Chapter Text
The dragon of Gotham is an inky black, terrifyingly powerful reptilian death machine. Feared by criminals all over the world, both human and not, his reputation is one of ruthless, clever, silent intellect, the kind that could save the world as much as it could destroy it.
He is Power. He is Darkness. He is Vengeance.
He is… also a little, ah, stuck , at the moment.
“Alfred,” Bruce whispers desperately.
The butler doesn’t take any pity on him, choosing instead to snicker quietly just outside Bruce’s field of vision, stacking logs on the robust fire in the fireplace. Traitor. “Yes, Master Bruce?”
Bruce tries not to breathe too hard, for fear that the warm little body on his lap might wake or slide off or- or something , dammit, he’s not experienced with humans! “The boy is… asleep. On me.” The dragon wills his butler to understand just how much of a dilemma this is.
No such luck. Alfred just raises a perfectly British eyebrow from the corner of Bruce’s gaze. “Have you considered being a detective, sir?”
“What do I do?” Bruce begs.
Dick lets out another soft snore, and Bruce freezes again, hardly daring to breathe. “You seem to be doing perfectly adequate at the moment,” Alfred notes dryly. Bruce wonders absently what he did in some past life to deserve such a traitorous, mean butler.
It’s Dick’s first night at the Manor, and Bruce has been running himself ragged to accommodate him. It’s just- the boy is so small compared to Bruce’s bulk, even when he’s in human form, let alone his giant draconic body.
Dick’s so sad too, sad in a way Bruce can understand. It’s been years since his sires died, but Bruce still remembers that night down to the last detail. It’s only been days since Dick was orphaned, and while the child is bubblier than Bruce had been, he spends a significant portion of his time crying into Bruce’s chest. His shirt is still wet with Dick’s salty tears, he can smell it even now. It opens a pit in his stomach that aches.
It’s a very well-kept secret that sometimes, dragons with extraordinary control can shift from human to dragon form on command. Bruce is, naturally, one of these shifters. He’s done it so much, trained himself so intensely, that the low pain of the shift barely registers in his mind anymore.
And he’d been there that night, with Alfred, watching Haly’s Circus. He’d watched the Graysons fall, felt Dick’s shock and horror echoed in his own heart so clearly it was like they had been his loss.
He’d heard the crowd, the gasps and the screams. But most of all, he’d watched Dick, had really, really looked at him, like he’d never looked at a human before, and had discovered the light tug of possession in his stomach. Bruce had given up on hoping he’d feel the hoarding urge, but that night, Dick awoke a fierce craving within Gotham’s dragon to… to protect the boy.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting dinner brought to you?” Alfred says, not even trying to hide his amusement. The dragon doesn’t acknowledge him beyond a slight pout.
Bruce’s tail hesitantly curls around the Dick’s lithe body, pressing him closer to Bruce’s chest before the limb deftly retreats back into the dragon’s body. “What if I ruin him?” he whispers.
“You won’t,” Alfred says firmly. He places his hand on Bruce’s shoulder comfortingly. “I won’t let you.”
“Okay,” Bruce breathes. A sense of relief fills him. “Okay.”
“Sleep, Master Bruce. We’ll deal with this in the morning, just like always.”
And he does.
-~*~-
In the morning, Bruce is awoken by a bouncing weight clambering along his shoulders. It takes him a second to realize where he is and who is climbing him; he’s not very used to sleeping in human form. “Dick?” he rumbles.
The boy lets out an annoyed huff right next to Bruce’s left ear. “Jeez, B, you’ve been sleeping for hours. Get upppp!”
To the casual observer, one would think Dick had forgotten his parents’ gruesome death, but Bruce just has to take one look at those crystal-blue eyes to see the deep sadness lingering beneath the surface. And of course, the fact that Dick had cried himself to sleep on Bruce’s chest the night before.
The fireplace, which had been roaring when Bruce had closed his eyes, is now a pile of ashes, not even smoldering. He’s slept far longer than he had meant to. “What time is it,” Bruce rumbles groggily.
“Time for you to get up, ” Dick says insistently. “‘m hungry and you’re so slow. You’re never this slow when you’re a giant lizard.”
“Dragons are not lizards, Dick,” Bruce corrects mildly. “Not even close.”
“Pssh. Whatever,” Dick scoffs, prodding at Bruce’s back and the raised bumps of his wing-sheathes, which twitch and elongate under his mischievous touch.
Bruce huffs and climbs off the armchair, feeling his bones and skin begin to shift. “That wasn’t very nice, chum.”
“Sorry, not sorry.”
Through the whole transformation, Dick clings to Bruce’s neck until he’s twelve feet in the air. Bruce lowers the boy gently to the floor, where Dick scampers off only to run to Bruce’s front and wrap the dragon’s snout in a hug.
“Dangerous,” Bruce murmurs.
Dick hums. “Warm,” he counters. “I like you.”
Something in Bruce’s chest softens. “ I like you too,” he admits.
“Good,” Dick nods firmly as if he has fixed everything wrong in the world. And in some way, Bruce marvels, he has.
“Now, can we finally get breakfast? I really am hungry.”