The night Richard visited, Hailey had heard some arguing before the front door was slammed. She pretended not to have heard anything. But the angry shouts had scared her. Her dad and stepmom used to have loud fights like that. They were usually about Hailey. She wondered if Bruce or Richard were arguing about her. But they probably weren't. Or she hoped. Richard had already looked upset when he stopped by. Even so, Hailey liked him a lot. He'd been very nice to her. But when the raised voices reached her room, she quickly changed into her pajamas and slipped into bed. She stayed under the covers, even covering her head. She figured out that it was Richard who'd slammed the door on his way out. That made her feel a little sad. So she quietly made a prayer. Mrs. Suarez taught her how to talk to the saints. She didn't like to repeat the prayers Mrs. Suarez taught her. Instead, she spoke in her own words. Then she wondered if the saints could even hear her. So she spoke again a little louder but this time she decided that saints probably couldn't hear anybody. She uncovered her head and stared out into the night. Her bedroom door opened slightly after a short rap but she didn't hear it. So engrossed was she in her little prayer.
"Please," Hailey said addressing God himself. "Help Richard."
Alfred stopped his advance upon hearing Hailey's plea.
"He was a little upset. But he's really nice and gives great big hugs. Maybe you can send one of your angels to hug him. It might make him feel better. Then he'll come back to visit. I promise to be good. But I can't promise to do my chores because I don't have any here. But-but I'll do all my homework. It's all I have to do. It's a little boring but I like it here. Um, I don't know what else to say. But can you keep watch over Jason, Bruce, and Alfred? And don't forget Richard! Amen."
Hailey squirmed in bed until she was laying down completely covered by the blankets once again.
From the doorway, Alfred was smiling at the young girl and wiped his eyes before shutting the door and making his way back downstairs. He felt the same way she did about Master Richard. If only he and Master Bruce could finally settle their differences.
Hailey woke with a scream. It was commonplace in the manor to hear her shouting in the morning. Jason delighted in his before school pranks. This time it was different. It was Saturday morning, which meant that Jason and Bruce slept in. But the startled scream that erupted from her lips woke them. Jason was closest to Hailey's bedroom and quicker on his feet. He burst out of his room and rushed into her bedroom only to find Hailey hugging herself and wiping tears from her eyes.
"Hey, what happened?" Jason said looking around the room for a threat that wasn't there.
"What are you talking about?" Hailey said with a little sniffle.
"You were screaming a moment ago," Jason accused as he walked closer to her bed.
"Was not," Hailey said looking away with a slight frown.
"Hals," Jason said sympathetically. "You don't have to lie to me."
Hailey looked down and wrung her hands together.
"But you don't have to tell me if you don't wanna," Jason said reaching for her but at the last moment, pulling his hand back unsure.
Bruce had stayed in the doorway and decided to walk into the room. He was still groggy but figured out that what had woken her was a nightmare. The sun had barely risen and he'd only gotten a couple of hours of sleep. However, one of the children under his care needed to be comforted.
"Do you think you'll be able to get any more sleep?" Bruce asked placing a hand on Hailey's head. She startled and looked up. Once she saw that he wasn't upset with her, she shook her head. Bruce held in a sigh but he was prepared for that. "Let's go downstairs. How does an early morning movie paired with milkshakes sound?"
Jason grinned and nudged Hailey with a fist to her shoulder. "Say yes!"
"Okay," Hailey said in a small voice.
"How about adding potato and egg skillet breakfast to that menu?" Alfred said from the doorway.
"Sure, Alfred," Bruce said with a small smile. "We'll take it in the media room if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
Jason whooped! He was only making so much fanfare to help Hailey forget about whatever it was that made her scream and cry so early in the morning. He wasn't an idiot, he knew she'd had a nightmare. But he just wished he knew what it was about.
They all made their way downstairs still clad in pajamas and bed hair. As he looked from Jason to Bruce, she couldn't help but feel giddy. Her nightmare was forgotten. And her mind trying to remember the last time her dad had sat with her to watch tv. In the early days of her adoption, while she was six, Jasper had made sure to spend as much time as possible with his newly adopted daughter. The girl didn't have any memories and Jasper was encouraged to teach her as much as possible before she was enrolled in school. In two short months, Hailey had been ready to tackle the first grade. But her time with Jasper had dwindled down to a couple of hours a night. Even on the weekend. Jasper had two very demanding jobs. And so when he died and Hailey moved in with Bruce, she was very understanding of the fact that he couldn't be around much due to his job. So this moment that Bruce was gifting her, she cherished it. Jason took hold of Hailey's hand to pull her ahead.
"Race ya!" Jason said and hopped on the stair banisters. He balanced himself quickly and began to run down. He hopped from the banister to the wall, zigzagging his way down.
"Jason, you idiot! You're gonna break your neck!" Hailey said as she ran down the stairs. She skipped the one step and then two, multiplying the amount of skipped steps all the way down.
Jason jumped over Alfred's head, just as Hailey hopped down to the step he was on before she took another leap.
"My word," Alfred said with a hand on his chest.
Hailey hopped on to the banister to slide the rest of the way down on her bottom and beat Jason to the bottom when she hopped off the last moment. But that little move had made Jason falter and forced him to land and windmill on the steps before he caught his balance and hopped down just a second too late.
"I won!" Hailey said and hopped up and down.
Bruce chuckled. He realized that Jason had been right when he said she was getting faster. Bruce had assumed that he'd meant she was faster on her feet. But looked like she was getting quicker at mimicking his daredevil-like stunts.
"You cheated," Jason said with a pout. But he wasn't being serious.
"Don't be a sore loser," Hailey said in a poor attempt at mimicking Jason's deeper voice. She knew that Jason was just mimicking her every time she'd lost and it irritated her a little. That made him grin. "You're a crazy jumping monkey!"
"What does that make you a little baby grasshopper?" Jason dancing away from Hailey when she attempted to slap him on the arm.
"Jason!" she said in a huff and ran after him when he took off running to the media room.
"Where do they get so much energy so early in the morning?" Bruce said to Alfred stifling a yawn.
"The power of youth," Alfred said looking at Bruce askance. "I'm sure you remember the feeling."
"Very funny," Bruce said dryly and followed the children as Alfred made his way to the kitchen.
Once Jason and Hailey had finished their breakfast and milkshakes, they fell asleep with full bellies barely being able to keep their eyelids open. Bruce had his head tilted over his shoulder. One of his arms was over the back of the sofa and his free hand was holding Hailey's head as if to prevent it from falling into her own chest. Hailey was leaning against Bruce's side with her legs curled up on the sofa. Jason had his legs curled up on the armrest of the sofa. He was using the crook of Hailey's knees as a pillow. One of his arms was resting on his belly and his other was reaching up to the back of the sofa. His hand was lightly gripping Bruce's forearm as if to hold the man in place.
Alfred had cleared the dishes and returned to turn off the movie. He had a camera in hand and snapped a picture of the three sleeping souls before he covered their bodies with the spare blankets he'd brought up. He took a look at Master Bruce and smiled. But then he inwardly sighed. The three were a picture of a perfect little mismatched family with the exception of the first young man that Master Bruce had taken in. Alfred missed the days when Richard was just as young as these two. He'd had fewer burdens and heartaches back then too. And it was most unfortunate that those heartaches were heavily intermixed with the Master of the house. Alfred turned away and made his way to his own dormitory. He needed at least a few hours of sleep before the rest of the family was up again and looking for a bite to eat. But he made a decision to invite Richard for dinner later that evening. The fact that he was planning to reel the young man back to the house using Hailey as bait did not make him feel ignoble in the slightest.
Hailey made her way to the dining room, following behind Jason who had spent all of his time with since they had woken in the media room. Bruce had told him to take the day off. Hailey wasn't sure what it was that Jason was free from doing but she was happy. For once, she didn't have to spend an entire day alone in the great big mansion. The first thing they did was go out for a run. But it wasn't a race. Though, Jason did tease her about how slow she was after they'd been running for fifteen minutes. He even ran backward sporting a huge grin for a bit until he tripped and landed on his ass. The startled look on his face sent Hailey reeling into laughter. She laughed so hard she crumbled to the ground. They gave up their run and just sat and talked for a bit before they decided to head back to the manor. Jason raced her and won, of course. Afterward, they relaxed in the pool until Alfred called them in for a meal. They spent the rest of their time in the library reading. Or at least, Hailey tried to read but every book she chose was snatched out of hands by Jason who flipped through them and after giving her a brief summary told her to choose something else. Hailey was annoyed but Jason just told her she wouldn't have enjoyed the books she picked because they were for an older audience. And so he was currently asking her about the book she did manage to read in their route to the dining room. But before Hailey could answer, the front doors opened and Hailey saw Richard walk in.
"Richard! You came back!" Hailey said and rushed towards him.
Dick chuckled and opened his arms for Hailey when she barreled into them. He picked her up off her feet and kissed her forehead.
"It's good to see you again, Hailey. Sorry that I left in such a rush the other day," he told her as he set her down. Then he looked up to find a scowling face staring at him. "Hey, Jay. What's up?"
"Why are you here? What happened?" Jason said and crossed his arms over his chest. He was extremely suspicious of Dick being at the manor twice in the same week. That never happened unless there was something big happening in Gotham or someone was injured. And nobody was injured.
"Uh," Dick said with a crooked smile. "Nothing happened. Alfred invited me over for dinner. Should I have not come?"
"Jason, stop being rude," Hailey said in a loud whisper having already walked over to stand beside him and trying to swat his arm.
Jason automatically dashed out of the way.
"I wasn't being rude," Jason told her and looked at Dick then back at her. "When did you meet Dick?"
"Jason," Hailey hissed and she looked at Richard apologetically.
"What? That's his name," Jason said with an amused smile.
"Yeah, Hailey," Dick said with a small smile having closed the distance between them. He placed a hand on her head and she looked up to get a better look at his face. "I've never gone by my given name. Everybody calls me Dick. Well, except for Alfie. It's my nickname. You can call me Dick, too. I'd prefer it actually."
Hailey's face made a complicated expression and Jason began to laugh.
"I think you broke her, Dick," Jason said and laughed. He hopped out of the way of another of Hailey's attempts to hit him and made a dash for the dining room. Hailey was right at his heels.
"Jason, you're such a jerk," Hailey said angrily.
Dick just started to laugh and then looked at Alfred who appeared in the hallway.
"Welcome home, Master Richard," Alfred said.
"Hey, Alfie," Dick said. He walked up to the older man and placing a hand on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. "Thanks for the invite. So... are those two always like that?"
"Oh, nothing exciting as all that, Master Richard. Just your bog-standard mornings filled with raucous children," Alred said making Dick's smile widen. "To think all that noise used to come from a single cheeky monkey."
Dick began to laugh in earnest. "At least they're not hanging from the chandeliers."
"I do hope no one puts that bright idea in their young impressionable minds," Alfred said giving Dick a critical look and gestured to the dining room. "Come along, I need to get you settled before I bring out dinner."
"I think I may know my way around, Al," Dick said as he made his way to the dining room.
"Nevertheless," Alfred said easily making Dick chuckle.
"God I missed you, Al."
"You've been severely missed around the manor as well, young master," Alfred told him as he surreptitiously wiped a stray tear from his eye.
"Yeah, sure," Dick said his face suddenly going solemn as he entered the dining room and saw Bruce.
"Dick?" Bruce said looking at the young man up and down checking for injuries. "What happened?"
Dick looked surprised and looked back at Alfred who acted as if he hadn't snuck Dick's invitation to the manor without alerting the boss of the house. Dick groaned inwardly but refrained from outing Alfie. Though someone else did it for him.
"Jeez, you're paranoid," Jason said with a roll of his eyes as if he hadn't asked the same question earlier. "Alfred invited him to dinner. Just cause you two are pissed at ea—"
"Language, young man," Alfred said interupting Jason's tirade. Though the reprimand was more about stopping him from airing their dirty laundry in front of the youngest in the family.
"Sorry, Al," Jason said and frowned at Bruce as if he were the reason he'd gotten in trouble.
"Though I must admit what he said was true. I did in fact extended an invitation to Master Richard for dinner."
"Oh, well, I'm glad you could make it," Bruce said and gestured for Dick to sit down.
"Well, who could turn down an offer for a home-cooked meal?" Dick said but the question was meant to be rhetorical. He sat next to Jason across from Hailey who was sitting at Bruce's left.
Alfred took it as a good sign and retreated to get their meal.
Dick smiled in Hailey's direction. She smiled back but then looked at Bruce who looked a little uncomfortable about the entire situation.
"Why are you mad at him?" Hailey asked in a small voice.
"Yeah, old man, I want to know too," Jason said loking from Dick to Bruce.
They'd never given him a straight answer whenever they argued. Most of the time it seemed like they were arguing about him. But other times…there was no telling what they were arguing about since they stopped talking if they saw him. As if he carried around a halt sign or something. He found it quite frustrating.
Bruce let out a long drawn out sigh but didn't look at any of them. Dick suddenly felt anger flare through him but he squashed it. He just couldn't believe that Bruce couldn't even lie to the kids about being mad at him. Because he was mad at Dick. The problem was, Dick was angrier than Bruce. But the kids didn't need to know about all that. Or that he'd been kicked out of the manor. Or fired from being Robin. All that still bothered Dick. And other things, smaller issues, had piled up on top of the original hurt. Being spied upon recently had been one of those issues. But Dick knew they had to say something and so he decided to throw the least of their issues out in the open.
"Probably because I dropped out of college and refuse to go back," Dick said through tight lips but it was obvious to Jason that he was covering for something else entirely.
"You dropped out of college?" Hailey asked him curiously. "Why? Don't you need to go to college to get a good job?"
"Well…" Dick said sheepishly. He ran a nervous hand across the back of his neck. He wasn't sure what to say. He couldn't exactly tell her that Bruce was a billionaire so he always had that to fall back on. Or that he was a vigilante and couldn't really juggle school or a career with his nightlife. He was currently working as a bartender. He wasn't sure if he should mention that to the kids either. Bruce didn't approve of his current venture. Or what he was planning to do next.
"If you don't go to college, you're going to have to have two jobs if you want to take care of a family. Unless you don't want a family," Hailey said thinking back to her dad, Jasper, who could barely make ends meet after he'd adopted her.
Dick chuckled nervously. Jason grinned in his direction.
"He does have a girlfriend," Jason said smiling devilishly but he was looking at Dick. "Unless you mean to abandon her once you knock her up."
"Jason," Bruce said in a reprimand but Jason just chuckled.
"I wouldn't do that," Dick said defensively. "I do plan on getting married…" Dick stopped talking suddenly. Bruce and Jason raised their eyebrows in his direction. "Not right now! But, you know..."
"You need to have a plan if you're thinking about something that serious," Bruce said but stopped talking because Alfred walked in and began to serve them.
Hailey not having noticed and not having paid attention to what they were talking about since she got lost in her thoughts had decided to voice her opinions.
"Then again, even Bruce works so much it's like he has three jobs," Hailey said making everyone turn to look at her. "So maybe, it isn't so bad that you dropped out of college. You could just do something that makes you happy. Since it's just you."
"My word," Alfred said. "Sounds as if you've given the topic quite a bit of thought."
"Yeah, I already know what I want to do when I get older," Hailey said and looked down nervously.
"Is that so?" Bruce said in surprise. She was only eleven. He didn't think she would think so far ahead. He doubted that Jason did. "And do you want to do?"
"I...I want to be a doctor," Hailey said and then shook her head. "Not a doctor that works in a hospital or anything like that. I read about doctors that help when there are disasters and such. And I want to do that."
"Like a medic," Jason said and Hailey nodded. "Huh. That's cool."
"Yeah, you think so?"
"Duh," Jason said with a roll of his eyes. "It's what I just said."
Hailey giggled and started to eat.
Bruce and Dick were looking at one another. Something passed between them, Jason noticed but he didn't know what. But then Dick smiled and Bruce nodded and it was as if whatever tension that had been in the room when Dick walked in had been reduced by twenty percent with Hailey's giggle. Jason decided not to think about it too hard. He was just happy that Bruce and Dick were in the same room together without arguing. Times like these were rare and far between that it was best to just sit back and enjoy them.
