A/N I'm not dead! It's just that my life is insane x10 right now, and there's not much I can do about it. After posting the last chapter, I was plunged into the "last minute graduate school applications crisis," followed by the "MedEVIL Literature Paper," which came right before Easter Break, which was succeeded by a choir trip to the Big Apple (I got to see "Phantom" and "Lion King"! They were AMAZING!) from which I returned only this very evening.

Disclaimer So…I give you fair warning that this is not really a chapter. It is a part of a piece of not very good fluff inspired by several reviews which pointed out that Bruce and Richard's relationship has been somewhat neglected. The problem is that there aren't many scenes between them that forcibly advance the plot, but their relationship is, none the less, a very important part of this fic. Thus, the fluff. I had wanted to write at least three or four pages (there are only two here), but got less than four hours of sleep last night thanks to a stupid dinner cruise (ok, so the close-up night view of the Statue of Liberty and the skyline was pretty cool, but other than that I could have passed on the whole experience), and I have an eight o'clock class tomorrow.

Basically, this is just to let you all know that I am alive, and I am still working on the story. I really, really hope it will be finished by the end of summer (but one of the graduate programs I have applied to starts at the end of May, so…) I promise the story will continue. I just can't promise any regularity in updates. And believe me, I DO feel guilty about this!

So here it is: inferior quality, limited quantity fluff. And it hasn't even been proofread!

Chapter 22

Fluff: Part One

Miss Tracy finally left, crying streams of mascara. Bruce slumped down in relief, and was about to head upstairs to resume sleeping when his stomach rumbled.

He entered the kitchen and blinked at the veritable crowd that sat in its sunny interior. Lieutenant Gordon was at the table, digging into a stack of pancakes two inches high. Somerville and Dick sat across from each other at breakfast bar, bent intently over…a chess board? And Alfred was at the stove, overseeing an enticingly sizzling pan of bacon.

"Good morning," Bruce offered to the room in general.

Gordon was the only one who even glanced up. "Morning, Mr. Wayne."

"Lieutenant. There hasn't been a crime on the premises or anything, has there?"

"No, I was just here to talk with Miss Somerville about her little run-in with the Joker last night."

Bruce affected surprise. "What?"

"Yeah, she was abducted last night."

Bruce turned toward the breakfast bar. "She didn't mention it."

"I saw no need in distressing anyone," Somerville said calmly, and moved a piece on the board. "Check."

Dick, however, was staring at his opponent and not at the board. "You got kidnapped by that…that guy again?" He sounded worried and scared.

"Only briefly," replied Somerville. "The Batman once again came to the rescue. You'd better use your bishop."

"Oh. If Batman was there, then you were ok," he said, relieved, and made his move.

"Breakfast, Master Wayne?"

"Please." Bruce dropped unceremoniously into a chair across from Gordon and picked up a section of the newspaper that lay on the table.

"By the way, Miss White called this morning," Alfred said as he set a plate in front of Bruce, setting down a stack of pancakes that was shorter and covered with less syrup than the lieutenant's.

"Who?" Bruce asked, sneaking an envious glance at Gordon's plate.

"Miss White, secretary to the vice chairman, sir."

Bruce nodded in recognition. "Oh right, the redhead."

"I wouldn't know, sir. But your meeting for this afternoon has been canceled. I'm afraid Mr. Perry has come down with a severe cold."

"Excellent," Bruce said happily, and dug into his pancakes.

Twenty minutes later, Gordon was gone, and Somerville had checkmated Dick and gone upstairs to get dressed. Bruce sat in sleepy comfort at table, enjoying the pale sunlight that was warming the back of his neck and watching his ward who was still bent over the chessboard, muttering to himself as he pushed pieces around. It suddenly occurred to Bruce that he really hadn't seen much of Dick for the past week, not, in fact, since Somerville had come. Although she was supposed to be observing their "normal routine," he'd been half afraid to let her see him around the boy lest he do something to earn her censure. And Dick himself hadn't been underfoot quite as much as usual.

Bruce looked thoughtfully at the boy who was carefully putting away the chess pieces. His face bore a typical look of concentration, but there were dark shadows underneath his eyes, and his fair skin looked unusually pale. Maybe Somerville's bugging him as badly as she's bugging me. "Hey kid," he said out loud. "You wanna do something to celebrate? As of right now, you are officially on Christmas vacation."

"Really?" Dick fell off his stool in his excitement, but he bounced up off the floor with an intriguing resemblance to a ping pong ball. "What will we do?"

"If I may be so bold, sir," began Alfred.

- - - - - -

Bruce pulled his ball cap a little lower and slumped down in his seat. The disguise was minimal – a thick flannel shirt on top of ragged jeans in addition to the hat – but so far it seemed to be working. After all, people's preconceptions were the best defense, and apparently no one was expecting to see Gotham's polished playboy slouching around like a bum. (Christmas shopping had been Alfred's idea and the disguises had been Bruce's. The last thing he and his ward needed was to be chased by some desperate photographer.) Beside him on the slick seat, Dick had his nose pressed to the grimy window, staring out at the skyscrapers flashing past. Ahead of them, the gleaming spire of Wayne Tower came into view and the boy turned excitedly. "Hey B…Pops, is that where you work?"

"Yup." Bruce groaned inwardly as the woman sitting across from them cast him a sudden, sharp glance. "I'm the best darn janitor in the whole building."

Dick giggled, delighted by the game. "Yeah, you mop faster'n anybody."

The woman's gaze dropped disinterestedly back to her magazine. He exhaled in relief as the train ground to a halt. "C'mon, Junior, this is our stop."

Dick sprang up, and Bruce just caught the back of his hoodie before he disappeared into the crowd rushing out the doors. "Careful, kid. Mind the gap."

They stepped out of the station into the brilliant winter morning. Despite the bitter breeze blowing from the north, the streets of Gotham's commercial district were filled with bustling shoppers and creeping traffic. Bruce grabbed Dick's hand and they raced across the street on the tail end of the cross signal, provoking horn blasts from three taxis.

Weaving their way through the crowd, they slipped into a revolving door and came out on the other side to find themselves in Gladelands, the second largest department store in the world. They had come through the front entrance into the main gallery, which was decorated for the season with a twenty-five foot, lighted Christmas tree and enough greenery to camouflage a 747.

Bruce looked down, expecting to find Dick staring in amazement at the Christmas spectacle, but instead the boy was scowling fiercely at his shoes.

"Is something wrong?" Bruce asked uncertainly.

"I thought we were going to shop, not look at stupid trees," the boy muttered.

"We are," Bruce assured him, thoroughly puzzled. "Who should we shop for first? Alfred?"

"Yeah," Dick agreed and all but dragged Bruce out of the gallery.

Once away from the tree gallery, Dick immediately cheered up. "What are we going to get?"

"I dunno. Got any ideas?"

Dick chewed his lip thoughtfully. "He likes flowers. And drinking tea. And pictures of naked people."

Bruce blinked in shock. "What?" he demanded.

"You know, at the museum."

"Oh." Realization dawned and Bruce bit back a chuckle. "That Renaissance art exhibit."

"Yeah." Dick rolled his eyes. "It was soooo booooring. Why didn't they wear clothes in the Renaissance?"

"Ah…" Bruce decided he didn't feel up to tackling Renaissance artistic theory. "I think you'd better ask Alfred. He can explain it better than I can. But it's a good idea. Why don't we start in the book store?"

They hunted through the art history section until they found a book full of prints of people in what Dick declared was a sufficient state of undress. Bruce turned away from the counter after paying to find his ward staring mesmerized at a display of hardcover The Star Wars Encyclopedia: Fully Illustrated A-Z of the Star Wars Universe.

"I bet it says everything about Star Wars," Dick declared in awe. "It would probably take me a million years to read it!"

Not a bad idea… Bruce thought, and made a mental note to come back for the book. "Ok," he said out loud. "Who's next?"

"Rachel," Dick said firmly. "She needs perfume."

Bruce wondered how the kid knew that, but he led the way toward what he thought was the cosmetics department. It turned out to be pet supplies, but they picked up a tunnel extension for the other Rachel and got directions from the sales clerk.

At the perfume counter, Dick insisted on samples.

"This one's nice," Bruce said hopefully at the fifth bottle.

"No way, it smells like oatmeal," Dick insisted, and made the patient clerk produce five more samples before he found one that satisfied him. "This is good. It smells like sunshine."

"Great," Bruce agreed hurriedly. If he's like this at eight, what's he going to be like at sixteen? "How about lunch?"

To Be Continued…

A/N I told you it was short! But it's better than nothing, right? Also, there are no review responses this chapter. I feel really bad about all of this, but I wanted y'all know what was going on.