A/N: Just a little fluffy one shot for you guys! I actually haven't written anything for YJ yet, so bear with me… but hopefully you'll like it!
I apologize for any and all mistakes I make in advance.
Disclaimer: I do not own YJ, otherwise THERE WOULD BE ANOTHER FREAKIN' SEASON.
Dick Grayson was a nice guy, to say the least. I mean, he fought crime for a living. It doesn't get more selfless than that. If you search up Robin or Nightwing, there is infinite camera footage of the caped crusaders helping out civilians and saving innocent people from the wrath of supervillains (Joker and Ra's Al Ghul, to name a few).
But even off the camera, there was a unanimous consensus that the guy was a good man. (If a little prone to trolling.)
And no matter what, he always remembered everyone's birthdays.
Back in his Flying Grayson days, he always surprised his mother with a little baked cake on her birthday.
"Here, Mama." A five year old Dick placed a little cupcake in front of her mother.
"Why, what's this?" she picked up the creation, with its slumping layers and smeared frosting.
"It's your cake! For your birthday!" the boy said, looking up at her adoringly. "D-d'ya like it?" he asked, suddenly shy.
"Why, it's perfect." His mother beamed, ruffling his hair. "Did you make this yourself?"
"Mm-hmm!" he grinned, nodding. "Papa helped a little, too…"
His mother laughed, hugging him tightly. "Well, thank you, my little bird."
Though, when Bruce took him in, he found that the little things were best.
"What is this?" After a long day at the office, all Bruce wanted to do was sleep. After checking the monitors. And patching up his suit. That last spat with Joker wasn't kind to the Batman.
But as he took in the state of kitchen, he felt that all would have to wait.
"Uh… baking?" his newly acquired ward grinned sheepishly. Richard Grayson, now ten, shrugged.
"Clean this up, now." He said barked, pointing at him. "How did this even happen?"
"I wanted to make you a, how do you say… ah! Cake!" the boy was still struggling with English, although he picked it up remarkably fast. "Because it's your birthday!" he grinned, wiping some egg on his hair accidentally. The whole room was a mess, with flour everywhere and random bits of what looked like cake batter on the countertops and- "How did you get food on the ceiling?" Bruce asked, a hint of disbelief seeping into his voice.
"Well, I-" the boy started, raising his finger.
"Never mind, I don't want to hear it." The older man said, and left the room sighing. It seemed he was doing that a lot lately. "Alfred?"
After a few hours later, he found a cake on his desk. At least, he assumed it was a cake. Poorly made, it had a single candle sticking out of it. A lighter sat next to it, with the note Alfred didn't let me light it. Happy Birthday!
Bruce was about to push it away when his stomach growled and he realized he hadn't eaten since he got back from work. Sighing, he took out the candle and dug in. It's good. But where did he get a lighter?
The ten year old Dick looked on happily.
Of course, Alfred looked forward to his birthday surprise every year. It was always something different. But his favorite was when Bruce and Dick decided to make him a birthday dinner.
He had gone out grocery shopping, and back at home the boys were scrambling to put something together.
After an hour and a half of laborious (bad) culinary work, they had finally prepared three side dishes. Dick opened the fridge to get out their
"Uh, Bruce?" Dick, a teenager now, peered out from behind the fridge door.
"Yes?" The billionaire was retying his apron. Black, of course.
"We don't have any meat."
"What?"
"We don't-"
"I heard you. I thought you checked that the beef was in there!"
"I did! Alfred must've thrown it out. It was pretty old."
Bruce sighed.
Nevertheless, they all enjoyed a nice dinner, if not home cooked. And it's the thought that counts, right?
When Babs got birthday surprises, it was usually either really sweet or really… weird. Like that one time when Dick got the marching band to play "Happy Birthday" during lunch and had the choir sing.
Not to mention the time she nearly broke her back because Dick asked all her friends to a bouquet of flowers for her. Or when he had a parade of llamas walk through the lunch room and gave her his present atop the back of the last one. The list goes on and on.
Looking back, the most memorable one would be her twenty-first birthday. Dick had insisted on going out with the team.
The night started out surrounded with her girlfriends, chatting with Artemis and Wally about civilian life, catching up with Kaldur, (this was before he became a double agent) and just having fun with her friends. They perused flea markets and went to bars. It was the most fun she'd had in a long time.
As the celebrations wound down, they crashed at Wayne Manor. Spitfire was found making out in a closet, much to everyone's amusement and then everyone was gone.
Everyone but her and Dick. "Here." He offered her a cupcake, its frosting slightly squished.
"Thanks, Dick." she smiled wearily, taking the dessert. "Yum, sugar."
"Yup." They surveyed the room. The Wayne Manor Ballroon was completely and totally trashed, no thanks to their rambunctious friends.
"Hey, Babs?"
"Yeah?" she turned to him, his face surprisingly close.
He leaned in, and wiped some frosting of the corner of her mouth, surprisingly gentle. He smiled. "Happy birthday." And he kissed her.
Dick never ceased to surprise Artemis.
It was her first year on the team, and as she walked in from the zeta tubes on her birthday, she saw a cupcake on the kitchen counter. Happy Birthday, Arty! A note read, with a little doodle of a Robin face. It always eluded her how he could keep Wally from eating it.
At school, she befriended Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. Dick would slip her a little present at lunch, a gift from both of them. She would always smile.
Of course, the birthday Wally remembers the best was when he got to save a country single-handedly. But it was Robin that organized his surprise birthday party, long before he began hinting. Originally, he made a huge, complicated plan to surprise his best friend. Unfortunately, as plans go, it was foiled and he had to resort to lesser terms. The plan would have to wait for next year.
Fortunately, the main idea of the plan still remained. Dick went out and bought two cakes (and a cupcake), food, drinks, and a huge banner. Wally told stories about it for years to come.
Even after he passed on, Dick never failed to place a huge slice of cake on his grave.
Dick walked into Wayne Manor. Now 24, he was the protector of Bludhaven and here for a visit.
Both Artemis and Babs persuaded him to take the night off from crime fighting to have a family dinner. The whole "Batfamily" came.
"Happy Birthday, Dick."
A/N: So, you like? That ending was a little forced… but I hope you liked it!
This fic is a birthday present for my buddy Leaffeather2! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Signing off,
Miss Quiet Writer