The next time Dick woke up it was late at night and Bruce was nowhere to be found. All it took was a glance out the window or at the clock to tell why, and even less than that for Dick to be worried. It didn't take someone with a genius sized intellect to know where Bruce was off too. Patrol, one of Robin's favorite times of the day, but also one of the most dangerous. It didn't take a whole lot of missed steps or wrong turns for it to be your last as one fought villains and swung rooftop to rooftop. It didn't matter to Dick though, as you can take the boy out of the circus, but you can't take the circus out of the boy. He was used to the stakes of his thrill seeking behavior being his life.
This, however, didn't stop him from worrying about Bruce as he went out patrolling. He knew the man was capable of handling himself on the streets, but there was always that risk even for the well-equipt. Anything ranging from scars to sprains to broken bones weren't uncommon, and it happened more often than he cared to admit.
He also had heard the stories from Alfred. Before he had come along, Batman was a different story altogether. A lot more risky, a lot more brutal, a lot more injuries. Alfred had said that having a ward and a partner made a world of difference to the way the man went about his nocturnal job. And now, he feared, however irrationally, that when Bruce wasn't patrolling with him that he'd resort back to that. The last thing he wanted was to loose another person he cared about. So he staggered sluggishly out of bed and put on a pair of the fuzziest, thickest socks he had. Multiple blankets wrapped tightly around him, cell phone and tissues in hand, he stumbled out the door.
He was cold already, which wasn't a fantastic state to be in knowing the destination at hand. Still though, he knew what had to be done. The staircase was a slow and brutal decent accompanied by sneezes and a mild headache that wasn't really the most pleasant sensation. He was glad when he reached his destination of the spotless grandfather clock that decorated the wall of one of the corridors. He carefully twisted the hands of the clock until the door unlocked and he slid inside.
The Batcave was cold and damp as one would expect, but no other place quite had the same feeling surrounding it as this one did. Dick carefully waddled his way into the large arm chair that sat in front of the bat computer and made himself as comfortable as possible. The addition of a heat option for aforementioned chair was an incredible decision, Dick decided. It made the area a lot more comfortable. He fell back asleep fifteen minutes later, feeling certain that at the very least he'd be here when Bruce got back.
Bruce was eternally grateful that he was there three hours later, when he got home. It wasn't as bad as Dick he had feared, but it also wasn't as good as he had hoped. There were areas of bruising around his legs where the enemy had no doubt landed a few lucky strikes against him. Blood framed his knuckles and palms from punching too hard. He was, however fortunately, unscathed aside from those two rather minor injuries. Dick felt better knowing that Bruce was safe. The releasing of the largely ineffective batch of fear gas however had put him on edge. He had actually called it a night earlier than usual, to make sure Dick was safe and sound. As he went to quickly record some information on the bat-computer so he could officially call it a night, he came across a sleeping bundle of blankets and mucus on the bat-chair (he really needed to think over renaming some of this stuff.) Relief swept over Bruce as he picked him up and carefully plopped him back down into his lap.
He wasn't usually one for this much contact, but he felt that it was warranted the long day he went through. Besides, it made Dick happy. That was all he cared about at the moment. The heating chair was a nice added touch.
Hey guys, I'm sorry for the length between updates, and the short length of this one. High school has come around, and I've been wicked busy and had tons of writers block. This was honestly something I whipped up over the last half hour or so because I received a comment on this piece and was inspired to come at this story again. Seriously, your feedback makes my day so much better, thank you so much. Unfortunately, a lot of the fanbases I'm now interested in aren't available on , so I've created an account on Archive of our own. I have admittedly not done a whole lot with it yet, but It's nice to have to option to post a Fall Out Boy or Game Grumps fanfiction if I want to. So if you guys are at all interested in that, I'll let you know the name of my account on there in the next update. If not, then that's also cool. I'm going to try to update more frequently, but I make no promises and I'm sorry about that.
Sayonara Reader Chan!