Uggh this isn't going well.
Dick was pretty tired of all this waking up to fall asleep crap he realized miserably as he did it again. Waking up was getting a little better – less nauseating, more head aching. But already he knew that the staying awake wasn't going to be easy, or pleasant.
Reluctantly he opened his eyes to see who was watching him this time.
To his surprise, no one was there. He didn't want to feel like a sulky, pouting ten year old but it kind of bothered him that everyone was too busy for him and his getting shot in the head.
Experimentally he tried to throw the blanket off his legs. The last time he'd tried to get his arms to work it had been clumsy, they hadn't really felt like his arms at all, just silly rubber extremities attached to his chest. This time it was better. His fingers closed around the edge of the blanket and he jerked it off of him. It hurt, but not particularly badly. He felt around his head cautiously as he carefully, slowly shifted his hips a little closer to the edge of the bed. That hurt a lot, enough to twist a quiet moan out of his mouth and pin him back against the pillows but after another few breaths the pain drifted further back and he tried again.
He only got another few inches but it felt like progress. His feet were hanging over the edge of the bed at least, just a half a foot from the floor. At this rate in about a half hour, he'd make it.
"Dick?" Bruce said in that tone that he had, his did-you-really-think-you'd-get-away-with-that? tone.
Dick grinned a little ruefully and carefully, slowly started to shift himself back into the bed. Bruce came over, clearly exasperated and lifted Dick back into bed. Dick was a little surprised how gentle Bruce could be, when he really worked at it. He settled Dick back into the pillows and pulled the blankets over him.
"Don't try to get up again," he said. "You're still on an IV by the way so I'm not sure where you thought you were going."
"I didn't have a destination in mind," Dick grumbled. "Just a little restless."
"Was I unclear about my orders regarding your recovery time?" Bruce asked. Dick shook his head and then kind of had to slam his hand against the bridge of his noise to try to drive the pain back. Bruce leaned closer to him, putting his hand against Dick's shoulder. "You all right?"
"Yeah," he said. He was pretty exhausted and he had one of the most painful headaches he remembered but he was sick of sitting and lying and being useless. "I'm fine. Headache, that's all."
"Leslie's going to stop by later to do an examination. I don't want to wait until the one we've scheduled with the brain surgeon."
"Paranoid much?" Dick muttered on his his breath.
"When it comes to you dying, yes," he said, a little harsher than he meant to. "Do you think you'd take your Robin's brain surgery lightly?"
"That's not fair," Dick grumbled. Bruce didn't say anything. Dick was grateful for that least. "I'm just sick of being useless."
That almost made Bruce smile. Dick knew that he understood.
"What's happening in the outside world?" he asked. "Are Tim and Damian doing okay? They haven't killed each other yet have they?"
"Not through lack of trying," Bruce said. "But Alfred's doing his best to keep them apart."
Dick half smiled at him and settled back into the pillows a little bit more. His head hurt less if he leaned it into something instead of holding it up himself. He didn't want to ask, but he just couldn't be still and silent without going a little bit crazy. Or crazier. "You got a minute?"
"Yeah," Bruce said with a smile. "What's up?"
"Where were you?" He frowned. "Or maybe when were you? Is that the right question?" Bruce nodded and pulled his chair closer.
He looked tired but happy, which for Bruce was pretty remarkable. "When and where both work," he said. "I spent quite a bit of it in Gotham, but not all of it. But from what I hear, you have better stories to tell then I do."
Dick tried to shrug but only got half way through it before he decided that it was going to hurt a lot more than it was worth. "What's this plan Tim mentioned?"
"Right, that," Bruce said almost hesitantly, almost like he wasn't sure Dick would approve, not that Dick's approval was terribly important to him. "I've decided its time to take Batman international."
Maybe it the the head trauma but Dick wasn't processing that statement ever well. "What?" he asked.
"When you're up and ready Bruce Wayne is going to announce that he's been funding Batman for years and that he's now extending his funding to Batmen in all the major cities across the world."
"Bruce people are going to figure it out," Dick said, pushing himself upright. Bruce leaned forward like he was preparing to push Dick back into the pillows, but surprisingly it didn't really hurt that much, or any more than just being awake did and when he didn't grimace or groan or anything Bruce leaned back again.
"They're not," Bruce said. "It's actually going to help distance Bruce Wayne from Batman since he's going to be keeping a relatively high profile in all over the world and Batman's still going to be in Gotham."
"Bruce," Dick said quickly, "You're back, you should be the one wearing the cowl. I'm not good at being you." Bruce smiled. "Stop it, you're freaking me out."
"Sorry," he said. "I can brood more, if you'd like."
"That would help," Dick agreed. "Are you sure about this Bruce? If you do this, you're changing the game for all of us."
"I know," he said. For a minute they didn't say anything. But it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was the silence Dick had grown up with, between himself and Bruce. It didn't mean they had nothing to say to each other. It meant there were some things that couldn't be said.