Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own LEGO Batman or LEGO or Batman.
Man, there's nothing quite like the feeling of watching a creative movie and then coming out of the theater brimming over with enthusiasm to write something about it equally fun and creative. I can only attempt, as you will read.
Batman normally left the grocery shopping to Alfred. After all, he was his butler. Who cared if it just added to his general list of errands that he had to accomplish around Wayne Manor (eh, sorry, the Bat-Cave. No Wayne here. At all.)! That was Batman's mentality before the big old Joker caper. Now he wanted to help Alfred, just like Alfred helped him.
They were planning for a big family movie night, and Batman volunteered to go shopping for the ingredients for the dinner they would all help make.
"Okay, what food are we going to eat? I am sick and tired of lobster thermidor!" Batman declared.
Alfred looked slightly affronted. "I thought lobster thermidor was your favorite dish, Master Wayne."
"Yeah, but that was when I was lonely and sad and pathetic. I want to eat fun food with my family!" Batman put his arms around Barbara and Dick, who clapped his hands together in excitement. Being included in the word 'family' made him soooo happy.
"If you insist, Master Wayne. What shall we have instead?" Alfred asked as he went around the breakfast table pouring orange juice before he took his own seat.
"Ohh! Ooh! Ice cream!" Dick squealed.
"Chicken pot pie!" Barbara said at the same time.
"Hamburgers!" Batman yelled.
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "Those are all wildly different suggestions. We must find some common ground."
Batman, Barbara, and Dick all looked at each other, and they said in unison to Alfred, "Pizza!"
Alfred tried in vain to find how pizza was the compromise between the previous three suggestions, but decided against some bothersome deducting. "All right. I fear we're all out of pepperoni and cheese—"
"I'll do it! I'll do the shopping! As long as you write down what we need, 'cause I literally have no idea what goes on a pizza," Batman said helpfully.
Barbara and Dick looked concerned. "There's cheese," Barbara said obviously.
"Tomato sauce!" Dick volunteered.
"A crust generally made of flour, water, yeast, and perhaps a bit of oil. If you want to just buy a premade dough—" Alfred said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Everyone calm down for like two seconds! Alfred, write this down before you forget it!" Batman said.
Alfred sighed. "Master Wayne, if you'd rather I just do the shopping—"
"No, no! You've got enough on your plate already. Let me do it. Just make me a list," Batman said. "Grocery shopping's not hard! You know why? 'Cause I'm Batman!"
"And if you can save the city multiple times, grocery shopping should be a cinch," Barbara said, amused.
Batman leaned toward her. "See? You like, totally get me and stuff. It's . . . it's . . ."
"It's . . . ?" Barbara leaned closer.
Batman backed up like two inches. "Ah, um, pretty cool, I guess."
"Hey Padre, can I go shopping with you?! Please please please please!?" Dick begged, instantly between Batman and Barbara.
Batman sighed, but said, "Um, we'll see. Maybe after you have to do your stupid homework."
"It's not stupid. It's his childhood education," Barbara pointed out. Dick, due to his harried schedule concerning his job of being his Bat-Dad's sidekick, was tutored by Alfred. It was much more fun discussing physics with Alfred in the comfort of the Bat-Cave instead of being stuck in school like all the other kids. Still, it would've been so cool for Bat-Dad to burst into the classroom and bust Dick out to play hooky and save the city.
"I prefer the more hands-on learning experience," Batman said.
"Yes, because all you need to know to graduate high school is how to judo-kick bad guys," Barbara said sarcastically. She straightened. "Though, Dick, we need to schedule your next karate lesson." She had the habit of passing on all she'd learned at the Harvard of Police Academies to Dick. Imagine what would happen if all his villain-fighting education came from Batman!
"Sounds good, Not-Mom! Wow, I'm so excited for Family Movie Night! I always wanted one of those! What movie are we going to watch?!" Dick wanted to know.
"We're going to watch 13 Going on 30—" Batman started.
"Whatever movie you want, Dick," Barbara said generously. She cast an eye at Batman. "As long as it's a rom-com."
He sighed, but deferred. That was a compromise he could kinda, probably live with.
Barbara smiled and took a sip of her coffee. She glanced at her watch and almost spewed her coffee everywhere. "Whoa! I gotta get to the precinct. The city needs their police commissioner!"
"I gotta get to the Bat-Cave—the city needs me to be fully rested and well-pumped up to save its butt from the villains!" Batman said, leaping up from his seat.
"I gotta go brush my teeth—the city needs me to have clean teeth!" Dick said, jumping up with enthusiasm.
Batman and Barbara exchanged a look. "Um, sure, Dick, of course they do," Barbara said encouragingly.
"What time should we all meet to make pizza tonight, Master Wayne?" Alfred asked as the other members of the household all hurriedly shoved their chairs back into the table and drained their drinks of drink.
"I dunno, something like 9 pm or something," Batman said nonchalantly.
"9 PM? That's way too late for Dick to eat dinner!" Barbara pointed out.
"9:30's my bedtime," Dick volunteered this information cheerfully.
"Quite frankly, it's too late for anyone to be eating dinner," Alfred said under his breath as he cleared dirty breakfast dishes from the table.
"Ah, 9:30's a baby bedtime! Only growing kids and young adolescents go to bed at 9:30!" Batman scoffed.
Barbara folded her arms. "What not lame time do you go to bed, Batman?"
"I'm Batman, and bats are nocturnal. I stay up until all hours of the night; and 9:30 PM is a perfectly valid time to eat dinner! I stay up late saving the city and kicking supervillain butt! Of course I eat late."
Barbara waited.
"I totally do not go to bed until at least 11 PM."
"Wow, living like a wild child up in here," Barbara said sarcastically. She checked her watch again before tying her hair back. "Everyone home and in the kitchen by five-thirty, okay? Movie at seven."
"Cool! Sounds totally planned and fun, Not-Mom!" Dick squealed.
Barbara smiled. The kid, despite being completely influenced by his adoptive dad, was a sweetheart. She gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Batman, unfortunately, saw the gesture. He tapped his cheek. "One for Padre too?" he said casually.
Barbara scoffed and hurried to her police car.
Batman growled under his breath and looked at Dick, who stared at him with wider eyes than usual. "What are you looking at, Dick? Get started on your schoolwork!" Dick dashed away and Batman said, "You know what, I'm going out. I'm going to go drive around the streets and absorb the cheers of my adoring fans."
"Sounds like a regular day at the office, Master Wayne," Alfred said distractedly. He handed Batman a hand-written grocery list. Once Batman had disappeared into the Bat-Cave to fetch his Batmobile, Alfred checked a little mark on a list he kept in his pocket. So far, the score was 17, Barbara Gordon, 0, Master Wayne. The old man smiled to himself.
Strangely enough, everyone kept to the schedule. At five-thirty, promptly, Barbara put her coat on the rack in the kitchen, Dick appeared from a mysterious hidden chute near the trash cans, Batman swooped in from the garage, and Alfred looked up from his prepping on the counter. "Ah, Batman, did you get all the ingredients we needed?" Alfred inquired.
"Totally did. Grocery shopping is like, totally easy, and anyone could do it, but no one can do it as well as me!" Batman said. He threw the plastic bags onto the counter and out came several ingredients, including but not limited to, croissants, chicken legs, popsicles, ice cream, apples, cherries, and bananas.
Perhaps it would've been better if Dick had been included in this grocery shopping trip as had been previously discussed. Maybe Batman would've gotten something resembling pizza dough or tomato sauce.
Alfred, Dick, and Barbara stared. Barbara picked up the banana and said, "Unless this is the weirdest cheese I've ever seen, these aren't even remotely ingredients for a pizza."
"Where's the pepperoni? Where's the pineapple?" Dick inquired innocently.
"Ugh, pineapple on a pizza. Who raised you?" Batman scoffed.
"Um, technically orphanage workers—"
"Batman, when you were in the grocery store and you picked up a popsicle, did you think to yourself 'Ah, yes, this is exactly what goes atop a pizza?'" The sarcasm was less than subtle in Alfred's inquiry.
"Hey, I just got what you wrote on the list. It's not my fault you write in chicken scratch," Batman said, tossing the list at Alfred.
Alfred caught it and Barbara read it over his shoulder. "It says stuff like 'cheese' and 'pepperoni' and 'peppers' and 'onions'. Batman, how did you get 'ice cream' and 'croissants' from this?"
"Is pineapple on there?" Dick wondered, straining on his tiptoes to read.
"'Pizza dough' is on the top of the list, almost as if it was top priority," Alfred said, looking up with raised eyebrows.
"WOW! I can read it, and I'm so farsighted even with my glasses, I'm borderline blind! Wow, Padre, how did you NOT get this?!" Dick said.
Batman almost blushed under his mask. "Bats are also blind."
Alfred sighed and tucked the list into his pocket. "I think it wisest to order in a pizza."
"Or two," Barbara hinted.
"Or like four so we don't have to share," Batman suggested. Everyone's dissection of the list had left him less than willing to be familial and cheerful. His enthusiasm for the evening not only wavered, but fell completely flat.
"Families share, Batman. Besides, a whole pizza is a lot for one person," Barbara pointed out, factual as ever.
"Ohh, can my pizza have pineapple on it?" Dick jumped up and down with excitement.
"Okay, we can all share. Except Dick. No one else ever wants to have pineapple on a pizza," Batman said decidedly.
"Wait, what about cheese pizza, too?" Dick's eyes grew big and wonder-y and watery.
Barbara gave Batman a look. "We'll share pizza, even with Dick."
Dick brightened, and Batman said, "Fine, as long as he doesn't share his pineapple pizza with me."
"I'm sure that can be arranged," Barbara said generously.
Alfred picked up the phone. "Thin crust or regular?"
"Regular," Batman and Barbara said at the same time that Dick piped up from the back, "Oohhhhh, thin crust!"
Batman looked at Barbara and chuckled. "See? We're in sync. Great minds think alike. Look at our common interest."
"Yes, the two we have," Barbara said sarcastically. "Also, about two million people in this city like regular crust pizza. It's like asking 'Who here wears glasses?' The answer will be 'a lot'."
Batman ignored the fact that Alfred and Dick raised their hands to her last question and said, "Fine. I'll go, uh, get dressed for the evening, and meet everyone in the home theater."
"Ohhhh! I'm going to go choose a rom-com! Not-Mom, come on!" Barbara was dragged away by an excited Dick. She shared a smile with Alfred before she disappeared around a corner. Alfred chuckled to himself and called up a pizza shop. He met the delivery guy by the front door and, having been overhead-radioed by Master Wayne, gave the pizza delivery guy a $100 tip.
"Wowzers! Thanks, mister!" the pizza delivery guy exclaimed, kicking his heels together as he jumped.
"Master Wayne thanks you for the pizza delivery this evening," Alfred said calmly. He closed the front door and met Master Wayne in the hall. Well, half Bruce Wayne, half Batman. Bat-Wayne or Bruce-Man. He wore plain pants and a grey sweatshirt. He almost looked like a dad home from a nice 9-5, except for the Batman mask he still wore over his face.
"This is a definite improvement over the unflattering velvet pink bathrobe you're accustomed to wearing, Master Wayne," Alfred observed drily.
"Hey! Do not talk smack about my dressing robe! I-I wanted to wear something appropriate for a f-family night. Seriously, my dressing robe's like my underwear. You don't wear just your underwear when watching movies with your f-family. Also, it's not pink! It's puce! It's a very manly, very flattering color!"
Alfred didn't even blink at Master Wayne's instant shield of defense. "You look fine, sir. Though, might I suggest, to complete the ensemble, that you take off the mask."
"The mask? Nah, these people already know what I look like without the mask. Besides, I look great in the mask!"
"Master Wayne, I think that you don't want to take down your last defense, even amongst your family. You don't want to be truly yourself, even in front of and amongst the people you love—the people who you call, and they you, family." Alfred put a hand on his shoulder. "Bruce, it's time. It's time to take down that last defense and be yourself with your family."
Batman was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed and took off the mask. He looked toward the ground, but finally met Alfred in the eye. "Does not wearing my mask make my face look fat?"
Alfred smiled, trying to be kind, but also a little amused at the vain question, "You look just fine, Bruce."
"Okay. Uh, cool. Um, let's go eat tons of pizza and watch. . ." Bruce sighed. "Dick's choice of rom-com."
Alfred outright chuckled. Bruce made it sound like a task to be dreaded. However, the evening proved itself otherwise. They all four comfortablely ate copious amounts of pizza on the couch (Dick enjoyed the pineapple pizza all to himself, to everyone else's happiness). Popcorn was made and Bruce let out a long, relieved sigh when Dick popped up from the big DVD closet with an old favorite. "Padre, Padre, I found this movie with you in it!"
"Ah, 'The LEGO Movie'. It's not totally focused on me, but it's pretty okay," Bruce said casually.
It was a pretty great movie-watching experience. Bruce had felt a little nervous without his mask, but he completely forgot about it as he laughed at his antics with Emmett and Wyldstyle (by antics, I mean how he totally saved the world—with a little of their help). Barbara at one point leaned against his shoulder, and they both reached for the same armrest at the same time, which was pretty cool. Dick squealed with delight and absorbed it all like a little sponge. He complimented his Bat-Dad, laughed boisterously, and cheered. Alfred smiled and sipped from his tea. The pizza was delicious and a great change from lobster thermidor.
As the end of the movie played, Bruce looked over his family. Dick was singing along to the end-credits song, jumping up and down with all the energy of a little kid. Barbara had fallen asleep against his shoulder. Alfred looked over at Bruce and said, "How did you like this different evening, Bruce?"
Different food, family surrounding him after watching a not-sad movie, happy, relaxed, and loved—Bruce, for once, smiled. "I kinda, sorta, really really like it."
Thanks for reading! Review?