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Chapter 9: What's Love?
It was a normal day at the Watchtower, everyone busy with their own little jobs and tasks. But then as they worked, their focused thoughts were suddenly interrupted by adorable and infectious laughter. Everyone turned from what they were doing and smiled as they saw it was none other than the Justice League angel Robin.
At the moment the said angel was laughing madly as he rode his father's leg, holding onto it like a baby koala. This was kept up for a few minutes till Batman stopped a few feet before the meeting hall door.
"Alright little bird I think it's time to get off daddy's leg." Bruce said calmly but kindly.
Still slightly giggling Dick got off his fathers leg but immediately took his hand and walked normally.
"You certainly seem quite excited today Robin, any particular reason?"
"Because daddy wes meetin a real magician!" Dick squealed excitedly as he bounced up and down as his father walked forward.
At the moment the two were going to be meeting with one of the Justice League's many magic users Zatara. Batman needed the magicians skills in order to help him track and capture a very specific villain, one he didn't want to share with Dick. Eventually the two made it to the meeting hall and saw Zatara, dressed in his top hat and tails, standing in front of the huge holographic globe, muttering incantations. However, quickly upon the Dynamic Duo's entrance Zatara turned his head and stopped what he was doing.
"Ah Batman I see you finally arrived." Zatara said with his very thick Italian accent and a smirk.
"I apologize Zatara, I was late picking my son up from school and so it affected the rest of my schedule unfortunately." Batman explained in his usual stoic manner.
"Ah I so the boy wonder himself joined us as well, hello Robin." Zatara said with a smile as he crouched down and ruffled Dick's thick black hair.
"Hi Mr. Zatara, is it trues yous a real magician!?" Dick asked excitedly.
"Why in fact I am little one. Would you like to see?" Zatara asked with a warm smile.
Dick ecstatically nodded his head, barely able to keep his excitement contained at the thought of seeing real magic. So Zatara took off his top hat and held in front of Dick
"What is your favorite flavor of ice cream passerotto?" Zatara asked sweetly. (little sparrow in Italian)
"Chocolate!" Dick squealed, absolutely in love with all things chocolate.
"Zatara please be sure not to give him too much, he gets really sick if he has large amounts of sugar." Batman requested, always on concerned father mode no matter where or who he was.
"Of course Batman, I know how to take care of a little bambinos. I am a father myself you know,now where was I oh yes, eno etalocohc eci maerc enoc!"
With a few magic sparks and a twirl of his wand Zatara then reached deep into the hat and pulled out a delicious little waffle cone with one scoop of chocolate ice cream. Dick stood speechless with eyes as wide as saucers amazed at the fleet of real magic done for him.
"There you go passerotto your own little ice cream cone." Zatara said, handing the cone to Dick.
Immediately Dick accepted it and took a lick at it, giving a satisfying mhm sound as he tasted the delicious ice cream.
"Wow, thank yous Uncle Zatara! Yous da bestest!" Dick said grateful and happily, now crowning the magician with the term of uncle as he had with several leaguers.
"You're very welcome Robin, you know my daughter also loves chocolate ice cream. Which speaking of where is my little one?" Zatara said, just realizing his own daughter was missing.
"I didn't see her when we walked in." Batman stated, having never met her before but knowing he'd seen no one else in the room so far.
"Oh that girl, always disappearing on her papa. She too good at magic for her own good, Zatanna please come out I know you're in here!" Zatara called out loudly but calmly.
Within an instant a little girl Dick's age appeared right behind Zatara, dressed in a cute little purple dress, velcro Mary Janes, and two large white ribbons in her hair forming two king dark pigtails, giggling mischievously. She then ran up and hugged her fathers leg tightly, still giggling at her father's worry.
"I scared yous papa, I scared yous!" Zatanna squealed gleefully.
"Unfortunately you did vita mia, though I'm afraid it's your favorite activity." Zatara said as he stroked his daughters long soft dark hair.
As all this went on Dick stood there frozen in where he stood, his heart pounding a little. There before him stood the most beautiful girl Dick had ever seen and immediately he was quite smitten with her, so much so he blushed a little.
"Zatanna this is Batman and Robin, Batman and Robin meet my daughter Zatanna. Say hello back vita mia." Zatara gently urged.
"Hi!" Zatanna said quite happily, not afraid of strangers.
"Hello." Batman greeted kindly.
"H...h...hi." Dick managed to stutter out, still quite frozen.
Batman took note of this, a slight smirk on his face, but then focused back on the task in front of him.
"Zatara could we please get back to what we were supposed to discuss?" Batman asked calmly but urgently.
"Oh of course, Zatanna, why don't you go off and play with Robin. Papa and Batman have important grown-up things to talk about." Zatara explained as he looked down at his child.
"Ok papa, let's go Robin!" Zatanna squealed out gleefully as she took the frozen Robin's hand and ran off with him.
The two adults watched their children run off and waited patiently till they knew they were sure that they were gone. One 100% sure Bruce turned his head towards Zatar, a very serious expression on his face.
"What info have you managed to gather on the location of Tony Zucco?" Bruce asked with all seriousness.
"He's not the easiest of criminals to track, he moves around constantly and yet inconsistently. But I have concluded that there's a very specific pattern to his moving. Zucco seems to have a series of five different hideout spots that he regularly moves to, my guess to help avoid the law enforcement of Gotham. I'm sorry I can give you more information, my magic is unfortunately limited, but I can guarantee he will be in one of these five spots, laever eht gnidih secalp! It's simply a matter of good timing and detective work." Zatara said as he made five yellow dots appear on the hollow globe to indicate where Batman should look.
"I see well thank you Zatara, your help will bring much peace to my son's mind." Batman said, willing to capture the one who caused his precious child such great pain by any means necessary.
Meanwhile as the grownups talked the children played together joyfully. After getting over his initial shyness and weird unrecognizable feelings, Dick played with Zatanna like any other friend. Together they played tag, talked about their favorite stuffed animals, their daddies, and just enjoyed being around another person their age.
"You're its you're its!" Zatanna squealed gleefully as she ran as fast as she could from Dick.
"I'm gonna get yous back!" Dick said excitedly, as he flipped in the air.
Eventually he caught Zatanna, but immediately the two laughed hysterically and found themselves collapsed on the ground.
"This was so much fun! Daddy never lets me plays wid other boys before, I like it!" Zatanna said gleefully as she got back on her feet.
Zatara was a very overprotective father, much like Bruce, only even more so when it came to boys. He didn't trust them with his daughter, despite the fact that they were only five year olds and anything naughty or inappropriate was far from their minds.
"I like playing wid other girls too, they just as fun as boys!" Dick responded happily as he also got back on his feet.
For a moment the two were then silent, till unexpectedly and playfully Zatanna kissed Dick on the lips. Immediately Dick's eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed a pinkish red, as did Zatanna who had a shy smile on her face as well. The little boy stood there speechless, not sure what to do, say, or think about what just happened. However before he could even come up with any sort of plan both the children's daddies came back.
"Zatanna, vita mia, it's time to go! Mama is waiting for us with dinner, we don't want it to get cold now so we!" Zatara called out to his daughter, completely unaware of what just happened.
"Oh..I'm commin papa!" Zatanna responded, her cheeks still pink.
Immediately she ran to her father and took his hand that he held out to her.
"If you need anymore of my assistance don't be afraid to ask." Zatara said with a trip of his hat.
"Of course, goodbye Zatara and goodbye to you as well Zatanna." Batman said with a grateful but mostly stoic tone.
"Goodbye Batman, Zatanna say goodbye back." Zatara kindly encouraged his little daughter.
"Bye bye Batman, bye bye Robin! I hope I see you again someday!" Zatanna said with a sweet little wave and a light blush on her cheeks.
"Bye…Zatanna." Robin said rather shyly., his cheeks fully blushing.
With goodbye's said Zatara and Zatanna both magically disappeared in a cloud of glittering white smoke, leaving Batman and Robin alone in the room.
"Alright little bird, let's go to lunch. How about we go to that little Romnai place we saw the other day?" Batman asked as he scooped up Dick from behind into his arms.
However Robin didn't respond, and Batman noticed he looked rather out of it and his cheeks were flushed.
"Robin, Robin, Dick!" Batman called out several times.
"Huh…. Yes daddy?" Robin finally responded, snapping out of his trance.
"I asked if we should go to that little Romnia place we saw."
"Oh yeah…that sounds good." Robin responded still a little bit out of it.
Bruce was highly suspicious of his child proceeding to put the back of his hand on his son's forehead, wondering if maybe he was sick.
"Are you feeling ok baby, your cheeks are very flushed?" Batman asked as any concerned father.
"No daddy I'm fine, I just ran a lot with…Zatanna." Robin responded rather flustered, blushing even more when he said Zatanna's name.
Almost immediately Bruce knew what was going on, Dick was having his first crush. He had noticed his son got a little squirrely after they met the Zatara's and Dick's blushing made it all the more obvious. But Bruce knew it wasn't right of him to pry into his son's private feelings so he decided not to say anything about it.
"Ok then, we'll let's go ahead and eat alright." Batman said, unable to hide a slight smirk at his son's adorable puppy love.
"Ok." Robin said relieved his father didn't ask any further questions.
Silently the two walked off, Bruce smirking ever so slightly the entire time they went to the Zeta Tubes. All the while Dick closed his eyes and rested his head on his daddy's shoulder, deciding to take a little nap in the comfort of his favorite person's arms. Bruce simply rubbed his tired boy's back soothingly, happy to have such a wonder and funny child such as his. Eventually the two made it to the Zeta Tubes, everyone in the near distance aweing and cooing over Dick sleeping, and as quietly as possible Bruce activated them and teleported them back home.
Later that day
Bruce and Dick were at the dining room table cutting up red paper hearts, gluing some white lace to it, taping a little chocolate heart to them, and then writing Happy Valentines Day on them. Tomorrow was the Gotham Academy kindergarten valentines party. Each child was to bring enough Valentine's Day cards for everyone in their class and then they would celebrate with various other activities and lots of junk food.
Together Bruce and Dick cut out the hearts, glued the lace, and taped the chocolate on, but only Bruce would sign them since he had much better handwriting. However despite the happy occasion Dick was silent throughout the whole time. It worried Bruce a bit, for some reason he felt it was because Dick had a question for him that the little boy was afraid to ask. But eventually after almost a half an hour Dick finally built up the courage to speak.
"Daddy?" Dick asked nervously.
"Yes little bird?"
"What's it mean to love?" Dick asked with the most pure innocence.
Bruce stopped what he was doing, at first a bit taken back by his son's question, but then he remembered their encounter with the Zatara's earlier. So with a smile oh his face Bruce lifted Dick from his seat and into his lap, happy to explain something very important to his son.
"You see baby, when you love someone it means to more than just like them. It means you care very much for them and you want them to be happy. If they have a problem you want to help them fix it, if they're hurt you want to make them feel better, and they make you very happy when you see them." Bruce explained as simply as possible, all as he snuggled his son close.
"Like you do for me daddy?" Dick asked with sparkling eyes.
"Exactly little bird." Bruce said happily as he ruffled his son's hair.
"So can only mommies and daddies feel love daddy?" Dick asked, a little confused.
"No no no, it can happen for anyone at any time Dick. There's lots of different kinds of love, I have a very strong parental love for you. But there's other types too like your deep friendship with Barbara, Wally, and Roy that's a friendship love or even close enough to a sibling type of love. Or even your love for your aunts and uncles at the Justice League, is a very good example of family love. Then there is also romantic love, where you love someone as more than just a friend or family, you want to be together with them always and be close to them as well as all those other things I talked about earlier. Is that why you wanted to talk to me about love Dick, do you feel that way for someone?" Bruce asked gently knowing his son was feeling unsure of his feelings and what to do, all of which was proof of his baby boy growing up so fast.
Meanwhile Dick blushed rather brightly, his face an entire shade of red.
"Ye…ye…yeah." Dick answered rather squirrely.
"Those feelings are completely normal Dick, no need to be embarrassed about them. Do you wanna tell me who you feel this way for, baby?" Bruce probed, though having a pretty good idea who.
"Well…I think I like….Zatanna?" Dick said as he nervously and bashfully wrung his sweater.
"I see, we'll she's a cute little girl Dick, you're lucky. And I'm sure she likes you back too, my handsome little man." Bruce said as he affectionately tickled his son's little tummy.
Dick giggled happily, feeling lucky to have a daddy who was so good at explaining things to him.
"Daddy do you think I'll ever see Zatanna again?" Dick asked curiously.
"Maybe someday little bird, maybe someday, now come on your Valentine's aren't gonna make themselves!" Bruce chuckled happily as he kissed his son's head and set him back down on his seat.
Together the two resumed their tasks, only this time with love on both their minds. Though they weren't related by blood the two shared a lot of similarities, including a slight affinity for the opposite sex. Little did Bruce know but he would have quite the charmer on his hands in the near future.
Valentine's Day
The happy and excited energy filled the room of Mrs. Altomare's class, every kindergartener excited to give out their Valentine's Day cards. Each student was given a little bag to transfer their cards to so they could leave their baskets on their desks to put cards into. The baskets were all quite impressive so cardboard heard, boxes covered in stickers, or literal frilly baskets. But none were as impressive as Dick's papier-mâché heart painted red with a lovely silk banner with the phrase "Happy Valentine's Day" in fancy cursive. Needless to say Alfred and Bruce went a little overboard, but it was their first Valentine's Day with the little bird so they wanted to make it special.
"Wow Dick yous gotta pretty basket?" Barbara commented as many other students gawked at the impressive display.
"Thank you, my daddy an Alfred helped mes! But yous has a pretty one too Barbara!" Dick said sweetly as he motioned to the wicker basket absolutely covered in glittering white, red, and pink ribbons and bows.
"Thank you Dick!" Barbara responded back.
"Alright everyone time to pass out our cards, make sure you have one for all of your classmates." Mrs. Altomare made very clear.
"Yes Mrs. A!" The whole class replied.
Immediately everyone went around passing their Valentine's as they also admired the baskets everyone made. Well actually almost everyone except one little boy who sat at his desk looking very sad, his name was Charlie. He had strawberry blonde hair and sapphire blue eyes with a very cute face. But unfortunately he sat out of the festivities, his family was quite poor and couldn't afford to make Valentine's Day cards for him to bring. He had only gotten into Gotham Academy thanks to a raffle full ride scholarship his family won at the annual charity fair the previous year.
So having nothing to give he just sat at his desks alone and ate a cookie from the treat table. That was until Dick noticed this as he was placing his last card into a basket. He was at Barbara's basket when he saw poor Charlie sitting all alone without a single Valentine's Day card in sight. Immediately Dick felt distressed, swearing he wrote a card for everyone on his classroom Valentine's Day list of names, not realizing Charlie's family took his off to be fair since he wasn't giving any out.
It was then before Dick could even react that everyone announced that they had finished and ran to their boxes to how much they had. Dick followed suit but felt guilty as he saw his heart was full of tons of candy and cards but Charlie sat there with none. But it was then an idea popped into his head making him run to Barbara and whisper his plan into his ears. Smiling from ear to ear Barbara agreed to the plan and ran to tell everyone else.
Meanwhile the sad faced Charlie was doing one of the little activities Mrs. Altomare gave him to hopefully cheer him up along with his own special little Valentine's Day card from her. It made him slightly better but didn't alleviate the pain of being left out. That was until he suddenly felt a tap on the shoulder, making his turn around where he saw Dick and all the rest of the class.
"Hi Charlie we saws ya didn have any candies or cards sos we wanna give yous ours." Dick said kindly as he placed a red bucket with a singular piece of candy from Dick's basket.
In shock Charlie didn't know how to respond to the act of kindness.
"Oh wes not done yet thas just my candy, come on up everyones!" Dick said as he motioned everyone to move.
Almost in total sync all the other children placed one price of candy into the bucket. This went on for ten minutes till the nearly empty bucket was nearly overflowing. By the time they were finished Charlie had happy tears running down his face.
"Thank you, yous da best Dick!" Charlie squealed as he got up and hugged Dick tightly.
All the while Mrs. Altomare watched with an absolutely warmed heart, proud of her student's generosity. From there the party went on splendidly as they played games, ate sugar, and all manor of kindergarten appropriate festivities. But like all good things they must come to an end as the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.
With a quick goodbye all the kids ran outside with their candy and to their parents. As they did so Dick watched happily as Charlie ran up to his mom, joy written on his face, with a bucket full of candy.
"Mommy! Mommy! Look I gots candy!" Charlie squealed as he was scooped up by his mother.
"Oh wow where did you get that Charlie boy?" Charlie's mother asked rather confused.
"My class gaves it to me!" Charlie declared proudly.
It was then Dick heard a familiar honking bringing him out of the moment with Charlie's family. He turned his head and smiled widely as he saw his daddy get out of his car arms open wide. Immediately ran as fast as he could to him and was absorbed into a great big bear hug.
"Happy Valentine's Day baby!" Bruce said affectionately as he kissed his son's head.
"Happy Valentine's Day Daddy!" Dick said as he kissed his father's cheek.
"How was your party Dick?" Bruce proceeded to ask as he took in his son's kiss.
"It was good daddy, everybodys loved my…" Dick started to say before a voice interrupted him.
"Excuse me, are you Dick's father?"
As Bruce turned around Dick saw it was none other than Charlie's mom with Charlie in her arms. The woman looked just as surprised as she saw the one and only Bruce Wayne standing before her.
"Yes I am, and you are?" Bruce asked curiously who this stranger was.
"My name is Kathleen Byrnes, and this is my son Charlie. I just wanted to thank your son for showing such generosity and kindness to my baby boy. We've unfortunately fallen on some hard times and money's been tight so we couldn't give our son any Valentine's to pass out. But your son so selflessly got everyone along with him to share a piece of their candy with my son so he'd feel included and loved." Kathleen thanked very graciously.
Bruce was speechless, feeling his heart swell with pride for his precious little boy.
"Your welcome Charlie's Mom, I jus wanted ta make Charlie not feel sad anymores." Dick answered sweetly.
"Well that's very thoughtful of you Dick, I hope my son can return your kindness someday. Goodbye you two." Kathleen said as she turned and waved,
"Bye bye Dick, thank yous for beein so nice ta mes!" Charlie said happily with an excited wave.
"Bye bye Charlie, Happy Valentine's Day!" Dick responded back.
Once the mother and son had left, Bruce proceeded to attack his son with an onslaught of kisses and snuggles.
"I'm so proud of you Dick for being such a thoughtful boy, you truly are a very good boy!" Bruce said very proudly.
"I just dids wah you says daddy, I cared about him and made him my friend to show I love him. Yous da one who taught me how." Dick said as he snuggled his fathers chest lovingly.
Bruce started to tear up a bit, happy to know his son not only listened to him but also showed such kindness to others and applied the lessons he tried to teach his son.
"I love you baby bird, I love you so much." Bruce said as he squeezed his boy, feeling so lucky to have such a child.
"I love you too daddy, Happy Valentine's Day!" Dick said as he hugged his father back.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Bruce said lovingly, officially feeling like he had the best Valentines day of all time, and all because of a little boy who unexpectedly walked into his life and completely changed for the better.