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In hindsight, this had probably been a bad idea.
In hindsight, this had obviously been a bad idea.
But, if nothing else, Dick was having too much fun to care.
----xxxx----
He and Damian had both managed to get the flu that was going around that winter. Alfred had all but burrito-ed the boy into his bed, with Dick promising three weeks of cuddling, cooing and eskimo kisses while in his Batman uniform if Damian left said bed without permission.
The look on Dick’s face must have spoken volumes about how little provocation he needed to jump at the chance to do just that...because, wow .
He hadn’t known that it was possible for a person to blush and blanch at the same time, but Damian sure pulled it off before diving under his blankets.
Though Dick knew he should be following the boy’s example and heading to bed himself, he couldn’t bring himself to not, at least, do a cursory patrol. So he chugged down a bit of cold syrup, flashed a disapproving Alfred a wide grin and left for the night.
Alfred must have been more disapproving than he’d originally thought because, not ten minutes into his patrol, Jason appeared at his side halfway through a swing between buildings. By that point, the cold syrup had really started kicking in and he could admit, if only to himself, that...yeah, he might have taken too much.
Because these buildings were moving past them super fast and for some reason he found that hilarious as hell.
“Do you realize that you’re doing that?” Jason asked, clearly choking back laughter.
Dick loosed his line and rolled to a stop on the top of the nearest building. He swayed a little standing up after but had managed to totally stick the landing. Jason landed next to him and stopped a couple feet away.
“Doing what,” Dick asked.
Jason was still grinning, though he was squinting at Dick suspiciously. After a moment, he took a deep breath and then laughed.
In the deep, near guttural voice Bruce used as Batman.
The voice Dick had adopted now that he was masquerading as Batman.
So no, he had not realized he’d been doing that. But, hearing that coming out of someone else’s mouth...well, that sent him into a giggling fit.
“Holy shit, is that how I sound like?” he asked through his laughter.
Jason nodded, having dissolved into his own voice as he laughed. “I saw a bunch of petty thugs nearly wet their pants when we flew over them! You should have seen their faces!”
And, just like that, both men calmed as a single thought passed through their minds in unison.
----xxxx----
So, it turns out that seeing Batman swinging through Gotham while his almost manic laughter booms through the air (while a duplicate does the exact same thing on the other side of Gotham), is the kind of thing that a city has a collective panic attack over.
And, when a city panics, the League usually gets called.
Dick sways a little more on his feet when he lands, not quite able to stop the Batman-deep giggles that were still leaking out. Clark reached out to take hold of his shoulders and steady him, clearly alarmed.
“Dick? Dick, were you dosed with something? Did the Joker-” He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Dick had fallen forward a bit to rest his face against Superman’s chest and, finding the suit surprisingly soft, rubbed his face against it like a pillow he was getting ready to fall asleep on.
“Took too much Robitussin. Sooo much ‘tussin. Like, maybe too much? Jesus, you’re soft. Did Bruce make this? It’s like...tall. Tall in goodness...like you, or something?”
Clark stared down at the man, who was looking up at him while clutching and releasing and padding at the cloth over his chest like a cat at this point. His eyebrows rose up high and he couldn’t help the smile growing over his face now that he knew there was no real danger to be found.
Though how even an acrobat as skilled as Dick was had managed to not end up as a splat on the ground at some point in the last hour, Clark didn’t know.
“Uh huh, okay. It’s time for all current and former Robins to be in bed now. I’ll take over your patrol for the night,” he said, pulling Dick up into a bridal carry and secretly being grateful that the real Bruce was off planet at this point.
Dick giggled softly (still in that voice , and Clark really didn’t want to put much thought into how he felt about that right now) and buried his face in Clark’s shoulder, pulling the red cape up over Clark’s shoulder to cover himself with.
“We’re gonna get Jay too, right?” he asked, voice starting to quiet now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off.
“Sure, we’ll get Jason and…” Clark paused at glanced down at his passenger, somehow already asleep in his arms, heartbeat evening out from the manic thing it’d been before.
Clark let out a huff of a laugh and flew off to find the other wayward bird.
“Your freaking kids, Bruce.”