Author's Note

a short character piece because I'm obsessed with these two <3

written for the prompt "kissing the top of their head" (off of a prompt list + random number generator).

They don’t usually stay out this late. Even on weekends, even with the thrill of flying across the city singing through him, Dick can only patrol for so long before his energy starts to wane. He’ll insist he’s not tired, that he’s just fine, B, honest, but he’ll start to fall behind on rooftop detours. His attention will wander more than usual. He’ll yawn behind his gloves. He’ll rub his mask.

Bruce tries to avoid that. He tries to avoid long patrols with Dick. He does. But sometimes a thwarted mugging turns into a foot chase through the waterfront district. Sometimes a foot chase gets interrupted by Killer Croc smashing through the waterfront out for blood. Sometimes a fight with Killer Croc turns into a shootout when the GCPD shows up. Sometimes an officer goes down from friendly fire, sometimes the EMTs refuse to come within five blocks of Killer Croc, and sometimes Robin gets stuck doing emergency medical treatment while Batman tries to end the fight without anyone else getting hurt.

Sometimes Batman and Robin don’t make their way back to the Batmobile until after four in the morning.

“Are you alright, chum?”

Robin is more than lagging behind. His pace across the rooftop is closer to a jog than a sprint, and he makes the next jump without turning a single somersault in the air. He sticks the landing, rolling the momentum into his next steps, but those too are heavy and dogged rather than light.

“’M fine.” Dick’s accent peeks between the hard edges of Robin’s voice. Am fine. It sounds like Dick after a long day at school, exhausted by keeping up with his teachers’ and friends’ fast-paced English. He drops his pronouns and articles, switches to French or Spanish as soon as he finds Alfred. Bruce is still learning to converse in those languages. Bruce knows Arabic, Mandarin, and Japanese, but he doesn’t know any of Dick’s languages.

“Do you need a break?”

“No. ’M fine.”

“Robin.”

That was one of the rules laid down, when Bruce finally agreed to let Dick patrol with him. If you get hurt, tell me. If you get tired, tell me. If you get hungry, tell me. If you feel different from how you normally feel, in any way at all, you tell me immediately. Dick sticks to that rule, mostly, but he can be stubborn.

“I’m fine.” In Robin’s accent, this time. Robin could be from any part of Gotham. Anywhere or nowhere. “Just slow. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Robin sticks the next landing, too, and turns to glare at him. “It’s late,” he says. “We were supposed to go back to the Cave—an hour ago.”

Three hours ago would be more accurate, but Robin often pushes to patrol longer, to stay out later. That might be why he’s so reluctant to admit to being tired now.

“You’re right,” Bruce says. He stops next to Robin. Takes note of the way the boy’s shoulders droop when he stands still for a moment. They’re on 3rd Avenue west, still ten blocks or so from the Batmobile. He has no doubt that Robin could make that run, if necessary. Robin is young and strong and nothing if not determined.

But it’s past four a.m. They’ve been on patrol for almost six hours. And Robin is tired.

“Would you like for me to carry you?”

Robin’s eyes open wide behind his mask. He tilts his head back to look at Bruce. “What?”

“Would you like…” Bruce starts to repeat himself by habit, only to realize that Robin is expressing surprise, not confusion. It is, perhaps, an unusual suggestion. Batman has always stressed self-sufficiency and endurance. “It makes tactical sense,” he says. “At our current pace, it will take us twenty minutes to reach the Batmobile. If I carry you, I can move significantly faster. We would reach the Cave sooner. It would benefit both of us.”

“Okay,” Robin says. He looks up at Bruce for another second, and then lifts his arms.

He forgets, sometimes, how small Robin is. How easy it is to pick him up. Bruce supports his weight with one arm. Dick balances perfectly, resting his arms on Bruce’s shoulders. He doesn’t bother to hold on. It’s up to Bruce to keep hold of him.

Dick trusts that Bruce will keep hold of him.

It takes Bruce’s breath away, sometimes.

“Are you ready, chum?”

“Ready, Batman.”

With a click and whir of the grappling hook they’re off. It’s more difficult to grapple one-handed, to balance his weight and timing with a child on his other arm, but it’s still entirely possible. Soon Batman touches down in the dark, narrow alley that hides the Batmobile.

He hits the switch in his glove to deactivate the car’s anti-theft devices. Robin twists in his grasp, preparing to jump down. Bruce looks down at him. At his dark head, his soft brown skin, the mask hiding most of his face.

He’s so small.

On impulse, without a single conscious thought, Bruce presses a kiss to the top of Dick's head.

Green boots hit the ground a second later, and Dick turns to look at him with consternation. “What was that for?”

Bruce couldn’t answer that question if he had a gun to his head. Robin’s white lenses staring up at him are somehow even worse.

“Nothing,” he says. “Let’s go.”

The passenger-side door opens. Robin tumbles in. Bruce takes the driver’s seat and sets the Batmobile on a course to the Cave.

“Gloves,” he says. Robin peels off his bloodstained gloves and dumps them into a plastic bag labeled for biohazards. The bag goes in a case along the inner wall of the cab. Bruce will dispose of it later.

At four-thirty a.m. the streets of Gotham are nearly empty; the drive back to the Cave is uneventful. Batman and Robin ride in silence.

The Batcave is quiet, except for the ambient noise of the bats nesting in the far reaches of the ceiling. Alfred is gone—he probably went to bed as soon as Bruce sent the all-clear signal—but two sets of clean pajamas are laid out next to the showers. Dick emerges from the shower, in Superman-themed pajamas, looking as though he might fall asleep on his feet. He trudges over to the stairs, looks up at Bruce, and raises his arms to be picked up.

“Is that really necessary,” Bruce says.

“Yes.” Dick looks up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “I’m tired.”

“So you admit it.” Bruce scoops him up and starts up the stairs.

“Wasn’t tired before.” Dick tucks his head under Bruce’s chin, nestling against his chest. “But I am now.” He’s settled back into his own voice. He sounds sleepy.

Bruce carries him all the way up the stairs. He carries him through the lower floor of the manor, through the dark, silent halls, and up to the bedrooms. He pauses outside Dick’s door.

“Dick?” he says softly. “Are you with me, chum?”

“Да,” Dick mumbles. He stirs in Bruce’s arms. “’M awake.”

Bruce smiles a little. He opens the door and carries Dick inside, over to his bed. “Here we are,” he says. He lifts Dick away from his chest, and on the same mad impulse as before, he kisses the top of his head.

“You’re so weird,” Dick says. Bruce sets him down, and he immediately burrows into the mountain of blankets strewn across his bed.

“Wherever did you get that idea,” Bruce says. Dick snorts. He blinks his eyes open to look up at Bruce.

His hair is still damp. In the dim moonlight, Bruce can just see a reddish mark on his cheekbone, where he caught a glancing blow from Killer Croc. That will be a bruise tomorrow.

“Goodnight, chum,” Bruce whispers.

“Goodnight,” Dick says. “Love you.”

It takes his breath away, sometimes. To see the amount of trust that Dick has placed in him. He wonders, sometimes, what he ever did to deserve it.

Let him dress up in kevlar and spandex and run around the city at all hours?

Let him yell and scream and lash out when the grief is too much?

Carry him home and tuck him into bed and kiss the top of his head?

He lays awake in his bed for a while longer, trying to make sense of the small spot of warmth taking root in his chest.