Bruce wasn’t at breakfast. He wasn’t at lunch either. But it was the weekend, and Dick was pretty sure Bruce only went into work on weekdays like when Dick was sent to school.
Swinging his feet from the too-high kitchen stool as he watched Alfred wash his plate and cup, Dick eventually asked, “Do you know where Bruce is?”
Alfred didn’t look up. “I believe he’s still in bed. It would be best to let him rest for a while longer.”
Dick thought that was strange, since Bruce hadn’t patrolled last night. All major organized crime leaders were in Blackgate, and that clown guy that made a scene last month was just admitted to Arkham Asylum after his trial. Apparently, the poor guy was sick, which was why he killed those men.
Dick didn’t quite understand it. But he got grumpy when he was sick too, so maybe it was kind of similar. He hated to think that something like having the flu could lead to killing people, but Detective Gordon also said that the clown guy was sick up in his brain, so maybe it wasn’t quite the same.
Still, it was supposed to have been quiet beyond minor crimes that most of the police could handle (the ones that were initiating it anyway), so Alfred had insisted both Batman and Robin take the previous night off, which Bruce agreed to reluctantly. All to say, it was strange that he was still asleep.
So Dick wandered over to Bruce’s bedroom and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, Dick turned the knob and cracked it open. Smooshing his face against the doorframe to peek in, the room was almost pitch black aside from the light spilling in from the hallway. As he squinted into the room, head popping through the opening, he could see the heavy curtains were drawn, the big top blanket—the duvet or the comforter or whatever, Alfred kept changing the word up on him—was on the floor, and there was a large lump under the thin top sheet on the bed.
“Bruce?” he whispered into the room, cupping one hand around his mouth.
The lump didn’t move nor make a sound, so Dick slipped inside and shut the door behind him. He blinked a few times until he could see the bed again in the dark, then tiptoed over. The duvet-comforter-thing tried to trip him up, but he clambered over and crawled onto the bed, using it like a squishy stool.
He tapped what he assumed to be Bruce’s arm. “Bruce?” he whispered again, pitching his voice like how Bruce had taught him, which was undoubtedly quieter than the apparently ‘fake’ whisper the lion tamer had always done into the mic when he was telling the audience a ‘secret’.
There was a mumbled answer this time, but Dick didn’t catch it.
“Not right now, Dick. Leave,” Bruce growled, almost in his Batman voice.
Maybe he was sick too. He wondered why Alfred wasn’t taking care of him if he was. Dick’s mama had always taken care of him when he threw up or felt all hot and cold and gross, and she took care of Papa too when he inevitably got whatever was going around. Sickness always spread like hay on fire in the circus, but Mama never seemed to be affected. She had said it was her superpower. He folded that thought away before his eyes started to sting.
“What’s wrong?” Dick pushed.
Bruce sighed heavily, a sound Dick was beginning to recognize to mean he was annoyed with Dick but too tired to do much about it. But usually he was only ever annoyed because he was tired. Dick didn’t get it. He always felt the best after exercise left him exhausted.
“It’s after lunch,” Dick told him. “Didn’t you go to bed last night?” That was another habit Dick had noticed. Bruce would be tired lots, so much so that he got annoyed and short with Dick, but still didn’t go to bed. And he wasn’t even staying up to do anything fun. It was just more work.
Bruce shifted under the sheet, and Dick finally got a look at the side of his face, body turned away from Dick. Bruce sighed again.
After another pause, Bruce said, “Sure.”
That would explain why he was still tired. But then, he shouldn’t be skipping meals. “Should I get Alfred?”
“No–” Bruce shifted again, bringing a hand up to rub at his face. “Not like that. I’m not–” He trailed off.
Dick frowned. “Well, are you sick like that clown guy?”
Bruce’s head snapped up, looking over at Dick in the dark. “That man is deranged. We are nothing alike.”
Dick frowned deeper. He didn’t know what deranged meant, but Bruce didn’t say it like anything good. “Detective Gordon said he was sick.” He tapped his own forehead with a finger. “Up in his head.”
Bruce closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He straightened out to lie on his back. He didn’t open his eyes yet, but said much more quietly, less Batman-like, “Yes. He’s right. The man is sick. The doctors and staff at Arkham will help him so that he doesn’t hurt anymore people.”
Batman went out at night and hurt bad people, but Dick didn’t think he would appreciate the comparison. Batman didn’t kill people. “What kind of sick are you then?”
Opening one eye just a slit, Bruce’s blue eyes looked black in the dark. For a few moments, Bruce didn’t say anything, and Dick remembered how Bruce seemed to have an easier time talking when Dick wasn’t looking directly at him. Which was strange. His parents had always liked him to look at them when they talked. They said it showed he was paying attention. He would have given anything to look at his parents right now, but he shoved away the thought, even though he wondered if Bruce would finally get up if Dick started crying.
Dick shuffled down the bed a little and lied down beside Bruce. Then he scooted over until he was tucked up against Bruce’s side, feeling his body heat radiating even through the blanket. Maybe he really did have a fever. Bruce lifted one arm to accommodate, curling it around Dick’s shoulders as Dick used it as a pillow. Bruce must really have been feeling sick. He didn’t stiffen or hesitate at all.
“Sometimes adults have bad days. They just– don’t feel well.”
“But wasn’t last night a break?”
Dick hummed in thought. “Is it because you didn’t go out?”
Dick continued anyway, “Is it like when I don’t go on the bars for a few days because of an injury? Like, I know the break is supposed to help my body feel better, but I also feel worse when I haven’t done it in a while. Kinda… icky?”
A few seconds passed before Bruce said, “That’s probably part of it.”
He sighed again. “It’s just like that sometimes.”
Dick wrinkled his nose. He hated when Bruce said that. Usually, he was the adult that said that to Dick the least, explaining things even if a lot of the time Dick still didn’t get it, but every so often, he’d close up and say, ‘It’s just like that.’
“Why don’t you want to get up?”
“Because I don’t feel well.”
Dick shifted a bit, feeling restless. “Fresh air usually makes me feel better.”
Bruce held his breath, like he was trying not to sigh.
“We should go out for ice cream.”
“How are you going to feel better if you don’t get fresh air?”
“Fresh air won’t make me feel better.”
“Oh,” Dick said. He pursed his lips. “You sure?”
This time, Bruce didn’t hold in his sigh. He was doing that a lot. Dick kinda hoped he was breathing out all the sick from his body. Maybe sighing made him feel better.
They both lied there for another minute. Dick counted the seconds. Then he sat up suddenly. Bruce stiffened.
“What if we have ice cream in bed?”
Bruce squinted up at him. “What?”
Dick hurried to scramble off the bed. “That’ll make you feel better. I’ll go ask Alfred.”
“Wait, Dick– no ice cream before dinner.”
Dick didn’t look back, hopping over to the door as he said, “Yeah, but you're sick! Alfred let me have ice cream when Carrie gave me the chicken pox, so it’s only fair.”
Then he was out the door.
