Work Text:
It was a few weeks after Jason had formally pressed charges against his old foster father– no one was willing to humanize him by speaking his name– and things were tense.
Jason was having enough trouble sleeping through the night that Bruce and Dick began to treat nighttime like patrol shifts– taking turns on watch, doing their best to prevent each other from succumbing to exhaustion.
This morning was after a particularly rough night. Dick and Bruce were sipping coffee in the kitchen, both rumpled and bleary. Dick had almost poured salt into his coffee. Bruce didn’t even bother fishing around for a clean mug; he just found one he remembered using the day before (or had it been two days?) and poured the coffee over the stains. Black coffee didn’t mold, right?
It took them a few minutes of mechanical sips and jaw-cracking yawns to work up to conversation.
“How’d you sleep?” Bruce finally managed, staring into his mug like he was scrying for answers. Or maybe he fell asleep for a few seconds. (It had happened before.)
Dick yawned. “Uh, so… I didn’t sleep? Not really. By the time Jay fell asleep, my body was on patrol standard time, so I didn’t fall asleep until around two. Maybe three? I don’t remember.” He took a sip and grimaced. Their mugs were steaming, but they were both too exhausted to care about a small thing like minor mouth burns. “Jason woke up around four.”
Bruce made a face. “Nightmare?”
“Yeah. He fell back asleep, though. Unfortunately, I did not.”
“It’s only seven,” Bruce reasoned, “maybe you could–”
Dick shook his head. “I’ll just take a nap later. It’s fine.”
Bruce could tell it wasn’t. Dick’s eyes were bone tired and his knuckles were pale where they clutched at his drink. Both of them looked like they’d been suckerpunched in both eyes. Bruce could feel the exhaustive brain fog creeping at the edges of his vision and he’d gotten close to a full night’s sleep. He honestly didn’t know how Dick was lucid.
“Let me take him tonight,” Bruce demanded. “You need a break.” Besides, he wasn’t really sleeping, anyway. He would deny it if Alfred asked, but had he spent most of the past nights tossing and turning before finally giving up and sneaking down to the Batcave to gather all the evidence he could for Jason’s upcoming court case.
“B, you look like shit–”
Bruce dug his palm into his eye socket and yawned. “So do you.”
“Touché.” Dick set his mug down and began to stretch out his shoulders and back. When he bent over and placed his palms flat on the floor, his t-shirt rode up to expose his lower back, and Bruce caught sight of an alarming green and yellow bruise.
Mysterious bruises were business as usual when they were actively training or patrolling. However, considering neither of them had done much of either since Detective Gordon filed the petition, Bruce decided to ask about it. “What happened to your back?”
Dick quickly stood and covered the offending skin with a brush of his hand, a small self-conscious smile taking over his face. “Nothing. I might have fallen out of bed recently.”
Bruce remembered the suspicious thud well. He’d leapt up, heart hammering, sure it was a sign that Jason was in distress. But by the time he had made it to Dick’s room, both boys were snuggled under the comforter, Jason’s face obscured by the hood of his new favorite sweatshirt.
He hadn’t even considered the noise could have been Dick.
“What–”
Dick waved it off. “It was nothing, okay? I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. Jason woke up, freaked out a little, and may have accidentally kicked me off the bed. He was horrified when it happened, so please don’t say anything to him.”
The bruise was not small. Bruce could tell from how Dick stretched that it still hurt, too. “Are you sure–”
“B, I have been engaging in mortal combat with full grown criminals since before my voice changed. I can handle a bruise.”
“I know you can handle it.” He did. Dick was capable. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.
They fell into an awkward silence. Both of them leaning on opposite countertops, pretending to be more interested in their coffees than they really were. Now, Bruce noticed how Dick had been careful to only lean his hip around the granite, his lower back taut.
Dick reached over and poured a little more coffee in his mug, desperate for something to do with his hands.
Bruce was staring.
“What?”
“I didn’t know you drank your coffee black now.” It almost made Bruce a little sad. It was such a grown up thing.
Dick shrugged. “I don’t. Don’t worry– there’s a lot of sugar in here.”
Bruce remembered when Dick started drinking coffee in high school. At first, he had been horrified by the prospect of letting a hyperactive child dabble in caffeine. Dick was already a barely contained bazooka of raw energy. Why would he ever toss the gasoline-can of caffeine into that inferno?
Surprisingly, the coffee had the opposite effect. It actually calmed him down, gave him a focused lens for all of his rambunctious chaos to filter through.
What Bruce failed to consider was the unholy things Dick would put in his coffee. Creamers in pastel jugs named after elaborate pastries. Raspberry Cheesecake still haunted him. Or the spoonfuls of drink mixes. For those wondering, no, red Powerade did not mix well with a medium Columbian roast.
When Dick discovered coffee syrups, even Alfred gave up on civility and offered his horrified observations to Bruce in hushed whispers. They felt like wildlife documentarians, witnesses to the unseen wonders (and abhorrences) of nature.
Dick wasn’t that child anymore, but it brought Bruce some comfort he hadn’t changed that much in the last few years.
“You can go down to the cave, if you want,” Dick said, his voice soft like he didn’t want to wake anyone, even though the Manor was large enough that they could start yelling and Jason wouldn’t hear them. “I won’t be offended. I know you want to work.”
A part of Bruce did. He craved the jolt of dopamine from doing something, anything, to help. He was a workaholic, through and through. Guilty as charged. But he was enjoying the rare chance for time with Dick, just the two of them, and he didn’t want to ruin it.
They had been so close to irreparably burning the bridge between them before Jason came. He didn’t want it to ever be like that again. Maybe little moments like this would keep history from repeating itself.
Suddenly, it came to him. Bruce had been waiting weeks for the right moment. This was it. The moment had come. But maybe he should wait… the sun was barely out. “I don’t, actually. Want to work, I mean. I’m enjoying this.”
Dick cocked an eyebrow. “Enjoying permanent exhaustion and slightly burnt coffee?”
“Spending time with you. Just us.” Bruce could tell Dick was a bit startled by his honesty and thought, oh, hell. Might as well go all out. “I wish I thought this through more, or maybe planned something to make it special, but I do have something I’ve been waiting to ask you.” He’d been waiting ever since that situation with the reporter outside of WE.
Dick gave Bruce a bewildered look. “Why do you sound like you’re about to ask me to prom? I’m getting flashbacks of corsages and Night to Remember banners in the high school gym.”
“Dick.”
“B,” Dick mimicked in a frightfully apt imitation of his tone. “Yeah, yeah. You’re not ready for my humor this early in the morning. I get it.” Dick took a big sip and sighed. “Alright. Hit me with it. What are you about to ask me? I’ve already moved back in. There’s not much else you can do to have all your little chickadees in a row.”
To his horror, nerves took over, and Bruce felt an unfamiliar flush creep up his neck.
What in the… This couldn’t be happening. Was he…
Dick choked and spat a mist of coffee across the floor. “Are you blushing?”
“...No. It’s… my– I have a… I am not.”
“If you didn’t look like death warmed over, I would take a picture of this for my scrapbook of one-in-a-lifetime Bruce moments. Like that time you attended my stuffed animal tea party or when you came to Gotham Academy in a–”
“We agreed to never speak of that,” Bruce cut him off. “You promised.”
Dick held his hands up and laughed. “Fine. It’s not like anyone is up to overhear.” He ran a hand over his hair and settled into one of the barstools. “Seriously, though. I’m listening. What has you… you know. Like that.”
Bruce cleared his throat and held up a finger. “One minute. I need to grab something.”
He retrieved a yellow legal folder from the bottom of his office drawer and handed it to Dick without explanation. “Here. Open it.”
Dick blinked up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this a lawsuit? Are you serving me with a fucking lawsuit–”
“No! It’s not… Well, it is a legal thing, but I’m not suing you. I promise.”
Dick picked the folder up with both hands and turned it over in his hands. He dropped it onto the counter and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “B, it’s seven in the morning. I don’t want to read over your will or look at stock options right now. My head already hurts and–”
“Dick. Please,” Bruce begged. He was going to lose his nerve if he waited any longer. “Just open it.”
Dick gave him a distrusting look, his expression darkening, but he finally flipped the tab open and pulled the papers out. His eyes darted up and down the first page before locking somewhere around the middle. His breath caught. “Is this… are these real?”
“They are.” He scoured Dick’s face for a hint at how he was taking the news but his face was completely unreadable. “What do you–”
The barstool clattered against the floor as Dick flung himself up. Bruce didn’t process what was happening until Dick’s forehead clocked him in the jaw and, abruptly, Dick was hugging him with a fervor and desperation he hadn’t displayed since he was a child.
Bruce was so caught off guard he barely had the wherewithal to hug him back. Dick was shaking.
“Why now?” Dick mumbled, his voice thick with emotion.
“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to replace John and Mary,” Bruce rushed out. “I would never replace them, and I thought that you would feel like I was trying to. But after that reporter said all those cruel things in front of WE, and Jason offered some illuminating observations, I figured things might’ve changed in the decade since I took you in.”
“Jay talked to you about it?”
“Passionately,” Bruce affirmed, settling one of his hands into his son’s hair and smoothing the cow lick at the back. It was exactly the same as when Dick was a boy– just as unruly and untamable, too. “He told me that people change their mind after ten years, and I was, and I quote, ‘really dumb if I didn’t get that.’”
Dick laughed but Bruce could still hear the tears choking his voice.
“I’ve been thinking about this ever since you moved in,” Bruce admitted. Now that he’d opened the dam, words were flooding out uncontrollable. “Jason may have pushed me, but I’ve always wanted this. It’s selfish. Not because I want all my ducks in a row–”
“I like chickadees better. Or maybe bats?”
Dick was deflecting but he wasn’t going to let him stop him from saying what he’d needed to. “The metaphor isn’t important. This isn’t because I want control or something legal tying us together. You–” Oh no. Bruce’s voice cracked. He was… This was worse than blushing.
“You’re my son, Dick.” He could hear the emotion in his voice. Dick could definitely hear it. “I love you. And if you want to, I want to make it official.”
Dick didn’t answer, just tightened his grip around Bruce’s ribs. Dick had a hell of a grip, too.
“You can say no,” Bruce continued. “I know you have always wanted to keep your last name, and I would never ask you to only take mine. Jason kept his, too. I’m sorry. This is stupid. No one wants to be adopted as an adult, especially after everything I–”
“Bruce, stop.”
He did.
Dick stepped back just enough to find Bruce’s eyes and grin. “Yes. Of course. You drive me crazy sometimes but you’ve always been my dad. I thought– I guess, after all these years… I figured you didn’t want to adopt me for some reason.”
“Dick,” Bruce said, his voice thick with anguish. “No, it was never that. I’ve always wanted to adopt you. Always.”
“Yeah, B,” Dick chuckled wetly. “I know that now.” He dove back into Bruce’s arms.
Both of them stood there, crying, for a while. Later, they could pin it on the lack of sleep. Or the slightly burnt coffee. Or even the early hour.
Dick refused to let go, relishing in feeling safe and warm in his dad’s arms. He had spent so much time being the grown up for Jason lately, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be someone’s kid. The one given the comfort instead of the one dolling it out.
Bruce’s arms were locked across his shoulders. Bands of steel that would protect him and hold him up as long as he needed.
After Dick had worn himself out, his eyes finally dried and his soul sufficiently soothed, he pulled free just long enough to pick up his coffee mug before nestling back under Bruce’s arm. Bruce ran his knuckles over Dick’s shoulder and picked up his own cup of coffee.
Their drinks had gone cold but neither made a move to fix it. Neither wanted to move.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to ask,” Bruce finally said.
“You’re asking now.” Dick swished his mug and sipped. “I’m going to be adopted.”
“Jason wants you to share his adoption day. I told him that was entirely up to you.” Bruce smiled gently. “He has a lot of ideas for joint celebrations. I would proceed with caution.”
“Aw, Jay is such a softie.”
“He is. Especially for you.”
“We’re going to be brothers, legally. Maybe I can call you Dad instead of B sometimes.”
“That’s up to you.”
Dick dropped his cheek against Bruce’s shoulder. “Yeah, Dad feels weirdly formal for us.”
Besides, they both knew that in Dick’s tone, B sounded a lot like Dad, anyway.