Chapter Text
"So," Dick begins, "how is this?" He shows Bruce his new suit. It is black spandex with a streamlined blue bird symbol on the chest. The blue lines extend to his fingertips.
Batman studies his son in all but name. "It is... very tight."
"Come on. I abided and scrapped the original design already. And I don't even need your approval. Accept this." Dick crosses his arms.
"B, you should accept this, or he will go back to that disco-collared v-neck monstrosity, and bring abysmal fashion sense to the Rogues," Jason says. He is sitting in the Batchair backward, while munching on Oreos.
"I dunno. I think it's cool. It resembles the Graysons' signature uniform, but not in color. However, I think that one has 31% more skin exposure, and is not practical at all. You have to avoid your chest hair dropping on the crime scene too," Tim, the youngest kid at the age of eight, says.
"Ew, chest hair," Jason says.
"You're gonna have some soon, Jason," Tim says to his brother.
Batman sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He turns to the two kids commenting on Dick leisurely in front of the Batcomputer. "Tell me, kids, how can you come into the cave again?"
Jason points at Tim, and Tim, the babiest brother, smiles wide and says, "You forgot to update one step in the four-factor authentication, so I reversed the code and broke in."
Jason shrugs. "I just followed."
Dick looks at his two baby brothers. In unusual circumstances that need no retelling, he now has not one, but two brothers: Jason (12), a street kid who has remarkable hand skills, and Tim (8), a neglected unhinged genius with stalking tendencies.
Both used to stalk Batman and Robin just for fun without both of them realizing.
Even though now they are under Bruce Wayne's foster care, they still do not stop appearing anytime, anywhere on Bruce's and Dick's crusade, and Bruce and Dick have to tag-team in herding them back to the manor. It makes their relationship slightly better. Hey, family therapy comes in many forms.
And it leads Dick to this, to still ask for Bruce's opinion for his new persona, because, Dick has to admit, he can't imagine being Robin solo without his partner. So he chooses to be something new that is invented for only him.
Bruce sighs, again. He sighs a lot more since he fostered the two menaces. Well, the menace is mostly Tim. Jason is just being his ultimate protector. "Please use the bat-smart material for this. I understand your style leans heavily on mobility, but you are going solo, so at least it will provide better defense."
Dick can't hide his smile. "You mean you will give me a pass?"
"Yes, Dick. I have to admit that you are an adult and want to step out from my shadow... and I'd better have it with you still near me, than cut me away and go somewhere I can't reach."
Tim whispers to Jason, "Guess you reading parenting books near his head in the morning really helped."
Bruce ignores the kids and continues, "So yes, you can be a solo hero in Bludhaven."
"In Bludhaven?" Tim blurts.
Bruce absently nods, "Yes, but."
But…?
Bruce, that little shit, lifts a corner of his mouth up. "But you have to pass my test first."
Dick, having seen that smile hundreds of times before, the "gotcha" smile, says suspiciously, "What kind of test?"
"Well, I have to go on an interstellar League mission for a month," Bruce replies.
Dick sighs in relief. "Oh, just taking care of Gotham? Yeah, leave it to me."
"You mean, leave them to you," Bruce corrects, and turns to the Batcomputer area.
Dick tracked the gaze to find the two gremlins peering back at him with wide, adorable, blue eyes.
"No."
"Yes." Batman smirks. "You want to be a city protector, so you can babysit two kids, while patrolling for me for a month, right?"
Dick, in the end, has graduated high school, and decides to not pursue university. He plans for training to be a gym trainer or a gymnastics instructor in Blud, but right now, he's a part-timer that's freeloading in the Wayne Manor.
Usually, he will sleep after his night patrol until it's almost noon, but today his schedule is interrupted much earlier.
"Young Master Dick, it's time for you to wake up," Alfred shakes him, not even gently, which means the shake has started for a while.
"Hurhr?" Dick mumbles, and slowly looks at his clock. "Alfr'd, it's seven-thirty."
"And you need to see the younglings before they're going to school, as Master Bruce always does, young sir."
Yeah, Bruce did do that until Dick was fifteen. "I only have slept for," he looks at the clock again, "three hours."
"Master Bruce usually went back to sleep afterward, sir."
Dick groans, and pushes himself up. "So he's already departed to somethin' somethin' galaxy?"
"Yes, and now the young masters are in your care, sir. Congratulations, it's twins."
Dick slowly walks into the dining room. There are the two gremlins in Gotham High uniforms, eating their breakfast.
Actually, only Jason is eating breakfast. Tim is drinking Bruce's extra-strong, extra-dark coffee.
"No, Timbo," Dick pulls the mug out, dumps five spoons of sugar, and drinks it himself.
"Nooooo. Don't ruin its bitterness!" Tim shouts.
"If you want bitter, eat the veggies," Jason piles roasted veggies on Tim's plate.
"Ewwww, no!" Tim protests.
"Ew, yes," Jason counters back. "These are fresh veggies, Timmy. You'd better eat fresh produce when you have a chance, or else you can try hunting rotten food in the trash can with me."
It's a bit disturbing hearing how much brutality Jason has to bear in being a homeless kid.
"Coooool! Can you teach me?" Tim asks.
"No!" Dick and Jason say together. On the other hand, Tim's morbid sense of questionable experience is very disturbing.
Dick ruffles Tim's hair. "Just eat a bit more, baby bird."
"Yeah, you need food to grow. You're not a plant," Jason points out to his brother.
Dick observes his adorable baby brothers of 8 and 12. Yes, he can do this. Why did he feel so much dread earlier? Jason is a mother hen. He will always look out for Tim's wellbeing.
This will be fine.
This is not fine.
Dick, in his Robin suit, is looking at the remnants of a collapsed Iceberg Lounge.
He should be glad that the Penguin and everyone else is safe, right?
Jason himself has kicked, like, five police officers' nuts for trying to approach Tim.
"He's traumatized! Give him time before you try questioning him! What my baby bro needs is tender loving care, not your slimy hands!" Jason is struggling in Dick's hold.
Said baby brother is photographing the scene of the collapsed building curiously. "Pancake collapse building is usually seen in earthquakes, not bombing, which means the flame must have gone through the elevator shaft..." He mumbles morbid tidbits all the while, with no ounce of trauma to be found.
Dick somehow totally forgot.
Jason is an enabler of Tim's Shenaniganstm.
As long as Tim eats, sleeps, and goes to school—everything the little hellion wants to do, Jason not only allows it, he also joins him. Tim is a Sith Lord, and Jason is his absolute follower.
And those two, unfortunately for the people around them, are exceptionally skilled in their own way. Tim can, and will, break or hack anything he can grab to see what is inside: the Batmobile, GCPD police records, Arkham Asylum. Maybe Dick should be grateful it does not include living beings. Jason is very versatile, supported by deft hands and street-smart mind, and will absolutely be willing to kick anyone's nuts to protect Tim, including Two-Face and Commissioner Gordon's nuts (sorry, Commish).
Said Commissioner Gordon (recently promoted) is eyeing Dick with wariness in his eyes. "How come two new Wayne kids are involved in a skyscraper destruction, Robin?"
"I said no questions!" Jason screams, his foot nearly reaching the Commissioner's groin. Dick can't help but shudder.
"He's questioning me, kiddo." Dick wrestles his rabid baby brother from the ninth circle down. "It's honestly not their fault. They claim they were just sneaking around the lounge."
"In the Iceberg Lounge?" Jim deadpans. Uh. This is worse than the first time that Dick drove Babs home.
"I want to see the Penguin!" Tim says, excitedly.
"Yes, the kid just wanted to see the bird..."
"His nose really is as pointy as you said!"
"...bird in the name? Like me? But somehow they are in the middle of the weapon smuggling, then they run away, and somehow those weapons fire themselves spontaneously. Guess Penguin wanted to try equipping his goons with more heavyweight. So, boom?" Dick gives the Commissioner his most adorable Robin's smile. It stopped working five years ago.
The Commissioner sighs—a sigh so long that he almost enacts Supe's freeze breath from this sigh.
"Whatever. Send me some solid material to tell the mayor later by email, and bring those two imps back to your—I mean, Mister Wayne's home," Jim says, which equals Jim totally just bluntly asking Dick, the Robin, to write a report for him. Which, unlike Bruce, Dick needs to do, or else he will be banned from seeing Babs forever. "My daughter mentioned that the Grayson kid is watching them for a month."
"I guess? I don't really know them," Dick replies. Wow, the elephant in the room may be bigger than the remnants of the skyscraper.
Somehow, Commissioner Gordon smiles and stares Dick in the eye. "Serves him right. Try taking some of his own medicine."
"What does he mean?" Dick wonders to Alfred, who serves him hot chocolate at 8 in the morning. Dick has not slept yet, trying to compose factual evidence for the Commissioner. "Taking my own medicine."
Alfred (who just rose from his bed to see Dick still writing the report) sips his own English Breakfast tea, and pointedly looks at the glass case showing the very small Robin uniform. "Maybe because once there's an exceptionally active 8-year-old that followed Master Bruce and caused a ruckus to everyone around once, too."
"Me?" Dick cries. "No, I never collapsed a building."
"You have disrupted a railroad line once," Alfred says. "By hijacking the Batmobile, chasing Two-Face through the town, and he hit a train station in the suburbs. The estimated damage from the transportation paralysis and the repair cost is at least forty million dollars, which was generously donated by Bruce Wayne."
"I did not go out spying on Rogues at night!"
"You did go out to directly punch them at night."
"Without armor!"
Alfred points at Dick's bare legs, and his very short shorts.
"The new persona uniform is in full coverage now..." Dick mumbles. Was he really that bad when he was young? Why did Bruce tolerate him? No, they are probably not like Dick. Alfred is just manipulating his mind...
At that moment, they both hear a loud crash from upstairs, loud enough to make the cave vaguely shake. Dick rushes upstairs...
...to find the chandelier in the largest living room shattered on the floor. Glass shards are everywhere.
Shit. Shit. The kids, where are the kids? If they were on the chandelier they might be...
"How loud is it, Jay?" Tim shouts from the balcony. Noise-canceling headphones are in his ears.
Jason is on the far wall, with headphones and a police shield. He lifts the decibel meter up. "One hundred and thirty-eight!"
Tim throws his arms up. "We produced a jet-equivalent noise! Coooooool!" Then he jumps down from a fucking second balcony and lands in what is an imitation of a Robin landing, then runs to high-five Jason.
Dick, while staring at the scene incomprehensibly, notices someone has photographed him.
"Master Bruce asked me to capture your babysitting moments," Alfred says.
Fuck youuuuu.
Meanwhile, Batman is in the spaceship, looking back at the direction of the solar system that he cannot see anymore. He cannot help but smirk with the corner of his mouth when thinking of how his eldest is doing.
"You're in a good mood," Superman walks up to him and comments. "So things with Dick are going well?"
Bruce huffs, both irritated (and secretly endeared) that Clark can easily read him. "Hmm. We have... agreed on him trying solo."
"Really?" Clark looks surprised, which is totally a lie.
"Don't act like you don't know. The name definitely comes from, or at least is inspired by, the Krypton legend you love so much."
"I pledge the fifth," Clark replies.
"The power of the fifth probably doesn't reach different solar systems," he counters. "Anyway, as an agreement, I gave him a very simple test for him to pass."
"Oh?"
Bruce can't really hide his glee. It looks like just a tad bit of a lift of the corner of his mouth, and maybe two or three words more per sentence, but to Clark, it really must be noticeable. "I instructed him to take care of the two new hellions for a month."
"Babysit his brothers? You do go light on him."
"Yes, I do. Just want him to experience what my naive self has endured once." He makes a mirthful huff that is the equivalent of a normal person's chuckle. "Those kids remind me so much of Dick in the earliest days."
Dick tends to underestimate how chaotic his younger self can be.
Suddenly, Clark grabs him on his shoulder, faster than he can anticipate, which means he's serious. "Bruce, you said the new kids, Jason and Timothy—"
"He likes to be called Tim."
"—Tim, are like how Dick was in the earliest days, and you leave them to him alone."
Bruce swats Clark's hand away. "He will be fine, Clark. Despite everything, I truly trust his capabilities."
But Clark is still alien pale. "Bruce, you revealed your identity to me a decade ago because tiny Robin Dickie somehow hopped on Lobo's motorcycle backseat to join him on a galactic joyride."
Bruce looks back at Clark. Realization suddenly falls on him.
Time passes. Bruce also grows fonder of the earlier days and underestimates how chaotic those days can be.
"Two moons and one inhabitable planet were destroyed in the process," Clark relives for him.
Bruce turns back toward the direction of the solar system. "We'd better finish our mission soon."
"Yes," Superman replies, serious. "The Earth needs us."
Dick, as Robin, is swinging through the air, one hand holding a grappling gun, the other holding Tim to his chest, with Jason piggybacking on his back.
"Coooooool!" Tim shouts, his voice fluttering with the wind on his face.
Dick has no time to answer. He's busy evading Ivy's sentient vines that try to grab his leg.
He can still hear Ivy's scream of rage following them. "Give those two gremlins to me!"
"No way, you old hag!" Jason shouts back, and the vine is getting even angrier.
"Don't call the angry lady a hag, you moron!" Dick fires the grappling gun again. Whoopsie. The vines miss his leg by an inch. "Pam! They're just kids being kids! Let them go!"
"They cut my babies, and my, my hair!"
"It's called rotational cropping, to help promote plant growth!" Tim shouts back.
"What about her hair?" Dick says.
"It's dark, and hard to differentiate!" Tim answers.
Jason's one hand detaches from Dick's neck, and Dick smells a burning scent.
"Take this, Bitch." Jason laughs and throws a fucking Molotov at her. "For dangling my baby bro upside down!"
"When did you—" Dick fires the grappling gun again, and rushes himself and the boys further and further. Boom. He feels the heat on his back. "—make a Molotov!?"
"Street skills, man," Jason says.
"Cooooooooool!" Tim laughs. It's not a sunshine laugh, more like a hellflame laugh.
Dick in the end escapes Ivy's furious grip, and brings them back to the cave. Barely.
He parks the motorcycle, walks to the middle of the cave, and flops there, spreading his arms and legs like a starfish.
God. How come they can wreck a new kind of havoc everyday? This has continued for two weeks now. And carrying the city (and the kids) without Bruce is, admittedly, exhausting.
"Dickkkkkkie?" Jason pokes him. Dick has no energy left to move. The kiddo feels the pulse on his neck. "Not dead yet." He seems disturbed by Dick's depleted appearance. "Alfie? Alfred?"
Alfred materializes from the corner of Dick's eyes, his face has an underlay of concern. "Young Master Dick, lad?"
Alfred's hand touches his cheek, and gently peels his domino mask off. Dick slowly looks at Alfred. "Hey, Alfred. I'm okay. Just really, really, really exhausted."
Alfred huffs a small laugh. "He used to be like this."
"A decade ago, yeah," Dick says. "Guess being a solo hero is this tiring?"
"It's not only that, my boy," Alfred smiles. "Not just being a hero alone. You want to be in a different city, and Master Bruce is afraid he can't be there for you, anyplace, any time like he always could."
Dick stares at the cave ceiling. The stalactites that had grown alongside him over the years. He has looked at this ceiling longer than he did the circus tent now. It's a home, no matter how good or bad it has been. He understands Bruce's view. But.
"But I still need to grow, Alfred," Dick says to the ceiling. "To have a chance to know what I could be, in the open sky and let the wind shape myself. I don't want to be just a stalactite in this cave."
Alfred slowly helps him sit up, and gives him a Gatorade, which means he thinks Dick is extremely exhausted, or else he will insist on making a chicken soup.
While Dick is savoring the resuscitation power of the Gatorade, Jason is turning to Tim. "Hey, Timbo, I think we should stop now."
Tim does not respond, instead, he stares at his sneakers.
"Stop what, Little Wing?"
"I'm not little," Jason counters, and sighs. "Timtam, I'll tell the guy, 'kay?"
Tim is still not lifting his head up. Jason sighs. "So, Big Bird... you may have seen that we were on our best behavior every day, right?"
"Yeah?"
"We're kinda intentionally doing these. These... carnages," Jason explains, scratching his cheek. "To make you fail Bruce's test."
All the exhaustion is suddenly gone from Dick's body. "What!? Why?"
"It's my idea," Tim says. He looks up. His face is red. His eye rims are red. "Jason just followed me."
Dick slowly touches Tim's small shoulder. "Timmy, why?"
"Cause you're gonna leave Gotham!" Tim screams. And he's crying now, with big fat droplets of tears. "At first I thought you were only debuting a new solo career here, but you're leaving. You're, you're leaving me!"
For half a year they have had Tim in their life. Tim never cries like this. Not when their parents got caught. Not in the court. Never.
Tim pushes both Dick and Jason's hand away, and uses those small hands to wipe his eyes. "You are the first people in my life, even before you were Robin. And you are leaving me."
And Dick's heart is being squeezed tight by those words. Oh, he's so selfish. He only thought he'd need Bruce's approval, because Bruce is the only one to have the power to veto him. He forgot these little people in his life. These bright, lonely boys who both have been so alone before they met each other.
"Everyone is gonna leave me," Tim sobs, and looks at Dick, with a fire in his eyes. "I'll make you stay here!"
He shouts, and runs upstairs.