Zai-nu prompted: Cass and Dick brother-sister bonding fluff :D
This prompt made me so happy omg I wish I wasn't such a hack and put Dick on bed rest yet again XD I'm going to make the preemptive promise that, unless asked explicitly, I won't injure/make ill our Mr. Grayson again… forthis Fluff War.
Batman and related properties © DC Comics
story © RenaRoo
And Happily Ever After
His eyes are not shutting despite his boredom. It has long since passed the point of mind numbing boredom, though, as that describes when he was content to let the white noise of the television screen run in the background of his room. It doesn't describe Dick's predicament as he has spent the last hour so unenthusiastically cornered by his boredom, he is now staring blankly at a screen he turned off out of irritation.
Batman and Robin are on patrol still, possibly wrapping up, but it's the wrong Batman. It's not Dick.
If Bruce and Damian kill each other, Dick isn't sure if he'll be more unsurprised or more depressed. It feels like a safe bet on either option.
Both legs broken are apparently "all" it takes to keep the acrobat firmly on his back, in bed, laid up for the foreseeable. But only because Alfred's threats have gotten past passive aggressive to the point Dick actually thought twice before hobbling to the bathroom on his own, against orders.
Croc got a lucky shot in. It's far from Dick's fault that the mutation of a tail is an unexpected development in the Rogue's sad, spiraling departure from humanity.
It's somewhat ironic as Dick had been just about to offer that if Croc came in quietly they'd get him treatment at S.T.A.R. Labs - uncover the cause stipulating the new changes.
Judging by Bruce's reaction when Damian got Dick and himself back to the cave, Dick is willing to bet that S.T.A.R. is still in Croc's future, but the offer to go in quietly was off the table when Bruce went after him.
It is nearly three in the morning and Dick feels like he hasn't even begun to feel tired without working up an adequate sweat from patrol. So he settles on thinking about how he should be out there. He simply clenches his teeth and thinks over how, even with Croc half hidden in the sewer waters, his posture and behavior should have clued Dick in on thew new advantage.
His little ritual in self-depreciation is hardly in full swing when his door opens, quietly, and someone's head pokes in through the dark.
Dick blinks at the person for a moment before his door opens more, the silhouette slips in, and then it shuts behind them. If he didn't recognize that bobbing, short ponytail, Dick would have bee calling foul.
"You back in, Cass?" he asks instead, feigning a yawn that goes on a second too long and he knows it.
As she nears, Dick sees her features more clearly. Particularly, he sees the subtle quirk of the right corner of her mouth as she looks over him. She's amused at his false attempts at subterfuge, which is better than being outright judgmental or upset.
In general, the family has learned that if one is going to be caught in a fib, it's better to be caught by their sister. She merely appears content with laughing at their foolishness rather than taking outright offense.
"Yes," she says, and Dick can now see that she's in old gray sweats from the lockers in the Cave, her water bottle in her hand. The bat symbol is just barely visible against the yellow plastic in the dark. "You're not sleeping."
"Nope," Dick responds, reaching down to scratch around the edge of one of his casts. "Old habits are hard to break. Unlike bones."
"Just fracture," Cass says, almost dismissively as she begins to crawl onto the bed beside Dick.
He smirks and lays back against his mound of over fluffed pillows and raises his arm enough for Cassandra to curl right into his side. "I like the way you think, Li'l Sister."
"Hmm," she hums in return, clutching to the water bottle almost tiredly.
"Long patrol?" Dick asks, genuinely curious.
Cassandra is tapping her black painted nails against the hard plastic as she frowns, almost pouting. "Very. It was… boring."
This, Dick is well aware, is a completely relative term when it comes to Cassandra. She has an uncanny ability for understatement with patrol. Boring could very possibly mean she was only responsible for ten arrests and saving three or four lives.
In the now four years that Cassandra has been a part of their family and their patrol, Dick is fairly sure she is the only member of the family who has honestly never had a quiet patrol night to drive them crazy with anticipation and waiting.
"What, I'm laid up and you can't even spare me details?" he presses as she turns her face into his chest and lets out a sigh. "I know you're not that tired. Amuse me. I'm currently dying of boredom myself. And I didn't get to exercise on the rooftops. I had to watch Snooki instead."
"Liar," Cass mutters. "B… blocked that. It's not… on TVs here. Anymore." She looks up and raises her brows. "But I can say… there's no 'big guns' out. Anymore."
Dick turned his head, surprised. "Really? You got Firefly? How is that boring?"
Sometimes he thinks Cassandra is from another planet entirely.
Her response is a simple shrug. "He's… losing edge. Sloppy. Didn't get to start.. it. The fire. I got there earlier." She smirked, apparently knowing the following part would be of definite interest to Dick. "Still using the same car."
Dick blinks before letting out a laugh. "That's so bad. He's supposed to be a pro! Ah, man. Some of those guys are slipping." Unlike Killer Croc, he thinks but doesn't bother to say,
Judging by Cass' frown, she probably knows.
"So then what happened," Dick recovers quickly, only to watch as Cass begins shifting around the bed and slipping under the sheets. "Whoa, whoa - you can't go to sleep! Aren't you the least bit concerned about me? Want to ask if you're bed-ridden brother is going to need anything before you sleep like a log in his bed? I'm crushed, Cass! I thought we had something special."
For his whining, Dick gets Cass' water bottle shoved in his face. She shakes it once, and it indeed splashes internally.
"Drink," she says, "then tell me a story."
Dick rolls his eyes and takes the water bottle, but instead puts it on the nightstand within reach. "What, you can't spare a single detail about the Firefly deal and yet I'm expected to tell you bedtime stories?" he asks teasingly.
"Told you," she argues and re-tucks herself into his side. "The car."
"One detail, okay fine," he laughs, hugging her shoulders. "Okay, okay. Do you want… ahh… like a short fable or… a fairy tale? What's your preference, Li'l Sister?"
She tugs on his shirt, growing visibly more sluggish with sleep fast approaching. "Never finished," she reminds him.
"Oh, right," he recalls, laying his head back against the pillows and closing his eyes. "You fell asleep before I finished."
"No," she says with a slight tremble from her quiet laughter. "You did. But you can finish. Now."
"Pushy," he mumbles. "So the princess, she's about had it with this frog, right?"
"Mmhmm."
Dick yawns, not even noticing it was genuine as he continues. "Well, like it's not enough that he's being carried around on a pillow and eating at the table -"
"Titus eats at the table," Cass points out.
"Titus is also spoiled rotten," Dick laughs. "Just proving you're awake, aren't you?"
"Mmhmm."
His head begins feeling far too heavy to be lifted much further off the pillows, and so Dick leans in closer to his sister, feeling the pattern of her soft breaths against his side. It makes his tired smile grow even fonder. "She's about had enough, right? But the king -" he bites back the yawn, determined "-her dad won't let her out of her promise."
"Good," Cass says softly.
"So, at the end of the night - uh, I meant day. Definitely day," Dick continues, wondering if the slurring was an invention of his own mind or if Cassandra could definitely hear it. "The frog? Yeah, him. He's like, 'give me a kiss and you'll be free.' Which seems like a good idea."
Cass mutters about frogs and TV, but Dick's beyond hearing it.
"So she does it. And that's totally gross, by the way, Cass. Do me a favor and don't kiss any frogs," Dick presses on. "Uh… frogs are kinda.. metaphor for guys, by the way."
"You say so."
"I do," Dick nods, feeling like every ounce of energy from before, angry or otherwise, has evaporated from his person. "She just happens to kiss this frog and he becomes a prince. Turns out, he needed a kiss from a princess this whole time just to turn him back from a curse."
It's barely a whisper when Dick hears "that's lame" mumbled into his side before Cass sighs, "Cinderella is still the best."
Dick admits, he outdid himself with that one. Still, he's awake just enough to tuck Cassandra's head under his chin and smile as he says, "Yeah. But, fortunately, they both end happily ever after. So you can't say that part's lame."
"No," Cass responds lazily. She swings an arm over his torso to hug him. "Never will. Goodnight, Dick."
"Goodnight, Cass."