When Dick hopped into the car and settled into his booster seat, Cass was already in there, buckled in and everything.

"Hey hey!" Dick said cheerfully.

Cass said nothing, which wasn't entirely a surprise. But she was frowning, which was a little surprising and also concerning.

"Hey," Dick said again, a bit less cheerfully. "How was your day?"

Cass just frowned more and turned away, facing the car window rather than facing Dick.

That meant it was Dick's turn to frown. Okay, maybe a little more of a pout than a frown, but close. "Cass? What's up? Are you okay?"

Cass sighed and said quietly, "Fine."

"You don't sound fine," Dick said

"Fine," Cass insisted, still facing the window.

Dick shook his head, but if Cass didn't want to talk about whatever was bugging her, then Dick wasn't going to have any success getting her to talk about it. Instead, he wiggled around in his booster seat to turn toward Damian's car seat.

Alfred buckled Damian into the car seat as Dick watched, and surprisingly, Damian didn't even fuss about it. Instead, Damian kicked one little leg idly, trying and failing to kick all the way to the seat in front of him as Alfred did up the last latches on the car seat and shut the car door.

"How about you?" Dick asked Damian. "How was your day?"

"It was all right," Damian said with a smile that was truly more of a smile than a smirk, which was kind of unusual for him, but in a good way, Dick was pretty sure about that. "Yes, it was fine."

This "fine," Dick believed.

"And Alfred? How was your day?" Dick asked as Alfred slid into the driver's seat.

"My day went rather well, thank you," Alfred said. "And how about your day, Master Dick?"

Dick grinned. "It was good! I think I made some friends. There's Abby, definitely, 'cause she liked my acrobatics, and Josef was nice, and Benjamin, and Kristie, and Lars was cool too once we really started talking, and, um, uh, and-"

Dick trailed off in thought of what the names were of the two boys who invited him to play with their group at recess. The first had been Earl, right? Or was it Merlin? It was something weird or-

"I think I may have made a friend as well," Damian said.

Dick promptly forgot about Earl, Merlin, or whoever that had been in favor of paying full attention to Damian. "You made a friend? Wow!"

"I think so," Damian said slowly. "She said we would be friends, at least."

"Well, that's usually all it takes," Dick said, then he paused. The view out the front windshield wasn't changing in the way he was expecting. "Hey, Alfred? I thought the elementary school was the other way."

"It is," Alfred said. "However-"

"Aren't we picking up Jason and Tim and Duke?" Dick asked.

Cass turned a little more forward at the question, peering toward the driver's seat instead of staring at the nearest window.

"Your other three brothers have already been picked up from their elementary school earlier today," Alfred said. "Somewhat unfortunately, if I may say so."

"Unfortunately," Dick repeated thoughtfully.

"I am afraid the first day did not go quite as swimmingly for everyone as it appears to have gone for you, Master Dick," Alfred said. "Evidently, Master Jason caused a bit of a commotion by disappearing in the school library-"

"To nobody's surprise," Dick said with a laugh.

"While Master Duke had a panicked reaction to an emergency drill," Alfred said.

"Aw, that stinks," Dick said.

"And Master Tim appeared to have made himself ill with worry," Alfred said.

"How can you make yourself sick by getting worried?" Dick asked.

Alfred paused for a moment, then he said delicately, "In a rather nauseated way."

Dick frowned. "Huh?"

"Tim threw up," Cass guessed.

"Oh," Dick said as Alfred gave Cass an affirming hum. "That stinks too. That literally stinks. Yuck. But Tim's okay, then? He just got too worried?"

"As far as we can tell, yes, he is quite all right physically," Alfred said. "Masters Tim, Duke, and Jason were simply picked up from school a few hours early."

Dick nodded and grinned. "Oh, okay. I bet they were happy about that."

"To varied degrees," Alfred agreed.

"I wouldn't be," Dick said decisively. "I mean, not at first, at least. I didn't think I was gonna like going to school, and I thought I was actually gonna really not like it, but it's not so bad. It's kinda fun, really. Lots of funny people to talk to and lots of fun things to do!"

"I would say so as well," Damian said.

Cass just sighed audibly.

"Not so much for you, huh?" Dick asked her.

"Not so much," Cass admitted.

Dick reached over and up and gave her shoulder a little pat. "But it's over for today, at least."

"No," Cass said sadly. "There's homework."

Dick groaned in sympathy.

Dick, Damian, and Cass talked the rest of the ride home about school, and they kept talking as they got out of the car and into Wayne Manor. In the entryway, they began to shuck off their jackets and shoes as they chatted and as Alfred headed further into the Manor to work on supper.

"Finally," a voice interrupted Dick mid-explanation of one of the recess games.

Curious, Dick came down off his tip-toes from hanging up his jacket and looked over to where the voice came from.

There stood Jason, half into the entryway. "You're all back. Cool. Now get Bruce off my case."

"What'd you do?" Dick asked, half-suspicous, half-intrigued.

Jason scowled, but it looked at least partially like he was kidding. "Nothing!"

"What'd you do?" Cass repeated.

"I might've been messing with Tim a little," Jason admitted, turning his head back and forth like he was listening for something. "Or, you know, more than a little. Like, maybe a lot. But, uh, I think Bruce is coming this way, so! See ya."

And with that, Jason disappeared down the hallway.

Dick and Cass traded fondly exasperated looks and finished taking off their shoes.

Footsteps came down the hallway a moment later, and Jason was proved right as Bruce peered into the entryway.

"Have any of you seen-" Bruce began.

"Father!" Damian exclaimed loudly from the ground where he had been seated to take his shoes off. "Hello!"

Bruce blinked. "Hello."

Damian popped up onto his feet and ran at Bruce, flinging his arms around Bruce's legs.

Bruce blinked harder. "Hello, Damian."

"I missed you, Father," Damian said, his voice half-muffled by Bruce's pants. "Did you miss me as well?"

"I did," Bruce said somewhat uncertainly. He looked over at Dick and Cass, apparently looking for some kind of help.

But it wasn't super clear what kind of help Bruce was looking for. So Dick shrugged, walked over to Bruce, and leaned in to gave him a side-hug. "I guess I missed you too."

Bruce gave an awkward pat to Dick's shoulder. "And I missed you?"

Taking a step back from Bruce, Dick held back a snicker.

Bruce looked completely overwhelmed and confused. But evidently he was willing to roll with it, just like Dick was doing, because Bruce turned a little toward Cass and put his arms out to offer a hug.

Cass hesitated, and that's when her frowning face from the beginning of the car ride made a serious reappearance.

"Cass?" Bruce asked. He took a hesitant half-step forward, Damian still clinging to his legs and making it harder for him to move.

Cass took off, bolting out of the entryway and down the hallway. In just a second or two, Dick couldn't even hear her footsteps, but whether that was because she was too far away to hear or because she was too talented to make her footsteps heard wasn't something Dick could guess.

Dick shrugged again, this time more to himself than for anything else.

Looking even more bewildered, Bruce said, "Oh. Well then. Welcome home."