Work Text:
GRRRRRGGG..
GRRRRRGGGGG….
GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG..
Bart pushes himself up in his bed on tired hands, a yawn erupting from his throat. Moonlight gleams through the curtains, bathing the warm sheets in a coat of silver. It’s not even bright outside yet, he laments, wiping the sleep from his eyes groggily.
Morning is the only time where he borders on anything close to slow, exhaustion wearing marks under his eyes that could rival Tim’s. Speedster metabolism is a curse.
However, this is a painfully usual ritual— his body burning through his food sources at ten times the average rate and leaving him bordering on starvation after only seven or so hours. Kon had helpfully offered a solution to this problem though; to keep a drawer full of snacks in his bedroom so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed so early.
He rolls over with a thump, pulling the middle drawer of his bedside cabinet open with a quick tug and— God damnit. Empty. Completely wiped. Not a single snack besides the crumbs of an empty crisp packet. “Seriously!?” He whines, head dropping back onto the pillow with an undignified fwump.
Maybe he’ll just.. Wait until morning… so… tired….
GRRRRGGGGG.
If he had been drifting off a second ago, his eyes spark open instantly. A picture forms in his head— a cartoonish version of his tummy with a deeply distressed expression, clawing at the bars of a prison cell and crying out for help.
“What time is it?” He huffs out and pats the top of his bedside cabinet. His hands flit over empty Pepsi cans and sweet packets just above an average speed until it lands on his phone.
He turns it on, and the screen flickers to life with an image of Young Justice— before Cissie had left, and when Secret was still around, the group of six squeezed into one half blurred picture at a funfair in Central City. He doesn’t think about it much, or at all, looking at the text reading— 5.30 am.
Accepting his fate, Bart zips out of bed to dress in some blue striped pajama bottoms and a baggy white t-shirt. A note on his bedroom door reminds him to wear the reinforced slippers Tim had helped engineer for him, to avoid burning his feet on the ground with his super speed. They're little cheetahs, and the soft fur is only lightly matted down after months of use. He slips his feet inside and begins barrelling down the corridor towards the headquarters’ kitchen.
The morning air slips between his arms, pasting his hair back against his skull, and his stomach cries out in agony once more. He can imagine it scolding him now, wagging a disappointed finger in his face.
Just as he's about to reach the kitchen, he sees a dark silhouette, much bigger than Tim, Kon or Cassie. He skids to a halt, legs tumbling beneath him, but manages to catch himself against the wall.
There's an INTRUDER in their home, he had just seen their shadow! Without much consideration for how, or why, he peeps around the corner.
And the horrible, filthy intruder is—
BATMAN!?
Batman stands behind the countertop, bathed in the only shadow left behind by the early morning. He’s wearing grey sweatpants that are just visible over the counter and an old Gotham U hoodie, which would all seem very domestic spare for the black cowl pulled over his face.
Carefully, Bart leans out from his hiding spot just an inch further, which gives him a golden view of.. Tim?
Plastered against Batman— er, Bruce’s side, is Tim, wearing Kon’s t-shirt and fluffy Nightwing pajama pants. Bruce has a single muscled arm hooked under his son, keeping him comfortably sat on his hip. The hold makes Tim seem much smaller, almost younger. He doesn’t look like Robin, their calculated and sometimes too serious leader, he looks like a kid. Another picture lights up in his mind, of Tim swaddled up in a blanket like a baby being rocked by Batman.
“Hungry?” Bruce asks quietly, and Tim nods hazily into his shoulder.
“Been workin’ on a big case recently,” Tim reports, as Bruce moves slowly between cupboards, pulling out a half-empty loaf of bread. How did he know where they keep their bread..?
“Hn,” he grunts in response, turning to the fridge with a seeming carefulness not to disrupt his son any. “I heard.”
Seemingly unbothered, Tim continues to talk anyways. “A cult was operating behind the guise of music festivals, using the speakers to distribute a chemical dust that was altering brain chemistry for submission.”
Only Tim can sound that smart at five in the morning.
“And did you apprehend them?” Bruce murmurs inquisitively, placing the gathered ingredients around the chopping board. He hooks his fingers into the drawer handle and tugs, taking one of the three remaining butterknives that aren’t being held hostage in Tim’s bedroom. Batman seems much more talkative than usual.
“Mhmm,” Tim replies, eyes fluttering shut. He nuzzles further into Bruce’s shoulder. “Well, most of them– the cultists were spread in small clusters throughout different cities. The group in Star City went into hiding when they heard the reports, so ‘m still looking for ‘em and— have you ever made a sandwich before?”
“What?”
“You’re doing a terrible job of buttering that bread,” Tim critiques, wiping the corner of his eyes with a sleepy haze.
Do they really have to keep talking about food? Bart looks down at his stomach and rubs it pitifully.
“Hn,” is the only reply that comes, and Bruce swipes poorly at the bread again with the knife. On his tiptoes, Bart can just about see the assault that’s been enacted on this poor slice, butter globbed thickly on some parts and nearly barren in others.
“Thank the lord for Alfred,” Tim mutters barely audibly, frighteningly coherent despite the drool dripping down his cheek. “Don’t be so heavy handed, you’ll tear it. Scrape some from the thick parts and spread it on the rest. Gently.”
Silently, with a noise of displeasure, Bruce follows Tim’s instructions before moving to the next slice. For a moment, there’s silence, Bruce awkwardly attempting to make the sandwich without dropping Tim, and Tim trying to keep himself awake. Kon and Cassie would love to see this.
“Need a new laptop,” Tim finally says, yawning. “Mine is nearly out of storage space and keeps getting Windows errors.”
“You have my card,” replies Bruce, pulling a slice of cheese from the packet.
“Ew, dad, no,” Tim whines, wrinkling up his nose in disgust at the cheese. “That cheese is Kon’s, and it’s gross. It tastes like plastic. I have European cheese in the fridge.”
Bruce sets the cheese on the top of the packet and makes the treacherous journey back to the fridge. “I’ll need both hands to grate this,” he says, examining the block of cheese. It’s mature white cheddar.
“No,” Tim disagrees, as if the statement had been a question, and wraps his arms tighter around Bruce’s shoulders and chest.
Bruce sighs as he sets it down on the chopping board and resumes buttering two fresh slices of bread. “Impulse,” he calls, without looking up.
What. Bart’s blood runs cold, heart hammering so violently in his chest that it might as well burst out of his chest like a cartoon character. He imagines a little cartoon version of himself all blue as Batman strangles him. Immediately, eyes widening in fear, Bart presses himself against the wall.
“Impulse,” he repeats, and Bart lets out the same kind of pathetic whine as a puppy when dinner is late. He trudges towards the open entry, tail between his legs. “Yes Batman, sir? I’m sorry, I swear I wasn’t—”
Bruce places the cheese grater down on the counter. “Grate the cheese.”
“NO PL— huh? Oh! Yeah, okay!” Bart nods eagerly and zips over in a blink. Before Bruce can lift his head, a tall pile of cheese towers between the two of them, the entire block finished off.
Without a thank you, Bruce sprinkles the cheese on a slice of bread. Then, he carefully layers some ham, lettuce and diced tomatoes.
“Triangles,” Tim instructs, and Bruce cuts the bread in half to form two triangles. He places the sandwich on a plate and slides it towards Bart. If Tim is upset about his sandwich becoming a charitable donation, he doesn't say so, or maybe just doesn't notice given his closed eyes.
“Alfred gave me pasta for you. I imagine you will also want that,” he says, and resumes making the next sandwich for Tim.
Nobody is ever going to believe this actually happened.
Bart blinks dumbly at the sandwich, but hey! You don’t kick a gift pony in the nose! Or.. something like that! He takes the sandwich and immediately wolfs it down, before raiding the fridge for Alfred’s pasta, yesterday’s leftovers, and a pie from the Kents. With all the food stacked high in his arms, he snatches up a fork and darts down the corridor. “Thank you Mr. Batman sir!”
“Hn. You have an interesting choice in friends.”
“Mm.”