"Can you believe that?" Carly was fuming. "Fourteen boys in one house? Absolutely archaic! There's hardly enough room for five, maybe ten…And his eye! How could they let that happen? Oh, I know! there's a half dozen kids too many occupying a space for…Are you even listening to me?" She broke off mid-rant to glare at Bruce who hadn't spoken since they had gotten in the car.

"Remember yesterday, when you asked me to hear you out?" Bruce rested his elbow on the steering wheel and he turned to face Carly.

"It was only yesterday, Bruce. So, yes, I remember." Her voice was laced with mild irritation as he'd clearly had not been listening to what she'd just said.

"Good because right now I need you to do the same things for me, because this is a big ask. I can't even believe I'm considering it." He shook his head.

"I'm curious what in the world the man who dresses like a giant bat to fight crime thinks is a big ask." She put feet up on the dashboard. "Well, I haven't run for the hills yet, Batsy. So, what's it gonna be? You want a summer home on the moon? Are we getting another Alfred? Are Lois and I going to become Clark's sister wives?"

"What? No. Why would you...never mind. I'm trying to be serious, Car.I don't want us to become foster parents to Dick Greyson." Carly opened her mouth to interrupt. This whole scheme had been his idea to start with, he couldn't back out on her now. Bruce silenced her by holding up a hand. "I want to adopt him. I want us to become his legal parents. If we're his foster parents, he's not legally ours. He's still technically a ward of the state. If we adopted him, he'll be ours. No one will be able to take him away from us. I don't want anyone to ever take him and I don't want to see him get hurt."

"He's already been hurt." She reminded him. "Now I'm not saying no," She was quick to add. "But I don't know if we can handle something like this permanently. Financially, yes, you can obviously provide for him, but long term care? Are we really qualified? I think this is something we should talk over with someone who has more experience. Someone like Alfred or my parents, they don't live in the city anymore but still, they have experience with this sort of thing."

"Maybe you're right." Bruce faced forward. "It's a crazy idea."

"Don't be like that." She insisted. "I'm just asking you to think this through. Let's go home and talk with Alfred. We've got a lot to do before Friday. You've got that list of improvements for the house, the movers are coming on Wednesday, and we have to schedule that wedding down at the court house."

"You know, Alfred's legally an officiant. He could marry us. If we wanted." Bruce suggested. He put the car's key in the ignition and started it up.

"But that would still leave us short of two witnesses. For which I have a suggestion." She said. "I've been thinking about a friend of ours who also happens to be adopted. He's a first-rate journalist and so is his girlfriend. And our boy happens to be a big fan."

"There's got to be someone else." Bruce shifted the car into gear and backed out of the driveway.

"Who else do we know who's faster than a speeding bullet?" She smirked.

"Barry Allen." He mumbled.

"Fine. But is he bullet proof?" She rolled her eyes.

"No. But Diana's bracelets are." Now he was smirking. "And to that point he is fast enough to dodge through the bullets."

"Any other friendship circle and I would have won this argument." She pouted, pulling her feet off the dashboard.

When Bruce and Carly arrived at home, Alfred was waiting for them with a platter of fresh baked cookies and a brew of warm coffee. He greeted the couple with a warm smiled and insisted they let him prepare a late lunch. It was a rare occasion where he encouraged a desert before a meal. During lunch Bruce went over the list Mrs. Clarke had given to him. They circled anything that could be done themselves like buying outlet plugs or getting rid of the lead paint in the kitchen. They then underlined any major projects that were best left to contracted professionals, like the rotting roof on the north corner and the automatic garage door that had been malfunctioning for years.

"Alfred, there is one other thing we have to discuss with you." Bruce told his butler as he set down his pen.

"As always I would be more than happy to offer my services to you in any way that I can, sir. And of course to you, Miss Carly." The butler smiled as he continued on cleaning up after their lunch.

"Alfred, please sit."

"Well, this seems very serious." Alfred said, but he did as Bruce asked.

"Carly and I have talked at length and we think that the best thing for us, and for Dick, would be for us to get married." A small mischievous smirk found its way into Alfred's features.

"While I appreciate the sentiment sir, unfortunately, you are not my type." The butler chuckled quietly at his own joke.

"What? No!" Bruce sighed. "Not you. Me and Car!" He rolled his eyes. "We want you to marry us, as soon as you can get the paper work drawn up."

"Oh? Oh!" Now Alfred was smiling from ear to ear, he couldn't believe this was actually happening. "Shall I also book a venue? Find caterers?..."

"No! No!" Carly interrupted. "None of that. We're going to have a nice, quiet ceremony. Just the three of us and two witnesses, here in the house if we can."

"But it would be a Wayne Wedding, people will be expecting a certain amount of, grandeur." Alfred explained.

"That's exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid." Bruce explained. "Carly and I have made this decision primarily because of the impact it will have on us adopting Dick. It will be much easier for us to convince a judge to let him stay with us, if we can present ourselves as a family rather than three adults occupying the same living space."

"We want to keep the wedding as small as possible so that it is clear we are not doing it as a spectacle or a grab for media attention."Carly continued to explain. "We'll ask Lois and Clark to be the witnesses as they are both known to be good friend's of Bruce's and both are respected in and outside of the city."

"I suppose if this truly is what you both want, then I will honor your wishes. One of you will have to file for a Marriage License with the city clerk on the day of the ceremony, and as long as Mr. Kent and Ms. Lane agree to be your witnesses the whole process could be completed as early as tomorrow." The Butler explained.

"Tomorrow?" Bruce looked to Carly for her approval.

"Tomorrow." She agreed.


A/N: Hey look you guys, I'm alive! It's been what 2 or 3 months since I've updated? I've just been so busy the time has gone by so fast! I'm working on a lot of projects at once so that unfortunately means only posting when I am feeling inspired by a certain story. So much has happened in the last few months, but most importantly I want to let you all that I've taken on MikeKit as a Beta Reader! It's the first Beta I've ever had and so far it's been really nice having a partner to work with on stuff, even if I almost always take forever to reply back! I'm hoping to return with new updates sooner rather than later!