Work Text:
When Bruce received a call from commissioner Gordon in the Batcave at an ungodly hour in the morning—on his day off, by the way—he was immediately gripped with panic, rightly assuming that something terrible had happened and that he was needed. However, his worry was short lived and replaced with confusion when he met with Gordon on the top of a random building and found Robin smiling sheepishly next to a very annoyed Jim Gordon.
"What's going on here?" Batman asked. He looked at his thirteen-year-old for some type of explanation.
Before Robin could say anything, Gordon handed Batman a phone. Dick's phone. "This should explain everything," Gordon said wryly. "You deal with that. I'm heading to bed."
Once Gordon walked away, Batman sighed. "What did you do?"
"Look," Dick began. "We were just playing a light-hearted prank. Just to get even, you know? You don't need to watch that." He tried to take the phone out of Batman's hand, but the Dark Knight turned away from him and clicked on the video that was paused on the screen.
Robin stood in front of the Arkham Asylum gate, holding two baking pans, while snickers and giggles came from whoever was recording and watching. Batman recognized those voices: Kid Flash and Batgirl; Robin's favorite redheads.
"You guys are about to witness the official release my latest single called Never Gonna Sleep," Robin said with his signature mischievous smile. "These villains are constantly making us loose sleep—with no remorse whatsoever, mind you! So why not give them a taste of their own medicine?"
Kid Flash cheered. He momentarily flipped the camera towards himself and Batgirl, making a silly face while Batgirl crossed her arms with an amused quirk of her brow.
"Alright, follow me," Robin instructed. Batman watched with disbelief as the three young heroes snuck into the asylum and made their way to the cells. (Erm, sorry. I meant 'psych wards.')
They stopped at a wall by a corner where a guard could be seen walking up and down a hall.
"You guys ready?" Robin whispered. Kid Flash turned the camera to himself again to show his enthusiastically nodding only for him to be smacked upside the head by Batgirl who told him to stop messing with the camera.
Unfortunately, Batgirl's slap had caught Kid Flash by surprise. Dick's phone slipped out of his hand and hit the floor with a loud clatter that rung throughout the entire hall.
Now at an odd angle from the floor, the camera showed the three heroes stiffening as the guard called out from afar, "who's there?"
Batgirl glared at Kid Flash. "Nice going, Klutz."
Even with a mask on, Kid Flash's indignation was clear. "Huh? Excuse me, you're the one who smacked me!"
The guard's footsteps became audible as he neared closer to the corner. By the sound of it, he was running.
"C'mon, guys," Robin said, picking up the phone and handing it to Kid Flash. "It's now or never. Let's deal with the guard and do this thing!"
Although still glaring at one another, Batgirl and Kid Flash complied. They all casually approached the guard who had been running towards their direction.
"Batgirl and Robin?" The woman questioned, halting to a stop when she realized that these intruders were just heroes. "And Kid Flash. What's going on here?"
"We're filming a music video for Robin," Batgirl informed, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
The guard scratched her head. ". . . Ok? That sounds fun and all, but why are you here?"
"Well, the music video is for my song, which is a diss track against the villains," Robin explained. "So I wanted to film it here. In front of them. You get me?"
"Oh, sure, sure," the woman said. "I have no objection to that. I just don't see why you are doing it now when it's one 'o' clock in the morning."
"It has to be when the villains are sleeping. You'll understand when we start. If . . . if we have your permission?" Robin asked. "Uh, actually, where even are the other guards?"
The guard sighed, shaking her head. "It's just me, dear. Nobody wants to work here, so we're understaffed."
"Oh, that's terrible," Batgirl commented. "I mean, the Joker is here. You'd think security would be better." Robin and Kid Flash agreed with her.
"Yes, well, there's nothing I can do about that. But since I'm the only one in charge right now, I'm more than happy to let you kids record your song here," the guard said with a friendly smile.
The three heroes happily thanked the woman.
"Okay, guys," Robin said to Batgirl and Kid Flash, "it's time."
"Let's do this!" Kid Flash hollered as he pulled out Barbara's phone from . . . who knows where; Wally didn't have pockets or a belt. Robin grabbed his pans, one in each hand, and they began doing the most ridiculous thing Batman had ever seen.
A familiar rhythm consisting of a saxophone began to blast from Barbara's phone while Batgirl kicked the inmate's cells and Dick hit the pans against each other.
"I'm tired of y'all crazies in this house!" Robin shouted. "Y'all gonna make me loose my mind! Where's the Joker! Where's the Riddler! Get your butts up here right now!"
The lyrics, "give it to me; I'm worth it" played in the background.
"I don't get no sleep 'cause of y'all! Y'all never gonna sleep 'cause of me!" Robin sang angrily. "I don't get no sleep 'cause of y'all! Y'all never gonna sleep 'cause of me!"
Robin's extremely noisy song was clearly working, because all the inmates walked up to their cell bars with bed head and irritated expressions. Their mouths moved, probably to tell him to stop it, but Robin made sure to yell over them so that they couldn't be heard.
Then, they saw him. Joker. He looked more confused than angry at the disruption. He was definitely disheveled, though, with his eyes puffy from sleep and his face creased from his pillow, and Batman would be lying if he didn't feel some satisfaction from knowing they had disturbed his sleep for once.
Robin sang the same lyrics a couple more times, mostly to Joker's face, but he passed by every cell on that floor to give every one inside a piece of his mind. There was some real passion in that voice. The song ended when Robin reached a cell where someone, whose face was obscured with their blanket, was still fast asleep.
"Wha—how?" Kid Flash cried out.
The guard who had been accompanying them reached into her belt and unhooked a key. "Go get 'em," she offered with a wink.
"Oh, I freaking love you," Robin said through his wide grin as he picked the key and used it to unlock the cell. He strode to the bed and ripped the blanket off the inmate.
It was no other than Harley Quinn.
She groaned sleepily, and Robin gently flicked her forehead, remorselessly uttering, "wake up."
.
.
.
Batman turned off the phone and looked down at Robin who had been watching the video with him.
"Wow, KF is a great cameraman," Robin noted. "He recorded, like, everything."
"He sure did," Batman replied pointedly.
Robin sighed, but it wasn't an upset one. Instead, he smiled, looking up at Batman with an expression the man could read perfectly even with the mask. "C'mon. You know it's funny. It's okay, I won't tell anyone you laughed."
The kid knew he wasn't in trouble, so instead he was teasing Batman. The audacity.
"Okay, but actually you should be thanking us. We totally got an insider look at the security in that place. No wonder the villains are always escaping!" Robin exclaimed.
"Hm. I can't deny that. We'll definitely need to do something about it," Batman said. "But for now, we sleep, Robin. Some of us don't have infinite energy."
"Okay," Robin said. They left the building they had been on and hopped into the Batmobile. On the way home, Robin broke the silence they had been in. "You're not actually mad, are you?"
Batman looked at his son. "Do I seem mad?"
"I don't know. I just feel guilty for waking you up this late. Or, uh, early?"
"I'm not mad, Dick," Batman assured. "Though I am curious: where did the whole singer thing come from?"
"Oh," Robin said. He softly puffed through his nose in amusement. "Well . . . Have you ever noticed how similar Bruce and Batman sound?"
"Not really."
"Well, they sound similar. So sometimes I'm like, 'hey, Bru—I mean Batman.' And I sound like I'm beat boxing, like, 'br-b-b-br.' It's ridiculous. Even with Batgirl! Barbara and Batgirl! Her name is even worse than yours. So, anyway, sometimes criminals will catch my mistake and look at me weirdly, so I somehow ended up coming up with this story that I like to beatbox and sing. I eventually decided to actually go along with it and even created the song when Joker released all those monkeys in the city at three in the morning on a school day."
"Ah, it all makes sense now," Batman said with a smirk. Leave it to Dick to blow something like this out of proportion.
"I'm still wondering how Harley slept through all of my craziness," Robin mentioned.
"She's dating Joker," Batman said. "I think that's explantation enough."
"Touché."