Chapter Text
Dick was late to work on the day Mr. Wayne made the announcement.
The universe evidently hated him, because he slipped into the office right in the middle of the morning briefing meeting. As usual, Mr. Wayne was standing in the doorway to his office next Alfred’s desk. He glanced over at Dick as he snuck in, but didn’t call him out in front of the rest of the department for being late.
“Before you all go back to your work today, I do have one last bit of sad news to share,” Mr. Wayne said. “Alfred Pennyworth, who has been my personal assistant since I took over Wayne Enterprises at the young age of eighteen, will be retiring on the first of March.”
Dick’s jaw dropped, and a murmur of shock went through the crowd.
Mr. Wayne cleared his throat, and everyone fell silent again.
“It goes without saying that Alfred will be greatly missed here at Wayne Enterprises, but he has earned his rest and relaxation a thousand times over. Please help me congratulate Alfred and thank him for his hard work.”
At once, all of them broke out into a roar of clapping and whistling. Mr. Wayne clapped with them, and those who had been seated stood up to give him a standing ovation. Stephanie shouted, “We love you Alfred!” and Alfred’s lip twitched into a small smile as the rest of the crowd laughed. There wasn’t a single one of them who had negative feelings about Alfred.
“There will be a reception for Alfred on his last day, of course,” Mr. Wayne said when they were done clapping. “Until then, Alfred has graciously offered to help me find his replacement. We encourage those of you who are interested in the job to apply.”
“You may ask me any question at all you have about the position,” Alfred said.
“Yes, please see me or Alfred if you have questions, and I hope you will all join us for Alfred’s retirement reception on the first. Thank you, everyone. That is all I have to tell you today.”
Dick wanted to go congratulate Alfred right away, but the silver-haired man was swarmed by a horde of people. Deciding he’d speak to Alfred later, Dick turned around and headed back to the back of the office and around the corner to his desk.
He arrived at the same time as Jason. As usual, Jason’s button down shirt was wrinkled and untucked. He whistled as he threw himself into his desk chair.
The office was set up as an open workspace, with several clusters of four desks that had low partitions. The design was supposed to encourage open communication and efficiency, but since Dick’s desk was across from Jason’s, there were plenty of times when the office’s layout had the opposite effect that it was supposed to have.
“Alfred leaving,” Jason said, shaking his head again as he logged into his computer. “Hard to believe.”
Someone walked behind Dick and around to the desk at Dick’s left. It was Tim. He nodded his head at Dick, ignored Jason, and sat down, pushing the power button on his computer as he settled in.
“Morning Tim,” Dick said, smiling at him. Then he looked across at Jason and said, “Yeah, I know. Alfred loves Mr. Wayne. I figured he’d stay here forever.”
“Well, good for him,” Jason said. Then he started jabbing at his keyboard with a finger and muttered, “Piece of shit computer. You know I thought for sure we were going to come in one day and find Alfred dead at his desk.”
Dick didn’t respond, but he saw Tim shoot Jason a disapproving look before he looked back down at his screen and started typing away at a furious pace. Listening to Tim type so fast made Dick feel guilty enough that he finally powered on his own computer.
“Nice work walking in late in front of everyone, by the way,” Jason said. Then, in a mocking tone, he said, “Oversleep?”
Dick ignored the tone and said, “Nope, just running late. Traffic and all that.”
Jason snorted, but didn’t say anything else, thank god.
Dick’s computer was at least on when Duke arrived.
“Hey man,” Jason said to him. “You talk to Alfred already?”
“Yeah, just now,” Duke said. Then, in a much quieter voice he said, “Heads up, the girls are heading back.”
Sure enough, Dick could hear Stephanie coming before he could even see any of them. Stephanie talked loud enough for all four of the department’s female interns, although Harper could occasionally give her a run for her money.
“Babs, please?” Stephanie was saying. “If I fail this midterm I’m going to get a D in the class and then I’m just going to have to retake it next semester.”
“I told you to talk to your professor weeks ago,” Barbara said.
Barbara came around the corner in her wheelchair first. Stephanie, Harper, and Cass were following in a little herd behind her.
“But you speak German! How come you won’t help me?” Stephanie asked.
“Hi boys,” Barbara said, waving at them before she went on the rest of the way to her desk.
The rest of the girls acted like they didn’t notice any of them, except for Stephanie, who put a hand on top of Tim’s head and started messing up his hair. He batted her hand away, but didn’t look away from his monitor.
“Cass would help me, wouldn’t you Cass?” Stephanie said as she sat down at her desk. Her spot was right behind Tim’s.
“Of course,” Cass said, smiling at her.
Stephanie beamed at Cass and held a hand out over the partition between their desks. Cass reached over to grab it. Barbara rolled her eyes as Cass and Stephanie clasped hands and grinned at each other.
“Cass is a true friend,” Stephanie said, and Barbara rolled her eyes.
The conversation was derailed a little bit when Jason started whistling something that sounded kind of like Coldplay’s Clocks. This was confirmed when he started whispering the lyrics in a terrible falsetto a little while later. Dick saw Harper turn her head and shoot Jason a side-eyed look, but she didn’t say anything. Harper was pretty new to WE, and not quite over finding Jason intimidating yet.
“Could you stop singing please?” Tim asked Jason, still not looking up from his work.
Jason ignored him and whispered, “Yoooouuuuuuuu, ohhhhhhh—”
Tim finally looked up and stared over his monitor at Jason, somehow managing to convey utter exasperation with his flat expression.
Stephanie had been with WE a lot longer than Harper, and was impervious to both Jason’s intimidating personality and his annoyingness.
“Guys I am so sad about Alfred leaving,” she said as she clacked away at her keyboard. She was about to say something else, but then her desk phone rang. She picked it up and, in her brightest, cheeriest voice, said, “Wayne Enterprises Corporate Office, Stephanie Brown speaking. How may I help you today?” There was a pause. “Oh hey Kara! What’s going on?”
After that they all got so busy that they didn’t really get a chance to chat amongst themselves for a while. They all had phones to answer, errands to run for Mr. Wayne and the non-intern employees, and other individual assignments to work on in the meantime.
For once Dick was glad about the fact that his current project was so easy and boring that he could let his mind wander, because he needed some time to think through the day’s development.
Of course Dick was sad that Alfred was leaving. He loved Alfred—they all did. On the other hand, Alfred’s position as Bruce Wayne’s personal assistant opening up now was kind of a godsend. Dick wasn’t qualified for most of the full-time-with-benefits kind of jobs that WE usually had open on account of the fact that he’d never taken a college class in his life. That was why he’d been stuck as an intern for so long. He was the oldest of the interns, and had been there the longest.
Personal assistants at WE didn’t need a college degree, though. If he got the job, Dick would make enough money to move out of his current apartment and get his own place. It would be stressful, sure—Dick didn’t even know how Alfred was still sane and standing after all of these years—but it would solve so many of his problems.
He had to get that job.
Dick kept working, and before he knew it, over three hours had passed. He was just returning to his desk from grabbing some coffee in the break room when he overheard Duke stuck on a difficult phone call.
“—of course we do, Mr. Cobblepot, but at this time Wayne Enterprises isn’t—”
There was a lot of yelling coming from the other end of the line. Duke held the phone away from his ear until it died down.
“Sir, I could help you find—”
There was more yelling and Duke stopped talking again.
Finally the yelling died down and Duke said, “I will pass that feedback along to my supervisor.”
Then there was a pause. Duke pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it.
“He hung up,” Duke explained when he saw Dick watching. He slammed the phone onto the receiver and said, “What a dick. I’m so glad it’s Friday.”
“Yeah, same,” said Dick.
“Don’t you have your weekend job to go to tonight?” Jason asked Dick.
Dick shot Jason a warning look over his monitor and said, “Not tonight.”
“Then you should come to The Outlaw with me.”
“As I have reminded you a thousand times, I don’t drink,” Dick said.
“So have a Shirley Temple you fucking child,” Jason said.
At that moment Stephanie returned from an errand and said, “Who is having a Shirley Temple?”
“Every time I ask Dick to hang out with me he makes up some kind of excuse for why he can’t. It’s starting to hurt my feelings,” Jason told her.
“Ooh, are we hanging out tonight?” she asked.
“No,” Dick said.
“Why not?” Stephanie said.
“I am going to The Outlaw,” Jason said. “Whatever the rest of you choose to do with your pathetic lives is none of my business.”
“Wasn’t a body found in the dumpster behind The Outlaw last year?” Tim asked, as usual not taking his eyes away from his screen.
“This is Gotham. They’ve found a body in literally every dumpster,” Jason said.
“I’ll go with you to The Outlaw, Jason,” Duke said.
Jason cocked an eyebrow and said, “You old enough to get in?”
“I turned 21 in July,” Duke said.
“Cool,” Jason said, then turned to Dick and said, “I rescind my offer to hang out. Duke is 21 now and he’s better than you anyway.”
“I’m going too!” Stephanie said. “Cass, are you in?”
Dick looked over and saw Cass nod. Stephanie cheered.
“Wait, is everybody going now?” Dick asked.
“Babs?” Stephanie said.
“No,” Barbara said. Dick wasn’t surprised, and even Stephanie wasn’t bullheaded enough to argue with her.
“What about you Harper?” Stephanie asked.
“Sure,” Harper said, shrugging. “Sounds fun.”
“Yay! Tim?” Stephanie said.
There was a pause. Dick thought for sure that Tim was going to say no.
“Sure,” Tim finally said.
Stephanie was the one who asked him, but even she looked shocked. Tim wouldn’t even sit with them in the cafeteria during lunch. He was always working through lunch or making up some excuse to sneak out of the building.
Stephanie took it in stride.
“Ok, cool then,” she said. “So that’s me, Cass, Harper, Tim, Jason, and Duke. What about you, Dick? Change your mind?”
Now that it was turning into a team affair, Dick was considering it in a different light. He didn’t have to work at his other job that evening, which almost never happened. Also, considering the fact that they spent so much time together, Dick didn’t know that much about the others except for the casual drop of information here and there. He probably should spend some time getting to know these people who he saw every day.
Plus it would be a good opportunity to find out who else was going to be applying for Alfred’s job.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll go,” Dick said.
Stephanie clapped her hands and jumped up and down.
“The whole fam!” she said. Then she shot a look at Barbara, who looked like she wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation anymore, and said, “Well, almost the whole fam. This is so exciting! It’s going to be so much fun!”
* * *
Dick had never particularly cared for bars. They were dark, they were dirty, and he didn’t drink alcohol, so he didn’t understand the appeal. The Outlaw was much more relaxed than Dick was expecting, however. Jason didn’t have terrible taste in bars after all, as it turned out.
The seven of them found a big enough table at the back of the bar and crammed around it. Dick was squashed between Tim and Cass. Stephanie was sitting on Cass’s other side. Across the table from them, Jason, Duke, and Harper sat in a row. Everybody was drinking except for Dick, who’d ordered a water.
For the first hour the conversation stayed on safe, familiar WE topics. They talked about how much they were going to miss Alfred, and about how Mr. Wayne was probably going to fall apart without him. After that they started telling their best Mr. Wayne stories, and Stephanie did a re-enactment of the time she saw Mr. Wayne eating nachos in the cafeteria. Then somehow the conversation got around to Mr. Dent, Mr. Wayne’s attorney.
“I swear to god, the day we find out he’s secretly been two people all along, I will not even be fucking surprised,” Jason said.
“There was this one time when I accidentally told him that he was meeting Mr. Wayne at 3:30 when his appointment was really at 3:40 and he looked me dead in the eyes and said that I was a waste of oxygen,” Stephanie said.
“What? That’s wild. He’s only ever been super nice to me,” Harper said.
Steph scoffed and said, “Just wait.”
Next to Dick, Tim flipped over his phone. Notifications had been blowing up his screen all night, and he hadn’t been participating that much in their conversation, except for the occasional comment here and there about Mr. Wayne.
So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when Tim said, “I have to go.”
“What? No!” Stephanie said.
“Sorry,” Tim said, shrugging. “I have some other plans tonight. I had fun, though. We should do this again sometime.”
“Tiiiiiim,” Stephanie whined as he slid out of the booth. “Don’t go, please?”
“Sorry,” he said.
He waved at them, turned, and walked away. They watched him head through the door.
As soon he’d left, Jason turned back around and said, “Ok, now that he’s gone, can I just say that I fucking hate that guy?”
Dick was pretty sure the feeling was mutual, but he still frowned and said, “What’s wrong with Tim?”
“Where do I start? He’s weird, he’s messy, he has no sense of humor. He has to be the one who hacked into my computer last month and downloaded every episode of Teen Wolf.”
Dick tried not to smile. Tim was absolutely the one who had downloaded every episode of Teen Wolf on Jason’s work computer. IT got all up in arms about it and it was hilarious.
“If he is the one who downloaded every episode of Teen Wolf on your computer then you can’t say he has no sense of humor,” Dick said.
“He’s really nice once you get to know him,” Stephanie said. “He’s a little private, but he was so helpful when Cass and I got sent to help R&D move out of their old office back in June. Right Cass?”
Cass nodded.
“I’m just saying, if he’s applying for Alfred’s position then that little asshole is going down,” Jason said.
“Do you really think he’ll apply?” Duke asked, frowning.
“Of course he will,” Jason said. “Tim is obsessed with Mr. Wayne. He basically stalks him already. Do you think he’d pass up an opportunity to do it for a living?”
“So, you are also applying for Alfred’s job, then?” Dick said.
“Fuck yeah I am,” Jason said.
Dick wasn’t surprised or that concerned about it. Jason and Mr. Wayne had a difficult relationship. He even got fired from WE for a while and just got rehired a couple of months ago. Mr. Wayne wanting to make Jason the person he worked with the most every day was unlikely.
“Why would you want to be Mr. Wayne’s personal assistant?” Dick asked him. “Your entire life would revolve around him. Don’t you kind of hate him?”
“Don’t care,” Jason said. “I need that tuition reimbursement.”
Mr. Wayne was very generous to his employees—the non-interns, anyway. Full-time salaried employees got full benefits and tuition reimbursement, regardless of what major they were studying and whether or not it was related to their job. That was why so many WE employees were college students.
Most of the people sitting around the table with him were college students, actually. Jason, Harper, Duke, and Stephanie for sure. Cass maybe—she was kind of quiet, so Dick didn’t know much about her personal life.
“So who else is applying?” Dick asked, looking around at all of them.
“Me,” Stephanie said right away.
“Me too,” Duke said.
“Me as well,” Harper said.
Cass raised her hand.
“So, all of you,” Dick said. And, well...that was unfortunate.
“What about you, Dick?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Dick said.
Jason whistled and said, “All of us. Well, it was nice being friends for about ten seconds.”
“Aren’t you a little worried that mixing college with a job like Alfred’s a bad idea?” Dick asked them.
Stephanie brightened up and said, “Yes, but I’m graduating at the end of the semester!”
“Congratulations,” Dick said, and a murmur of congratulations went around the table, some of them more enthusiastic than the others.
It was kind of mean, but he wasn’t really that worried about her either. Stephanie was great, but she could be a little too overzealous sometimes, and her relationship with Mr. Wayne was rocky at best. Also, Kara Danvers, one of the reporters who worked across the street at the newspaper, was one of her best friends. Mr. Wayne was constantly having to tell Stephanie to stop leaking embarrassing stories about him to the press.
“What about you two?” Dick said, looking at Duke and Harper.
“I’m only taking two classes at a time,” Duke said. “I can balance that until I graduate. Being a business major isn’t that hard.”
Dick had no idea whether or not that was true. He looked at Harper next. He knew she was studying electrical engineering.
“I mean...yeah, it would be a lot,” she said. “But the tuition reimbursement. Plus it would be nice to make more. I haven’t been working for WE for very long, so I’m probably not going to get it, but my brother is going to be graduating from high school soon and I would like to be able to help him go to college if that’s what he wants.”
“That’s so sweet, Harper,” Stephanie said, then she laughed. “Way sweeter than why I want the job. I just want to move out of my mom’s house.”
Dick looked around Stephanie over at Cass and said, “What about you? Why do you want the job?”
Cass thought about the question for a moment. No one spoke while they waited for her answer.
At last Cass said, “I like Mr. Wayne.”
Then she smiled. Dick figured that was all they were going to be able to get out of her, which was a shame, because out of all of them he had a feeling she was his biggest competition for the job.
Dick thought one of them was going to ask him why he was applying for the job next, so he was kind of annoyed when Harper said, “If Barbara is applying then we’re all doomed. Mr. Wayne loves her. I think he would adopt her if he could.”
Stephanie shook her head and said, “Nah, she won’t.”
“Why not?” Duke asked.
“She’s in graduate school. She’s just doing this until she’s done,” Stephanie said.
“Really? Studying what?” Duke asked.
“Library science,” Dick said.
Duke raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, good. If Barbara is out then that leaves Tim, and if he wants it then we don’t stand a chance.”
Stephanie raised her eyebrows and nodded, and Jason frowned and narrowed his eyes. Harper chewed on one of her nails. Dick just smiled to himself a little.
“Tim’s pretty good at IT stuff. He could’ve transferred ages ago, so why doesn’t he?” Harper asked.
“I told you. It’s because he’s obsessed with Mr. Wayne,” Jason said.
Duke groaned and said, “Then he’s definitely going to apply for the job.”
“Frankly I’m offended that you’re all so quick to assume that Tim is your real competition,” Dick said.
They all looked over at him, frowning. In an almost indulgent way, Jason said, “You don’t think you have a better shot than the rest of us, right?”
“Why, because I didn’t go to college? I don’t need a degree to be qualified for Alfred’s job. I’ve been working for WE the longest out of all of you, and Mr. Wayne and Alfred love me. I have been working two jobs this whole time so Mr. Wayne knows I’m a hard worker. So yeah, I have a shot. A better shot than the rest of you, I think.”
All at once, they all looked so much more alert and hungry than they had just a moment before.
“Ok man,” Jason said, shooting him a sharp smile. “Then I’m coming for you too.”
“Really Jason?” Dick asked, cocking his head. “Really? You got called into Mr. Wayne’s office three times last week. I’m willing to bet there’s not a single person at this table who thinks you have a real shot.”
Jason glowered around the table at all of them. Stephanie, bless her, was the only one among them who pursed her lips and shook her head at Jason, while the rest of them looked sheepish and avoided eye contact.
“Ok, first of all, fuck all of you,” Jason said, pointing at them. “I bet I can at least get a second interview.” He pointed at Cass and said, “Second, my money is on Cass getting the job”—Cass sat up a little straighter and smiled—“but if not her then definitely me.”
“I still think Tim is going to get it,” Harper said.
“I am smart and delightful,” Stephanie said, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I’m definitely going to get it. You guys are going to regret betting against me.”
“Wait, are we actually betting? And also I’m with Harper. I think Tim is going to get it,” Duke said.
“We can make actual bets,” Jason said.
“Because that’s not a recipe for disaster,” Dick said.
“I want the job,” Cass said.
“Wow, not a single one of you thinks I can get it,” Dick said. “Offensive. When I get the job, the first thing I’m going to do is recommend that you all get moved to the night shift.”
Stephanie shot him an appraising look and said, “I would love that actually.”
“Yeah, same,” Harper said. “Ideal time.”
Duke frowned and looked like he was about to object, but then Stephanie said, “Never mind, I’m betting on Dick just because I want this night shift thing.”
Jason, ever a lover of chaos, cackled and said, “Alright, how much, blondie?”
He pulled out his phone to write it down and Stephanie said, “Twenty dollars.”
“Come on, that’s it?” Jason said.
“Well how much are you betting?” Stephanie asked.
“Wow, this is why coworkers and alcohol really shouldn’t mix,” Dick said.
“Betting was your idea, jackass,” Jason said.
“It's an expression! I wasn’t serious,” Dick said, but every single one of them ignored him and started shouting out names and dollar amounts at Jason.
As Dick watched them all cheerfully bet against each other, he thought to himself that there was no way this wouldn't end badly for all of them. One particular outcome was certain: this was going to be a disaster.