Bruce stuck his head into the kitchen. "...Alfred?"

"Yes, Master Wayne?" The butler turned away from the mass of vegetables he was chopping, glanced at the clock, and grimaced. "My apologies, sir," he said as he headed for the coffee pot. "I meant to refill your carafe twenty minutes ago..."

"Don't worry about it," the billionaire stopped him. "Clark left a few minutes ago, and Diana went before him."

"...Ah. I hope you thanked them for coming? I know the young master appreciated their presence today."

"Yeah. Uh...about Dick..." he started, then fell silent.

"Is he still on the couch?"

"Yeah, I left him there." The boy hadn't so much as twitched when Bruce had slipped carefully out from under him and replaced his leg with a pillow.

"There's no need to disturb him, then. Let the poor child sleep."

"I figured. That's...that's not what I wanted to talk about, though."

His uncertainty must have come out in his voice, because the Englishman gave him a long, searching look and then gestured at the breakfast bar. "Sit down and tell me what it is that you do want to talk about, then, Master Wayne."

Sighing, Bruce obeyed. A thousand things – very few of them pleasant – had been whirling about in his head since the Kryptonian's departure, and he couldn't sort them out. The Flaherty case in particular had stalked him as he'd sat in the den staring down at his sleeping child. There was no good answer to the question of how involved Robin should be in the mission Batman had planned for the next night, and every time he thought he got close to a final conclusion some new argument appeared. Frustrated and terrified that he was going to make another bad parenting decision, he'd concluded that he couldn't wait any longer to seek Alfred's advice. There would be Looks to bear for what he'd done, he knew, but it was a small price to pay.

The tale came out in fits and jerks. He tried to explain his flip-flopping on the Flaherty mission without mentioning the lies he'd told about Scarecrow and Poison Ivy, but he couldn't avoid mentioning that Dick might not fully trust him right now. A single raised eyebrow from the butler was all it took to drag everything out after that, and by the end of the story Bruce was drained.

"...So I don't know what to do now, Alfred," he finished as he accepted a fresh cup of coffee. "Yesterday I was positive that he needs to be here in the cave, where he's safe but can still be helpful. If he hadn't found out about my jackassery with those other missions, he probably would have resigned himself to that role before tomorrow night. Now, though...I'm afraid of hurting his confidence if I don't let him come with me. He asked me...he asked me if I lied to him because he's not good enough as Robin. I told him that wasn't it, but I don't think he believed me. Why should he have believed me," he sneered at his reflection in his beverage, "when I've lied to him about so many other things?"

"Hmm...well, Master Wayne, I can tell you one thing for certain," the butler voiced slowly.

"What's that?"

"No ten-year-old child – not even one as skilled as Robin – should be involved in direct combat with the FARC."

"...Okay. I agree, but...I don't know how else to fix this. Taking him on the Flaherty mission would show him that I trust his skills, that I trust him. And to be fair," he considered, "the attack plan he proposed isn't likely to put him in contact with the FARC, just with Flaherty's back-up."

"Which leads you into the problem of Robin's existence being known throughout Gotham, something you've expressed extreme hesitation about in the past. With that many hardened criminals in one place at one time, someone is likely to remember him when they wake up."

"Yeah..." Bruce trailed off, his shoulders slumping. "There's going to be a lot of guns at this thing," he muttered. "I don't want him there, Alfred, I don't, but...shit, what else can I do? I don't want him with me tomorrow night, but I need him to trust me again. Even with everything else that's happened this weekend, I know he's still mad at me for lying to him. When that comes up again, what am I supposed to say?"

The butler tapped his index finger rhythmically against the counter and stared into the distance. The billionaire waited, years of experience telling him that the older man was thinking, not ignoring him. Finally, Alfred spoke. "It may be useful for us to step back a moment and consider Master Dick himself," he proposed. "His upset and distrust of you right now – if that is, in fact, what he's feeling – are understandable. However, past experience indicates that he is likely to forgive you with a little time, an apology, and the proposal of a reasonable solution. Am I correct so far?"

"Yes..." I hope, he kept to himself.

"You seem hesitant, sir."

"I just have to wonder how many more times he's going to give me another opportunity to lie to him before he stops trusting me altogether."

"Hmm…while I don't imagine that that number is infinite, I would point out that although Master Dick is a child he is a very perceptive one. I imagine that he knows that you have only told him mistruths in order to try and protect him. Explain as much to him again, sir, and I find it hard to believe that he won't give you at least one more chance."

God, I hope so. If he doesn't, I…I don't know what I'll do. "…Okay. Go on with what you were saying before."

"Certainly. As I mentioned, he will be looking for a solution to the problem at hand. Part of that will naturally be for you to stop lying to him, but it seems to me that there's something more than that. Is that accurate?"

"He wants to help with bigger missions," Bruce rubbed his temples. "It's not that he's not ready, Alfred, it's just that…well…I'm afraid. Since his run-in with the Joker in March, I…the thought of him dealing with that again…"

"Your fear is understandable and reasonable, Master Wayne. To be frank with you, I share the sentiment. But we've put ourselves in a situation where we must either deal with our worry or risk alienating the young master. He wants to attend to more dangerous tasks; you say he is capable of handling them; and the greatest drawback to allowing him to do so, besides the obvious risk of trauma, is the chance of your opponents learning about his existence and targeting him as a result. Yes?"

"Yeah."

"…It's all rather unavoidable, at least so far as I can tell," the butler said after another long pause. His brow knit with displeasure, but his voice was resigned. "He must be allowed to help you with more dangerous quarry eventually. I am not reversing my opinion in regards to his tackling the FARC this weekend," he said quickly as Bruce's eyes narrowed, "but simply speaking of the future. His summer break is approaching, you know," he went on. "That will give him a great deal of time to, say, undertake a more intensive training program than was possible over the winter. I assume there is still much you can teach him despite your statement that he could manage a higher grade of criminal than the average street thug?"

There was plenty left for Dick to learn, Bruce admitted silently. The problem was that he wasn't qualified to teach him all of it. They'd reached a limit in physical combat training in particular; the boy's acrobatics were so far ahead of his mentor's capabilities that he was stuck innovating more or less on his own. There were only so many of Batman's moves that he could imitate, as he lacked the raw strength that many of the adult's best attacks relied on.

He could, Bruce thought grudgingly, ask Wonder Woman to do a little work with Robin. She was far more agile than he would ever be, and if any human stood a chance of someday matching her acrobatically it had to be Dick. The idea of passing any portion of his son's training off to someone else made him wince, but if she could make his partner even better than he already was then the pain was worth it. Given that, not asking her for assistance would be a disservice to the boy.

The odds were good that both the motherless child and the childless woman would seize the opportunity to spend a little one-on-one time bonding over their shared talent, he calculated. More importantly, Diana didn't rile his jealousy the way Clark still did sometimes, and that would make coordinating Robin's training with her much easier. "I could definitely develop an advanced regimen for him," he said finally. "I was planning on stepping things up this summer anyway. But...where are you going with this, exactly?"

"If he trains at the pace you set for him over the summer holiday, is there any compelling reason why he couldn't begin to accompany you on bigger missions come fall?" Alfred asked. "Would that be sufficient preparation for him to actually attend to the likes of Scarecrow and Poison Ivy?"

Bruce hung his head and didn't answer, not wanting the 'no!' swelling in his throat to be given away by his face.

"...I suppose I'm not really asking if that would be the minimum requirement for him to be able to deal with people of their sort," the butler went on after a beat had passed. "What I'm asking is whether or not three to four months is enough for you to accept that he must encounter nastier foes at some point."

"I already accept that, Alfred, I just..." I just want to keep him away from them. Why can't he stay ten forever, damn it?

"You just can't see that sooner may be better than later."

"I...says who?" He looked up, frowning. "You said he shouldn't go with me tomorrow, but now you're preaching sooner rather than later?"

"I was speaking of this year, sir, not of this weekend. Right now you have the element of surprise in regards to Robin. Every time you take him on patrol, however, you risk losing that. Still, he must patrol with you, not only for his own well-being but because he will never develop his skills past a certain point if he is not exposed to live combat. On that same topic, he must face more and more difficult adversaries. That can be controlled to an extent, just as it was with patrolling, but it has to increase with time and experience. Otherwise he will stagnate, and in more ways than one. We've seen this already with him; it's the very reason we're having this conversation. You cannot keep him in a holding pattern much longer, Master Wayne, so you must prepare yourself to guide him along the next stage of his path. You know that in your heart, I think, hmm?"

"That doesn't make it any easier, Alfred," Bruce groaned. Why is everything so hard this weekend?

"No, it doesn't. But the difficulty of the task doesn't make it any less necessary, either." Sighing, Alfred reached across the breakfast bar and grasped his wrist. "Give him a timeline," he advised, "and then stick to it. If you tell him he will be training hard so that he can begin cracking tougher nuts come fall, I believe that he'll be not only amenable, but grateful."

"...Fall. You think he'll let me push it back that far?"

"I think he will still complain sometimes, because he is a child and cannot fully understand your fear in this matter, but if you give him hard but meaningful work to do in the meantime it should be minimal. When the end of the summer comes and he sees you keeping your promise about graver missions, his trust of you will grow even stronger. We must reconcile ourselves to his progression, I'm afraid; let's just be glad that we have a few months in which to do it."

"Yeah..." Bruce closed his eyes. I don't want you facing people like Two Face and the Joker, chum, he pleaded, but...maybe Alfred's right. Maybe this way I can control your exposure to an extent. Maybe this is the best way to protect you from both them and from myself. "That's better than anything I've been able to come up with, and I've been thinking about it for the past twenty four hours."

"Fresh eyes on a problem can do wonders, sir," the butler said modestly as he pulled his hand away and turned back to his vegetables. "Once you're finished your coffee, you may wish to take Master Dick upstairs. You've time for a good nap before dinner."

"Do I?" He blinked at the clock. "That sounds good." If he was lucky, sleeping on the plan Alfred had proposed would make it's end result a bit more palatable. Throwing back the last of his drink, he stood. "...Hey, Alfred?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you." In his exhaustion the words came out with more warmth than he could usually express towards the butler. From the looks of the soft smile that spread across the older man's lips, he'd picked up on it.

"You're very welcome, dear boy. Any time."

Author's Note: Two chapters left now. Happy reading!