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Robin slipped into the lounge through the skylight, ensuring the little latch didn't close behind him—he wasn't supposed to be here, Bruce had expressly forbid it, but he could see the man dressed in his black tuxedo and making small talk with Cobblepot in the corner of the Iceberg Lounge.
It was fine—he would just have to be extra careful to stay out of Bruce's sight. Easy enough, right?
Alfred often said Robin was stubborn and an impossible optimist sometimes. Robin was going to take that as a compliment.
Taking that in mind, Robin slowly inched toward the target.
He trusted the dim lighting to hide his silhouette and the bits of dust he dislodged. The low din of the growing nighttime crowd hid any sound he may have made.
A bark of laughter from the opposite side of the room caught his attention.
His head whipped around and his eyes widened.
Was that—no. It couldn't be.
Robin was here for a specific case—he wanted to scope out another rich loser abusing his position, wow, who's surprised? No one, that's who. Kingsley wasn't really dangerous if you asked Robin, but Bruce insisted he stay out of the situation tonight, saying 'it's a school night, Dick' and 'I can scope him out on my own, Dick'.
Robin scoffed mentally just thinking about it. But another part wondered if maybe Bruce was... (he hesitated to think this...) right?
The man who'd caught his attention was not that rich loser. It was someone much worse—the aptly named Richard Summers who'd been all but running a campaign in the news lately, claiming Bruce was abusing him.
Robin was hardly scared of anyone or anything.
Except for one thing: being taken away.
A mix of anger and fear ran through his veins as Dick saw, through his own eyes, how casually Richard introduced himself to the others.
He flashed his watch and ring as he reached out to shake a hand. He flashed a smile Dick could only describe as 'smarmy.' And worse—
"Please," he said. "Call me Rich ."
'Rich'. The man's voice seemed to penetrate the crowd, obnoxiously loud even in the busy club. Nauseating.
Dick made his way closer, determined to find something here that would discredit this man's ridiculous claims.
If he could find something that would link Summers to Cobblepot (maybe they were in cahoots?) then he would have enough evidence to sink both of them at the same time. Two birds with one stone. Perfect. Then Summers would never get another chance to bad-mouth Bruce in public again.
At that moment, Summers's gaze swiveled around the room and his eye caught on Bruce's besuited figure. His lip curled into a sneer.
"Didn't think you were one to visit this part of town, Wayne," he said, striding over. "After all, aren't you supposed to be a proud papa, all cozied up at home with your new ward?"
Dick stiffened and his lips curled into a sneer of their own. This guy had everything coming to him.
Bruce, on the other hand, didn't so much as flinch. Instead, Dick watched as he looked up from his position on the club sofa. Anyone else would have mistaken Bruce's gaze for vapid surprise.
He casually checked his watch, adjusting his sleeve and cufflink where there must have been a hidden gadget of some kind. A recording device, probably.
"At 10 PM, Rich?" He asked, and while Cobblepot only gave a thin smile, others around them chuckled sensibly. "He's in bed by now. Poor thing has school in the morning," he explains for the others listening in.
The next words made his guts recoil. "Did you tire him out?"
It was less the words, and more the tone, the way the whole room seemed to get quieter. Bruce's response was forced, fake even for the 'Brucie' persona. "What do you mean by that, Summers."
His tone was only a shade more glacial than before, but to Dick, it might as well be a flashing neon sign. Proceed at your own risk. It was how he sounded sometimes when an argument got too heated, or when Dick poked his past traumas on purpose.
"Did I stutter?" said Summers, tilting his head in mockery. "You, Gotham's richest, most eligible bachelor, fostering a kid out of the goodness of your heart? Please. We all know the real reason you took him in, and it's not because you suddenly developed a conscience."
Bruce's eyes narrowed considerably.
"HA. Now, now, gentlemen," Cobblepot said, despite looking as though he was very much enjoying the unexpected confrontation.
Dick watched on from the rafters with his confusion only growing. What ‘ real reason’?
"Let's not argue like this out in public," Cobblepot simpered. "If you're interested, I have perfectly good spaces in my club for—"
"Like Wayne could be interested in that," Summer said with a snort. "You know he likes them young ."¨
Dick's mouth hung open as the pieces of the puzzle started to fit. What? No. That was impossible.
Dick's stomach was so tense he was beginning to feel nauseous. Bruce would never. Dick knew Bruce would never; they were partners. Bruce may not have been his dad, but he was still the person Dick trusted most in the world.
So why hadn't Bruce refuted the awful things they were saying about him?
Everyone was laughing, like this was a big joke. It seemed to echo around him, and he missed what Bruce said next. It didn't matter, Dick had to go. Surely- surely this would make sense, later. Somewhere else.
Feeling sick, Dick backed slowly back towards the unlatched skylight. His throat felt oddly tight. It's fine , he told himself. He'd just...ask Bruce about this later at home.
It was only when he got his fingers on the latch that he realized. It had snapped shut on a time-delayed spring. Jiggling it open now would set off an alarm. Dick's heart lodged in his throat. Oh no. In the ensuing moments, as he was frantically reshuffling options in his head, he heard Bruce speak.
"It seems to me that only a man with such proclivities would leap to the same conclusions about someone else. Tell me, Summers. How young do you like them?"
Dick froze. The rest of the club did too.
The echo of a slap rang throughout the room.
When Dick turned around, Summers was shaking with rage and Bruce was cupping his sore cheek with one hand, smirking.
"How dare you—" Summers managed to splutter.
"What—" Bruce interjected calmly. "Make the same accusations about you as you have done to me?"
And then, to Dick's surprise—and Alfred's horror, probably—Bruce finished: "Go fuck yourself, Summers."
Cobblepot tittered. The other people watching (and it was most of the room by now, which filled Dick with an odd sense of shame—and that never happened, he loved getting attention!) gasped and laughed and jeered.
"You—"
"Don't bother trying to think up something clever," Bruce said, and for all he sounded like a haughty rich guy, the steel in his body language was all Batman. "No one is interested in hearing any more of your bullshit. Now, Oswald, where were we?"
Then suddenly, a fire alarm went off.
A moment later, a goon entered the room and yelled, "The cops are here!"
On instinct, Robin looked to Batman—Bruce—for a signal. B was disguised as Bruce Wayne, of course, but still staring intently at Summers and Cobblepot. Looking for tells as to which of them—if either—had signaled for the diversion? Even if the cops were there a few days early for their monthly Iceberg Lounge raid, they had yet to get any charges to stick—and Penguin had never taken the police as a serious threat before.
But, Bruce couldn't say anything about that. Not as Brucie, at least.
Dick considered sneaking out the skylight then, while everyone was distracted by evacuating. But- well. He wasn't exactly Dick just then. And while Brucie's hands were tied, Robin could still salvage some information for Batman tonight.
He watched Bruce get hustled out of the Lounge along with about a dozen of Cobblepot's cronies. Summers, meanwhile, had followed his friend out a different back exit—there were probably a dozen hidden doors in this place.
Since the fire alarm was already ringing, Dick didn't hesitate to push open the skylight. One more alarm added to the chaos wasn't going to make a difference. He slipped outside and crept soundlessly over the uneven slats until he found the back alley where Summers' vehicle was parked.
Then he dropped down onto the roof of the car and flattened himself against it. If he followed the man home, then he could question him alone as Robin—and finally squeeze some answers out of him.
"That rich asshole," Summers said with a swear, bringing his fist down against the side of the car, making the body of it rumble through Dick's frame. "By the time this is over, he's going to regret ever having said that."
Summer's friend hopped into the driver's seat of the car, while Summer's himself climbed into the passenger seat with a scowl on his face.
Dick secured himself with his grapple and utility belt—just in time for the car to speed out onto the roadway.
Cursing in his head where no one could hear him, Dick pressed himself as close to the roof as he could, wishing he'd somehow been able to put a recording device on Summers. How was he supposed to find out anything like this? Everything was muffled.
The ride felt like an eternity of the wind whipping past his ears and chilling his bare legs. But the car eventually pulled off into a quieter area, full of rundown two-family houses in small lots, and parked on the street in front of a dented mailbox marked number 171. Dick felt the engine's rumbling cut out, and the passenger door opened inches away from his right hand.
He slid quickly down the back of the car, careful to get himself out of sight.
As Summers got out Dick caught -"Yeah yeah, whatever, I don't need to be that careful. Brucie may have had teeth tonight, but we all know he's a ditz. Just get that evidence to where it needs to be."
Evidence?
Inside his chest, his heart gave one panicked tha-dump as it caught up from the beat it missed.
It didn't take a genius detective like Batman to work out that whatever Summers had planned with this "evidence," it wasn't good.
Dick knew it probably wasn't "evidence" at all, not in the legitimate sense of the word at least.
He needed to get his hands on it. Now.
Suddenly his comm snapped to life. The next couple of words made a cold shiver run down Dick's spine.
"Robin, are you there?"
Dick crouched down again, as though it would keep the person on comms from spotting him. He peeked around the car at the sound of jangling keys. Summers was on his way inside.
"Uh. Not a good time."
"Robin," the voice chided. "Why on earth are you in Burnley and not in your bed where Batman ordered you to stay?"
Dick grimaced.
I can't have this conversation now, Alfred, I'm in the middle of something very important, would not go over well as an explanation, if it could even be called that.
Summers went inside the house.
Dangnabbit. Dick hoped there was an easy open window somewhere.
"Hahaha, what? I didn't hear B order that...?" It was hard to make his tone go up in a question while whispering, but somehow, he managed it.
As he spoke, he quickly scanned the house for an entry point—multitasking for the win!
"Robin, if you don't report to me your current location, I will be forced to notify Batman of your absence."
Dick crept around the side of the house and spotted a window on the second floor that was ajar. Bingo.
"Can't talk now, Agent A. I'm on a case," he hissed as he shot his grapple up and began to climb.
"Robin!"
Fueled by the panic, Dick did the only thing he could: he decided to turn off the comm. Maybe there would be consequences later. But if he found and destroyed the "evidence" against Bruce, it basically canceled out, right?
The room inside the window was dark. No voices, no footsteps.
Robin slipped inside, and carefully detached and re-coiled his grapple line.
The room was strangely empty—a closet contained a folded-up cot, but no other belongings. The floor and walls were pristine.
He crept to the door, and gently turned the knob—but it wouldn't open; the door was locked from the outside.
"Holy bad vibes, Batman," he muttered to himself.
Releasing the door knob, he rummaged around in his belt for the lock-pick he always carried. He fished it out, and then fell into a crouch to better see the keyhole.
There, now meeting his eye, was a camera, situated in the keyhole itself.
There was a camera.
Dick froze, his breath catching silently but painfully in his throat.
Back when he was in the foster home, other kids called him sheltered and naive. Said that his parents didn’t prepare him at all for the realities of being a foster kid.
And Bruce, whenever there were cases dealing with people whose histories were ‘of a certain nature’ as Alfred would call it, would not let Dick even see the files.
But Dick wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t naive or blind to bad men—and with that horrible thought, he looked back on the suspiciously empty room in a new light.
Pulling out his penlight, he began examining every nook and cranny in the room. Along one side of the wall, he noticed a series of holes—the kind made with a drill. There was a row of them, all at around neck-height.
The sour feeling in his stomach grew worse. Bad men were everywhere, Dick knew that. As Robin, he encountered loads of them in his nighttime work every week. But there was a particular variety of "bad" that made Batman go stiff and silent. Well. More stiff and silent than usual, anyway. Batman was always vague on the details though, which didn't help. How was Dick supposed to know what to look for as evidence if he didn't even know exactly what that sort of bad entailed?
He returned to the closet. As he was feeling around under the folded-up cot, his hands met something rough. Rope?
He ignored the bad feeling creeping into his chest and swallowed. This was fine! More than fine, really! This was just his mind messing up with him. Dick was not panicking because panicking involved losing control and the last thing Dick needed in this moment was to-
His heart skipped a beat as the window dropped shut.
He made it across the room at record speed, not sparing the seconds to keep his feet quiet. He needed air, he needed a different way in. He needed to leave.
The blood in his veins froze when he saw the problem. There was no way to open the window from the inside.
Dick quickly examined the window. He couldn't be sure, but the glass looked like the subtly reinforced kind that would be difficult to smash, even with the grapple gun.
He dashed back to the door, took out his picks, and began trying to jimmy the lock open. His frame was coiled tight from the excess adrenaline, but his hands had the steadiness of long trained practice. The lock was a quality one, though, and just as the second pin clicked into place, he heard heavy footsteps ascending the staircase.
Crap.
The steps got louder with every footfall. They seemed to be heading in his direction.
A set of keys, rather than the period stop of Summers' feet outside the door, was really what sent the zing of electric panic down his frame.
There was nothing to hide under, so Dick did the only thing he could think of and hid in one of the corners of the ceiling, obscured by the shadows, hoping that Summers wouldn’t look up—and that his boots wouldn’t slip and send him tumbling to the floor.
The keys rattled in the lock and then it was thrown open. Summers stepped inside and flicked on the light. Dick, outside his direct line of sight, held his breath as the man squinted at the window.
"Thought I left this cracked open..." Summers muttered to himself, crossing the room to inspect it.
With the lights on, Dick could now see that he'd left a faint, boot-shaped print on the ground just beside the windowsill. Oops.
Summers spotted it at the same time he did. And then he turned and looked up.
Summer squinted at where he was and Dick held his breath. Don't notice me, don't notice me he chanted as he tried not to move. His muscles trembled in overexertion as Dick tried to keep himself still.
A cold bead of sweat ran through his forehead as Dick watched how Summers looked around the room. Holy Batman, Summers hadn't seen him! Dick thought, victorious.
Summers had taken off his suit jacket, and he rolled his shirtsleeves back as he made his way to the closet on the other side of the room, ducking out of sight.
The locked door was still open, just barely. This could be Dick's chance to escape. He flexed his ankles, readying himself for descent, when a strange sound came from the closet. A dragging sound, followed by a deep thump.
Summers laughed. It was nothing like it had been at the club, the one practiced to ooze confidence and draw attention to himself. It was quieter. Tinged with too much air and too little levity. Malicious.
Dick glanced longingly at the sliver of freedom, then steeled himself to uphold his duty as Robin.
Summers was up to something—and the closet hadn't looked large enough for an adult to vanish into, earlier.
He sprung from the corner, landing softly and rolling to muffle the impact, then fluidly threw his momentum into a handspring and launched himself feet-first at where Summers' head should be.
'Should be,' being the operative phrase.
Summers' head moved at the most inopportune moment, and for a second Dick thought it was sheer luck.
He landed with a little roll, steadying himself as he moved into a crouch.
Summers' looked over at him with a sneer.
"Hm. Looks like I caught a little birdy in my cage, rather than the big, bad, bat I was aiming for."
Dick's foot faltered.
All at once, he realized the position he'd landed himself in. Summers was not far from the door to the closet — no, he was far too close, and now Dick was solidly between them. He didn't dare glance back to see what Summers had had a moment ago, knowing it would be a death sentence to let even a little of his attention stray right now.
No, he needed to get Summers talking. Distracted. Then he could find a chance to attack and get out of here.
"Oh wow," Dick said, his voice strong despite the way his insides were trembling. "Another loser who thinks he's smart enough to trick Batman. Bo-ring."
Summers looked him up and down in a way that made a shiver go down Dick's spine. The thugs Dick usually fought—the ones who came at him with bats and knives and guns — didn't see him as a child. They thought of him as a nuisance — an annoying insect at best. But Summers' eyes were lingering too long in all the wrong places. Dick didn't like it.
"You know, I've always wondered if you were as young as you looked, Robin. From those grainy pictures in the Gotham Gazette, it was hard to tell." Without looking away, Summers reached one hand inside the half-open closet. From there, he pulled out a length of rope.
So Dick stuck his fingers into the man’s eyes.
When Bruce had taught him the move, it had come with the warning that it would leave permanent damage. It was simple, so they had practiced a few times and moved on in his self-defense training.
What it hadn't prepared him for was the wet eyeball slipping around and under his fingers, the quiet pop as it burst, and the spurt of blood that immediately followed.
Summers screamed, dropping the rope in favor of cradling his face in his hands. "My eye! You little shit!" He lashed out with one hand wildly, nailing Dick as he bolted past to glance into the closet.
Summers wasn't particularly skilled, but he was big, and the clumsy punch cracked Dick's cheek into the doorframe. He quickly reoriented himself, ignoring both the sharp pain in his face that would surely be an impressive bruise later, and Summers' furious screaming behind him to "get back here, you little shit!"
His priority was the evidence, and he tugged the false wall fully open to dash into the larger closet behind it.
However, despite his speed and small size, an arm wrapped around his waist and tugged him back with a violent fury.
Dick screamed, kicking the air as Summers, one-handed, threw him on the floor.
His head smacked into the ground and dark spots clouded his vision.
The next thing he knew, Summers was on top of him, one hand over the eye Dick had managed to injure, his own blood dripping down onto the Robin uniform.
"You fucking brat," Summers seethed through clenched teeth, his breathing ragged. "You're going to regret that."
"I won't," Dick wheezed. "Fuck you!"
If Alfred could still hear him, he would've chastised Dick for his language. But Dick had been so stupid when he muted the comm and now he was stuck alone in this situation, hardly able to move as Summers began to attack him.
The hand not on his eye came down in a brutal punch to Dick's chest, and even through all the protective padding, fiery pain seized Dick's lungs as one of his ribs snapped.
Dick tried to roll away from the next blow, but the attempt sent a knife-sharp pain through his chest. He wheezed for breath as a heavy boot connected with his back. The blow knocked him flat on his stomach.
His head was still spinning as he felt large hands wrench his arms back. Despite himself, he yelped in agony. His shoulder joints were on fire. A heavy weight was crushing his legs against the ground, so that he couldn't even leverage himself up.
"You know," Summers was panting heavily as he hissed into Dick's ear, "I was thinking I might have a little fun with you first, but after what you did to my eye, I'm having second thoughts."
Dick threw his head back, and something in Summers's face crunched. Probably a tooth, judging by the bright jolt of pain at his hairline. Beneath all of the fear and pain and adrenaline, Dick felt a little vindicated that at least Summers wouldn't come out of this unscathed.
But then Summers shoved Dick back down, where his forehead met the hard floor with a sickening thud. His vision dimmed for a moment, and he struggled to feel for the parts of his body that weren't screaming with pain so loudly as his head.
Dick realized his arms were free, and tried to push up, at the same moment he realized that Summers had re-adjusted his grip into a chokehold. Not a blood choke, but still, he had three minutes of consciousness left at the outside, and his desperate kicking did nothing to buy him even a whisp of air.
Worse still, that last shove, Dick realized, had dislodged his muted comm. He was utterly powerless as he watched it roll away along the slope of the floor.
As he choked and wheezed for any measure of oxygen, he kept his eyes on that little piece of tech. He wished he could go back to earlier tonight—wished he could've listened to Bruce and just stayed home, or told Alfred where he was, or found a different way into Summers' house. Anything would be better than this.
He was going to die here, wasn't he? With this creep who only caught his attention in the first place because he wanted to separate Dick from Bruce.
He was going to get his wish, and it was all Dick's fault.... His legs stopped kicking. His arms gave out from underneath him. His mind was slowing down.
Just as he finally began to pass out, he thought he heard a distant sound: the shattering of glass.
Dick blinked his eyes, confused. There was a sound, and he was... on the floor? Right, he was in danger!
He rolled over, intending to jump up in a sprint, only to topple over in the other direction, barely catching himself before he could get another head injury. This definitely felt like a concussion—although worse than any he'd had before.
The sound.
The—Dick felt his eyes water in relief when he caught sight of Batman pummeling Summers with his gauntleted fists.
He was safe.
But then Batman slammed Summers' head into the wall—and then he did it again—and he wasn't stopping -
Dick shakily pushed himself up, using the dresser for support. His vision was swimming.
His voice was weak, “B-Batman”.
Bruce wasn’t stopping.
Dick took a shakily inhale, and then forced it all out, “Batman!”
Dick stared into Batman’s white eyes, willing Bruce to understand. And then he collapsed.
Batman was there before he hit the floor.
The crook of Bruce's elbow supported the back of his head, the other arm gripped his middle.
Dick's eyes rolled dizzily over to where Summers lay utterly unconscious on the floor. There was blood everywhere.
Then, he looked back at Bruce.
"Don't speak," Bruce said, his voice gruff. For once, Dick was sure it was not out of anger but emotion—despite the violence he'd just enacted, his hands were soft and careful with Dick. The arm under him gave him something to rest his head on, the crook of his arm a familiar and comforting place.
The other hand was nearly shaking as it came up to touch Dick's face. Dick didn't protest as his chin was turned this way and that, though he squeezed his eyes shut as vertigo swam through him.
"B...," he whispered anyway.
"Robin, I said—" He cut himself off with an aggrieved sound.
"Gotta... gotta report, though," Dick said. "Injuries..."
Bruce clenched his jaw. His gloved fingers swept over Dick's forehead. "Tell me."
Dick clenched his eyes shut, trying to take stock.
“Just my ribs, I think. There’s definitely” he took another shaky inhale, trying to pull air in where his lungs felt compressed, “Definitely one broken. Maybe more.”
Bruce’s arm braced his back carefully. “Anything else, chum?”
"Hit my head," Dick said, trying to speak clearly with lips and tongue that won't obey him. "Hit my head, um... twice? Right cheek and forehead," he finishes. "And, uh, bruising on my neck. Breathing's okay so far, though."
Bruce, thankfully, doesn't react—just holds him, safe and solid.
Dick clenched his eyes shut, trying to take stock.
"S-sorry," Dick slurred, quieter than a whisper. "I know I wasn't s'posed to..."
Bruce shook his head as he let out a shaky breath.
"None of that now," he returned, just as quiet. "Let's get you home and patched up."
Dick had no doubt there would be a lecture later, but—
"Wait!" he started anew. "Summers... there's... evidence? Or... or something. I don't know. I..."
Bruce frowned. He didn’t ask what evidence Dick meant, as though he expected there must be some somewhere.
Was he investigating Summers on his own? He had never told Dick anything like that.
“‘Bout… ‘Bout you , I think,” Dick managed to say. “Hurting me…”
Bruce held Dick tighter at the mention of that.
He looked around the room to see what Dick could mean, and his eyes caught on the closet. A burlap sack sat on the floor, and next to it laid a thick strand of rope.
"Evidence, huh?" he muttered, sparing Summers a disgusted glance.
Hauling Dick up onto his feet, Bruce made his way to the sack and the rope. He crouched, and rummaged through the items, but was careful not to let Dick see from his vantage point.
Next, Bruce stood abruptly.
"Stay here," he ordered sharply, and strode swiftly from the room.
Yeah, like that was gonna happen.
Dick followed him to the door, clutching his bruised ribs, and saw Bruce walk into a room that appeared very much like a study — with a laptop and a desk and several shelves viewable from where he stood.
His breath wheezed out of him as he watched Bruce crouch in front of the desk, pulling a USB from one of his many pockets and plugging it into the laptop. From there, Bruce began to rummage through the drawers and desks, occasionally pausing to take pictures.
Dick, honestly, zoned out a little bit. Standing was difficult with his injuries, his head swimming and his chest screaming in pain. But not being there, not being able to see Bruce was much worse than laying still and feeling slightly less pain.
He stood in a daze while Bruce worked, hardly even paying any attention to the rest of the building where there might be other people roaming around, or to Summers laid unconscious in the room behind him.
Batman's voice broke through the haze, "Robin. I told you to stay."
Dick winced, but Bruce picked him up before he could say anything.
His head spun from the sudden change in position, but he still heard Bruce, "Come on chum, let's go home."
Bruce was silent, which meant yes.
Dick punched weakly at Bruce's shoulder, but it did nothing but make his hand and knuckles hurt—Bruce didn't react at all except to flick his eyes down.
"Hold on," Bruce commanded.
Dick responded instinctively, curling his arms and legs around Bruce's body as best as he could. Bruce's hold on his back was tight enough he didn't even need to bother.
They left through the shattered window, leaving Summers and all of the bloody mess behind.
Dick buried himself in Bruce's warmth until they reached the Batmobile, where he reluctantly let himself get positioned on the seat, groaning as his ribs shifted.
Dick didn't think much those first few minutes, just resting letting the cool glass soothe his head, breathing through the city lights until they entered Bristol.
He wasn't oblivious to Batman's not-super-subtle glances his way underneath the cowl, but the man didn't speak until they were well into the rolling hills and in view of the waterfall that obscured the Batcave.
"How is your head?"
Dick shifted minutely.
The thunderous waterfall passed over them as the car sped into the cavern, and Dick let his flinch of pain at the sound answer.
When the car finally rolled to a stop, Alfred came rushing out to help him out of his seat.
Dick's whole body ached. When he blinked, black spots swam in his eyes. For the next hour or so, everything was a blur.
Alfred put him on one of the examination tables and began patching him up. Bruce stripped off his suit and gave him a concussion exam, then bustled around getting him fluids and medicines to drink. Dick waited in an agony of suspense for the inevitable lecture to start. This was the calm before the storm. Any minute now, Bruce was going to start talking and then Dick was going to be in trouble, he just knew it.
Bruce walked back into the room, still suited up, but with the cowl removed so Dick could see his face. He sat on the stool by the bed, and took Dick's hand with his much larger one.
"Why did you follow me out to the Iceberg Lounge tonight, chum?" he asked, less accusatory than Dick had expected.
Dick tensed further—he hadn't realized Batman knew that part, although in hindsight, it seemed obvious.
"I just wanted to help ," he croaked plaintively, wincing at the increased pain in his inflamed throat.
"Help with what?" Bruce asked. "I was handling Cobblepot. The case you're working on, the Kingsley one, is not in a place where we can act yet. So what were you doing there?"
"I thought that. Since you were there, for Cobblepot, I would keep an eye out for Kingsley." Dick's words were rushed, his plan which had seemed all too obvious before, felt half-baked and childish now.
Bruce sighed softly. "All right. But how did you end up at Summers' house instead?"
This part made Dick squirm. "I got, um. Sidetracked? Because I recognized him! From TV! He did that interview saying you were abusing me, and I just. I got so mad at him." Even saying it now made the anger flare up again. "I had to find out if he was doing something bad."
Bruce was silent for a moment.
"I understand you were angry—but you usually make better decisions than that, or you wouldn't be allowed out as Robin at all. I don't need to tell you that tonight could have ended very badly for everyone involved, due to your actions."
Dick's stomach clenched in shame.
"I know. I know, but he was getting away, and you weren't following him, and I had to stop him from—" Dick broke off, trying desperately to order his tired thoughts enough to explain himself.
"And you could have gotten hurt," Bruce continued, eyebrows dipping down into something worried. "Summers is a dangerous man. And it's not your job to go after every Tom, Dick, and Harry that makes a wild claim against me."
On the verge of tears, Dick hung his head.
"I know," he whispered, repeating himself again.
"Do you understand how worried I was," said Bruce.
"But he could've taken me away from you, and that's—" Dick screwed up his face, fighting back tears. There was a sob stuck in his chest. It was unthinkable to him, that he'd let anyone do that.
He heard a soft "Oh," and then his watery view resolved into comfortable darkness as Bruce tugged him into his arms.
"I'm not... good at this," says Bruce awkwardly. "But son, I promise I would never let anyone take you away from me, from our home, against your will."
"But he said—but there could have been evidence, and I—" Dick mumbled into Bruce's armor, breaths still shaky.
Bruce's hand cupped the back of his head tenderly.
"Dick, chum. Summers is the type of man to say—to do—anything to get what he wants. He is conniving and convincing . This 'evidence' he claimed to have against me—well, it's something you'll never have to worry about, all right?"
"So it was fake this whole time?" Dick wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sniffed.
In a surprising burst of forthrightness, Bruce said, "It was hearsay, an email I once sent, and two slapdash photo manipulations that I think you could've mocked up better than he did."
Despite himself, Dick laughed.
"But chum, Summers was a dangerous man, even if he over-reached trying to scapegoat Bruce Wayne for his crimes. What we found... I wouldn't have wanted you in the same room as him, ever, for any reason."
Bruce squeezed Dick's shoulder, but did not provide any more detail. Dick hurt enough from the consequences of his earlier curiosity that he wasn't sure it was worth pushing.
"Right," Dick mumbled into the kevlar, then pulled back to face Bruce properly. "I'm sorry. I thought... I just didn't want..."
With enough force to make even Bruce grunt, Dick wrapped his arms around his mentor, his partner, his parents and squeezed tightly.
"I know," said Bruce, mumbling into his hair. "But nothing— nothing —and no one will ever take you from me, chum. I promise."
Every muscle in Dick's body relaxed. He pressed his face into the crook of Bruce's neck. "Pinky swear or it doesn't count." Then a new thought occurred to him. "What will happen to Summers?" he asked, his voice slightly muffled.
"I found enough evidence to put him away for a long, long time. And I'll personally see to it that he stays there."
Bruce's pinky found his. And Dick closed his eyes, happy to let that promise lull him to sleep.