An Apple a Day

Dick was excited for the upcoming week. Alfred was going to England to visit his sister, which meant that it would be a week full of movies, take-out, and snacks loaded with fat and sugar. The best part, was that it was a week full of laughter and family bonding. Even Damian normally managed to smile during family week. The only thing missing was Alfred, but since he would never allow the unholy foods to pass their lips, it had to be a week when he was gone.

Unfortunately for Dick, the week did not turn out like that. It had started with Tim sniffling slightly into his morning coffee. Next thing he knew, Tim, Jason, Damian, and even Bruce had the nastiest case of the flu that he'd ever seen.

Okay, it wasn't so sudden. Tim had been sniffling into his coffee when Jason came down the stairs complaining that he must be getting old because he was achy everywhere. Bruce had a headache, so he didn't bother leaving his room, and when Dick went to find Damian, he had a slight fever.

The next day, all four of them had aches, migraines, and high fevers, not to mention this hacking cough that made Dick seriously worried that they'd lose a lung. Was that even possible? Maybe he should google it. Or call Leslie, that was probably a good idea.

So, Dick called Dr. Leslie Tompkins. "Hey Leslie. Can you please swing by the manor on your way home. I have four patients that will appreciate it even if they would rather do ballet with Joker than admit it out loud." Dick ignored the protests coming from said patient's. They could deny it all they wanted, they all knew it was true.

"Dick. I have a lot of patients here who need my help. I was planning on pulling an all nighter. Ask Alfred."

Leslie sounded so tired, that Dick almost regretted asking her. Then he heard Jason whine about needing help to the bathroom, and steeled his resolve. There was no way he was helping Jason pee more times than he had to. "Leslie, When Jason's well enough to work without thinking the paperwork in trying to molest him (very long story that involved figuring out that Jason's fever was causing hallucinations) I will ask him to increase your budget so that you can hire more staff. And I know for a fact that him and Bruce were discussing opening a second location. But please, for the love of whatever or whoever you believe in, come over. I'll even order some good food instead of the Chinese leftovers that I've been living off of and the soup I've been force feeding our patients. If you haven't already figured it out, Alfred's not here!"

Leslie paused. Dick sounded really freaked out. And it was definitely worrying that Jason was hallucinating. "Order me some fancy sushi and you got a deal."

Dick sighed in relief. "For you Leslie, I'd order the sushi that costs over two thousand dollars for the two of us."

Leslie let out a light laugh, promising to arrive around seven before hanging up. Dick slumped against the wall and rubbed his temples slightly. He needed a nap. And judging from the faint odor, he also needed a shower. Maybe he could take a five minute shower while everyone was asleep.

As if hearing his plans to have a minute to himself, Damian croaked, "Grayson! Something is wrong with my chest, it hurts. And I cannot stay warm despite the ludicrous amounts of blankets you have piled on me."

Dick likes to think of himself as fairly patient, but when Bruce started whining that he was tired, Dick snapped. "Bruce. Just take a nap. In fact, all of you take a nap! I need to shower, and I need to order food for Leslie. I'll be back in ten minutes, so if there's an emergency, just yell."

Dick marched away from his family and up the stairs and into the shower. He jumped in quickly and leaned against the wall slightly, closing his eyes. It felt nice, he hadn't really slept in more than two days because he had been trying to keep up with his family's demands, not to mention rescuing them from their hallucinations. He decided that he would never let Jason live that down. With that pleasant thought Dick found himself closing his eyes for a few minutes.

When Leslie arrived at the manor, she knew something was wrong. Nobody answered the door despite how many times she rang the bell, and she did not detect any movement inside. Fearing the worst, she dug out her emergency spare key that Alfred had given her.

Hurrying inside, Leslie found Jason, Tim, Damian, and Bruce resting on cots in the den. Looking around, she found no signs of the eldest Wayne boy. "Where's Dick?"

Jason sniffled pathetically. "He told us he was needed ten minutes to order food and shower. That was like two hours ago."

Immediately worst case scenarios ran through Leslie's head. Dick had contracted whatever the others had and had fallen ill, Dick had fainted and hit his head, he had slipped in the shower, he had been kidnapped again. Leslie rushed up the stairs and into Dick's room. When she heard the shower still going, she decided that he must of slipped in the shower and was now unconscious on the shower floor. Rushing in, nothing prepared her for the sight she saw. Dick Grayson, in all his naked glory, was fast asleep while leaning against the shower wall. Leslie couldn't help it, she burst into laughter.

Her laughter startled Dick awake, and he jumped and ended up slipping. Sitting on the shower floor he rubbed his head slightly wincing. "Leslie? What are you doing here so early?"

Leslie smiled and handed the young man his towel. "Dick, honey, you've been asleep in the shower for two hours."

Dick's eyes widened and he started cursing. Then he turned to her with big eyes. "Can we agree that I decided to take a nap. In my bed? Cause I'd never live this down."

Leslie laughed but made no promises. It was more than likely that she'd tell Alfred, and whether or not the man spilled the beans was not up to her. Dick seemed to realize her thoughts and groaned before leaving the bathroom to get dressed.

When he was ready, he gestured for Leslie to go down the stairs before following behind her. Leslie admired as Dick fussed over his siblings and Bruce, making sure that they all had a glass of water within reach.

"Where were you Grayson? I wanted you to tell me a story!" Leslie almost did a double take as she observed Damian act his age for once.

"Sorry Little D. I took a quick nap which is what you should have been doing." Damian pouted but did not otherwise respond.

Leslie decided that as cute and heartwarming as the scene was, she should probably do her job and check over her patients. She did a quick check on all four of their vitals before checking their eyes, nose, throats, and ears. After about half an hour she turned to Dick. "Well it turns out that all four of them caught a rather nasty case of the flu."

Dick's eyebrow twitched. "You mean to tell me that all of this could have been prevented if they got their flu shot when Alfred told them to? That I wouldn't have slaved away and seen more of them then I wanted to? That we could have family week?"

Leslie got the feeling that Dick was not happy. She decided it was probably time for her to make her leave. "Dick I should really head back to the clinic. You can get me my dinner another time. I think that you should take it easy on them until they recover more, than you can give them hell."

Leslie almost pitied Bruce and the boys when she saw the evil glint in Dick's eyes before he let out a dark chuckle. "Don't worry Leslie. I plan on getting my revenge."

When Alfred returned from his trip he found out that Master Bruce, Master Timothy, Master Jason, and Master Damian were all Master Dick's slaves and had to do whatever he wanted. Normally that just meant getting him food so that he didn't have to get up, but every once in awhile, he requested that someone read to him and that someone gives him a message. To Alfred's confusion, there was not one instance where one of the 'slaves' complained.

He later found out why. Apparently while he was gone, everyone but Master Dick came down with a nasty case of the flu because they were not properly vaccinated. As a result, Master Dick had to take care of them, and had obtained blackmail videos.

The butler had woken up a few days after his return to find a thumb drive on his nightstand. On it sat a sticky note that read:

Under the threat of sending this compilation to everybody in the Superhero community, I have gained four loyal slaves.

-Dick Grayson ;)

Curious, he had loaded it into his laptop and pulled up a video. What he had found was quite amusing.

Jason sat as his desk reading some paperwork. Frustrated, he picked he threw a piece of paper and it flew back and hit him in the face. Instead of pushing it away like normal, Jason fell off his chair knocking the rest of the paperwork down and on top of him. Jason started yelling and panicking holding the paper to him as he rolled around yelling, "Dick help me! The paper is trying to molest me! I'm about to be raped! Help!"

Dick came crashing into the office looking around for who could possibly trying to hurt his brother. Instead he found Jason rolling around the floor with a bunch of paper covering him. Sighing he said, "Come on Jason. Let's get you to bed."

Jason nodded with his bottom lip quivering and lifted his arms to be picked up. Dick sighed in exasperation before crouching next to Jason so that the younger man could get a piggy back ride.

Tim stared hard at the spoon. "I love you. You're so much better than a fork. Shhh...we don't want to tell her that. She still thinks I love her, but I love you now."

Tim sighed happily and leaned forward and kissed the spoon. "Gosh, I love you Spoony. How could I ever have like the hard prongs of a fork over your delicate curves?"

Dick snorted in amusement from where he stood pouring himself another cup of coffee. "Hey Tim, are we really talking about a fork and a spoon, or is this all metaphorically?"

Tim scrunched up his eyebrows. "How are a fork and spoon metaphorical. I just don't like the hard prongs anymore. Spoons are so delicate. Forks are aggressive and dominant."

Dick raised an eyebrow, but didn't question him further. "Do you want some cereal or soup or something?"

"Gosh no! Dick! How could you say that in front of Spoony? You know she doesn't like only being valued for her figure!" Tim paused and stared dreamily at the spoon. "Hey Dick? Do you think it's possible to spoon with a spoon?"

Bruce pouted and Dick sighed. Heavily. Multiple times. "I wanna cuddle Dick! Why don't you wanna cuddle? You always want to cuddle!"

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. "When you're not high on medication, and you still want to cuddle, I'll gladly cuddle with you."

Bruce started to tear up. "But I want to cuddle now!"

Dick sighed deeply again. "Bruce, I have to take care of my brothers. They're also sick right now. I don't have time to cuddle."

"Why aren't you calling me Dad? You always call me Dad. Did I do something wrong? I didn't mean to, I swear!"

Dick actually felt bad now. He wasn't sure if it was because of the drugs or because Bruce was sick, but the man had been unusually clingy. "No, you didn't do anything wrong Dad."

Bruce's eyebrows furrowed. "Then why won't you cuddle with me?"

"Dick rubbed his temples. "Dad you're sick, and as I'm the only healthy one, I don't want to get sick too. Otherwise I'd love to cuddle."

Bruce seemed to contemplate the answer before reaching out and yanking Dick into bed with him. From there, the older man wrapped Dick into a vice grip that he could not possibly escape from without causing grievous bodily harm to Bruce.

Accepting his fate, Dick lied still as Bruce snuggled into him, nuzzling the back of his neck.

Dick watched as Damian jumped up and down on his cot. "Please Damian, go sleep."

Damian stuck out his bottom lip before whining, "But Mommy I'm not tired!"

Dick blinked. He could not possibly have heard right. Blinking again, he forced himself to refocus when he noticed that Damian had resumed jumping on the bed. Dick tried to make himself seem more like a stern parent and not a pushover older brother that really needed to get some sleep. "How about I tell you a story and then you can go to sleep."

Damian seemed to think about it momentarily. "Only if you do funny voices." Damian then proceeded to make himself comfortable in Dick's lap, which, needless to say, was not very comfortable for Dick.

Dick sighed. He knew that he was trying to get Damian to act his age, but if this is what kids were like, then he wanted Damian to act like his usual bratty self. "In a far away kingdom, a king was dying but he had no heirs."

"Like Father?" Damian interrupted.

Dick could feel a migraine coming on. "No, not like Dad. The king wanted to find the best suited heir so he devised a contest. Whoever could grow the most beautiful flowers from the provided seeds would become the next king."

"That's stupid. What does flowers have to do with politics?"

"Just wait. It'll make more sense I promise." Dick was quickly losing his patience. Why couldn't Damian not interrupt his story? All he wanted to do was get some sleep. "Now where was I? So there was this man who grew the most beautiful flowers in all the land. People told him that he could grow something from nothing. When he had received his packet of seeds, he had arrogantly assumed that the task would be easy. After all, he grew flowers for a living! However, despite how hard he tried, he could not make the seeds grow into a flower."

"Perhaps he was not as skilled as he thought he was."

"Perhaps." Dick was glad that Damian was following along with the story, despite the fact that he wished he would stop interrupting. "The man tried and tried using every trick up his sleeve, but nothing grew. Finally the day came when the whole country was supposed to present their flowers to the king. The man looked around him and observed all the different types of beautiful flowers. He was the only one with an empty pot. Everyone else had pots with orchids, sunflowers, poppies, peonies, daisies, and even tulips.

"When it was the man's turn to present his pot, he was very embarrassed. 'I'm sorry my lord. Despite how hard I tried, I could not get anything to grow.'

"The king smiled at him and announced that the man was the winner of the competition. The crowd was outraged. The man hadn't grown anything at all!

"The king just smiled before he said, 'That's the point. He does not have anything to show me. I boiled all the seeds. Nobody should have grown any flowers. This man is honest, and therefore he will be honest to the people as their next ruler!'

"The man was shocked. And as cheers erupted around the kingdom, he realized that his best quality was not his ability to grow flowers, it was that he was never deceitful. The end."

Dick looked down only to find Damian fast asleep in his lap. He tried to move the boy, but Damian just tightened his grip, so Dick settled down in the small cot and finally closed his eyes.

Alfred could hardly suppress his smile as he watched the videos. Pulling the USB out of his laptop, Alfred placed it among other special memories in a shoebox under his bed. Shaking his head, he almost wished that he had gotten to witness his charges dramatic personality changes in person. However, in the end it was probably best that he was in England. After all, he had forgotten to get his flu shot too.

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A/N: First of all, I don't know if that Fable really exists or not, my second grade teacher told it to us and it stuck with me. Second of all, thanks for all the really amazing reviews.

Here are the prompt ideas I have so far:

Prank wars

normalizing Damian (school)

Xmas

Valentine's Day

Father's DAy

Alfred's Bday

Break ups (minishots how each of them went through bad breakup w/ help from bros)

Bruce be emotionally incompetent

Dick's amazing persuasive power

Damian, tim, jason get sick…..dick gets sick after taking care of them

Damian's first crush Zatannagurl

Disneyland trip help Dick smile dragoscilvio

Assassins want Dick WolfGirl

If you have a great idea or I missed one that you already told me about (I do that sometimes and I'm sorry. It's probably on one of the many sticky notes around my room acting as a reminder for things I have to do) please let me know! I get kind of weird when I don't have many prompts on my list. It just makes it really hard for me to write. Just FYI, I'm not trying to pressure you guys into leaving ideas for me or anything. Just one of my many quirks.

Anyways, please review and tell me which story you want to see next, and let me know it you think of any prompt ideas!