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The storm is bad enough to drive even some of Gotham’s worst inside, which means that Batman gets to wring out his cape and call it a night as well. It really could not have come at a better time; Bruce has been running on fumes for practically the past week, and he’s ready to face-plant into his mattress and sleep in well past a time that Alfred deems acceptable.
Decked out in his comfiest sweats and practically dead on his feet, Bruce makes his way up to his bedroom. The only thing that could come between him and his bed right now is checking in on Dick. Just a brief peek in to see the kiddo sleeping happily, make sure there are no nightmares tonight…
Dick isn’t in his bed. Dick isn’t in his bed.
In an instant, Bruce’s heart is racing, ice flooding his veins. From practically dead on his feet to running headlong into panic-mode, looking for who he’s supposed to punch, who he’s supposed to hurt for daring to touch his kid.
Compartmentalizing, which has always prided himself so much on, has suddenly become damn near-impossible, but he needs to get started. The sooner he starts looking for clues, the sooner he can have Dick back safe in his arms. He lurches forward toward Dick’s rumpled bed. The sheets are scattered— signs of struggle —but the comforter is completely gone, as is Dick’s stuffed elephant Zitka. What kind of kidnappers also take the kid’s blankets and stuffed animal?
“Bruce?” Dick.
Bruce follows the sound, crouching down beside the bed as he tries to silence his still-pounding heart. Dick is curled up under his bed, Zitka in his arms and his blanket cocooned around him. Not kidnapped, not missing, not in danger. Just… terrified. In the faint glow of the nightlight, Dick’s face is pale and his watery eyes are as wide as saucers.
“Dickie, what are you doing under there?”
In lieu of a verbal response, Dick launches himself at Bruce. He slams into his chest with far less grace than the baby acrobat usually possesses, getting tangled slightly in his blanket. On instinct—and experience, having been forced to catch a flying tiny acrobat on numerous occasions now—Bruce’s arms come up to properly hold his child, one arm keeping him secure against his chest, the other rising to cup the back of his head. Dick has a fistful of his shirt clenched tightly in his hand and his nose smooshed against Bruce’s shoulder. The bony knees digging into Bruce’s stomach are quickly forgotten when Bruce realizes that the child in his arms is trembling.
“Hey, hey, whoa kiddo. What’s wrong?”
Dick shakes his head, rubbing his face back and forth against Bruce’s shoulder. “I was scared,” he mumbles, face turned just enough to not muffle his own words into Bruce’s shirt.
“Did you have a bad dream?” They’d been getting better, but Bruce knows all too well that they never fully go away, and any number of things could have caused a nightmare tonight. Bruce has been carefully compiling a list of all of Dick’s triggers, and anything else that could potentially hurt his severely traumatized kid.
Surprisingly, Dick shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “I couldn’t even fall asleep.”
Bruce scratches at the back of his scalp, fingers catching on a few tangles that he gently tugs free. Repetitive motion, tactile comfort. He’s also been carefully compiling a list of the best ways to comfort Dick.
“What’s—” A loud crack of thunder interrupts him, and Dick jerks in his arms, a full-body flinch as a whimper escapes him. “Oh.”
The storm. It’s not anything to do with watching his family fall, with the weeks of confusion and turmoil after his whole world was ripped away, with the abuse and neglect he faced in the detention center. It’s a thunderstorm. Honestly, Bruce is a little unprepared for what is a very normal kid thing.
“It’s okay, Dickie. It’s just a little thunder. It can’t hurt you. You’re okay.”
Surprisingly, that just seems to make Dick even more upset. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, burrowing even further in Bruce's arms. “I know. It’s so stupid!”
“It’s not, Dickie, no. It’s okay, it’s okay. You are not stupid, and nothing you think or feel is stupid either.”
“It’s not even… There’s so much more to be scared of. It’s stupid. ”
“No, sweetheart. It’s perfectly normal.”
Dick pauses, head tilting to gaze up at Bruce. Every one of the tear tracks on his face cuts Bruce like a knife, and he swipes his thumb across his cheeks to wipe them away. “Really?
“Really. There are certain things that humans are naturally afraid of, like snakes or the dark, but these fears are built in to protect us. We’re naturally afraid of things that could hurt us. It’s a survival mechanism. Fear is designed to warn us and inspire us to get out of dangerous situations.”
“But thunder isn’t dangerous,” Dick whines. “So my fear is stupid.”
“You’re right, thunder can’t hurt you. But loud noises, like thunder, can signify that something dangerous is going on. It’s perfectly normal to be afraid of thunder, Dickie. And even if it weren’t, even if you were scared of, say, blueberries—” Dick giggles, and Bruce smiles at him gently, “—that would still be okay. Whatever you’re afraid of, your feelings are valid, and we can work through them together, deal?”
“Okay.” He sniffles, but the tears seem to have died off. “Are you scared of anything, Bruce?”
“Of course I am, kiddo.”
“Oh. Like what?”
In the past few months, all of Bruce’s nightmares have skewed squarely toward one common theme: losing Dick. Dick getting hurt, Dick dying, Dick being taken away by any number of forces. Bruce’s truly evil psyche has become quite adept at discovering new terrors for him.
“Spiders,” Bruce says instead. “They give me the heebie jeebies.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll take them outside for you then,” Dick says. Bruce’s heart is threatening to burst. “They don’t scare me. I think maybe they used to—and that would be normal, right? Because some spiders can be dangerous if you upset them? Or if they’re, like, venomous?”
“Sure.” Dick Grayson is one smart cookie. Bruce feels prouder than he probably has any right to.
Dick nods. “Well, I used to be scared of them, but one of the contortionists at… at the circus, she had a pet tarantula named Salazar, and he was—” Dick yawns loudly. “He was really nice.”
“Hm. I’ll have to take your word for it. Do you think you can sleep now, kiddo?”
“I don’t know,” Dick says, so unsure.
“Do you want to come sleep in my room tonight?”
“Could I?”
“Of course. C’mon, bud.”
“Carry me?”
Bruce chuckles. “Sure.” He slides an arm behind Dick’s knees and lets the kid wrap his still too-skinny arms around his neck. Bruce knows that he’s stronger than the average millionaire, but Dick weighs practically nothing in his arms. Leslie hadn’t mentioned him being underweight during his last checkup, but he should probably ask her. This can’t be the normal weight for a seven-year-old—not that Bruce actually knows all that much about seven-year-olds…
Zitka, clenched in one of Dick’s hands, bounces against Bruce’s neck as he walks, but otherwise Dick is still, the late hour and the lingering fear making him unusually sedated.
Bruce dumps Dick unceremoniously onto his bed, something that never fails to make Dick giggle and squeal as he bounces against the pile of pillows. He's not disappointed this time either. Bruce flops down next to him, lifting up the comforter to let Dick scramble in next to him. Dick goes immediately, tucking himself back securely against Bruce’s side just in time for another crack of thunder to split the night.
“It’s okay, chum,” Bruce says. The adrenaline from thinking Dick had gone missing has entirely faded away, leaving him exhausted. Heavy eyelids droop closed, and he can only hope that Dick will be able to follow his lead. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Dick mumbles something, but Bruce’s world has gone too hazy to catch it.
Please get some sleep, Dickie. I’m sure we both could use it.
He jolts awake to the sound of his name and a tiny hand roughly shaking his shoulder.
“Bruce,” Dick whimpers.
“Hey, hey.” Bruce blinks several times, willing his eyes to focus on Dick’s face. “What’s up, Dickie?”
“I’m sorry,” Dick sobs. “I couldn’t sleep and I just got so scared. Ugh, I shouldn’t have woken you up. I’m sorry. ”
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re fine. It’s okay.” He glances at the clock on his nightstand while continuing to rub clumsy circles on Dick’s back. 3:34 a.m. He’s been asleep for roughly an hour, and from the sound of it, the storm hasn’t died down at all. How he managed to sleep through any of it is a testament to how exhausted he must be, but he should have known better than to think that Dick would be able to sleep, even just given how loud it is.
He’s been learning, and learning fast, but he’s still so woefully unprepared for all this. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s not like he can stop the storm. If he could wave a magic wand and make the sky clear—or even if he could call up someone from his large contact list full of metas who could control the weather—he would. He would honestly disrupt Gotham’s weather patterns if it meant Dick would stop crying.
“Do you think there’s any chance you’ll be able to fall asleep?”
Dick shakes his head, looking impossibly sad. “No. I tried, Bruce, I promise. I tried really hard, but I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry. ”
Okay, so if they can’t get rid of the storm, maybe they can escape it. If Bruce weren’t sure that he’d pass out behind the wheel, then he would pack Dick into one of his fastest—yet safest; he’s virtually stopped driving some of his cars simply because of their safety ratings—cars and hightail it out from under the clouds. But he’ll kill them both if he gets behind the wheel right now, so that’s not an option.
“Alright,” Bruce says. “Grab Zitka. I’ve got a plan.”
Is this his best plan? Probably not, but he’s making it up on the fly, and the whole parenting thing is still relatively uncharted territory. Both Alfred and Clark have insisted that that’s okay—even Dick says that as long as he’s trying his best, then he is the best. Bruce hates making mistakes, but they’re inevitable when it comes to Dick. If this kid still somehow, in some incomprehensible way, loves him after Bruce lost him at the zoo (and at W.E., and at the supermarket, and at a gala…) and shrunk all of his shirts trying to do laundry, then maybe he’s doing okay.
Bruce gives Dick a piggyback ride down to the cave, stopping only to scribble a hopefully not incomprehensible note for Alfred to read in the morning. He settles Dick in the computer chair while he blearily gathers supplies. At least it’s relatively quiet down in the cave, but it’s also dark and damp and the silence is punctuated by the occasional sound of the bats up above.
Bruce kneels down in front of the chair, gently pressing a domino mask to Dick’s face. He’s so small that it looks almost too big on him. It also sends a spike of anxiety shooting through him; Dick has been training to go out on the streets for a while now, but Bruce is still terrified of the day that he’s actually ready. Seeing him in a mask just reminds him that Dick is determined to go out, that one day he’ll actually have to let him out to face off with Gotham criminals. He mentally adds an additional six items to Dick’s training plan.
“What are you doing, Bruce?” Dick wrinkles his nose, still relatively unused to the feeling of a mask sticking to his skin. “Where are we going?”
“We’re gonna get you out of this storm, kiddo.” He puts on a mask of his own. He’d debated bothering with the cowl, but it’s not like he can sleep with it anyway (Although, if he’s tired enough to sleep through this storm, he might also be tired enough to sleep with the cowl pinching his nose).
“But why do we need masks?”
“Where we’re going, not everybody knows who we are. It’s important that they only know me as Batman, not as Bruce Wayne.”
“Oh. Am I… Am I supposed to be Robin then?”
“If anyone asks, sure.” But they probably won’t see anyone. Not if Bruce can help it at least. “Just don’t tell them my name or your name unless I tell you it’s okay.”
“Okay. I won’t, Bruce, don’t worry.”
“I know, bud. I trust you.” He does, somehow. Completely. Dick has quickly shot to the top of a very short list of people that Bruce truly, wholly loves trusts.
He gently guides Dick over to the cave's zetabeam. This is probably some sort of abuse of his status as a League Founder, but he can't find it in himself to care.
“Okay, this might feel a little weird," he tells Dick gently. "Let me know if it makes you feel dizzy or sick at all, okay?”
“Okay.” Dick looks a little confused, but he slips a small hand into Bruce's much larger one, nodding as he prepares himself for whatever Bruce has planned. This kid is so brave, and so so trusting of Bruce, that it's a little bit scary.
Bruce steps through the zeta, tightening his hand around Dick’s even though he knows they won’t get separated in the zeta. Dick is used to quadruple somersaults, but teleportation is a different feeling, and the last thing he wants is for Dick to feel confused and disoriented. It took Flash all of three weeks to get used to the feeling, and he can run faster than the speed of light.
“Whoa,” Dick breathes as the Watchtower appears around them.
“You okay?”
Dick smiles up at him. “Totally. But, where are we?”
“It’s called the Watchtower,” Bruce explains. “The headquarters of the Justice League.”
“Whoa,” Dick repeats, eyes going wide. “Where are we exactly though?”
Bruce can’t help but smirk. Dick loves heights ( surprisingly ) and he loves flying. If he was that excited to be on an airplane (bouncing in his seat, eyes never leaving the window until they were surrounded by the white of clouds and finally passing out against Bruce’s shoulder once he promised to wake the boy back up the moment he was able to see more than clouds outside of the window), being in literal outer space just might be the highlight of his month.
“Come take a look.”
Bruce leads Dick over to the nearest window, admittedly a bit eager to see Dick’s reaction. It does not disappoint.
After seeing his kid teary and frightened all night, watching his face light up in wonder is a breath of fresh air. It’s worth all the fatigue weighing down his limbs, it’s worth the judgement he’s surely receiving from whoever’s on monitor duty tonight. (It’s J’onn, he realizes belatedly. Could be a lot worse. Could be Jordan, although even then it would still probably be worth it.)
“Whoa,” Dick breathes. “We’re in space.”
“We sure are.” Bruce’s grin is completely involuntary. He couldn’t fight it off if he tried.
“That’s the earth!”
“It is.”
Dick reaches out, palms splayed across the window as he leans forward until his forehead bumps against the glass. Bruce can no longer see his face, but Dick is bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, a sure sign of his excitement. It’s like all the sadness and fear from earlier in the night have been wiped away. Well, what kid wouldn’t be distracted by the fact that they’re in space? Actually, what adult? Bruce has gotten used to the Watchtower. He’s been off-world countless times. But seeing Dick experience it for the first time reawakens some childish excitement in his chest that he hasn’t felt since… since he was Dick’s age.
Having Dick in his life, having someone to care for and about, is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
“See now, kiddo, the storm can’t get us up here.”
“Wow. It’s so weird to think about, ya know? It’s still storming, but it’s all the way down there.”
“Mmhm. Do you feel better now?”
Dick pulls away from the glass just to wrap himself around Bruce’s middle. “A million times better, B. This is the coolest thing ever! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s get you to bed. Or else Alfred’s gonna have my head,” he mumbles the last part, just loud enough for Dick to hear him.
“Oh.” Dick’s demeanor suddenly turns downtrodden and Bruce is terrified he’s made a mistake somewhere. “Okay, yeah. I guess that’s the whole reason we came here, huh.”
“…We can look out the window a little bit longer if you want, chum.”
“Really? It’s okay, B. You were really sleepy…”
“I can stay awake a little bit longer, kiddo. It’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Bruce is still tired though, so he settles in on the floor. Dick plops down to be next to him, leaning his head to rest against Bruce’s shoulder. For a long moment, the two of them simply exist, watching the Earth turn below them.
Dick shivers slightly, curling up to pull his bare feet off of the cold floor.
“Here.” Bruce hoists Dick up on his hip and carries him away from the window. Dick whines slightly, but they only go as far as the nearest couch, where there’s a spare blanket draped across the back, for those post-mission naps that Bruce has never once partaken in. They settle back in in front of the window, the large blanket wrapped around both of their shoulders.
“Do you feel small,” Dick asks, gaze still staring out the window, “when you’re up here?”
Bruce hesitates. “Not really. I just sort of. Feel. Not really one way or the other. Besides, there's nothing wrong with being small. Even small people can make a big impact on the world.” He pokes Dick’s side, relishing in the resulting giggles. That’s his favorite sound in the whole entire universe; there’s nothing out there that could top it. “Does this make you feel small, kiddo?”
Dick shakes his head. “No. I’ve been to a lot of places on Earth. This just kind of shows me how far I’ve actually travelled.”
“Yeah?” Bruce has travelled around the world as well, but those aren’t stories he wants to share with Dick. But Dick makes fast friends wherever he goes; his stories of the world are warm and bright and beautiful, made up of simple luxuries and good people.
Dick chatters about his time traveling the world with the circus (and Bruce is so, so impressed by how Dick can talk about his parents. He knows he misses them like a lost limb more often than not, and some of the stories make his breath hitch in a mimicry of a sob, but still Dick is able to speak about them with happiness, to remember the good times without being overwhelmed by his grief. It makes Bruce feel like he must be doing something right.) until his voice turns soft with sleep and yawns punctuate every other sentence.
Bruce himself is barely awake, eyes drifting closed as he leans heavier and heavier against the wall. Dick is a comfortable weight against his side, curled up with his chin resting squarely on his stuffed elephant. This was so not the plan. Anyone in the League could walk in and find them here for Pete’s sake. He needs to get up, needs to take Dick and go sleep in a real bed (if only so he won’t completely screw up his back).
Bruce drifts off almost immediately after Dick.
Because—even when not in the cowl—he’s still Batman, Bruce shoots awake the moment approaching footsteps make the existence of another person known. Bruce has long-since trained himself to be ready to fight for his life immediately upon waking up. Sometimes it’s a bit overkill when the thing that's waking him up is actually just Dick seeking comfort after a nightmare, but c’est la vie. Better safe than sorry.
Dick, however, does not stir.
(Internally, Bruce sighs. He hates the idea of training his child to be as paranoid as he is, but if Dick wants to be a part of this life, that paranoia will save him at some point. He somehow managed to wind up with the bravest kid in the world, and that scares Bruce just as much as he loves it.)
Bruce wraps a protective arm tightly around his son, causing Dick to make a tiny, adorable sound in his sleep.
The intruder turns out to be none other than the great Superman himself.
Superman. Staring down at Batman with a far-too-amused grin on his face. While Batman himself is wearing a ragged, decade-old, slightly-stained sweatshirt for a band he doesn’t even know and probably has some severe bedhead. Not to mention there’s a sleeping child sprawled across his lap, preventing him from moving.
“Not a word,” Bruce growls. It’s probably not very effective when he’s still blinking the bleariness of sleep out of his eyes and fighting back a massive yawn.
“I didn’t say a thing.” That smirk is rather unbecoming for someone who’s supposed to be a superhero. Batman will have to bring it up at the next League meeting.
New rule: No smirking at Batman's expense. All other League Members are fair game.
“There was a storm in Gotham.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“Good.”
“Good.” Superman pauses, but neither of them move. Bruce feels naked without his cowl. “I think Flash is making pancakes.”
“…Robin likes chocolate chips.”
“You got it.”
Superman finally leaves, but not without shooting one last soft smile at Dick’s sleeping form tucked against his side and Bruce’s arm tightens around his kid in a sudden stab of possessiveness. Dick, still happily off in dreamland, takes it as a prompting to snuggle closer.
I will always protect you, he thinks. Always. From anything, no matter how trivial.
Even if I have to make a fool out of myself in front of the great Boy Scout himself to do it.