Archive of Our Own

“Catch.”

Jason caught it, his eyebrows furrowing as he recognized the item in his hand.

“What? You don’t like fruit punch?”

“No,” he said quickly, because he did. “Just — why?”

“Juice boxes,” Bruce explained, pulling out one for himself, “the most common stakeout drink.”

Jason blinked. “Nah, pretty sure that’s coffee.”

“Most common stakeout drink for children,” he amended after he swallowed.

“And you just carry them around?”

Bruce shrugged. “Never hurts to be prepared. That’s why you get that empty pouch — you decide what is essential for you.” He settled back into his crouch on the roof, gesturing for Jason to get back in a ready position. “Now, pay attention, Robin.”

He crouched down next to him, carefully pulling the straw out of its sleeve. “We just sit around until something interesting happens?”

“A lot of people see stakeouts as the most boring part of the job, but that’s just not true,” Bruce started, and Jason could tell he was in for one of those long lectures.

“I got it, I got it,” he interrupted before it could come to that. “Shut up, drink my juice, and watch.”

“Watching can actually be interesting. People watching is a valuable thing to do to help your observation skills,” Bruce continued, not taking the cue to shut up himself. “And there will be moments you have to keep still to keep yourself safe, it’s best to practice it now than attempt to do it later. Two birds — ”

“One stone, yeah, yeah. I get it, Br — Batman.” He sucked at his straw loudly.

A second later, Bruce started drinking as well.

“This is so weird,” Jason said, finally voicing his thoughts. “Batman drinks juice boxes.”

He couldn’t see it, but he had the distinct feeling that Bruce was raising an eyebrow at him. “So? Hydration is important on stakeouts. And they taste good.”

What the hell.

He gave up arguing anyway. There were just some mysteries about Bruce that would never be explained.

…And it did taste good.

Crinkling had Jason turning back to face Bruce holding out a bag of fruit snacks to him. “Do you like fruit snacks? Most common stakeout food for children, you know.”

Jason was pretty sure Bruce was just fucking with him at this point. He took the pack despite that, going to open it only to be stopped again with an ‘ah, ah.’

“Hand sanitizer first,” Bruce said, and handed it to him. “Who knows where your hands have been, all over the city.”

Jason was positive Bruce was just fucking with him.

…Or maybe, he thought as he watched Bruce seriously wipe down his gloves before carefully ripping the packet of fruit snacks open, he was just like that.

Barry was late. Again. It wasn’t his fault this time, though, seriously because he got stuck working on a case that no one else wanted, and he couldn’t leave because their client needed an analysis that afternoon and —

Point was. Barry was late. Again.

Now, normally, that wouldn’t have been that big of a problem. It was a League meeting, and everyone practically expected him to be late. They started with the boring stuff at the beginning just to make sure he heard the important things.

Unfortunately, Bruce had been clear. He had a briefing prepared for them all, and it took exactly half an hour, and he had to leave by six. So, Barry had to be there by 5:30 at the latest despite the meeting starting at 4:30.

It was 5:42.

He skidded into the room at 5:43 to see the looks of sympathetic fear in everyone else’s eyes, and the anger in Bruce’s. Batman. Barry couldn’t even call him Bruce in that moment, the way he was glaring him down.

“Uh…” he offered. “Hi?”

Now, Barry had superspeed, but he couldn’t even see from where or how Bruce pulled a clock out of, seemingly, the air.

“Jesus,” he said.

“Barry. Do you know what this is?”

“A clock, but — ”

“A clock, that’s right. With the way you act, I just assumed you’d never seen one before.”

“Okay, but where did it come — ”

“Take a seat.”

Barry slipped as gracefully as he could into the seat left for him. Front and center. Great.

“Now, we can finally start,” Batman said, still staring Barry down despite talking to the whole room. “Last year, I encountered….”

“Are you okay?”

“Only until Alfred totally kills me!”

Bruce and Dick both looked down at the broken plate in dismay. It wasn’t new, but it wasn’t old either. So, thankfully, they wouldn’t face as much wrath as they would if it was either. No, the problem was that Alfred had every set of dishes that came into the Manor have a specific number of each type of dinnerware.

So, that one plate. That one plate would ruin the whole set’s ratio, and thus, Alfred’s precise arrangements.

“You’re only ten,” Bruce said, attempting to reassure him. “Alfred won’t kill you.”

“Are you absolutely positive?”

Bruce, admittedly, was not at first. But then he remembered that he was the adult in this situation. And, potentially, he — the twenty-six-year-old protector of Gotham with a technically-genius intellect — should have known not to have a ten-year-old fetch an easily breakable plate.

“I’m sure that you’re safe,” he finally settled on. “We just have to keep the plate out of sight until I can replace it.”

He picked all of the pieces up (luckily, it hadn’t shattered, only broken into three big pieces) and it was easy enough to fit them all back together again.

Dick watched, in the close way that little kids do, and Bruce tried to look as confident as possible as he considered his options.

“How do we keep it out of sight? Alfred’ll notice immediately!”

Teaching moment. “Dick, the best way to hide things is to hide them in plain sight.”

He shot him a skeptical look. “Are you sure that works with Alfred?”

“Alfred isn’t that good,” he promised.

Or so he hoped.

Bruce checked his pockets — he didn’t have any glue on him, and Alfred was going to be home sooner than it would take to find some and let it dry….

He ran into the duct tape roll he’d stashed in his back pocket after packing up all of Dick’s clothes that he’d outgrown — the kid was growing like a weed, and they’d done a whole closet clean out earlier that day.

He got to work and returned the plate back to its rightful place, the taped up part hidden if it wasn’t picked up.

“There,” Bruce said confidently. And Dick nodded in unison with him.

(Despite their best appearances of innocence, Alfred knew something was wrong the moment he got home.)

(He found the plate only minutes later.)

(Bruce got in trouble.)

(Dick didn’t.)

(They bought plastic dishes the next day.)

Oliver Queen and Connor Hawke and Mia Dearden. Oliver Queen and Connor Hawke and Mia Dearden. Holy shit. Green Arrow and Speedy and —

“Shit,” Tim mumbled.

“Tim,” Bruce warned from his place in the pilot seat.

Tim was sitting on the opposite side of the plane, Bruce shouldn’t have even been able to hear it. Fucking Batman.

“What am I supposed to call Connor Hawke in the field? He’s not Green Arrow anymore, right?”

“They don’t care as much about codenames,” Bruce said in a way that showed he didn’t approve. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Oliver came out as Green Arrow soon.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he confirmed. “Which is why we have to be especially careful with our identities when we’re in their city and why you can’t be Robin.”

“Other than it being glaringly telling that Bruce Wayne shows up the same time Batman does, if Oliver’s ever exposed as Green Arrow — ”

“Which is likely at this point.”

“Right, then they’ll check all of his connections. And one rich guy being a vigilante in Star City who’s publicly friends with another rich guy in Gotham that’s known for vigilantes.…”

“Exactly.”

Tim nodded, thinking it over, and then froze. “Oh no.”

“What? Are you alright?” Bruce twisted around in his seat to look at him, concerned.

“I’m going to pull a Dick.”

“You’re going to — what?”

“I’m going to totally screw up! And do a Robin-specific move and then I’ll expose all of our identities.”

Bruce blinked, and then said as politely as he could. “I don’t think you have a distinct enough style for that yet, kid. Listen — let’s make it a training exercise. Try and fight differently.”

Tim didn’t respond, now worried about both making a fool of himself and destroying Gotham vigilantism as he knew it.

He startled at a sharp rap to his forehead, surprised to see Bruce standing right in front of him. He must’ve put the plane on autopilot. “Hey! Did you just flick me?”

“You’re overthinking this.”

Tim gave him his most ‘obviously’ stare. “Well, yeah, it’s my first team up, Bruce.”

“It’ll be fine,” Bruce said. “And we’re mostly here as the Waynes anyway, alright? Less fighting, more social interaction.”

Well, that didn’t fucking help.

Bruce seemed to notice too because he waved his hand as if to dispel Tim’s anxiety physically. “You like Roy, right? You guys get along.”

Tim looked at him skeptically. “Aren’t he and Oliver estranged? A.K.A Roy liking me doesn’t say much if he hates them?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bruce seemed to give up the argument, sitting down next to him instead. “Turn your computer off.”

“Bruce — ” The look he was shot had him shutting his mouth quickly.

“You’ve memorized the whole mission brief, Tim.”

And, okay, fine, that may have been true. Busying himself with closing all of his stuff before shutting his computer off, he was surprised to look up and find that Bruce had a book in his hand.

“What’s that?”

“A book.”

“Har har,” Tim said, rolling his eyes. Though he couldn’t deny the warm feeling he got whenever Bruce messed with him like that.

Bruce stretched his arm out around the back of Tim’s seat, jostling him closer. That was new too (newer, at least) — the touching. Tim leaned into him a little, still tentative about it all, but Bruce didn’t comment, situating the book on their laps.

It was tiny so Tim assumed it had been in one of Bruce’s pockets. That, and how well worn it was. He examined the cover further. “It says that it’s a children’s story.”

“Hm,” Bruce intoned.

“Why do you just have this on you?”

“Hush,” Bruce shushed.

Tim huffed.

Bruce paid him no mind, opening the book swiftly with one hand. Tim expected him to go straight to the first chapter, but he paused on the dedication page.

“‘My dear Lucy,’” Bruce read, voice low in the quiet plane, “‘I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still….’”

Tim was fourteen. He didn’t get read to, hell, he was hardly read stories when he was of an acceptable age for it. But Bruce wasn’t acting as if it was unusual at all, reading along steadily to a heartfelt message from a godfather to a goddaughter.

He craned his head up to look at him, and Bruce glanced away from the text long enough to look at him and smile.

Tim stopped worrying about Star City and its vigilantes when he found out that Bruce did voices for every single character.

“I ran out of my peel-y mask-y thing!”

Bruce picked up the empty container Stephanie had angrily slapped onto the table. Its purpose seemed simple enough. He handed her something that would do the trick.

She took it slowly, clearly not understanding what he was doing.

He pointed at it. “It’ll remove the dirt from your skin… or whatever.”

“Bruce. This is duct tape.”

“And? It’s probably cheaper, too.”

Cass loved patrolling with Bruce. Not all the time, of course, particularly when he was hyperfocused on controlling his leadership — but on those specific nights where it was just the two of them and Gotham was relatively quiet.

On these nights, they ran around the city doing errands. Bruce taught her how to fix the hinge on the downtown library’s door. They checked in on a little boy Bruce had saved a month before only to find a letter taped on his window for the Batman. Bruce wrote him back, and kept the letter for himself, pleased.

They shooed deer away from a community garden, and left cat food in the alley that many strays tended to pass by.

There were some fights to break up, as there always were, but it was a peaceful night. Cass didn’t get many peaceful nights when patrolling with the others — there were fun nights when it was quiet. Times where they’d have races through the city or go joyriding, but they weren’t like the occasional times she got with Bruce when they would simply take care of the city.

Bruce was a caretaker. He was a protector first, which was why he was Batman and why his reflex tended to be lectures and immediate punishments. But he was a caretaker as well and it showed in the way he monitored every aspect of the city to make sure the smallest details were alright. It showed in the way he’d apologize for his lectures silently through gifts or food or hugs. How he’d revise the consequences afterwards.

Cass grinned at him just thinking about it.

He glanced at her from where he was fixing a gate. The family had a dog. It was an accident waiting to happen, he’d told her. “What?”

She didn’t answer, just smiled wider, and he laughed quietly in response even though he didn’t know what she was thinking about.

Cass liked that her smiles could make people laugh. Cass liked that she could make people laugh.

“That should do it for them,” he announced. “Good?”

“Good,” she repeated. She liked that too. Repeating.

“Let’s call it a night. You want milkshakes?”

“Yes.” Cass didn’t know what she’d get, but she knew she’d like something heavy on the chocolate. She was ready to go home, to change into people clothes, and then head back out, but Bruce’s body read as if he was going in a different direction. “Where?”

“This late night place. Come on.”

She followed after him. They watched from a roof as a tired worker served five drunk college students. The place was outside — the only connection to the outside, a window for orders and serving.

Bruce handed her his binoculars so she could zoom in on the menu while they waited for them to leave.

“Lots of options,” she said.

“Yes. Too many?”

She considered. “Yes.”

“Would you like me to order for you?”

“Please.” Then, she offered, “Chocolate.”

“What about a chocolate brownie milkshake? Medium.”

She nodded.

“You can order it if you’d like.”

Cass didn’t like talking to strangers. They weren’t as friendly when she couldn’t speak well. She didn’t like messing up.

She looked at Bruce.

He would order for them if she didn’t want to. In fact, he was ready to, Cass could tell. He didn’t think she’d say yes.

“No, I will,” she said. “Yours too.”

He blinked at her for a second, and then smiled. “Okay. I would like a mint chocolate chunk milkshake. Medium, too.”

She nodded. Practicing, Cass said, “Hello. Can we have a chocolate brownie milkshake and a mint chocolate chunk milkshake? Medium, please. Thank you.” She looked to Bruce.

He nodded. “They may look at you weird since we’re Batman and Batgirl.”

She hadn’t considered that… but she nodded again.

“Looks like we’re up,” Bruce said once the college students turned the corner.

They dropped down in front of the window — though, not too fast and not too close as to not scare the worker.

It didn’t work. They still yelped, and backed up quick.

“We’re ordering ice cream,” Bruce said in his deep Batman voice. Cass was going to have to act that out for Tim and Stephanie when they got back.

They looked around. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He nudged Cass in front of him.

“Hello,” she started, “can we have a chocolate brownie milkshake? And also a mint chocolate chunk milkshake? Medium, please.” She stumbled a little, she hadn’t planned to say also, but realized too late to take it back and just in time to stutter all the way to chocolate.

But Bruce, next to her, was happy. Proud.

“Uh, sure,” the guy said, punching it in. “I, um — that’ll be seven dollars and, uh, ninety-three cents.”

Bruce handed over a twenty dollar bill. It was crisp. “Keep the change,” he said.

“Oh. Thank you! Thank you so much. And would you like whipped cream on either?”

He looked at Cass since she’d ordered, but she looked to Bruce instead. That was a lot of talking already, and she didn’t really want to make a choice.

“Just on the chocolate,” he said.

“Great,” they replied. “Uh — coming right up. I’ll be back. I mean, I’ll be in here, but….” They trailed off before unceremoniously shutting the window closed. Cass watched them turn around to take a deep breath.

“Anxious,” she observed.

“Yes,” Bruce agreed. “Batgirl, good job on ordering.”

She hid her face. “Thank you. I… can say… thank you. Too.”

“Alright, if that’s what you’d like.”

Cass felt confident. “Yes.”

They waited for the window to slide open again. It did, and the guy practically slammed the milkshakes on the counter before taking a large step back. “Uh, they’re done!”

Cass crept forward and took them both. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Would you — would you like straws?” they asked, gesturing to where they were.

Cass was about to reach for them when Bruce said, “No. Thank you. Have a good night.”

He took his milkshake from her and grappled up to the roof. She followed him.

“No straws?” she asked.

“Yes straws, just not plastic,” Bruce replied easily. He took two compact metal straws out of one of his pouches and handed her one. “You know,” he was smirking, “save the turtles.”

“B!” Cass gasped, letting out a quiet laugh. “I’m… telling.”

“What?” he asked, a look of faux confusion on his face. “Save the turtles? Is that like save the whales? That’s what they said when I was growing up.” A brief pause as if he was actually listening to someone, and then: “Tim, I never know what you’re talking about with the internet and your me-mes.”

She laughed harder.

“No one will believe you,” he said, back to normal.

“No,” she argued. “I’m… trustworthy.”

“Hm, we’ll see.”

He grinned at her and she couldn’t help but grin back.

They started in on their milkshakes, and watched from above as the guy called seemingly every person imaginable to tell them about who their customers just were.

Cass loved patrolling with Bruce.

(Turned out, she also loved chocolate brownie milkshakes with whipped cream on it.)

(Also turned out, Bruce’s acting skills were far superior to her supposed trustworthiness.)

“B, there are so many of these guys, we ran out of handcuffs!”

“Duct tape.”

“You’re the only one of us that carries it around.”

“Hm.”

“Just give it — thank you.”

Clark had an annoying spot on his glasses. While he was Superman and didn’t even need glasses in the first place, he still liked to keep them clean when he could — the spot was irritatingly in his peripheral vision and it took more effort to adjust his sight like that.

It had been raining outside when he’d arrived, and his umbrella had been so finicky that it hadn’t done its job well enough to keep him from soaking the top part of him.

Clothes were easy enough to take care of, he’d handed the worst of it off in the coat check with an awkward thanks. And the hair had been slightly salvageable in the bathroom, though twists were always annoying to dry.

There was only a light trail of water that kept going down his neck as he sipped at his glass, going over the notes he’d already taken while looking around the room for more quotes he could get.

It was just bizarre, being there at the Martha Wayne Foundation Gala and hearing random strangers who’d never met Jason Todd mourn his death while he could also hear Jason, Damian, and Cass up in the vents playing some complicated game to see who could annoy the guests the most.

He set his empty glass down on a passing waiter’s tray with a quiet thanks and pulled his glasses off to try and get the annoying spot off, but the problem with being Clark Kent was that, along with his clothes being horribly oversized — they were also horribly low quality.

Which basically meant that all his wiping managed to do was… absolutely nothing.

Clark was about to start angrily huffing on the lenses when Bruce suddenly appeared at his elbow.

“Oh!” he said, trying not to sound too surprised. He was Superman for Rao’s sake. “Hi.”

“Mr. Kant, isn’t it?” Bruce asked, voice lofty in his distinctly Brucie way despite the amusement in his eyes. “I couldn’t help but notice your predicament.”

“Kent,” Clark corrected, trying to hold back his smile. He never seemed to be able to stop grinning when he was around the persona — something about knowing that there was more behind it, about being let in on a secret, about Bruce choosing to mess with him whenever possible.

Bruce was pulling something out of his inner pocket and issuing an offhand apology while Clark attempted to control himself. “Right, right, Kent, of course. Don’t know how I forgot. Ah!” He presented Clark with a small spray bottle of glasses cleaner and one of those fancy lens towels as well. “Here we are.”

“Thanks!” Clark said, actually charmed as he took them. It always amazed him how Bruce continued to have specific things Clark would need in his pockets or pouches depending on who he was. “I was resigning myself to seeing the world through a fog.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

“Not if you want the Planet to give your gala a hazy review.”

It was cheesy.

Bruce still laughed. “How are you seeing things now?”

Clark, clean glasses balanced on his nose, pretended to seriously look around the room for a moment before facing Bruce again. “Well, there are some things I like.”

Rao.

But Bruce looked him up and down right back. “I see something that I like, too,” he told him with a smirk. “Have I told you how good you look in glasses?”

He couldn’t hold back his grin that time, ducking his head. “Thanks. I — thanks.”

“Anytime, Mr. Kant,” Bruce said, amusement back in his eyes. And, with that, he weaved away to his next target.

Ridiculous. Brucie Wayne flirted with everyone, but still —

As soon as Bruce left, Dick and Tim turned up on either side of him.

“Hey, Tim,” Dick mused exaggeratedly on his right side, and Clark knew he was in a trap, just not what trap it was.

“Yeah, Dick?”

“You don’t wear glasses, right?”

“Nope, I don’t wear glasses. You don’t wear glasses, right?”

“Guys,” Clark tried to protest.

“Nope!” Dick replied, completely ignoring him. “I don’t either. What about Cass or you-know-who or Damian or Steph or Al or…”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t wear glasses either, no.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure B wears glasses when he’s reading and so does Alfred, but he wouldn’t carry around glasses cleaner in his really fancy suit for the annual rich person party, right?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Like, when he’s transferring all his things into his jacket, he wouldn’t have said, ‘Ah, yes, I need to keep some glasses cleaner on me?’”

“Can’t imagine why he’d have it on him.”

“Right! Unless he was thinking about someone he’d know he’d see, right?”

Clark opened his mouth to interject, and couldn’t think of a good argument. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but — ”

“Implying? We’re not implying anything. Or, at least, I’m not — are you implying anything, Tim?”

“Nope, I’m pretty sure we’re blatantly saying that there was something distinctly… queer… about their interaction.”

“In the odd sense of the word, of course.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

They started laughing, but it was weird — an attempt to sound proper that basically amounted to a strange snickering noise that was slowly increasing in volume. Clark couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed, an exasperated grin sneaking onto his face.

“You’re both ridiculous,” he told them as sternly as possible. “And embarrassing,” he added as people turned to look at all three of them.

Dick’s face did a semi-impression of a kissy face before his laugh ruined it, and Clark sighed and blushed in spite of what he was trying to order his body not to do.

“I… am going to get some quotes,” he said before not running away.

“Ah, shoot. My backpack strap.”

“Duct tape.”

“…Thanks.”

Stephanie Brown, newly appointed Robin, still couldn’t quite believe it every time she was on patrol with The Batman.

So, she tried to catalogue them all. It generally went something like this:

Get to the cave. Get lectured on safety. Suit up. Go out. Break up a few fights or assaults. Try to goof off. Get told off. Get bored. Go back to the cave. Get the Bat Grunt of Approval or another Bat Lecture. Go home.

Honestly, it wasn’t as exciting as she’d thought it’d be. The nights they had missions or some villain came out to play, those were fun. But those nights were way less frequent than Steph had been expecting them to be.

She was currently on the “get bored” stage, cheek in hand as Bruceman surveyed everything in sight from the roof they were on.

“You know,” she drawled, “I’m pretty sure you looked over there already.”

He ignored her.

As usual.

Steph sighed into her palm, but snapped to attention once she realized Batman had actually seen something — it was clear by the way he tensed.

“What is it?” she hissed.

He didn’t respond, already grappling into the edge of an alley, but he jutted his head in permission for her to follow.

They hit the ground and Steph looked around, but couldn’t find what Batman was looking at. Because of his freaky observation powers.

He lowered his hand, a silent command for her to be quiet, but — and this was weird — as he started walking, he made his steps intentionally loud. Not stomping, but Steph was so used to his steps not making any noise, that it startled her.

Then, he clicked his tongue, and that really had her gaping.

Maybe it was some kind of code. Tim had told her about Catwoman and her strange potential romance with Batman. She could be about to meet her.

“Hey, buddy,” Batman said, voice soft despite the voice modulator.

Oh shit. A kid? Steph still couldn’t find what they were looking at, but if it was a kid….

Pulling out something from his belt, he dropped into a squat, holding his hand out with whatever he’d gotten.

Steph squinted at it. “Is that a Batcracker?”

“Battreat,” Bruce said with a completely straight face — or, well, mouth since that was all she could see.

She finally saw it. A dog. Brown, from what she could tell in the dark. Medium-sized, long-haired, but it was matted. She went silent because she wasn’t an asshole. She couldn’t speak over a dog that was clearly in pain.

It was bizarre — the way Batman morphed into Bruce the second he’d seen the dog. He crooned at it, and it sat up a little before flopping back down. So he got closer to it and was rewarded with a tail wag.

“Hi, buddy,” Bruce was murmuring. “You look pretty hurt, huh? Is it your leg? We’re going to get you some help, but you can’t be walking on it. Can I pick you up?”

He let the dog sniff at him and pet it a few times before giving it the treat and managing to pick it up at the same time.

“Good girl,” he said, and Steph was too mesmerized by it all to say anything until she’d been safely delivered to the vet. (She hadn’t exactly been surprised when Batman showed up with a dog. Steph wondered how many times he’d brought some stray or hurt animal there around one in the morning.)

“You just have dog treats in your belt?”

“No, they’re animal treats. Cats or dogs can eat them.”

“What the hell.”

“Robin.”

“But they’re shaped like bats! Like, dude, are you getting these custom made?”

“Agent A and I make them together every two months.”

“Dude.”

She tried to picture it. Alfred and Bruce in the kitchen making dog — animal treats, and Bruce carefully using a bat cookie cutter. She couldn’t do it.

Steph side-eyed him. “You’re messing with me.”

Bruce turned on the roof, looking around once more. He didn’t confirm or deny.

What the fuck.

“Here.”

“Bruce, no! What the fuck?!”

“Jason.”

“You can’t just duct tape my book to fix it! There is a process for these things.”

“Hn.”

“Have you never heard of book repairing before? You know what? You don’t deserve a library full of first editions.”

“Now,” Batman said, “a lot of people see stakeouts as the most boring part of the job, but that’s just not true.”

He’d given Dick the same spiel in the Batcave, and in the Batmobile, and now on the roof. Dick tuned him out for a minute — he didn’t exactly mean to, but he’d heard it already, and it was his first stakeout as Robin. He was allowed to be excited.

He eyed the warehouse they were watching over, sure that some dramatic deal was about to go down.

“…Which sometimes means sitting still for hours,” Batman was saying when Dick started paying attention again, and he pouted. “It’s a skill that needs to be developed over time. I don’t expect you to stay still for too long right now, but I expect you to get better at it.”

“B,” Dick protested. “I just got diagnosed with ADHD.”

After Mr. Keaton had started kicking him out of his classroom under the guise of “quiet time,” it’d only taken a few visits to the counselor’s room he had sent him to for a call home about getting Dick some “professional help.”

Dick didn’t see much wrong with the way he acted, and didn’t mind the conversations he got to have with Ms. Stubbs (she let him call her Joanna) when Mr. Keaton had asked him to leave, but all of the Adults had come to the conclusion that an evaluation wouldn’t hurt.

And it technically hadn’t, though the hours spent in an office had been particularly excruciating.

“You’ve said that at least two times a day for the past month,” Bruce responded, and it was all Bruce, amusement clear in his words. Dick grinned in reply, taking advantage of his slight break in character.

“It’s true!”

“The ‘just’ is becoming questionable,” he commented dryly. Which, okay, maybe Dick was milking it. Bruce sighed, slipping right back into Batman’s mood. “Robin, there are some things you need to learn how to do for your own survival and to continue as a vigilante.”

“Alright,” he huffed, and got back down into the crouch that Bruce had taught him. He trained the binoculars on a window, only to find it dark. “Is anyone even in there?”

“No. That is why we have to wait.”

Dick sighed again, louder. “We could be saving people right now, but instead we’re just sitting on a roof.”

“We’re saving people in the future by waiting right now.”

So, he waited. For about five minutes, but then his legs started to get tired, and he went to the edge of the roof instead, hanging his legs over the side.

Batman didn’t say anything, which basically translated to an okay.

He swung his legs for a while.

Waited more.

Behind him, the Bat stayed silent, probably just boringly crouched there. Well, he might like to do that, but Dick didn’t have to. No one was around anyway.

“…What are you doing?” Bruce asked.

Dick turned to flash the box in his hand, biting the plastic off his straw at the same time. “Juice box,” he said around the straw. “It’s fruit punch.”

“Robin,” he said, mouth folding in that way it did when he was displeased. “I told you to put something you thought was essential in the empty pouch.”

“I did! I thought about it, and I already have the important things for fighting. I don’t need another fear toxin antidote, you know.”

“So you decided on juice?”

“Well, sure.” He shrugged. “Why not? It’s essential that I have something that I like. And hydration is important.”

“What about water?”

Who likes water? “Who likes water, B?” he asked.

The man’s mouth curled downward. “I like water. And there’s water in the first aid kit.”

“No,” Dick insisted. “Juice is the best. But…” he checked his pouch guiltily. “I only thought to get one, sorry. I’ll put two in for next time.”

“Robin, I don’t need a juice box.”

Dick gasped. “B, everyone needs a juice box.”

In his ear, he heard a quiet chuckle.

“See? A agrees with me.”

“Yes, Batman, I can’t fathom how we didn’t notice this oversight,” Alfred said. It only prompted Batman to frown more.

“You’re both too old,” Dick explained. “No offense, it’s not your fault. And, come on, now you’re not even watching the warehouse.”

He turned back around before he could see his reaction and took a sip. “Aaaaaaah,” he sighed. “That’s the good stuff.”

Batman snorted.

“Hey, Duke. Uh — dude, what’s on your back?”

“Oh, I ripped my jacket accidentally today, and Bruce thought that…. Well, I don’t know what he was thinking, but he just slapped some fucking duct tape on it and called it a day?”

“No, yeah, B just does that.”

“I didn’t even see where he got it from? Like, it wasn’t in his hand and then it was.”

“He does that, too.”