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Tim groans internally. Of course when he goes to stop an attempted warehouse robbery, it has to be Bernard who is around as well.
It’s like a curse.
He’s run into him as Red Robin so many times already and it’s slowly getting old. He loves his boyfriend, he does but he still hasn’t managed to tell Bernard about the whole vigilante business.
It’s not only his secret, he knows that, but he’s pretty sure no one would have an issue with it. He’s known Bernard for ages now, and they’ve been dating for over a year. Even Bruce adores him and indulges him in his conspiracy theories, seeming actually endeared by him.
But still, Tim is scared. He realizes the irony of thinking this while he’s fighting three robbers with knives.
Emotions and feelings are scary though. Those he can’t fight. Idiots he can knock out and evade their elbows and fucking molotows - what the hell - but feelings? They’re there whether you want them to be there or not. They suck .
And he’s scared of telling Bernard out of some possibly misguided fear of rejection.
He hates keeping things from him, keeping secrets from him hurts when normally Tim’s bread and butter is keeping secrets. He’s good at it but sometimes, he really doesn’t like it.
Imagining to go home and talk to him tomorrow on their date and have to pretend to be surprised at what happened, his very real concern, hearing Bernard talk and come up with more theories and lore without being able to say, that was me - it was me and when I saw you there I nearly got a heart attack . To be able to say, please be more careful, I know you can protect yourself but not from everything and what happens if I’m not there and you’re outclassed? He wanted to tell him tomorrow, but he - he doesn’t know if he can.
Losing Bernard is - he doesn’t even want to imagine it. He’s lost so many people already, too many. And Bernard isn’t like them, not a vigilante, not a hero. If he died, there likely wouldn’t be a happy comeback and a reunion. No ‘just’ being lost in time, no future heroes that could help.
Just another grave.
Tim’s eyes burn. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong and the anxiety is racking up and he can’t stop it at all. There is a cut on his arms, he doesn’t remember being cut, when did it happen? He can’t - he can’t remember, he’s fought the robbers but they had knives and a bomb - no, just a molotow.
He sways but tries desperately to keep standing, he can’t fall here he has to get back to the cave. Something is wrong and there is someone yelling in his ear but also behind him? There was someone there, he knows him. He wanted to protect someone?
Thinking is hard and his head feels sluggish, his heartbeat too fast. Why is he out here, it’s not safe here, it’s too open. He has to get inside, somewhere. Has to hide. They’re coming, they’re coming -
Someone kicks him, hard and painful and he can’t fully clamp down on his scream. He falls, and falls and hits something hard that gives way in a sudden wet and cold burst. Water, that’s water and suddenly he can’t breathe and he can’t come up, his arms aren’t working everything in him is screaming. His lungs burn, burn, burn and everything is turning black and it hurts.
A shape bursts through the water above him and it comes closer, he can’t get away, he’s trapped and hurting and he can’t breathe -
Bernard hadn’t expected to be caught up in a robbery today but here he is. It’s his own damn fault really for walking on his own in one of the seedier parts of Gotham at this time of day - or rather, night.
And of course, like clockwork, Red Robin shows up and proceeds to beat the shit out of the robbers. It’s been happening a lot lately, way more often than he thought would be possible to run into Red Robin. He’s certain that he runs into him way more often than the average Gothamite and he would love to pull up or research some statistics and see if he’s right or not. And if he is, then why and if he isn’t then why would he notice it so much-
His thoughts come to a screeching halt when he realizes that something is wrong, capital w Wrong.
Red Robin has knocked out two out of three of the robbers; the only one still standing is a big guy that has already sustained his fair share of injuries. Three people are certainly not enough to tire him out. But Red Robin seems to suddenly get sloppier and slower in his form, taking some hits and not even evading most of them.
And - he can’t really tell from the distance but Red Robin seems panicked, the guy talks at him but it’s clear that he doesn’t process it. He sways where he’s standing and Bernard yells but to no avail.
He starts to run when he realizes what the robber wants to do but he isn’t fast enough, not nearly fast enough to stop him when he kicks Red Robin over the railing and into the Gotham Harbor.
Gritting his teeth he tries to be even faster and before the guy has even fully turned around, Bernard slams into him with a flying leap and manages to bash into the railing, knocking him out hopefully and seemingly hitting his own head in the process. But he has no time to check, without a second thought he jumps into the water after Red Robin.
There is no time to think about how bad of an idea this is, what could happen if Red Robin has a bad reaction to who he is. If he’d make Bernard leave Gotham. He doesn’t think Red Robin would but he’s always had anxiety about this scenario. Though he’d rather expose himself than risk someone dying.
The moment he hits the water, he lets the transformation wash over himself. His pants rip apart as his legs merge in favor of a tail, his shoes gone with them and with one powerful thrust of his tail, he speeds towards the sinking and trashing form of Red Robin. He sees how the vigilante gets weaker by the second, limbs moving slower and eyes closing and as fast as he’s able to, he gets under him, grabs him under the armpits to speed back to the surface.
Or not speed . As painful as it is for Bernard he can’t get up too fast and risk hurting or even injuring Red Robin more than he already is. Luckily, he was able to catch him while they were still pretty close to the surface but he doesn’t want to take any risk.
They breach the surface and Bernard lets out an immense breath when Red Robin starts to cough and splutter near immediately.
He swims them to a relatively hidden path right at the water and under a bridge, the stairs leading down to it full of crates, barrels and wood, hopefully enough that no one tries coming down here or seeing them from above.
With little effort he deposits Red Robin on the little walkway and heaves himself up and out of the water beside him. He won’t be able to transform back for a bit - as he’s half human he literally cannot transform back and forth - and if he does it too early it’s going to be incredibly painful. Which means he also can’t get any help because his phone is in a backpack that he just left near the warehouse when he went sprinting after Red Robin like a madman.
His tail splashes up a bit of water as he thinks and he grimaces. The water might not be able to give him any disease but it’s still not clean at all and stinks . It can’t be healthy for Red Robin who ingested quite a bit of it, regardless if he coughed it up again.
He feels for a pulse and it’s there, luckily even if it’s beating erratically, but it is beating and he didn’t have to perform CPR which seems to be a miracle of its own. He can’t check Red Robin’s pupils as they are obstructed by the mask and he won’t just take it off, just to check. But it seems likely he’s been drugged, or something else has happened and he needs a doctor as soon as possible.
As close as he is to check everything he hears something like - static? Someone talking maybe, and he looks around before realizing it has to be Red Robin’s communicator. Bernard swallows, he doesn’t know if he should risk it and take it but they need to get him somewhere where he can get medical attention.
He hopes he won’t get shocked or anything by taking it out of his ear.
There is a woman’s voice talking, calling for Red Robin and he swallows all of his nervousness and holds the comm to his ear - he doesn’t want to actually stick it in, one because it’s weird and two his ears currently really do not have the right shape.
“Hello?” He says, asks really, his nervousness evident in his voice even to his own ears.
“Who are you? How did you get this comm?!” asks the voice coldly.
“I’m uhm. Bernard Dowd, Red Robin stopped a warehouse robbery while I was walking by but - something weird happened, he fought the guys and knocked them out but then he started swaying or something. As if he were drugged,” he says in one rush without breathing in at all.
“There was a big guy there and he managed to kick him into the harbor, I took off after him and managed to get him on land again. No CPR but he coughed up a lot of water and is unresponsive and needs medical attention. Right now.”
Bernard pants and takes in some more air, tries to listen to what the woman is gonna say next.
The women seems to breathe out a sigh of relief, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he says. “Everybody would’ve done that.”
“You’re from Gotham aren’t you, you know just as well that not everybody would have done that. Still, thank you. Are you safe? Backup is on the way, I already notified them when I didn’t hear back from Red Robin.”
“Fair.” Bernard laughs but quiets when he sees Red Robin flinch. “Uhm. This might be a weird request but could they bring like. A towel? A robe? Or just blankets? Also depending how far out they are I might not be able to move?”
“...Why is that?”
“Well, if they’re close they’re going to see it either way but I’m uh. I’m part merfolk, the transformation is painful if they’re done too close together and even to be physically able to transform I still need a bit before trying, pain or no.”
“Well. I’ll patch that through so there isn’t any misunderstanding but trust me that’s not the weirdest we’ve seen, we have friends that aren’t or are only part human.”
Bernard groans in frustration, “It’s not, not really, but I never really told anyone and I have a boyfriend and he doesn’t know but I wanted to tell him tomorrow because we have a date and just - this sucks.”
The woman lets out a loud breath and Bernard somehow feels like he missed something.
“I don’t think you have to worry about that and even if it would be a problem - I think he’d understand if he’s a good guy, no?” She says and Bernard agrees with her. But still, it’s the principle and he tells her that too.
She gives a small laugh, a warm laugh and it’s so different from how the conversation started where it felt like her voice alone was stabbing him with several batarangs. “Fair enough. Head’s up, Nightwing should arrive in two minutes. It was nice talking to you Bernard, keep the comm, if you press your fingers to the sensor at the side you can contact me should something else happen. Oracle, out.”
The comms’ near silent static fizzles out and leaves Bernard staring at it in awe and horror. He just talked to Oracle , the myth, the legend on Gotham’s streets. One everyone with any computer skills speaks in awe of, who terrifies criminals simply by her name alone. That Oracle.
Alright Bernard keep your cool and check on Red Robin before he has a seizure or something. He can't die just because Bernard was so distracted by literally having just talked to The Oracle.
Red Robin’s heart is still beating overly fast and his skin is clammy, despite his shivering. Bernard curses that he still can’t transform and get anything to cover him with, not that it would help anyway with how wet he and his suit are but still. He can’t even get close and try to warm him up with body heat because in this form his body is adaptable to temperature extremes but always stays pretty cold.
His tail flaps out in his frustration and splashes water everywhere.
But that’s when he hears the distinct sound of a high tech car arriving. Nightwing is finally here and can hopefully help. And indeed, he shows up half a minute later and swings down from the bridge above to their level - likely easier than to traverse through the blocked stairs.
“Shit,” is the first thing Nightwing says when his eyes fall on Red Robin, and immediately comes to his side and kneels down beside him before looking at Bernard. “Hi, thanks for looking out for Red Robin.”
“Uhm- Oh. No problem, really you all don’t have to thank me.” Bernard says and tries to keep himself in check because holy shit that’s Nightwing talking to him. “I’m just glad I was there, I really don’t know what happened, one second he was fine and suddenly he started swaying.”
Nightwing holds up Red Robin’s arm and when Bernard looks closer he can barely see a very tiny cut peeking out between all the armor. “I found the culprit, I think.”
“One of the guys up there had a knife coated in an unknown substance- ah,” a beep interrupts Nightwing and he holds his hand to his ear, obviously listening to someone then nodding. “Fear toxin variant, fuck.”
With that he gets something out of his pouch and so quickly that Bernard can’t keep up with it, he holds the thing to Red Robin’s arms - only by removing it does it reveal that there was a needle in whatever the thing is that Nightwing is holding.
Nightwing likely saw his flinch and gives a small smile, “Don’t worry, it’s a general antidote but we gotta get him into medical soon, especially because of the harbor waters and a possible onset of hypothermia.”
“Alright, are you able to bring him up again? I can’t really help right now, but if there is no other option I can try and transform back right now.”
Nightwing frowns and asks, “Oracle said it would hurt you?”
Bernard grimaces, “Hurts something awful yeah, but it’d be over quick-”
“No,” Nightwing interrupts him. “Do not hurt yourself, I have a plan. The batmobile has a boat mode, I can drive it here and we can get him in there together if you help me while being in the water. And there should be enough space for you as well - how long can you stay out of the water like this?.”
“Of course I can help!” Bernard says before the later part of the statement registers, “Wait, what do you mean, enough space for me as well?”
Nightwing taps his own temple, “You’re bleeding, that’s a nasty gash there - you didn’t notice?”
“I- no .” He says and slowly lets his hand trail to his forehead, it comes away sticky with blood. “Oh.”
“We need to get you medical care as well and obviously I can’t drop you off at some hospital like this, we’ll have to check you for the toxin as well just to be safe; you’ll have to decontaminate at least .”
“Oh,” Bernard says again and nods. “Yeah okay. And uhm, I can stay out of water for maybe two hours like this but at that point I should already be able to turn back.”
“Okay. Does your head feel weird at all, no pain? No nausea or dizziness, no seeing double?”
Bernard shakes his head to all of the questions, “I don’t think I have a concussion.”
“Better safe than sorry, do you remember at all how you got it?” Nightwing asks.
He thinks back but it’s a bit fuzzy because he was just acting on instinct but when he tackled that one guy, he had felt some pain but he just thought it was from body-tackling a dude three times bigger than him. “Uhm, maybe it was from the guy I tackled? He threw Red Robin over the railing and I just. Tackled him into the railing. It must have happened then.”
Nightwing nods and stands up. “If your adrenaline was high I don’t blame you for not noticing. Alright, I’ll go get the batmobile, the GCPD has already been notified.”
He makes to leave and leaps again but Bernard calls out, “Wait!”
Nightwing turns around and tilts his head questioningly.
Bernard flushes but it probably wouldn’t do any good finding his stuff laying around near a crime. “My backpack is there somewhere, I don’t really want the police to find it with all my stuff?”
“Yeah, no that would be bad,” Nightwing agrees. “I’ll take it with us, no problem.”
And with that he’s gone. Not long after Bernard hears tires screeching and the batmobile lands in the water with a big splash. Carefully it comes as close as it can get before the top of it opens up and a kind of raft is put out. Nightwing jumps over the gap between the batmobile and the pier, a short walk and he gathers Red Robin up in his arms, then walks towards the edge of the pier closest to the batmobile.
Bernard slips into the water and follows beside him, and when Nightwing stops, Bernard doesn’t even wait for him to say anything and swims out to get the raft-like thing and moves it closer to Nightwing.
“Thanks,” he says and smiles, putting Red Robin down on it and jumping back into the batmobile, making it sway slightly.
Dutifully, Bernard moves the raft-thing close to the batmobile and with Nightwing's help, gets Red Robin inside. Then Nightwing is holding out his arms towards him and it takes a few seconds before Bernard connects the dots and grabs Nightwing's arm so the vigilante can heave him up and help him get into the backseat of the car.
He can’t believe he’s gonna drive in the batmobile!
The moment he’s in, Nightwing starts to close the top and speeds off.
Wait.
Is he going to see the batcave?!
It turns out that yes, Bernard is actually inside the batcave and seeing it with his own two eyes.
His jaw drops at the sight of it and he wishes that he wasn’t still a.) part fish and b.) his brain would actually boot up enough for his regular thoughts. But everything feels slightly off and now that he’s aware of it the wound on his forehead throbs and radiates pain into his whole skull. Maybe he does have a mild concussion. Dammit.
He barely registers as Nightwing and someone else that looks like The Signal but without armor and only a simple mask are carrying Red Robin out of the batmobile and into what looks like a medical bay.
Bernard doesn’t notice when Nightwing comes up and shakes him, he startles hard and blink at him.
“We better check for a concussion after all, huh buddy?” Nightwing says and Bernard nods even if that movement hurts. “Alright, has it been enough time for you to transform back? We’d have an easier time moving you but if it’s still unsafe I’ll get Signal to give me a hand and get you up to medical.”
Somewhat groggily Bernard thinks about but can’t find that answer for the life of him. “Uh. How much time…?”
“Around twenty-five minutes since Oracle pinged me and told me about you.”
“Oh yeah, should be fine now I think,” Bernard forces the words out. What he doesn’t say is that ideally he should wait at least thirty minutes but he doesn’t want to inconvenience them anymore than he already has. It’s just gonna be a small pain, like pinching one’s skin if the pinch happens all over your body. Annoying but not too painful and over as fast as it came.
But damn, his head really hurts now. He does try to let the transformation wash over him again but he doesn’t really know if it works because the darkness that had been hovering at the edge of his vision, rushes in and he passes out.
The last thing he hears is someone loudly cursing.
Tim wakes up very confused and somehow highly anxious in the Batcave’s med bay. He doesn’t remember what happened, did he get injured?
Like he was taught he takes stock of his body, but there doesn’t seem to be any major injury that he can feel. There is a drip in his arm and the other arm has a faint, near unnoticeable throb. His head feels fine, if muddled.
What was he doing, he was out on patrol most likely, he went out and then…
A warehouse? But not inside, outside. Outside of a warehouse, where he was trying to stop an attempted robbery, he remembers now. Then suddenly something was off and thinking about what exactly happened is fuzzy.
There were four people. Four people but only three robbers?
Bernard!
Tim shoots up into a sitting position only to immediately get intensely dizzy. There are hands on his shoulders pressing him gently back down again. Through his blurred vision he can barely make out who it is - “Dick?”
“I’m here Timmy,” Dick answers and gently ruffles his hair. “Don’t get up yet, the drug isn’t completely out of your system yet.”
“Bernard?” Tim asks but it comes out more as a croak. Dick leaves for a few seconds and comes back with a glass of water that Tim gulps down as fast as he can without choking.
“He’s fine, we patched him up and he’s currently resting.”
“Drug?” Tim asks, this time without his voice cracking. “What happened? Why did you have to patch him up?”
“Fear toxin variant, one of the robbers had it on his blade and got you with it,” Dick says, sitting down on the bed next to Tim. “Your boyfriend realized something was wrong but didn’t manage to stop the last guy from throwing you into the harbor, he tackled the guy, effectively knocking him out but also injuring himself and then dove after you.”
“This explains why I’m still so anxious,” Tim mutters. “Bern really tackled him? But he’s fine? I can’t believe he did that, the idiot . Christ. You would’ve told me if it was really bad.”
Dick snorts, “He sure did, you got yourself a great guy there. And of course I would have. He has a very mild concussion and we had to stitch up a gash on his temple but it wasn’t too deep or long. He did pass out when we came here which was probably due both the adrenaline crash and the mild head injury. As I said, he’s resting. You can go to him in a bit, he’s upstairs.”
“He is amazing,” Tim agrees and smiles slightly before he realizes something. “Wait. He’s upstairs? Did you -”
“No!” Dick interrupts Tim’s panic. “No, we didn't tell him. That’s for you to breach but you know that none of us would have a problem with that, right? We all like him and he’s good for you.”
“But…why is he upstairs then?”
“Well…” Dick starts, “I’ll give you an audio file to listen to, it seems kind of shitty if I would tell you and he said it best. He deserves to be the one to tell you this but probably cannot before you see him to make sure he’s okay.
“This is the most unhelpful and cryptic answer I have ever gotten in my entire life, Dick.”
Dick rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, you’ll know what I mean when you’ve listened to it. Also be glad Bernard managed to get you before something worse happened- You’re gonna have to be monitored for a while now, buddy.”
Tim groans, “Why?”
“Timmy you took a dunk in Gotham’s water and swallowed a whole lot of it. You know what that means.”
A louder groan. “Antibiotics?”
“Antibiotics! A whole lot of them.”
“I fucking hate them.”
“I know, but next time maybe go for a swim somewhere cleaner.” Dick grins and gets a glare from Tim. “Anyway I’ll go get the file uploaded to your tablet. You can go up in half an hour.”
Tim grumbles and waves him off before he grabs the tablet from the table next to the medical bed and waits for Dick to send the file over. What is it really that he couldn’t just tell him.
.
.
.
Huh. Well. He didn’t see that coming.
Bernard wakes up slow and warm and…wet?
He opens his eyes, confused and sees over him a very decorated, very rich-and-fancy ceiling. Looking to the side, he is laying in a pool? A heated indoor pool, even. When he looks down suddenly everything rushes back to him and he groans. Doesn’t seem like he managed to turn back and just passed out into Nightwing’s arms. Embarrassing .
He’d really like to know where he is though. Because this is most definitely not a cave. Maybe the batcave is connected to a bathhouse? It would make sense since fighting crimes leaves someone pretty dirty and they probably don’t want to stink, and wash away all of Gotham’s…Stuff.
Maybe they’re also merfolk? But no, even this panicked he’s sure that merfolk transform instinctively when submerged in water, nevermind that they can breathe under it even without the transformation. Maybe Red Robin is just the outlier but -
His thoughts get interrupted by snickering.
A very familiar snickering.
He whips his head around and next to him at the edge of the pool, legs submerged is Tim. His mouth drops open. What - How?
“Hey,” Tim says gently and holds out his hand, Bernard can do nothing but take it. It also makes him notice the drip that’s connected to Tim’s arm and how objectively terrible Tim looks.
“Tim?” Bernard asks, still gaping slightly. “What are you doing here? How are you here or me for that matter and what happened, why do you- and oh. Oh! I wanted to tell you tomorrow I swear, I hyped myself up and all and -”
“Bern,” Tim huffs and squeezes his hand, “Breathe.”
Bernard does, because he can’t deny Tim anything. He really is whipped. He scoots closer as much as he can so he’s closer to Tim who immediately uses his other hand to stroke through his wet hair.
“So. For your questions,” Tim starts and halts, somehow clearly nervous about something. “Well. First of all, I uh. I wanted to be here when you wake up to make sure everything is alright and to thank you for getting me out of the water as fast as you did. Oracle let me have the audio file, it seems we both didn’t manage to wait until tomorrow, huh?”
His last sentence is accompanied by a crooked grin. Bernard stares because the dots connect instantly but he needs to process that. His mouth drops open. Again. A strangled noise comes out that he has no control over.
“You’re Red Robin?” He asks, confirms and Tim nods nervously.
“I am,” Tim says softly. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while but always lost my nerve because I didn’t know how you’d react even though I knew you’d never react badly. But I was…scared.”
Bernard laughs and slumps against Tim’s knees. “It was the same for me, we’re really a pair of idiots huh?”
Tim’s body shakes with silent laughter. “Yeah. Just thank Dick for this now, he’s the reason why you’re not in the cave’s lake. I think it was his blessing or his way of letting me know I should get over myself and finally tell you because you’d recognize the interior even without me telling you.”
“I mean I thought it was a bathhouse at first,” Bernard says before he pauses and blinks. “Holy shit, Dick is Nightwing.”
Tim laughs.
“Tim. Tim. Love of my life, my star, my cuddle buddy is Bruce Wayne Batman? Tim, did I tell Batman to his face that I thought he was an alien? Or an eldritch entity cooked up by the spirit of Gotham City?”
Tim just laughs harder, bowing over while Bernard lightly shakes him and he can’t stop his ranting, he goes down and tries to rattle off every single theory about Batman and the Bats that he has ever discussed with Bruce so that he knows how long he can never look any of them in the eyes again.
“Bear,” Tim interrupts him again, smiling brightly. "If I kiss you, will you shut up?”
Bernard’s mouth is still open mid-rant and Tim takes that as all the permission he needs to lean forward and kiss him silly. Bernard grabs Tim’s knee and surges up to meet him, kissing back before Tim has to part to gulp down some air.
He imagines he is currently wearing the exact same silly grin that Tim is wearing.
“You alright again?” Tim asks.
“I will never be able to look any of your family in the eyes again.” Bernard states but grins, definitely underselling that statement.
Tim just grins wider.
“Also,” Bernard says, “Not to be a party pooper but are you okay? You still have a drip on?”
“I’m okay. Don’t give me that look, I’m fine, honest. But uh…”
“Tim?”
“Okay so this sounds really bad but I’m currently getting intravenous antibiotics because I might be missing my spleen?”
Bernard stares. “Tim. How are you missing a spleen?”
“Uhm. Vigilante business. I want to tell you, but that happened in a very bad time in my life so…”
“You never have to tell me anything, you know that right?”
Tim smiles and once again leans forward but this time to lean his own forehead against Bernard’s. “I know. But I want to, but I also need to mentally prepare myself for that. So yes, missing spleen means the knife cut, toxin, and harbor water is not particularly healthy for me because my immune system sucks.”
“Oh,” Bernard murmurs. “That fucking sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Eh, I got used to it and I live quite well without it.”
“I can see that. Although…man, shame I would have asked if you wanted to swim with me, the pool is certainly big enough. No actually why is the pool so big. I wouldn't be surprised if you could scuba dive in here.”
Tim shakes his head, “I have no idea, it was already here when I met Bruce and I never thought to ask. And we should wait anyway because I don’t want you swimming with a mild concussion. But we can cuddle upstairs if you want, the pool isn’t running away.”
Bernard laughs, “I’d be worried if a pool could run away but you must have seen stranger things.”
“Dude you don’t even know, come I can finally tell you all the stories I’ve been dying to tell.” Tim grins and stands up and tugs at their still joined hands.
Bernard grins back and in one smooth transformation, gets out of the pool in a decidedly less smooth way, stumbling into Tim who has somehow procured a large towel from who knows where that he immediately wraps around him.
He can’t help but lean into his boyfriend. “I love you.”
Tim hums and wraps his arms around him, “Love you too, Bern.”