I do not own any characters from Young Justice and whoever its creators are. At least, I think that's how the disclaimer goes. Well, I'm trying out my first one-shot. Enjoy!
"Hey Robin, would you like to….oh…."
One masked eye twitched as he heard M'gann float into the room, took one look at the fruit-covered walls, and drifted back out again, no doubt to retrieve the mop that they had bought from Jake's Hardware Store just last week, after Superboy got frustrated with a stain on the floor and finally smashed the last one's fluffy head into the steel tiles. Batman hadn't been too happy with of Supey's anger issues, and made them all helped pick the splinters out of the hole.
Robin was pretty sure the fluffy end will end up sleeping down there for quite some time, though, in its new bath of mush.
He took a deep breath, air rattling in his lungs as he struggled to calm himself. He studiously ignored the steady dripping of the orange stuck to the ceiling, and its later *sploosh* to the floor. The remains of his 3rd attempt, after sticking a whole orange into the blender, and setting it on high.
Come on Grayson, he thought religiously, it's just a smoothie. Alfred made these things all the time. Bits of pureed fruit went *squish* as his hands, gloved and sticky, once again grasped at the blender's white base, its array of gleaming white buttons the only thing spared from the latest massive fruity assault.
Last week, while they were liberating Mad Hatter of a molecule disruptor, he hadn't had a problem with fruit, alternately vaporizing and pulverizing various watermelons and pears chucked his way. He personally thought the Hatter looked much better in applesauce. But noo, Bruce just had to restrict him to civilian machinery, didn't he.
*Flashback*
Alfred finally straightened up, towel on one arm, fire extinguisher in the other, and expression as impeccable as ever, though one could see the slight twitch of his brow, if one looked hard enough. And of course, his aura of disapproval was tangible, even tastable, toward the two guilty men in the room.
More like one guilty man. It wasn't his fault Bruce went ahead with the whole thing. Dick was just an innocent passerby, he swore. And technically, he couldn't be considered a man yet, being thirteen and all, and therefore under-aged.
"Master Bruce," the butler began, "I must insist that you cease your endeavors to the kitchen. I'm afraid it will not hold much longer if you continue these…activities." He glanced pointedly at the remains of the oven, its cracked glass still choking up fumes, though at least now they were grey instead of pitch-black.
At the center of it all, sitting oh so innocently atop the half-melted remains of a rack, was the pan of batter, still as pale and viscous as it was when it went in.
Well, if worst come to worst, they could always just buy a new kitchen. Though Alfred seemed quite partial to the current one, and a displeased Alfred meant no hot-buttered raspberry scones for a month.
Bruce had the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry Alfred," he grinned guiltily, "I, ah, saw the recipe looked short enough, so I thought maybe this time it might actually go over well."
Dick snickered into his hand, though a quick glare from Bruce made him stuff it.
Alfred sighed with what could only be called a long suffering pain. "With your ability to burn water, Master Bruce, I would advise you to stick with sandwiches." With that, he turned, and headed out into the hall, as if he had not just rushed into a room filled with billowing green-black smoke, fire-extinguisher at hand and aimed at the angry glowing stove surrounded by empty ice capsules.
He couldn't hold it. Dick finally burst, clutching his stomach with laughter as he tumbled across the ashy floor. Bruce glared at his again, though anyone that knew him (which meant two people) could see the mirth in his eyes.
"Geez, Bruce," Dick managed to gasp, "what did you put in that thing anyway?"
"I followed the ingredients list to the letter," Bruce replied, mock-affronted.
"And then added what? Anti-freeze and shaving cream?"
"I'll have you know it's not as easy as it looks. And I have you to blame for passing the shaving cream over."
"Come on, Alfred does it all the time, how hard could it get?" Dick paused in his mirth for a moment. "Wait, you actually put that in there?"
Bruce's glare resumed, as did Dick's laughter.
"Alfred doesn't count, and I'd like to see you try making one of his recipes these days."
Dick grinned at the challenge. "Oh yeah, I can definitely make one! And edible at that, too!" he added for emphasis. Bruce was so going to be whelmed.
Bruce grinned. "Fine. You have one week to make the easiest of Alfred's recipes." Those things were hard to use, he didn't want to pressure the kid too much.
Dick punched the air in glee, dust rising in his wake as he flipped himself to his feet. Bruce quickly grabbed him in a headlock and rustled his hair. Alfred chose this moment to walk in, mop in hand.
It was always touching to see the people he viewed as a son and grandson so happy. Regrettably, he had to leave the Kodak behind while carrying the cleaning supplies. Ever since Master Dick came, Bruce had better balanced his time as an urban legend and as a human. Their interactions would always bring content to his old heart.
Unfortunately, he would have to snip this one in the bud. His kitchen was a stake.
"Master Dick," the butler coughed, startling the two at their game, "If you are going to attempted to make something, may I suggest the Orange Jubilee. And if you've picked up on any of Master Bruce's talent, I strongly advise you to seek a friend's residence for assistance."
Dick swore after he calmed his nerves, the guy was worse than Batman sometimes. He slipped out of Bruce's choke-hold to find that little stack of color-coded, alphabetically sorted, impeccably pristine white and hand-written in italic Times New Roman recipe cards Alfred kept around.
And there was no way he was as bad as Bruce! He's made applesauce before—
"No items from the cave" Bruce added as an afterthought.
"What! That is so not fair, you used the centrifuge to try and make soup once—"
Alfred swiveled around, fire burning in his eyes at the mistreatment of food—
Dick ran. Maybe the mountain was a better place to try this.
*End Flashback*
Robin readied himself one more time. Okay then, oranges, orange juice…why the heck did it call for orange juice if it already had oranges? He offhandedly tossed the empty carton in the trash bin.
Guess he'd have to work without it.
Frozen banana, check, soy milk, vanilla (why stick vanilla in there, wasn't it a bean?), ice cubes, ice cubes…shoot, where'd the rest of them go? Though, if it's just to help cool the drink down…dry ice should work as well. Yep, that was everything.
His finger hovered over the 'start' button before quickly redirecting itself to the lid. Yep, lid on first, now press button. Robin closed his eyes for a quick prayer to whatever smoothie god there was, and hoped that the guy didn't hate his guts.
It totally hated his guts.
A cackle filled the air as the machine delightfully belched over the bottom half of his uniform and onto the floor. Robin swore he saw it giggle as it did so.
Bruce nervously held the concoction at eyelevel, noting Dick's expectant pout behind the glass. The boy was thirteen, for Pete's sake, how one earth did he retain the puppy dog eyes?
He swirled the glass once. The grey liquid swirled as well, purple flecks sweeping up from the bottom. He moved to set the glass back down, yet one glance at his foster son kept his fingers gripping its smooth sides.
Inwardly, Dick smirked.
He had been practicing and perfecting the look, after all. It probably wouldn't have worked on Alfred; the guy was untouchable; but Bruce? A maybe.
And from the looks of it, a very big maybe.
He knew Bruce was just itching to run the cup under one of his scanners. He would have too, if they had switched places.
It was perfectly safe, he had tried it himself, then forced Wally to try it as well, after the speedster had skid over the juice on the floor and crashed into his 6th attempt.
It was just that the purple food coloring made everything so much better. Or worse, depending on who's talking. Same difference.
Bruce sighed, gazing forlorn at the glass in front of his nose once more. "You are positive this is edible and won't cause any dangerous side effects." He grumbled.
"Yep" Dick perked, then immediately resumed the eyes.
The dark knight took one final glance at the miniature vortex within the glass, held his breath, and took a sip. After this, he's definitely going to have to rebuild his immunity to such pleading tactics.
"I scraped as much as I could off the walls, managed to get a whole glassful—"
*sppffoogh*
Batman set his worst glare on his young protégé, which admittedly did not have much of an effect as he would like. He firmly set the glass of sloshing liquid onto the coffee table, stood up, and stalked away, though not fast enough to miss the grin spreading like peanut butter over the boy's face.
Though admittedly, he thought while wiping droplets off his mouth with his thumb, it did have the right taste.