Work Text:
It started with a mission in a warehouse, all important Batman fanfics start with a mission. And someone getting hit by something, metaphorically or literally.
Nightwing, Red Hood and Red Robin were in the middle of taking down a drug deal being made near the bay, when a goon got a lucky shot that hit Dick's torso.
Jason quickly took him to the Batcave while Tim dealt with the rest of the criminals. Dick received an emergency surgery performed by the combined forces of Dr. Leslie and Alfred. The whole family was called to quit their patrols and reunited outside the Medbay during painfully long hours. Leslie finally got out about 5 hours later.
“He's safe.” The whole family felt relieved. “However, he needs at least two weeks of rest, if you can a month would be splendid, he's also under sedation, he'll wake up in a matter of one or two days and contact me immediately if that's not the case, if anything goes correctly, after waking up he has high chances to suffer hallucinations due to the sedatives we gave him, so make sure someone is always by his side.”
After Leslie got back to her clinic again, Bruce sent his kids to sleep, only him and Alfred staying by Dick side. “You should also sleep too, the surgery was too long.”
“Are you sure you want to keep an eye on Master Dick alone?” Alfred said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, I think so.” He really needs his time alone after one of his kids almost dies, not like it would be the first time, but it doesn’t matter, it still always hurts like the first time.
At the end Bruce fell asleep after watching his son for almost two hours.
The next day during breakfast, everyone decided to make a sort of horary were at least two people were by Dick's side, Duke and Cass would watch him from breakfast until lunch; then Damian and Stephanie (who was staying at the Manor for some days) would watch over him until patrol time; during the night, Tim and Jason would watch him, both protested about not being able to patrol but Bruce argued it was so they could recover from the fight they had last night, obviously it was an excuse Bruce did so the two wouldn't go out, knowing they thought Dick's state was their fault, and Duke offered himself to cover their principal patrol routes along with Bluebird.
Dick's condition didn't change during the whole day, now the clock was marking 1:35 am, Jason brought a book to entertain himself while Tim was playing on his 3DS –which Jason doesn't know where it came from– but then the 3DS just stopped working so Tim had to apply the ancient technique of hitting the console against the table.
Jason watched him in his misery for a while before getting back to his book.
“What are you reading?” Tim asked after giving up on reanimating the console.
“Gay porn.” Tim looked at him as if he said he killed a puppy, “I’m joking, you can read the fucking cover.”
“You can read the fucking cover,” Tim immited him with a mocking tone “I was just trying to make a conversation,” he murmured while crossing his arms.
That got Jason to fully lower his book “You want to talk? Fine, then I know you're blaming yourself, I can see it in your eyes, don't do it, if anything I'm the one who asked you two for help.”
Tim's expression softened a little “It's also not your fault, you know? It's not like you forced us or anything.”
Their moment was interrupted by a faint moan coming from their brother, they rushed to the man's side.
“Dickhead, how are you feeling-” He was interrupted with a surprised gasp from him and then was left worried when the other started to laugh as if he was gassed with Joker’s Venom. “Uh, do we have to worry or…?”
“Dr. Leslie mentioned hallucinations were a possibility.” Tim turned to talk with Dick, still lying down on the bed. “What are you seeing, Dick?”
“I see a Lego airplane flying over a Lego Gotham.”
“What?” While Jason was left dumbfounded with what just got out of his brother's mouth, Tim took out his phone and started recording, not before sending a text to Oracle, something in his gut telling him what’s about to happen should be immortalized.
“And the airplane is getting assaulted by the Joker.” Dick continued with a smile. Tim and Jason stared at him with bewildered expressions.
“Uh, why is he assaulting an airplane?”
“Because he and the whole rogue gallery want to appropriate the city, duh. The Batsignal doesn't work because a rogue put eggs in it and there are bombs planted in the center of Lego Gotham, if the bomb activates the city will be destroyed in half because its roots are only two Lego pieces placed together with nothing underneath, the Joker wants the city mayor or else they'll explode the city.”
“Wait, how did they get explosives?”
“Timbers!” Jason cannot believe Tim, the most intelligent person in the family acting like –who is he fooling?– Tim’s just as stupid as the rest of them.
“I'm just asking the real questions.”
“From the airplane, did you not hear me?” Dick sounded indignanted.
“How many explosives are we talking about?” Tim could barely hold back his curiosity.
“11 000 000 sticks of dynamite, 17 000 pounds of c-4 and about 150 little classic bomb-type bombs.” Well, Jason was kinda impressed with his brother’s imagination, and to think that anyone would allow so many weapons in Gotham without maximum protection, even if they’re in the sky.
“And they let a dangerous thing like that fly in Gotham?” At least Tim opined the same as him “It seems like security standards are even worse than the ones in our world.” Not to mention the bar was already in hell.
“Oh, yep, because the pilots are best friends, can I continue?” Dick saw both of his brothers nodding so he went on, “The mayor surrenders, so she goes where the Joker and the rest of the rogues are but she ends up being Batman in disguise.”
“And he calls us to back him up and lock everyone in Arkham again?”
“Don't be stupid Timmy.”
“Thanks!” Jason is almost relieved, at least he's not as gone as he looks like.
“He defeats them with a song about how he's Batman.” Dick starts singing some sort of rock song and he manages to sound out of tune, even though the song is being sang in a single low tone.
“How many rogues are we talking about?”
“I don’t know, there’s Harley Quinn, Riddler, Scarecrow, Bane, Two-face, Catwoman, Clayface, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Crazy quilt, Eraser, Polka-dot man, Mime, Tarantula,” They’re not touching with a 20 meters pole why Dick included her in his hallucination “King tut, Orca, KIller moth-” And Dick keeps rambling villain names Jason doesn’t recognize.
“Do all of them exist?” Jason mutters to Tim.
“According to my stalker days, yes they all do.”
“-And Condiment King. THERE ARE 36! So as I was saying, he almost has everyone down and is fighting the Joker,” He makes ‘pew, pew’ sounds for some reason, “but the Joker asks him to choose between trapping his greatest enemy or save the city,” classic Joker move, “B says he isn't his greatest enemy, he’s also fighting other bad guys all the time and there’s nothing special between the two of them, because he doesn’t do relationships.”
Jason was feeling more and more miserable, out of all the rogues Dick really had to pick up Joker to make a gay subtext with?
“He lets Joker escape while he deactivates the bomb. The whole city thanks him and he loves the praise others give him, he then goes to an orphanage to give free merchandise and you'll never guess what…” He stays silent for a long time, maybe forgetting what he was saying or waiting for them to actually ask.
Jason groans, finally surrounding his fate and just lets out a dry “What?”
As if their timing was the one of a bad 80's comedy, Alfred enters the Medbay in the exact same moment Dick yells “I am in that orphanage!”
“Master Bruce and the others are returning to the cave soon, and I recommend to you by then both have an excuse for me having to tell the rest about Master Dick state and not you” Alfred announced with an elegance only he was capable of.
Jason rubs his forehead with one hand and points to Dick with the other one while he's making a very detailed description of the cave and the zillions of weapons it has. “Would Master Jason like to make me company while the rest of the family comes?”
“Yes! Please Alfie!” Jason practically jumps from the chair and runs towards the exit, not before stopping next to Alfred to give him a hug, “You're the best” and he finally exits the med.
Alfred departed with more elegance, leaving Tim alone with Dick, and it seemed like he lost a lot of context, since he hears an “...So he watches a romance movie-”
“Wait, What was going on?” Tim is cutting out that part of the video when he releases it, because yes, he can already see how viral Dick will become for creating a Batman movie in his head, and he won’t let himself look like an idiot.
“You know, B comes back to the cave but he's alone, the computer updates him with trivial things he has to do, Alfred is on the 17th floor of the mansion” Right, all of this happens before Dick is adopted. “So he eats lobster alone, plays the guitar in the water and watches a romantic movie while laughing at it.”
Tim hears the motor of the Batmobile getting closer and mentally prepares for the mess this night's going to become with everyone present.
“But why doesn't he go to Alf?” he’ll be lying if he said the story isn’t starting to sound interesting.
“You know how dad is,” Angry, sad, full of vengeance, “And he was worst before we came, he didn’t want to form a real connection, he was afraid of letting others inside just to lose them again,” He hasn't changed in that aspect very much, every time any of them die or are assumed to be dead, he closes himself from everyone else, thinking it's the only way not to get hurt, and unfortunately, every single one of his children had picked the trait from him, “but he still wants to have a real connection, a real family again.”
Tim hears the motor of the Batmobile getting closer and mentally prepares for the mess this night's going to become with everyone present. “So he goes to the Manor and speaks to a picture of his parents in the wall, saying they would’ve been proud of him and Alfie interrupts him, Bruce kicks him towards the piano though,”
If Bruce does something like that to Alfred, they might need to arrange the arrangements for their dad’s funeral. “He already recovered don’t worry, he reminds B of all of his depressive eras during his 78 years as Batman” Fucking 78 YEARS!? “The 2010's, the 2000’s, the 90's, the 80’s, the 60's, and let me inform you, you don't want to know what happened in 1966” Dick whispered the last part very horrified and with a hunted face, so Tim decided to not ask. “Then Alfred tells him ‘You can’t spend the rest of your time alone, dressed in black, listening to angry music and staying up all night’ and B is like ‘Yes I can, ‘cause I’m Batman’”.
Tim hears someone clearing his throat and speaking of the devil, there is his dad, out of his suit and with his normally stoic face but a glance that clearly says ‘I should've stopped with the first one’, even if said first one made the comment. “Do I even want to ask?” Bruce can’t say he is surprised, his kids had trained that out of him years ago, but a man can dream.
“You'll see, do you remember Dr. Thompkins mentioned hallucinations were a possibility? Well, let’s say Dickie is hallucinating a movie about you.” Tim’s ego won’t let him admit he felt nervous under his dad stare, but let's just say last time Bruce looked like that, Tim had to clean the aftermath of a party he secretly made with the Young Justice all by himself, and taking a car out of his bedroom without making any property damage was harder than it sounds.
“What is it about?” Tim raises his head at Stephanie's voice and sees her with the rest of his family in the Medbay.
“Not too much, only-”
“Dick's imagining a world where we're all Legos and no one has been adopted yet, and also he's telling a story of how B's been very reserved as Batman during the last 78 years, doesn’t want to socialize, he’s afraid of forming part of a family again and snake clowns, and now he's describing gala suits.” Oracle resumed through a sound speaker ubicated in God knows where.
“You've been hearing this the whole time?” Jason was outraged, she was here the whole time just watching their suffering.
“Tim texted me saying Dick’s awake and telling a ‘batshit story’, I want to know where this all goes and also he asked me to record it.”
“Uhh” Duke raises his hand, “Why is Bruce going to a Gala? And what the heck is a snake clown?”
Dick looked at him exasperated “Do I have to repeat myself every time?” He complained weakly, “Jim Gordon is retiring from his job as the commissioner and the title will be passed down to Babs, and also a snake clown is a snake dressed as a clown, obviously.” Then he proceeded to describe every piece of cloth, again.
“Thanks for including me in your story.” Barbara mocks through the speakers.
“He, he, you’re welcome.” Dick was really out of himself, what kind of drugs Leslie and Alfred used on him? He starts to laugh uncontrollably, until he vaguely recognizes the concerned stares of his family. “B forgot to take out his cowl. The TV in the limousine is transmitting an interview with Superman talking about Zod. Ohh, both B and Joker are watching it, and he’s complaining about his criminal coworkers, anyways, Sups mentions how Zod’s part of his life as an archnemesis but in the end he had to send him to the Phantom Zone. Joker gets jealous so Harley suggests him to make Batman realize how much they need each other and he gets an idea.”
“Wait!” Harper interrupted, “Since when is the Joker in this?”
“Oh yeah, there’s some weird homoerotic shit going between him and dad.” Jason responded with amusement.
“Language!” Bruce was completely embarrassed. “I don’t even know where Dick got the idea from.” With his right hand massaging his temple it would’ve look like he’s just midly annoyed, however, given the fact he looked like a tomato, no one bought it.
A chorus of ‘Ehh’, ‘I mean’, ‘Actually’, ‘Well, I remember that time when’, was cut when Cass and Alfred entered the Medbay with a lot of chairs. They said nothing as chairs were distributed to those who were outside patrolling, so everyone got comfortable while Dick continued his story.
“B is in his Bruice persona and doesn’t care much about the new commissioner, as long as they know how to use the batsignal there's nothing to worry about, you know? He enters the place, there’s a chorus with the orphans of the city and,” He draws out the ‘a’ for dramatic effect, “Guess who’s in the chorus.”
Jason sights heavily, “You?”
“Yes! I get close to Bruce because he’s the greatest orphan of all times!” This gets at least a chuckle from all the people in the room, except of course for Bruce, who’s still redder than Red Hood’s helmet “I ask him for tips to get adopted, but he isn’t paying me any attention because he got captivated by Babs beauty!” Everyone in the room except Alfred groans. “Don’t be like that! You have no idea, she’s wearing a beautiful purple sleeveless dress with black gloves and her hair is-”
Harper was so confused, how could you find a toy (not to mention a fucking Lego) sexy? And Barbara felt a bit adulated by her ex boyfriend talking so fondly about her, but after 3 minutes of him describing her looks, she feels it is too much, “Dick, just go on with the story.”
“Oh yeah, so B isn't paying attention to what I say and accidentally accepts to adopt me.”
“Drake, are you sure you didn't try this at some point?” Damian adds with a smug smile.
“Shut up, brat!” Now Tim is the one with a red face.
Dick just ignores his brothers bickering and goes on, “Jim is going to a south african jungle safari, nice we should give the man a break. Babs cleaned the streets in Blüdhaven too, she’s stealing my job” Dick pouted, as if doing a literal fanfiction of his own father wasn’t embarrassing enough. “She gets the title and she gives a speech, she’s saying the city doesn't need Batman anymore because he never captures his rogues. and wants him to join forces with the police. Dad is very indignanted about this and makes a fuss as Brucie, and now Barbara said the city doesn’t need an ‘Unsupervised adult man karate-chopping poor people in a Halloween costume’, also she wants him to join forces with the police.”
“If he’s been doing the job for 78 years and hadn’t done any improvement, I kinda side with Barbara.” Duke thought out loud.
“Kinda? If father was that useless in real life, I may as well move back with mother”.
“I’m with the little man over here, If I were there I would eat the rich.”
“Thank you kids, I really feel your love.” Bruce wanted to leave the Medbay, but he knew if he did, his children would call him a coward and so he stayed.
“The rogues are attacking the Gala; B goes to the building roof to get his suit and also builds a machine with the Legos of an antenna he broke and builds the scuttler, and ohhh, I see more villains this time, do you want me to count them?”
“NO!” Jason, Barbara and Tim screamed at the same time, no one else dared to question why.
“You’re really mean! He doesn't let Barbara help him with the Joker, even though she's taken down some villains by herself. But it doesn’t matter because the man gives himself up to the police and the other villains follow his lead, because Joker says there’s not an ‘us’ to fight for, which is suspicious for practically everyone, I mean, how can you not be suspicious about someone who says ‘Blink’ when they’re blinking?”
“You did the exact same thing last week.” Barbara was torn between being amused and just wanting Dick to finish his story.
“This is making a very horrible characterization of Batman, I would never be so petty.” Bruce said with, well, a lot of pettiness.
“Of course, Master Bruce never did something petty like demand the Batburger franchise once because of a Batman figure with blonde hair they sold in the kids meals.” Alfred mentioned with his typical sarcasm.
Bruce's face grew impossibly redder than it already was. “That was one time.”
“Lie” Cass signed with obvious amusement in her movements.
After thinking a little about it, Tim finally discovers where the plot is moving. “Ohh, so Joker is planning on letting Batman prison him in the Phantom Zone so he realizes how much they need each other and in the process he learns the importance of letting others in his life.” Everyone looks at him annoyed.
“This is why we never let you speak on movie nights.” Steph says while crossing her arms.
“The citizens are glad crime has finally ended and the journalists give all the credit to Barbara, B gets jealous and interrupts the interview, so one of the journalists asks him the big question: What is he gonna do with the rest of his life? After all, why would they need him if there’s no crime anymore? After the Gala, everyone is celebrating except for Bruce, because he doesn't have a purpose, so he just spies the Joker to know what's his plan.”
Everyone in the room and even Barbara shivered at what Dick just told, it felt so unreal, crime never truly rests, they all had to learn it the hard way much before becoming vigilantes. Most of them chose this path having a vague idea there was no coming back, ready to give up a big portion of their lives to save others or give criminals what they deserve, but if they ever had to retire before this life killed them permanently. A thought such as that is so distant for a city like theirs or any other place they perhaps could go, thinking of a scenario like this was dangerous, because it would be wishing for the impossible, so no one could actually come up with something else to fill that lost part of their lives.
“His plan? How does he know the Joker even has a plan?” Tim asked.
“He doesn’t but he’s paranoiac at the sudden drop in crime and he has nothing better to do.”
Jason was indubitably hating himself right now for actually listening to the story Dick is making up, but at least he was roasting Bruce, so the experience wasn’t as bad as it could be.
“He’s arguing with Barbara, they both know Joker it’s up to something, Bruce says Joker mustn't run around lose in Arkham and he should be put in a place like the Phantom Zone, because you know how paranoid he is, Babs gets angry because that's like illegal, and asks to join forces together but B refuses, and then he monologues out loud like-”
“You know B?” Stephanie whispers to him “We should drug ourselves and passively aggressively mock you more often instead of fight.” Bruce didn't know if she was joking or seriously considering it, given it was Steph, both possibilities were equally plausible.
“So he goes super angry to the cave, but Alfred has put parental control in the Batcomputer so B takes responsibility for his life and raises me.”
I could use this on Tim, Bruce thought for himself, meanwhile, Alfred was having a similar train of thought but to use it on a much older bat.
“You know what’s worse? The bastard forgot he adopted me at the party! He wants to return me to the orphanage and tells Alfred he is nothing else than a butler, so Alfred, oh the saint he is, opens the entrance to the Batcave.”
At this point, everyone was laughing as if they were gassed with Joker’s Venom, even Alfred let out a little chuckle Bruce was mortified but at the same time, something inside of him felt warm, if this is what takes for his family to be happy for a while then he would enjoy it too.
“I'm so excited to be there, then I see Batman and, wait, does Batman live in Bruce Wayne’s basement?”
“No, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman’s attic.” Bruce and Barbara answer at the same time with a fond tone.
“It was a popular joke among young folks when Master Bruce recently got out as a vigilante.” Alfred explained after seeing the confused faces.
“Batman doesn’t let me touch anything, only the Shark repellent, the Batcomputer informs B needs the Phantom Zone projector to send the Joker to the Phantom Zone, and the device is in the Fortress of Solitude, inside the atomic cauldron. Only a small person can enter it and there's a 110% chance of failure, so he sends me.”
“TT, I once had to enter that place and it was child’s play, even the most stupid fool can enter in there.”
“Why did you have to get inside in the first place?” Cassandra asks.
“Jon can sometimes be a true idiot, even more than Drake.”
“Jason? Have my phone and don’t stop recording.” And with his phone safe, Tim threw himself towards Damian and the two started fighting, moving around the room until both exited the Medbay.
Dick ignores everything that just happened like a professional and goes on. “Anyways, he decides to send me.”
“Why?” Steph asks, totally engrossed with Dick's story at this point.
“Because I'm super nimble, small, quiet and 110% expendable. So I get to choose my superhero suit.”
“I need to have a serious talk with Dick about self esteem.” Bruce had his head in his hands.
“I think you need to separate the cuckoo bird and the demon brat first.” Before Bruce could even suggest Jason to go and do it himself, he raises Tim’s phone recording the extensive description Dick is making about the batsuits, so the man goes to do the job.
“I grabbed the Reggae Batman costume,” Okay, they all thought, at least in this version he didn't choose a pantless suit. “but the pants were uncomfortable, so I pushed them away.” Forget it.
Bruce comes back holding one kid in each arm, “-And if you fight again tonight, you’re going to wash every toilet in this house with a toothbrush.”
“Alfred is worried about me going out but B reassures him everything is alright and we’re just spending quality time. We're about to go out but I remember I have to get permission from my new dad Bruce Wayne, so Batman tells me they decided to share custody and he gives me heads up to go and also gives me my first life lesson: life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”
“And the allegories to homosexuality don’t stop coming.” Bruce turns red again and most of the people in the room are giving Jason weird looks. “Why are you staring at me? I’m a classic literature nerd, I detect an allegory when I see one, even if the story is quite literally written with drugs.”
“Yeah, isn't it awesome? A month ago I didn't have a dad and now I have two.”
“See? I’m crazy but not an idiot.”
“The journey is exciting, even if I almost broke my nose, although B promised me to ask Alfred to put seatbelts on the Batmobile when we get home, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Now that I think about it, why doesn't our Batmobile have them?” Harper remembers the first time she saw it on the inside and the feeling of disappointment, not at the low security regulations it had, they were to be expected, but at the lack of seatbelts.
“Oh, it used to have seatbelts, until someone decided to teletransport it to his room for a party and couldn’t put it back in again.” Yes, Stephanie was also in the Young Justice party, she used the card of not being officially adopted to avoid punishment.
“What would you need to take them away?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.” Tim let out with a hunted voice.
“B says he'll distract Sups while I get the projector; he doesn’t let me give any ideas and shows me a counter of good ideas he had that are 5 678 483 and no one else had ever had any good ideas. He says my superpower is to listen and execute his ideas, and also he tells me to not call him dad, so I call him papa instead.”
And boy, it felt like a punch in the gut for Bruce, because he saw his kids' faces and what all of them must be thinking. During a long time he had the ‘working alone’ mentality, even when he was already a father, he didn’t even take anyone else in consideration. At some point, everyone present in the room heard him rejecting their ideas until he suddenly came to them begging for help because his initial plan failed.
“That’s mathematically impossible, if he had been a vigilante for 78 years he would need to have 199.4549 ideas per day; you know what? I’m just going to turn off my brain and not question anything.” Barbara said, unaware of the episode of self loathing Bruce was going through.
“B knocks on the door and Sups is surprised to see him there, it’s oh, actually very uncomfortable, like when you pretend to die and then you suddenly come back to everyone else's lives.” No one laughs at his joke “Though public, so B enters the place and discovers the Justice League was celebrating their 57th anniversary without him, and they do the biggest betrayal of all.”
“Do they fake their deaths and don’t tell anyone?”
“Ouch, they ask dad to take a photo of the entire group without him. He stays at the party to not look like a total loner but he definitely feels like one.”
“Alfred, did you provide Richard truth serum?” Damian was beyond amused at this point, even if the story doesn’t include all of his siblings to laugh at them, he had material to annoy his father with for at least the next month.
“The place I have to go in is a big ball with kryptonian machines protecting it and a bigger laser ball covering it, I ask Bruce for some help, so he leaves the party in a super secret way so no one notices him, deactivates the laser moving some random crystals and gives me the exact instructions on how to avoid the robots” He stays silent for a while “Aww, I just named myself Robin, and I have a catch phrase! And a song!” Dick starts singing but is stopped by Jason, who placed his hand in the other’s mouth.
“If you sing again I will murder you, bring you back with the Lazarus pit and pick up Talia as your mentor on how to control the pit's influence.” Jason said in his most serious tone.
“Okay, jeez, he teaches me to build my way inside that thing, and I finally get the ray. B is waiting for me outside of the Fortress, he gets so excited when he sees me with the projector, I ask him if he’s okay and he tells me ‘watching you out there, it was like the world wasn’t all darkness anymore’, for a brief moment he felt something and his computer says he’s feeling pride and he admits he’s proud but of himself for being a good teacher.”
Bruce got weirdly nostalgic over hearing his son, he perfectly remembers the first years as Dick foster dad, where he transformed into a completely different version of himself as Robin, going from an angry and depressed kid who barely spoke to anyone in the manor to a feral vigilante who made it a personal mission for himself to give Bruce gray hairs before he became 30. During his first years as Robin, Dick needed him as a mentor more than a father, so he tried to provide that and give him all the possible lessons he could, not to mention he didn’t know to express emotions so he would show it with actions and overprotectiveness, even if being overprotective over his oldest was one of the reasons he moved out of the house. He cannot help but to reach out to take Dick’s hand and wrap it around his, he also cannot hold back a little smile.
“He lets me call him Padre, you know, dad in spanish but it also means buddy, so it’s okay.”
“That’s actually not-” Stephanie covers Tim’s mouth.
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
“We head off to Arkham and B gives me my second life lesson: vigilantes don’t have bedtimes.”
“Hey! Don’t put me into the same category as you, some of us are actually normal and have an 8 hours sleep schedule.”
“Master Duke, I would like to point out you’re still awake with us.” No one but Cassandra could tell how amused Alfred was about the whole night, he administered strong hallucinogenic drugs along with Dr. Thompkins, yet he never expected them to create such an original experience, for the lack of better words.
“Yeah, against my will.” Duke threw himself dramatically against the chair, one can only spend a certain amount of time with Jason before picking up his dramatic personality after all.
“It is already night when we get close. B gives me the third lesson: When going stealth, You gotta hide every part of you, physically and emotionally.”
“What the fuck does he mean with emotionally?” Stephanie asks Cass and she only receives a shrug as an answer.
“But we still run into Barbara, oh God, B is totally down for Babs and he’s flirting with her, anyway she asks him if we’re here to collaborate with her on the Joker’s case and he tells her yes to use it as an excuse to enter the asylum, or to flirt more, I’m not totally sure.”
Bruce and Barbara were beyond embarrassed, on Bruce's side he really hoped the weird drug Dick had just made him forget how complicated his relationship with Barbara was, how it fluctuates from being just co-workers, to him viewing him as an unofficial daughter, but never a girlfriend!
On Barbara’s side, she was already searching who was the tug who shot Nightwing and as a consequence let her pass the shame to have someone think of the mere possibility of her dating the emotionally constipated man, to maybe give him a few more months in jail.
“But we had to get through a X-ray machine as a protocole– Ew, Bruce just took out his pants! No way! B has his boots attached to his pants” Hello! Mental image nobody wanted to have “Well, they discovered we have the projector, it didn't matter I hid it super well under my cape, so we fight the guards and escape from Barbara to get to the Joker’s cell.”
“Quick question, old man, do you really have your boots attached to your pants? Like, Dick’s the only one who has ever worn it so…” Jason knew the answer perfectly, he just wanted to mess with his dad.
“I’m not going to answer that.”
“He totally does, mother told me a time when-” Damian stopped, seeing the death glare his father sent him and remembering the toothbrush treat. “I actually can’t recall what she told me.”
“They have a discussion again because the Joker says that if Batman wants to send him with the worst of the worst then he is Batman’s greatest enemy but B just says the other wants to entrap him into a relationship, WAIT! JOKER’S ACTUALLY INSIDE BATMAN’S BRAIN AND– False alarm, but Joker insists that sending him there confirms their relationship so B hesitates to shoot the projector but ends up using it anyway and sends him to Phantom Zone.”
“Okay, I’m with Jason now, this is super gay.”
“Thanks Harper!” Jason does again the stare that says ‘I’m crazy, but not that kind of crazy’.
“Bruce gets arrested because, well, you know the whole ‘this is illegal’ deal, Babs is like ‘What are you doing’ and B says I’m Batman-ing and puts on a song.” Jason is restrained by Cass as Dick sings, and they regreted not stopping him, especially Duke, who decided to not see the future to not spoil himself and now feels guilty. “So both argue, they take me to a cell too, Babs is angry because a kid got involved, they take the projector to the evidence room, yada yada, and oh-”. Dick remains silent for a while until he speaks up again “Barbara wanted to be like Batman, but this Batman only cares for himself and is also too prideful to admit he just gave Joker exactly what he wanted.”
Not only this one, Bruce thinks bitterly, because how many times has he pushed others away so he doesn’t get hurt when they end leaving him? Only to be the reason others go away? He has changed and improved over the years (at least it’s what he wants to think) but the past cannot be changed and sometimes, he feels like no action can compensate for the emotional damage he has given to his own children.
Cassandra doesn’t read minds, but his dad’s body language is all the evidence she needs to know he’s overthinking and probably pushing himself over whatever is going on in his mind, so gets close to hug him from his right side.
“So, on the other side of the galaxy, the Joker landed in the Phantom zone and a big traffic light called Phyllis told him he wasn't evil enough to be there after making an assessment.”
“What the actual fuck!” Jason yelled.
“‘Not evil enough’ my imaginary balls!” Barbara also yelled.
“No, no, no, you don't get it, the Phantom Zone had people like Voldemort, Sauron, King Kong and the Jurassic Park velociraptors.”
“How is that even possible?” Duke whispered to Cass, now that she’s closer to him.
Tim was making his ‘I'm thinking about the actual logistics about the insane shit someone else just said’ face “Technically, there’s a theory involving the multiverse that mentions-”
“Timmy, we love you, but for the love of God don't finish the sentence.” Jason was exhausted and wanted to go to bed, he was intrigued enough to stay and hear Dick’s story until the end, but he will shoot anyone who dares to make it a little longer.
“The bad guys reunite to see who’s the new guy and they almost kill him,” Someone (the author is not going to say names but we all know who) cheers in the background “but they stop when he promises to give them all freedom if they help him destroy Batman.”
“Now, that sounds like something our Joker would do.” Stephanie says with a big smile on her face, knowing whatever final battle drugged Dick will see, is going to be epic.
“Harley Quinn infiltrates Arkham to get the confiscated projector and frees the Joker and the other villains shooting a ray in the clouds, and ouch, Joker just called all our rogues losers.”
“To be fair they are, we just take them too seriously because of the whole murdering deal.” Everyone agreed with what Harper said.
“There’s a lot of chaos, Voldemort transformed half of the police force into fishes, the Wicked Witch is commanding her muchkins, Medusa is turning people into stones, some british robots are attacking civilians-” As Dick keeps describing all the destruction, not a single person in the room can remember any movie they watched with evil british robots, but Dick also loves watching weird old fashioned sci-fi and action movies, so it’s probably one of those. “Joker asks Sauron where Batman is to rub all the disaster in his face and the big eye scans the city with a scary noise and discovers Bruce Wayne and Batman are roommates, so all the villains go to the island to destroy it.”
“Oh my God, they were roommates.” Duke said without really thinking about it, everyone laughed for a solid minute while Dick described what each villain was doing on the island and the curious… way the Joker decided to ruin the cave.
“I’m crying in my cell, so B comforts me saying Batman doesn’t get afraid but Bruce Wayne does and we start beatboxing together.” This time their ears have the misfortune to hear the lamest beatboxing ever known to mankind. “But Babs appears and interrupts us-”
“Barbie, you’re truly a hero in every universe.” Jason voiced what the family collectively thought.
“You’re so cruel!” Dick complains with a sleepish voice. “She comes to ask B for help, she admits the city needs him and only lets him get out with the condition of working with her, and also Alfred and I want to join, it takes a little too much convincing but he accepts.”
“Father’s worst nightmare, teamwork.”
“You also hate teamwork, brat.” Tim was very aware of the danger in provoking his little brother, but he also wanted revenge for the earlier comment. Damian, also being aware of the danger in answering Tim, decides to remain silent.
“We all change into our suits, even Alfred took the 60’s disguise from the Batcave.”
“The 60's?”
“DON’T ASK!” Tim and Dick scream at the same time.
“The eye whose name I don’t remember sees B getting out of Arkham and orders the other bad guys to get him, so now all the villains are running towards him, we get to a high floor of a building so the giant eye doesn’t see us and Babs deduces we have to destroy it and then King Kong and Godzilla attack knock down the building, big bad eye throws lava on the streets so B asks us to hand him Lego pieces and with them he makes a plane where we don’t fit because Bruce only puts 1 seat.”
Almost everyone was entertained with the climax Dick was imagining, except for Jason who felt a little part of his heart dying every time Dick makes up those silly names for Sauron, he did not obsessed over the Lord of the Rings at fourteen and forced his older brother to watch every single movie and read the books out loud over and over again as if you had to pass a knowledge test to go to the pearly gates, only for him to forget the fucking name of the powerfull villain.
“The Joker transformed the manor into a big amusement park and he discovers B biggest secret, his romantic comedies! Let’s see, he has ‘Must love dogs’, ‘Marley & me’ mhh I cried with that one, ‘Serendipity’ man I love that one.” Dick stays quiet for a few seconds “I feel like I forgot to tell you something, probably it wasn’t important. The Gremlins land on our plane-”
“And, you missed a pretty big detail!” Poor future audience of the video, they’re going to be just as or more confused than Tim when they watch this.
“Ah, yeah. A lot of villains took all the possible flying objects B has in the cave and Voldemort casted a lighting storm because, why not? We get attacked from everywhere.” Dick makes a lot of ‘pew’ sounds again “The Gremlins were in some airplane and they land in our plane, some missiles are chasing us and dammit! I need to pee.”
Yells and curses were heard across the room, Alfred didn’t bother correcting their lenguaje for now and there was an awkward pause where Dick was accompanied to the bathroom by Bruce while the rest waited on the Medbay, after some minutes they heard them come back, and by heard it means Dick was still describing the story.
“Engine three is out, oh and now the forth and we’re falling, so B goes out to fight them and repair the wing, putting the jet on autopilot because he doesn’t trust Babs to fly it, well autopilot is a gentle term, he just tied a rope to the controls.”
“Tim, didn’t you do it once on a mission?” Cass can recall a story her little brother told her where the Young Justice was accidentally thrown into another dimension where superheroes were mind controlled by an evil God.
“Yes, it was more practical than you believe, especially considering I was completely by myself because the group of idiots decided to follow a suspicious tall man.”
“He tries to repair the Batwing but the Gremlins are winning him so me and Alfred come to rescue him, but we are left hanging of one wing because muchkins made us lose our balance, B rescues me, Alfred is about to fall, B will get there in time and, no he actually doesn’t come in time and Alfie falls.”
“WHAT! In the name of any superior entity, I swear if you kill Alfred in the middle of your story, I’ll-” Damian noticed the irritated looks from his family, so he sat down and cleared his throat “Continue, Richard.”
“No, no, Babs removed the rope and she saves Alfred!” Everyone untensed in relief. “B finally trusts us, so we distribute, I fight off the monsters from the plane, Alfred shoots the bogeys following us and Babs flies towards the flaming eyeball and Godzilla is attacking us with giant blue fireballs.” Everyone was at the edge of their seats, Dick narration wasn’t anything out of this world, but he managed to keep things entertaining and interesting, at least it wouldn’t be a pain in the ass for Barbara to edit out later the most incriminating parts of the footage. “Babs fly us straight to the eyeball because B asked her, Joker orders Godzilla to throw fireballs again, we get out of the way at the last second and yellow eye is destroyed, so the other villains don’t have a view of us anymore.”
“What if we sell the copyrights of this story to some idiot so they make a movie and we become richer than Bruce?” Stephanie thought out loud.
“Blondie, no one would pay to see something like this.”
“You don’t have the vision, Jay, just imagine people going to the cinema to see Batman fighting against Gremlins.” She actually wasn’t sure if they would go just to see that, but at least parents would toss their kids for an hour and half in there just to take a break from parenting.
“We are celebrating, it was pretty awesome. B adds our ideas in his good ideas counter and I take a photo of the whole family, but why is dad sad? Oh, he just remembered his parents, doesn’t matter, he’s okay, that’s what he tells us after he almost hits me for trying to give him a hug, he says we’re one ‘big happy fraternity of people who did an awesome job together’.”
There are moments, moments where Bruce’s mind wanders in the world of what ifs, what if his parents actually survived that night? Would they be proud of their son? Would Bruce even have adopted his children? Would most of them be even alive?
When he overthinks about those scenarios is when he realises the truth, their deaths was possibly the best case scenario, Gotham is the most crime ridden city in the whole country and they sooner than later needed of their protector and, most importantly, his children would need a protector, considering the tendency they have for searching problems they probably would’ve catched someone else's attention, however it didn’t sit right with Bruce, there was no guarantee they couldn’t have been found by a rogue and choose a similar path for themselves. A lot of shit has shaped Bruce’s into the man he is today, but he knows that fateful night started everything.
Damian saw his father’s internal struggle so he reluctantly put his chair next to Bruce and rested his head on the other’s shoulder as a silent comfort.
“He asks us to savage what we can out of the scuttler, we go and… the asshole just trapped us inside! He commands the computer to send the scuttler to the taco stand in the border between Gotham and Blüdhaven, and to order us a couple of chimichangas and three jarritos, ugh I’m hungry, but the point is, B is acting like an idiot, telling us he works alone! We beg him to let us stay yet, well, you know how stubborn the family can be.”
Yes, they definitely did, especially Jason, he isn’t teased by his siblings for being the most similar to Bruce for nothing. They both have the bad habit of pushing others away on a combination of self sacrificed idiocracy and fear of getting hurt again, not something he’s proud of to be honest.
Fuck it, he thought, as he got closer to Bruce to seek and give comfort at the same time, by the way the other’s shoulders tensed Jason could tell his hug from the left was unexpected but hey! If half of his siblings have already got close to comfort their dad, why not him too?
“B goes to the island and avoids the weird men from Matrix,” Again with the fucking weird nicknames “B enters the cave and Joker’s like ‘Wait! Did you become a loner again’ and B is like ‘I don’t need friends’ and Joker’s like ‘Dammit, I thought you changed, but you only pushed them away and why are you so obsessed with me?’ And all of this happens in a mirror house btw.”
“Did you just say B-T-W?”
Dick olympically ignores Harper and continues “After exiting the mirror house B is like ‘Are you not over the greatest enemy thing’ and Joker’s like ‘Yeah, because you’d never told me “I hate you”’ and the other villains appear and are like ‘That’s it Jokes, you deserve a better hero!’. Joker says ‘I hate you’ but B responds ‘Me too’ so practically all villains are boo-ing him right now and Joker says he doesn’t want to be part of a one-sided relationship anymore and he’s going to blow up Gotham and he also sends Batman to the Phantom Zone.”
“I totally blame Jason for giving Dick the gay subtext idea.” Duke says as Dick describes in a very detailed way what bombs are being taken away.
“WHAT! WHY ME!”
“I heard you ranting about ‘The portrait of Dorian Gray’ in the library with him the other day!”
“He was the only one willing to listen!”
“Well, I’m sorry no one else wants to hear you rambling about toxic yaoi!”
Jason gasped in indignation and moved a little away from Bruce to look at Duke “Take that back, you stupid human lamp!”
“Boys, if you fight, you’ll be the ones cleaning the toilets with a toothbrush.” After threatening his children, Bruce pushed Jason close to him again and he also extended his free hand to Duke, and the teen decided to take it and stay close to him, almost crushing Damian in the process.
“B lands on the Phantom Zone. Ha, ha, Phyllis thinks he is a bad guy, wait, ‘all in black, scary mask, wears a cape, kicked her out of surprise, his voice’, gotta agree with the interdimensional eldritch being. She scans his memories and Bruce watches them with miss traffic light, then he realises he treated us like shit, you know, when he said I was expendable and that Alfred was not part of the family, when he pushed us away and when he told Joker he meant nothing to him.” Dick didn’t add anything else and to be honest, he looked on the verge of tears, but after a minute he added “Bruce is not a bad guy, but he’s not a good guy either, he didn’t do all that to protect us, not really.”
His voice was weaker than before. Stephanie understood the feeling, she remembers the old days when Brcue was an asshole, more than the one he is now, and he fired her from being Robin because of a mistake she did and he didn’t gave her a second chance, she has found feelings about those days, but something she cannot deny is how useless it made her feel, to be used as nothing more than, what could be the appropriate word? A tool? A placeholder? While Tim wasn’t available? On her worst days, she considers Bruce an idiot who needs to get his head out of his ass and at the same time a man she owns something, but on the best ones? She considered him… a good mentor, not the best she probably could’ve asked for, but maybe the necessary one and she also knows she doesn’t have to prove her worth, not to him at least.
So Stephanie gets up, goes to Harper’s side to touch her shoulder and motions her head towards Bruce, Harper then gets up and both go to Cassandra’s side, leaning close to Bruce in a weird half-hug.
As she lays her head on Bruce right shoulder pushing Jason a little by the left, something wanders on her mind: How the fuck Dick remembered the traffic light’s name?
“Guys, we actually came back to the city!” Dick’s voice regained his drugged energy. “Babs managed to convince the computer, of course she would. We put the scuttler in super-secret stealth mode- and King Kong just destroyed it. Babs and Alfred run away from the villains while I enter the cave to save my family in the Batman way!”
“The Batman way?” Bruce asks.
“Yeah; not listen to anyone else, be mean to people, destroy as much property as possible, talk in a really low gravelly voice, and go it alone.”
Tim shivers remembering the time where Dick actually had to be Batman, not so very dear memories pass his mind (cough threat to take him to Arkham Asylum cough).
“Bruce is all worried about me doing something just as stupid as he would do, so he begs Phyllis to let him go, and it doesn’t want to because its boss is going to be mad so B is like ‘Well, imagine how happy your boss will be if all the bad guys go back in here’, Phyllis kinda agrees so B now has to return all of them in less than 24 hours.”
“All of them? Does that include the Joker?”
“I hope so.”
“I activated the self-destruct mode of the car I just borrowed but B saves me in the last minute falling from the sky and the car explodes in King Kong’s face, the monkey was holding Barbara and with the explosion he left go of her, and when she lands on earth, she fight the british robots who were about to kill Alfred. We reunite and, I haven't described the suit I grabbed, have I? Well, it’s-”
“I almost destroyed a building the first time I had to drive the Batmobile.” Steph commented out of nowhere.
“Nice,” Jason said. "I once crashed the Batmobile with a plane to trap a drug dealer.”
“Now that I finished my detailed description, Babs is angry at Batman, B apologizes, in his grumpy way and he is actually talking about his feelings! He is very afraid of feeling pain on losing someone he loves again, but Gotham needs every single one of them.”
Bruce felt something he couldn’t quite name in his chest, at some point, at so many points of his life, he has lost people, and the pain never truly hurts less, so why does he still allow people in his heart?
He looks around the room, at every single person in it; at Alfred, who’s always by his side no matter what; at Dick, who has a bleeding heart and would rather die before failing anyone; at Jason, who will fiercely defend the innocent and confront his biggest fears; at Cassandra, who will always choose life over repeating a cycle of violence; at Tim, who will put his trust in other people; at Stephanie, who is always seeking to be the better version of herself; at Harper, who will always put those who she love first ; at Duke, who is never afraid to act on what he thinks is correct; at Damian, who decided to take rein on his own destiny; at Barbara, who always calls out on his shit when he deserves. And also the people who weren’t in this room, Jim, Kate, Cullen, Helena, Lucious, Luke, Jean-Paul, Selina, Clark, Harley, Diana, and others.
When Bruce started his mission of vengeance, he intended to spend the rest of his days alone, because he couldn’t bear the possibility of losing someone again, but now? Many years and so many mistakes later he realised, Batman can’t work alone, he needs people by his side, the world cannot be changed by a single man, but with an entire flock, the story became a different one.
He hugged his children even closer to him, he knew Alfred wasn’t one to start a hug, so it was a surprise when he felt an extra set of hands in the family group and they were complete, or almost complete…
Bruce looked at Tim expectantly, the young adult looked like a deer caught in the lights. “I feel flattered, but I still need to record this, so…”
Barbara speaked up. “Idiot, I’m also recording this! Just go and hug Bruce!” And so Tim put away his phone and joined the family hug.
“B made a Babs-signal, another for me and one more to Alfred, and a lot more to every single Gotham rogue, wow, it truly takes a village to take down world ending threats.”
Yes, they know, at least once a month a village of +300 heroes reunites to take down threats to the Earth, or play a game night, both are equally dangerous.
“We make some sick new vehicles, an arsenal of advanced weaponry, and most importantly, I take out that ridiculous Batman suit, Alfred grabs a different Batman suit and Babs gets her Batgirl costume. Last but not least a coordinated attack strategy, and a kick-butt theme song-”
Ten hands cover Dicks mouth so he doesn’t sing anymore, he still tries to do a cover of some cheesy song, but it comes muffled, so their ears don’t have to suffer anymore.
After Dick finishes his song, he continues the story. “We get out of the cave and go to, I think those are Ace Chemicals? We are moving through the frozen water thanks to Freeze and we fight the villains with the vehicles, there are pews, lasers and eggs everywhere, while the rogues are distracting, Babs goes for the projector, Batman and I go for the bomb.”
Dick describes in a very detailed way how the fight goes, from Freeze and Clayface taking down Godzilla, to Bruce teaching him how to drive a, whatever the fuck Dick is driving while they fight skeletons and the evil robots (they really needed to investigate from what movie those came from).
“We get out of the flying vehicle and we fight on the ground with a lot of bad guys so violently that BAP! BAM! KAPOW! BIFF! THUNK! KAPOW! BAM! ZOK! POW! So violently that words describing the impact materialized out of thin air.”
“I think we need to put some parental control to the movies Dick watches.”
“Let him be, thanks to him I’m sure we already covered an entire month of therapy.”
“Yeah we just need like, 120 more of these moments to cover the whole quote.”
“Babs steals the projector from Voldemort with Orca and Catwoman’s help, so we toss around the machine to send the bad guys to the Phantom Zone. A shark attacks B and I use the Shark repellent.”
“Huh, it wasn’t so useless after all.”
“There’s a reason why father still carry it around, Brown.”
“In all honesty, I only carried it because there was space left.”
“B will finally defuse the bomb- Forget it, the thing has already exploited. The city is split in half, that means the citizens can fall to the infinite abyss that smells like dirty underwear, ha, ha, we’re doomed.”
For some reason everyone but Tim, Barbara and Alfred forgot this whole shit show was taking place in a fucking Lego city, so as they’re remembered of this fact, they cannot help but think of the horrible implications of being a toy who falls into the real world, and also the implication someone was dirty enough to leave their unwashed laundry beneath a Lego set.
“We try to hold the city together and the rogues on our side help us, but it doesn’t affect anything. Wait! B is having an idea!” They’re all at the edge of their seats. “We have to take off our Lego hair and create human bridges to glue the city.”
They were expecting anything but that, however, at this point they must’ve expected an extravagant resolution. Barbara was the only one not caught out guard, or at least that’s what she’s going to tell others, it doesn't matter if each person present in the Medbay heard her choke in her coffee.
“So we do it, shoutout to Alfred who is the base, but B can’t reach the other side, Joker appears and B asks for his help but Joker is like ‘I’ll die knowing I’m your greatest enemy’ and Batman tells him ‘If there’s no Gotham, then I’ll never get to fight you again’. Aww, B makes a romantic confession, he says ‘You’re the reason why I get up at 4:00 in the afternoon, and pump iron until my chest is positively sick. You’re the-’.”
Jason holds back his gag reflex, this version of the Joker was more bearable than the real one but still, hearing that made him nauseous, a pretty much shared feeling the room and even going across space with Barbara barely holding up her bile.
“Don’t you think it’s cute, B finally says there is an ‘us’ between him and the-”
Bruce clears his throat “Yes son, you’re getting side tracked.”
“Oh right, they finally form the bridge, we don’t only need to hold each other but also crunch our abs together, citizens across the city are joining us! And we closed the crack!” Dick makes a clean ‘clack’ sound. “People are celebrating, there’re fireworks everywhere. Joker and dad get too close”
Jason swears if they actually kiss, he’s going to become homophobic.
“And B says ‘I hate you, Joker’ and Joker says ‘I hate you too’.”
False alarm, everyone could sleep peacefully tonight.
“Batman stays alone in a ruined part of Gotham staring at a giant hole made by the Phantom Zone, he has to go back to the Zone, you know ‘return all of them’. He also tells me not to call him padre, he’s taking off his mask, oh my God, guys, Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person! I only had one dad the whole time!”
That made everyone cackle with laughter.
“And they’re both leaving…” And said laughter died as quickly as it came. “He says, losing people is part of life but that doesn’t mean you stop letting them in, his father, his platonic coworker and his son taught him that, we taught him that. We give each other a hug and he is taken away by the portal.”
Bruce would not admit it, but it was getting hard not to cry, he hopped with his whole heart this was what Dick really thought of him, how he’s not viewed as the son who goes under his dad’s shadow, but rather the man who has become the better version of Bruce, of what Batman is supposed to be.
“Ouch, well he’s still here, the thing didn’t let him in. Oh, Bruce, why is he flirting with Babs again? Anyways, Phyllis descended to where we are, and she is saying… It’s about time it finally sees a man who, in order to make the world a better place, take a look at himself and make a change, she has found that in Superm- no, no, it is actually joking, that man is you. Also, Phyllis said it’s a brick, does calling it a traffic light counts as misgendering it or…?”
“Dick, just end the story.”
“Oh, yeah, Batman lets go of the criminals, so Alfred, Babs, B and I go to eat lobster in the Manor, also we laugh at a romantic movie and finally Bruce puts the picture I took of us after taking out the evil eyeball, he puts it next to the grandparents picture. Fin, we need a song for the end credits!”
“Son, we really don’t need one-” Dick didn’t hear Bruce and sang the last song of the night, after he finished torturing his family ears, the young man finally fell asleep.
“Can we make some magical oath to never talk about this night ever again?” Everyone looked at Bruce with bewildered faces for his request. “I hope not, ‘cause I want to remember this forever.” He gave them a last, strong hug and walked away, ready to fully rest.
——————
The first thing Dick felt after waking up was a killer headache, he noticed he was in a bed from the Medbay, with a blanket on top of him, he slowly opened his eyes only to see all of his siblings and Stephanie looking at him.
“How's the morning bird feeling?” Jason said with a mocking tone, his antics really annoyed Dick sometimes, but after his memories from the warehouse mission, if he said he wasn't glad his brother isn't blaming himself over what happened, then he would be the biggest liar in the world.
“What happened after I got shot?” His throat was dry, so Tim gave him a glass of water that was on the nightstand.
“The bullet pierced your torso, you fainted before getting to the Batcave, Leslie and Alfred performed a surgery but now you're out of risk.” Jason answered him.
“And don't even think of going to patrol during the next two weeks, Richard, your body still needs time to fully recuperate.” Damian added.
“For how long was I out?” Everyone glanced at each other in a silent conversation until Steph decided to speak.
“Technically, you were awake last night but with the good drugs.” What? is all that crosses Dick's mind until Tim opens his phone and sits next to him.
“So, we were watching over you all day, you woke up during Jason's and I turn to watch over you, and you… guys, help me with this.”
“Made a retelling of your origin story where everyone was a Lego,” Damian said with bluntness.
“And B was in love with the Joker,” Jason added bitterly.
“And don't forget I was the new commissioner.” Barbara included, wait a minute.
“Who called Babs!?” Cass raised her phone in hand.
“You know what? It's better if you see it yourself.” Tim showed his screen with a video called:
Richard Grayson creates a movie while on drugs
The whole video was 1 hour long and it was him telling the most bizarre story he's ever heard. With some plot twists, a big crossover in the climax, a weird emotional core involving the family and a definitely not straight interaction between his father and one of the people he despised most on earth, the description of the video saying his family found him knocked out in his apartment and hospitalized him out of fear, only to find out later he passed due to some weird drug. When he finished watching the video, Dick was at a loss of words.
“And that's the censored version where our secret identities aren't at risk.” Steph said with almost sparks in her eyes.
“Only three people possess the uncensored version,” Jason continued with a wicked tone and smile, nothing good would come out of the next sentence “Babs, Tim and Roy.” Oh no, he was totally fucked. Was it too late to fake his death?
“I give the idiot solid ten minutes before he spreads the video with the other ex Titans.”
“And an hour before the whole superhero community has a copy of it.”
Dick covered his head with his hands, he isn't someone who gets embarrassed easily, but this is pretty much the closest he ever got to that feeling.
“Did you really have to say I was drugged?”
“I mean, we have a secret identity to keep.” Duke said with a fake innocent smile.
“I hate you”.
“Yeah, yeah, we love you too Dickhead”.
It ended with the batfamily reunited together, their bond stronger than it has ever been, all important Batman fanfics end with the batfamily reunited together and their bond stronger than it has ever been.
“Who the fuck just said that?”
Oh no, the characters can finally hear the narrator because the author has lost their mind and doesn’t know how else to fit a final joke.
“Get the fuck out of here!”
As the author thinks of new embarrassing headcanons to bully their way back soon and Dick is planning his second fake death, “We can still hear you!” This crazy night has finally come to an end.