War

Dick snuck stealthily through the manor. The consequences of being caught by his brothers were extremely high. Mostly extreme bragging rights and the loss of any dignity that his brothers had yet to take away. Somehow an impromptu paintball war had started in the manor, and Dick wasn't sure what was going to be worse. When Alfred came back from the errands he was doing and saw the damage, or when Bruce returned home from work and saw the damage. Both would be bad, and knowing his brothers, Dick would stake his inheritance that they would blame him.

Now the question was how to defeat his brothers. Jason would be the real challenge, as he was without a doubt the best marksman in the family. Damian would be tricky because of his natural silence and his size. The kid could pop out of anywhere. And Tim was likely to have set up a trap of death somewhere.

The ultimate goal here, was to survive until he could make a plan playing off his strengths. Maybe he could give them the puppy eyes until they shot themselves? He didn't think that would work. He could always use that special bond that he had with Bruce to force the man into not only participating, but helping him.

Thinking of Bruce made him smile as he rolled behind the sofa in the den. The man might pretend that he didn't have any emotions, but he really had a heart of gold. He remembered the first time that he ever went paintballing. He was eight, and Bruce had just adopted him. Their relationship was strained at best as Dick hardly ever saw the man. He could only assume that the gossip magazines were correct and that Dick was a charity case. Bruce had surprised him by walking into his room one Saturday morning and asking if he wanted to go and do something together.

Dick had hesitantly said yes and the two had traveled in the car for an hour. When they had arrived, Dick had been confused. It was not some fancy place like he had expected of Bruce Wayne, but a dusty field with weird inflatables. Everything in sight was covered in paint. Dick had looked at Bruce in confusion and the man had explained, "Someone once brought me here to show me that not all guns equated to death. I thought I'd show you something similar even though you didn't have the same experience with guns as I did. Besides," Bruce said with a shrug, "I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie."

Dick had smiled at that statement and then followed behind Bruce. When the man had started to talk to someone at the front desk, Dick had hidden behind the man's leg. Bruce couldn't help but smile at that, and to his own surprise, had put a hand on Dick's head.

When Bruce had purchased the equipment, he had explained the game to Dick. "So we're going to work together against other teams to try and shoot them with these guns." When Bruce had seen the fear in Dick's eyes, he had crouched down next to the boy. "These are special guns, they shoot paint. The worse they can do is leave a bruise." When the boy looked at him with suspicion, he demonstrated by shooting himself. Instead of blood seeping out of his leg like Dick had expected, there was a big yellow paint splatter.

Bruce had watched as the boy's face transformed. The fear had melted out of his eyes, only to be replaced by an unequivocal joy that made Bruce's heart soar. Dick had practically dragged him to the 'battlefield.' The best part of that day, was that it was the day that their inseparable bond started.

Dick was startled out of his memories when he heard a large bang and shouts coming from the direction of Bruce's office. Dick winced thinking of the undoubtedly explosive reaction that Bruce would have. There was no way that he could cover for them, as Bruce had security cameras in there.

Dick heard more crashing and more panicked shouts. Then there was silence. Silence scared Dick a lot more than the yelling because the Wayne manor was never silent. Even in the dead of night, someone was making noise due to a nightmare. Now the real question was whether or not he should approach them.

It was just as likely that the boys were banding together to take him down. Or it could be that they destroyed Bruce's sacred place. That said, Dick let out a humongous sigh. He couldn't let his brothers be severely maimed because he didn't try and help them fix whatever mess they'd made.

He heard his brothers running down the hallways, and he sighed before steeling himself. Steeling himself, he checked to see if the safety of his paintball gun was off and then snuck into the hallway. Quietly, he crept down the long hallway to Bruce's office. If he was caught, it would be a bloodfield as there was no cover.

He reached Bruce's office and peaked inside. The walls were covered in the different paint colors that represented his different brothers. Red for Jason, yellow for Tim, green for Damian, and he himself was blue.

Looking at the paint on the walls, he squinted. If you looked closely and expanded the margins slightly, they looked like the symbols for their respective costumes. Dick suddenly had an amazing idea. He knew that his father would hardly find it funny, and probably turn a bright purple, but that way his brothers could blame him. Bruce would defiantly ground his twenty three year old son, but Dick had long ago learned how to end his punishment early.

Dick slung the paintball gun over his shoulder and walked whistling down the hallway. As expected he immediately had three different guns pointed at him. Holding his hands up in the air, he said, "I come in peace." He was instantly shot by each of his brothers. "Come on guys, truce. I have an idea on how to fix Bruce's office so that he is angry at me and not you. Besides, I haven't seen his face turn purple in so long."

Surprisingly, that was all it took to get his brothers to agree to his plan without even knowing what it was. They followed him back down the hallway and into Bruce's office. When Dick explained his plan, Jason actually cheered before declaring, "I don't think that I can call you the Golden Boy anymore after this!"

Dick made a giant bow and saw that Damian and Tim were slightly more reserved in their glee, but were still grinning. As they started their work, Dick let out a cackle and his brother's joined in. Pretty soon, it sounded as if their were a bunch of villains redecorating Bruce's office.

Bruce walked into his oddly quiet house. Something was not right, he could feel it. Dick ran into the foyer and immediately launched himself at Bruce. Bruce was ready for some sort of attack, but the only thing he got was a huge hug. Looking down at his son, he noticed that there was paint in his hair. Dread seeped into Bruce, as a child, Dick getting a hold on paint meant murals on his walls, and somehow he didn't think that that had changed.

When Dick released him, he said, "I should let you get settled in. I mean, you haven't even put your briefcase in your office yet!" With that, his oldest son bounded away, leaving Bruce both confused and slightly afraid.

When Bruce arrived at his office, he found a sticky note on the door.

Dad-

Thought you could use some color in your life.

Love always,

Dick

P.S. While I got some helping hands, this was all my idea!

Bruce took a steadying breath before he walked into his office. Paint splattered the walls in different colors. Each color made the symbol for each of their alter egos. There was the symbol for Nightwing in blue, Red Hood in red, Red Robin in yellow, and Robin in green. Bruce could tell that the boys had used paintball guns to create the symbols.

A blob of paint fell and hit him on the cheek. Looking up, he saw that the ceiling was completely covered in a giant black bat. Bruce surprised himself by only grinding his teeth before he left the room to find his sons.

From Tim's room, the four boys watched as Bruce's face turned purple and steam seemed to blow out from his ears before he put down his suitcase and left the room. Giving each other wide eyed looks, they immediately scattered. Dick simply walked to the hallway closet and brought out cleaning supplies.

Bruce was stomping around the house trying to find his sons when he saw Dick pass him with cleaning supplies. Instantly he was calm. Dick had never planned for the redecoration to be permanent, which puzzled Bruce. Dick liked pranks, but he never did anything that would violate his study because that was Bruce's sacred spot. Everything else was fair game. So why did he do it now?

Bruce silently followed Dick and watched as he started to soak the stains with denatured alcohol and then scrub at it with a sponge. Bruce cleared his throat slightly before leaning back onto the doorframe. "Why'd you do it?"

Dick started to say something about color before Bruce stopped him. "We both know that you never mess with my office, and if you really wanted to add color in here you would've given me a potted plant or a picture of us. So why'd you do this?"

Dick dropped the sponge in the bucket of warm water before saying, "World's greatest detective indeed. But I refuse to incriminate me or my brothers." He leaned against the wall, mimicking Bruce's position.

"Off the record then." Bruce tried.

"Fine. It's possible that we were having a paintball war indoors again. And it isn't outside the realm of possibility that Jason, Tim, and Damian staged a battle in here. It's likely that when I saw the damage, I knew that you'd be mad. Hypothetically, I would have wanted to minimize the damages and thought that the stains sort of looked like an abstract version of our symbols. Theoretically, I might have then enlisted the help of three very sorry boys to make it look like it was one of my great ideas that drive you crazy." Dick said everything in one breath and gulped for air by the time he was done.

Bruce sighed and then laughed. It was just like Dick to take the blame and to make an accident seem like it was done on purpose. "What's with the giant bat then? I use the black paintballs, so that was done entirely on purpose."

Dick looked up at it and smiled. "It's symbolic." When Bruce said nothing, Dick looked over and saw the confusion in his eyes. "Batman watches over us. He protects us from the worst of humanity and tries to keep the horrors at bay. I thought with Robin, Red Robin, Red Hood, and Nightwing all represented on the walls, it was only fair to include him on the ceiling where he could watch over them." Dick shrugged before saying. "It didn't feel right not including him."

Bruce tried to subtly wipe a tear away from his eye, but he knew that Dick had seen it. Grabbing some of the cleaning supplies, he said, "Come on Chum. Let's get the paint off the wall before Alfred sees it. I'm positive the man knows about it already, but at least he'll have nothing to complain about."

Dick raised a shocked eyebrow. "You're going to help me?"

Bruce shrugged before replying, "Sure. Then we can talk about how grounded you are."

Dick smirked devilishly before he said, "How about we just clean together, and I won't tell Alfred that you instigated the first paintball war in this house. If I do remember correctly, I took the fall for the three broken Ming Vases, and the utter destruction of his favorite vacuum and feather duster."

Bruce paused what his scrubbing before hastily saying, "You got yourself a deal, and I'll even allow you to help me 'brighten' up the place with a plant and photo of your choosing if you agree to never speak of the first paintball war again." Alfred may have forgiven Dick after a few months of dirty looks and burnt food, but he would do a lot worse to Bruce, especially because the man had let his twelve year old son take the fall for him.

The men cleaned in compatible silence, both thinking back on how much fun they had had the first paintball war. Alfred had left them for three days, and Bruce had thought that paintballing in the house would be a good idea. He had shot his ward in the butt three times before the boy had managed to escape and retrieve his own paintball gear. From there on out it had been survival of the fittest. Alfred came back only to find that every surface inside the manor was covered in paint. When he had finally found his charges, he found Dick waving a white underwear flag, while Bruce was aiming at him from the other side of the room. Needless to say, Alfred had been quite angry.

It had been two weeks since Bruce had found his office redecorated. When he entered his office, he found that there was a fern sitting in the corner of the office. Spotting a card, he quickly read it.

Dad-

I figured a fern would be appropriate as they were around with the dinosaurs, just like you.

-Dick

Bruce shook his head. He would get revenge for that comment, one way or another. Taking another quick glance around the office, he spotted a framed picture on his desk. Lifting it up, he felt a grin settled on his face. It was a picture of the first time that Bruce had ever taken Dick paintballing. Both were covered in paint, and grinning at each other. Bruce hadn't seen it at the time, but Dick's eyes reflected adoration and amusement. Bruce himself was grinning ear to ear in the photo and looking back, it was probably the first genuine smile that he had since his parents' were murdered.

Settling the photo on his desk carefully, Bruce thought that maybe, he could overlook the comment on his age just this once.