Author's Note: Sorry everyone, I'm not going to have a second chapter for Two-fer Tuesday this week. This chapter is longer than usual, though, so hopefully that makes up for it a little. :) Happy reading!

"Master Wayne? It's one o'clock, sir."

The familiar voice broke through the veil of sleep, dragging him to the surface of consciousness. "…Already?" he queried slowly.

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid so." There was a hint of amusement in the butler's voice as he confirmed the hour. Bruce listened without looking as he turned away and began rousing Dick.

"…Already?" said the boy, his tone an echo of Bruce's.

"Yes, young sir," he verified a second time, outright laughter now bubbling just below the surface of his words at the identical reactions from his charges. "I've prepared a small repast," he told them both as he walked away, determined to spend a few well-earned minutes enjoying the sun on the front porch. "You'll find it on the table."

They opened their eyes at the same time, each searching the other out. "Hey," Dick said quietly, smiling blearily.

"Good nap?"

"Yeah…" He'd had no dreams, bad or otherwise. That's practically a miracle, he thought to himself. I don't think I've slept without having a nightmare in almost two months. They hadn't all been bad enough to result in his drawing blood, but none of them were things he liked to revisit.

"How's your head?"

"It's okay. The aspirin's still working." He paused. "I don't want to move."

"I know," Bruce commiserated. "Me, either. But do you really want to lay around for the rest of the day?"

"No," he sighed before rolling into a seated position, his blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. "I need to find us a charter."

"Fish, fish, fish," the man teased, also sitting but shrugging his cover off.

"Tasty fish."

"It better be, as gung ho as you are about it."

"It will be, I guarantee it. They say it's even better if you've caught it yourself, just because you did all the work to get it."

"What do I get if your guarantee is wrong?"

"…I dunno. But it doesn't matter, because I'm not wrong." He stood, finally leaving his quilt behind. "I'm going to brush my teeth. I think something died in my mouth."

"That frappuccino, maybe."

"Ha, ha. No, my drink was fantastic, and you should have tried it."

"I don't like things suspended in my beverages."

"Those were the chocolate chips in the java, Bruce. You know…the whole reason it's called what it's called?"

"Right. Cold coffee with chunks in it. That's what you drank."

"Oh, god," the teen moaned. "I can tell you slept well, you're being insufferable."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No." The last thing he wanted short of an Arkham breakout was for Bruce to prematurely end one of his rare playful moods. "Just give me a minute to get up to speed. You know my repartee's slow after a nap." Dragging his feet, he made his way to the bathroom and shut the door.

Bruce, in the meantime, forced himself to get up and fold their blankets, draping them back where he'd found them. Making his way over to the table, he found a plate of sandwiches and a sweating pitcher of iced tea. "Thank you, Alfred," he muttered when the first bite woke the lion in his stomach, displeased with the meager breakfast it had been offered earlier. Dick joined him several minutes later, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, and between the two of them they emptied both the plate and the pitcher. Finished, they made their way outside to find Alfred waiting in a sunny rocking chair, feet on the low porch railing.

"Ready, sirs?" he asked, standing.

"Let's go," Bruce said, starting down the stairs.

"Race you," Dick said before vaulting the banister and loping to the car, grinning as he turned to watch his guardian approach.

"Yes, I see you 'won,'" he gave in, making air quotes with his hands and rolling his eyes. "Congratulations."

"I think that means you owe me another frappuccino."

"I think that request means you're addicted to Starbucks."

"There are plenty of worse things out there to be addicted to."

"Get in the car, would you?" Bruce said, reaching out to ruffle his hair as he went by.

"Gah! That took me like ten minutes to do this morning!" he exclaimed, hands flying to his head and trying to fix the damage as he took his seat.

The billionaire just laughed, shaking his head. As soon as they began to move, Dick rolled the window down and let the breeze, a heady mixture of salt water and conifers, fill his nose. No one spoke, and as soon as they had successfully navigated the nasty dip at the beginning of the road and turned back onto the highway Bruce tuned the radio to a news station.

The teen let the drone of the announcers wash over him, breathing deeply as glimpses of water flashed between the trees. For a minute he felt as if he were sitting not in the backseat of a luxury sedan but rather on his mother's lap in the front seat of Pop Haly's ancient pickup truck, cruising along the Jersey shoreline on the way to the circus' next performance. Portions of their last two summers together had been spent that way, camping in big, open fields that looked out over the ocean and watching the toys of the rich and famous move back and forth across the panorama. The three Graysons had had a running joke that they could never buy a sailboat like the tall-masted beauties that floated by because if they did Dick would climb into the crow' nest and live there, requiring that all his meals be carried up to him. And we'd eat nothing but fresh caught fish, and mom would lie on the deck in the sun all day while dad invented elaborate dives, he remembered the rest of the litany. We'd do nothing useful with our lives, but love every minute of it, even the hurricanes, because we'd know that if we sank we'd at least go down together.

It hadn't worked out that way, though. He'd turned out to be a survivor of storms far more violent than the one that had taken his parents.

"Dick?" Bruce's voice spoke his name gently, seemingly reading his emotions.

"Yeah?" he answered, wiping away the single tear that had fallen before he turned to face him.

"…Never mind," the billionaire faltered, seeing the old, familiar pain in his son's eyes and knowing what he'd been daydreaming about. I'll ask him about it later, when it's faded back some, he decided, all too aware of how difficult it could be to discuss a deeply felt memory right after letting yourself be carried into it.

"…Anything interesting on the news? I wasn't really listening," the teen asked. Sadness had flashed momentarily across Bruce's face when they'd looked at each other, and he didn't want it to stay. Dick had long ago made it a personal crusade to keep the man's head above the surface of depression, and after six years of practice it took a lot more than a recollection of his parents to render him unfit for that duty.

There had been something, but Bruce was hesitant to bring it up. I promised I'd tell him anything new I found out about Erwin, he reminded himself. It's good news, really, so maybe it will help the nightmares. "You didn't hear anything they said?" he double checked.

"Huh-uh."

"Well…Erwin was in court today."

"Oh?" He sounded mildly disinterested, but Bruce knew it was act, put on most likely for his benefit.

"It was a very fast trial. They found him guilty of everything."

"Everything? Really?"

"Yes. Everything. Fourteen counts of sexual assault of a minor and of kidnapping, thirteen counts of child trafficking, ten counts of second degree murder, and one count of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to traffic. He'll be locked up until the day he dies. The judge apparently said that he wished the death penalty was legal in Gotham, because he would have had no qualms in sentencing him to it."

"Mm. Well, that's good. He's off the street." Turning pensive again, he examined his fingernails.

"Pezzoli goes in next week. The DA is expecting it to be just as quick in his case."

"Good," he repeated shortly. "At least we know part of the legal system works. Sometimes." He looked up suddenly, catching something Bruce had said. "Wait. Did you say ten counts of murder?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So the one girl didn't make it."

He shook his head. "No. She didn't." Three of the children the former CPS agent had kidnapped and sold to Dominic Pezzoli's underground pedophilia dungeon had been found alive when the police raided Roxane's, the strip club that was a front for the business. The youngest of the three, who had been there the longest, had been in very bad shape, falling into a coma shortly after being rescued. "Her mother removed her from life support a few days ago after the doctors told her there was no hope of recovery."

"Oh." He went silent.

In the driver's seat, Alfred's hands were tight on the steering wheel. He should have waited until we were home to tell him all of that, he fumed, fighting to keep his face passive. Can't the child have one weekend without facing things that make most adults quail? Is that so much to ask? Instead of voicing those opinions as he directed the car down the main street of the town, he brought up dinner. "There's a summer market near the harbor every afternoon, I understand. We should be able to find everything there. Do you have a preference on the entrée, Master Dick?" Part of the butler hoped that he would be craving something Bruce hated, like squid or eel. The man's discomfort in eating such a meal would at least start to make up for the crime of mentioning Erwin unnecessarily.

"…I don't know," he considered, thinking. He knew that Alfred was trying to distract him from the information he'd just been given, and he appreciated it. He hated the Batman-level dark moods that thinking about Erwin had thrown him into on several occasions, and he'd felt another instance coming on upon hearing the news about the girl. Traipsing along at an open market with the task of finding their next meal seemed like one of the few ways he might be able to hold it at bay. "Anything sounds great. Maybe I can just pick something out as we walk."

"As you wish, Master Dick," the butler agreed, relieved that the teen seemed to be pushing back his anger.

Despite the fact that this particular town was somewhat off the main tourist track, the market was teeming with people, many of them obviously visitors. More than a few people caught themselves staring as they recognized Bruce Wayne strolling between the stands behind his butler and increasingly eager ward. He ignored them, concentrating instead on the fact that his son's humor had picked back up since they'd left the car. The boy flitted in and out of the groups thronging the counters, emerging each time to shrug or make a face, indicating that the fare hadn't been quite what he was looking for.

As they worked their way deeper into the lines of stalls, the crowds began to thin out. The people shopping in the back portion of the market looked like locals rather than tourists, lacking the fresh gift shop tees and loud city attitudes that characterized many of the out-of-towners. All three of them relaxed in this different atmosphere, and Dick and Alfred both started to look for real, sensing that the food they were seeing here might be less flashy but would likely taste better. Bruce, content now that he didn't have to worry about losing sight of his son in a throbbing mass of strangers every thirty seconds, hung back and just listened as the other two held a discussion over a display of rockfish.

"Gosh, these look way better than the ones they're selling up front," Dick commented.

"You've got a good eye for fresh fish, honey," the busty blonde working the counter complimented him.

"Thanks. What do you think, Alfred?"

"I agree, Master Dick." He leaned close and examined the staring eye of one specimen. "Were these caught this morning, madam?" he queried.

"Yesterday evening at the earliest," she crowed proudly. "You won't find a cloudy-eyed fish on my table. Up front, they'll sell you something that's been on ice three, four days. That's cause most people up there don't know what they're looking for. They figure, hey, we're on vacation, let's try something new, but they've never bought fish before. They don't know to check the gills, press on the meat, take a good sniff before they buy it. It's all still edible, of course, but it's not fresh. Back here is where we locals get our dailies. Here, look at this," she rattled on, pulling open the long cut where the fish had been gutted and pressing her finger against the meat. The indentation she left when she pulled away filled back in immediately, regaining the same color as the flesh around it. "That's what you want, right there."

"…Is that what you'd like tonight?" the butler asked his charge.

"Hmm…" Dick considered. The fish looked really great, and he knew Alfred would make a masterpiece out of it, but it felt like there was something else that he was craving. Suddenly, it hit him. And Bruce can even stand to eat it, he thought happily. Meals are less fun when you can tell he's struggling to choke down the food. "I think what I really want is lobster," he confessed, giving the fishmonger an apologetic look. "Not that this wouldn't be amazing, but…"

"You want lobster? I'll tell you where to get your lobster. You go down to the end of this aisle, turn right, and the third stall on your left will sell you the best bugs you'll ever have. Tell Gina that Margie sent you, she'll take care of you."

"Thanks!" the teen beamed. "Sorry for taking up so much of your time."

"Don't worry about it, doll. I tell you what, you stop by and see me on Sunday – that's the next day my husband's going out - and I'll get you all set up with some fish then. Give you time to whet your appetite for it," she winked.

Thanking her again, they took their leave, following her directions and turning the corner. Seeing the stand that the blonde – Margie, Dick remembered, stashing the information away for later – had told them about, he felt his feet slow. "Wow," he whispered as his eyes fell on the aproned girl who seemed to be running things. She's beautiful, he gasped mentally.

"…Master Dick?" Alfred turned back with a questioning expression, noticing that the boy had fallen behind him.

"Huh? Oh! Sorry. I was, uh, thinking about something." Trying to keep from blushing, he caught up, not seeing the informative look that Bruce sent over his head to let the butler know what the object of his attention had been. They stopped several paces to the side as the girl finished with another customer, Dick having to turn away in order to focus anywhere other than on her shining reddish hair and laughing green eyes.

"Oh, my," Alfred said with false dismay. "I meant to stop and get some of those lovely tomatoes that were for sale just down from the fishmonger's. Do you mind choosing the lobsters while I go back, Master Dick? It's only that I'm afraid they'll run out. She was getting low as it was."

"I, uh…sure," he went along with a sick little grimace. What?! No, don't leave now, Alfred, he wanted to beg. I don't know what to say to her. It wasn't that he didn't have experience charming women, it was just that other than in school the only females he spent much time around were Bruce's age or older. The most he felt for any of them was a vague puppy-crush. There were several nice girls amongst his classmates, but none of them were in this one's league. I'm totally going to screw this up. Well, at least Bruce will still be around…to make fun of me later, he realized sourly. Crap.

"I'll come with you, Alfred," the billionaire volunteered, barely disguising his grin at this turn of events. He wasn't thrilled at the idea of the boy wandering around a strange town full of unknown people without him, but he couldn't bring himself to stifle the flame of interest he'd all but heard explode into being when Dick had laid eyes on the girl. "Here, this should be more than enough for the lobster," he said as he handed him a wad of bills. "And, you know…whatever else you need."

"Bruce, c'mon," he pleaded as he took the money and shoved it in his pocket without so much as glancing at it.

"Relax, chum," he offered a little quiet advice. He could tell just looking at him that he was uncharacteristically nervous, and that told him just how taken with her he was. "She's pretty, and she's looking right at you. Rather intently, by the way." The teen gulped audibly. "You'll be fine. Try not to be more than an hour though, okay? We'll probably be at that little café down the street from the car." Seeing that his pep talk had only made things worse, he sighed. "Dick," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "What would Robin do?"

"He's not exactly known for his romantic conquests, Bruce," was hissed back.

"Well, I guess you'd better get to work on that then, huh?" He winked, started to leave, then paused. "Don't actually tell her anything," he clarified unnecessarily.

"No shit, Sherlock." He almost smacked his hand across his own mouth as those words came out. What the hell is wrong with me?

The man chose to give him an encouraging smile rather than a lecture on language. "Pick good ones," he said at a volume that he knew the girl could hear. "And don't be all day, Alfred needs time to cook them." With that, he and the butler walked away, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that they'd left Dick struggling to control his heart rate as he realized how stupid it would look if he ran after them.

What would Robin do? How much more useless of a piece of advice could you have given me, Bruce? Robin kicks people in the face, he doesn't kiss their hands! His mind skipped as he slowly turned and walked towards the cooler-laden stand. …Should I kiss her hand? No, that's creepy. We're in a market, not at a ball. Jesus, dude, get a grip on yourself! Just…just buy the lobster. That's all you have to do. Reaching the counter, he looked up and met her eyes as she said hello.

Just…just buy some lobster. Yeah. Lobster. His returned greeting sounded shaky to his ears, and he wanted to kick himself. Lobster. Just need some lobster for dinner. Oh, no, now she's smiling at me, don't do that…lobster. Lobster?

I'm in trouble.