work, as usual."
The butler doesn’t answer him. "Master Dick," he says to the young man dangling from the fire escape. "I told you to stay in bed. You're in no condition to be scaling walls!"
"Apologies, Alfred." Dick sounds genuinely guilty. He slides down the stairs, hitting the ground a little more heavily than usual. "But I had to at least check on mini-me." He limps over and ruffles Robin's hair. The gesture isn't unfriendly, though harsh enough to make the boy wince. "Even if he's a brat."
"You're … not mad?" Robin squeaks, twisting his neck to look up at his counterpart. It'd be easy for him to wrestle out of the butler's grip, but he doesn't, which is another point for Bruce's theory.
"Eh," Dick says noncommittally, still with that biting smile on his face.
"Enough." Alfred uses one hand to balance Robin on his shoulder, and puts the other on his hip. "This has gone on long enough. We will resolve this once and for all, and we will do it in a civil manner, in a civilized environment. If I'm not mistaken, we have a safe house right around the corner. We'll resume this conversation there."
Dick gestures at Robin. "Want me to take him?" He offers.
"I appreciate it, Master Dick," Alfred says, shifting the boy on his shoulder with a soft groan, "But please, not in your current state."
"I could -" Batman grumbles.
"Or me, if you -" Bruce starts.
Dick gives both a consternated look while Alfred pierces them with stern, hard eyes. "Not you two," he snaps, extending a warning finger.
"Hey, I can walk," Robin protests weakly. "Let me down? I'm not gonna run, I swear."
Alfred seems skeptical for a moment, but ultimately relieved. "Very well, young Sir. I'll take you at your word."
He puts him down with a small huff, and Robin doesn't run. "Thank you, Mr Pennyworth," he says meekly, dusting himself off.
"The package is secured," Alfred informs Bruce, without seeming like he actually wants to talk to him, patting the bag he wears around his shoulder. "Now gentlemen, if you please."
He turns, and they all fall in line behind him, of course they do. Robin is in handcuffs, and Batman is flanked by Bruce and Dick, but Bruce isn't fooling himself; they could probably take all three of them in combat, if it came to it, and there's no telling who'd be left standing at the end. But the point is that they aren't going to try, not now, not after Alfred has gotten involved. Bruce knows Batman well enough to be sure. He might get into fights with him, might yell at him, and this version is probably even young and crude enough to shove him or even grab him by his impeccable collar. But even he wouldn't dream of harming him. And they both know it.
"Tattling to Alfred," Batman growls next to him, "What a bitch move."
"Worked well enough, didn't it," Bruce mutters back between clenched teeth, but his attention is on Dick, who quietly keeps in step with them, but seems less than thrilled to be in their presence.
"Stop it, Master Bruce," Alfred says, without turning around. "I'm not above putting you across my knees if you try my patience."
"Which one," they both ask in unison, before exchanging a nasty look.
Alfred makes a merciless noise in his throat. "Both."
And Dick doesn't even laugh at it.
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