Hello. I've returned.
Dick: it's about time.
Jason: what happened to you?
Tim: you get grounded or something?
...
Dick: wait.
...
Jason: Sweet...?
...um...
Damian: you're kidding, right?
TO THE STORY!
"I got it!" Tim exclaimed suddenly. Everyone jumped at the sudden outburst, and his face turned completely red. "I-I mean…"
"What have you got?" Jason asked. He bit his lip in an obvious attempt to not laugh at how red Tim's face was. He may as well have been wearing the Red Hood helmet.
"I know how Jason got his powers," he said sheepishly. Damian perked up at these words. Dick sighed, Duke smiled, and Kate and Luke snickered to themselves.
"How?" Damian asked.
"When he faced off against the djinn," he said. "Maybe, as a reward for outsmarting a djinn, he was granted magical powers and got to train with Bruce."
Everyone was silent for a moment. Jason is the one who broke it.
"That makes a lot of sense, actually," he said. Dick cleared his throat really loud.
"The next story is Teeny Tiny," he said. He felt his phone vibrate, noticed that his brothers weren't doing any cuddling, and removed it, unsafely assuming that it was Bruce.
"Who do you keep texting?" Jason asked. Dick shrugged, seeing that he was right.
"Dad," he said. His face started burning. "I-I mean, Bruce…"
His brothers were smirking at him. He sighed.
"I'm just… I'll just…"
"Go ahead and text him," Jason said innocently, gesturing to Dick's phone. Dick's face burned a little more and he looked down, intent on ignoring his brothers for the moment.
Bruce: hey Dick, Clark may or may not have spotted some blood on my arm
Dick shot straight to his feet and dialed Bruce's number. Everyone was silently wondering what he was worked up about.
Bruce picked up immediately.
"Hey Dick. How's it going?"
"Bruce, what in the actual fuck?!" Dick exclaimed. Alfred poked his head around the corner. Dick fished five dollars out of his pocket. "You don't tell me your arm is bleeding through TEXT!"
Alfred handed him back the five dollars. Kate shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She probably wanted to steal Dick's phone and demand to know that her cousin was alright.
"I think you're overreacting," Bruce said. Dick's jaw dropped open for a second.
"I think you're UNDERREACTING!" he shouted. "How bad is it? Are you actually injured or is that just blood from the Death Match?!"
Everyone else shared concerned looks. Dick was joking, right?
"I think - BACK OFF, CLARK, I TOLD YOU NOT TO HOVER! – I think it might be my blood. I don't know."
"Does it hurt?" Dick asked. He imagined that Bruce shrugged on the other end.
"Not really. I didn't even notice it until – CLARK GET OFF MY BACK – yeah, until it was pointed out to me."
Dick nodded to himself. Yeah, ok, it didn't hurt. Maybe it wasn't a serious injury.
"I swear, Clark is hemophobic," Bruce said. "YOU HEARD ME, CLARK!"
Dick sighed. He put his hand over his eyes and dragged it down his face.
"Bruce, are you coming home soon?" he asked.
"Yeah, I just need to get the chicken nuggets first. Could you maybe send Kate to pick me up or something? Clark is insufferable, and at least she's tolerable."
Bruce practically mumbled that last part. Chances were Clark heard him anyway. He heard muffled conversation between Bruce and Clark. Then, Bruce was back.
"I've got the nuggets," he said. "Eight 20 pieces."
"Eight?" Dick asked.
"Look, Death Matches can take a lot out of a guy," Bruce said. "I'm hungry."
Dick rolled his eyes with a small smile on his face.
"Fair enough… don't bleed out before you get here," he said. Bruce huffed on the other end of the line.
"Well, there go my plans," he said. Dick laughed before hanging up. He turned to Kate, who was giving him a worried glare.
"Bruce wants you to pick him up," he said. "Clark is smothering him."
Kate nodded and stood up. Duke checked his watch.
"We should probably be going, too," he said. "I've got to get back to my parents. They'll flip if I don't visit."
They both turned to Luke.
"Need me to take you to work?" Kate asked. "I'm going to be headed that way, anyways."
Luke shrugged.
"Yeah, sure," he said.
The three of them bid the boys goodbye and headed out. Dick turned back to his brothers.
"Alright then," he said. "I hope I can ACTUALLY tell Teeny Tiny now."
Bruce, Clark, and Diana were in their civilian clothing. After dropping off Luke and Duke at their respective locations, Kate watched Bruce climb into her car with a bloody and terribly bandaged arm and a bag full of chicken nugget boxes. She raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled sheepishly.
"First of all, I really need to teach Clark how to properly apply bandages," he said. Kate nodded vigorously. "Second of all, chicken nuggets are the food of the gods. Just ask Diana."
Kate laughed while Bruce closed the car door. She waved to Clark and Diana, who were sitting at a table, enjoying a Big Mac and some spicy chicken nuggets.
"I'll take your word for it," she told him. When Bruce was secure, she took off, driving carefully so that she didn't jostle his arm too badly.
After a moment of silence in the car, Bruce cleared his throat awkwardly.
"So… how mad is Dick?" he asked. Kate smirked at him, her eyes squinting in slight sympathy. Bruce nodded, taking a deep breath.
"Yeah… I thought so…"
This made Kate laugh again.
"Thanks for coming to pick me up," Bruce said. Kate nodded.
"No problem," she said. "I imagine Clark isn't the best at keeping a level head, no matter how much blood there is."
Bruce let out a long-suffering sigh. Kate snorted.
"He's worse than you imagine," he said. The two laughed for a bit. Both were content to sit there together, in silence, watching the various buildings and scenery go by.
"Bruce will be alright though, right?" Jason asked. Damian turned to him with a smirk on his face.
"Careful, Todd," he warned, "It almost sounds like you care."
Dick, sensing an opportunity, decided to begin the story before Jason could say anything to Damian's proposal.
Once upon a time-
"You set me up," Jason interrupted. That was the only thing he had to say about the matter, and it made Tim cough into his fist, pulling away with a small smile. Dick cleared his throat, suppressing his own smile.
Once upon a time, there lived a tiny person named Diana.
"Wonder Woman?" Jason asked. Damian let out a low whistle.
"We haven't had any members of the Justice League in a while," he said. Tim nodded agreeably.
"Can't wait to see how this goes," he sighed. Dick smirked at them.
One day, the Tiny Diana decided to go for a walk. I'm highly disappointed in the excessive use of the words 'teeny tiny' in the original story, so I'm just going to ignore that they were there.
"How bad was it?" Tim asked. Dick sighed.
"I would be telling the story like there was a teeny tiny person with a teeny tiny name, but that was a teeny tiny detail that the teeny tiny author forgot to mention due to their teeny tiny attention span."
"I doubt the story went like that," Jason said. Dick shrugged.
"Read it sometime," he said. "I'm not entirely exaggerating."
She went for a walk. For some unholy reason, that walk took her to a graveyard. For another unholy reason, she spotted some bones lying on the ground. For the UNHOLIEST REASON OF ALL, she PICKED UP the FREAKING BONES.
His brothers made faces but said nothing.
Yeah. She decided to pocket them and walked all the way back home, making dinner. I don't remember what she did with the bones, but I do remember that, that night, as she was sleeping, she thought she heard a tiny voice, far off in the distance, and barely a whisper.
"Where are my bones?"
Kate drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, waiting somewhat impatiently for the light to turn green. She glanced across at Bruce to see how he was doing.
He seemed to be holding up. He was clutching the bag of chicken nuggets to his chest like it was a plush toy. She bit her lip to stop a smirk from forming. Now she wanted to buy him a stuffed toy.
He was looking out the window of the car, seemingly lost in thought. She wondered what he was thinking about. Probably vengeance, same as always. His eyes were trained on something in the distance.
Suddenly, without looking, he said, "The light is green."
And so it was. Kate started driving again, eyes firmly placed on the road. The silence was broken by Bruce yet again.
"So… what has everyone been up to?"
Kate shrugged, glancing at him out the corner of her eye for a split second. His eyes were still distant, trained on something outside the window.
"Telling fairytales," she said. This sparked an interest. He turned to her sharply.
"Still?" he asked. Kate nodded. He looked down slightly in thought. Kate cleared her throat.
"Luke asked how Dick knew about something," she said. "He responded by mentioning that he learned it, and all these stories he's telling, in the circus."
Bruce was silent for a moment longer. Then, he nodded, and went back to looking out the window.
"There might be something to him telling these stories," he said, more to himself than to her. "Maybe he doesn't even realize it…"
"What is it?" Kate asked. Bruce was silent again, gathering his thoughts.
"I think this is his way of reliving his circus days," he said quietly.
Dick had put on a high-pitched, ghost-like and eerie voice for the new character. The boys would never admit it, but it sent a shiver up their spines.
Diana sat bolt upright and glanced around nervously, trying to detect the source of the voice. After a while, she relaxed herself again. Surely, she just imagined it. Or maybe it was in her dream. Who knew?
Her eyes started to drift closed when the voice rang out again, a little closer this time.
"Where are my bones?"
She was up again, looking around some more. She had definitely heard a voice that time. But from where? She couldn't see and could hear the voice get steadily closer to her, echoing around her and drowning out her senses.
"Where are my bones?"
Finally, Diana couldn't take it anymore. Covering her ears, she shouted that the bones were in her discarded pocket. The voice stopped and, when she opened her eyes, she saw a thin, pale, sickly looking figure floating through her door clutching the bones she had gathered at the graveyard. She sank back into her chair, deciding to never take a walk again, especially not in a graveyard.
"The End," he said. Damian frowned.
"So she's going to never walk again?" he asked. Tim bit his lip slightly and nudged him in the arm.
"I like to think she'll find a different use for her legs," he said. Damian glared at him and punched his arm, ignoring his and Jason's mixed laughter.
"Shut up, Drake," he said. Dick could see the traces of a small smile playing at Damian's lips and let out his own smile.
Kate pulled to a slow stop at another red light. After this one, they could head back to the manor without any more stops.
"What makes you think that?" she asked her cousin. She looked across at Bruce and caught him mid-shrug.
"You said that he got these stories when he was traveling with the circus…" he said. Kate nodded.
"Right…"
"Telling these stories is revisiting all those moments," Bruce continued. "I'm not sure if he even consciously realizes that…"
"Where do you get that idea?" Kate asked him. Bruce was silent once again.
"Not sure…" Bruce shook his head. He let out a sad sigh. "Just a feeling…"
Yeah, I'm not sure where I got the deep stuff from. This is becoming a little less of a crackfic and more of a family/friends fic...
Dick: I have no idea what either of those things are, but how dare you.
So, yeah. You're welcome.