SquidgeWorld Archive

"You don't call me when you get struck blind," Dick squatted down to pick up a large chunk of twisted metal that may have been part of the bat computer before it was fried. He continued talking as he walked over to the scrap pile. "You don't call me when your evil robot twin wanders into the cave and tries to destroy the human race, but you *do* call me for clean up." With a deft twist of his arms, Dick threw the chunk of metal onto the pile. "It's good to know where I stand."

"You had midterms." Bruce's voice was muffled due to his head being under the computer console. He was checking for charred wires.

"Not at night."

"You had to study at night."

"I did not, and you know it." Dick rolled his eyes in Bruce's direction, not that Bruce saw it. "Thanks to certain, overzealous individuals in this house, I've known how to study in advance since I was a kid."

"Alfred can be a slave driver." Bruce heard Dick walk over, but he was surprised when Dick grabbed his ankles and yanked him out from under the console. He couldn't help but grin a little. "Did you need something?"

Dick crouched down so he and Bruce were closer to something resembling face-to-face. "I'm Robin. You're Batman. You're supposed to call me when you need me."

"I was fine."

"You were *blind*."

"And now I'm not anymore."

Dick sighed "You could have fried your brain with that gizmo. You could have blinded yourself permanently. You should have called me."

"You had midterms."

"That's never stopped either of us before."

It was Bruce's turn to sigh. He knew the beginning of an argument when he heard it. "You need to focus on school."

"I do focus on school. Or did you blank out about that four-oh I scored last semester?"

"This has nothing to do with your GPA."

"This has nothing to do with school, either." Dick matched Bruce's exasperated look with one of his own. "If I wanted a normal life, I'd get one, but I've never *had* a normal life, and the idea bores me."

"There's a difference between an idea and the execution of the idea."

"Like the idea of us sleeping together won't change anything and the execution of the idea where you don't call me when you're in trouble?"

Bruce decided right then and there that Dick was getting too smart for his own good. "Maybe you don't need to concentrate on school."

Dick grinned. "You won't mean that in a minute."

"I don't mean it now." Bruce lifted himself up off the floor and gave Dick a hand up from his crouch. "I protect people. It's what I do."

"If you want to get overprotective when we're walking around as Bruce and Dick, there's not much I can do to stop you, but I'm Robin, and you're Batman, and if you don't start calling me for help, I'm going to go out on my own."

Bruce almost insisted that Dick would do no such thing. He was Robin. He was supposed to help Batman. He didn't go out alone. He managed to clamp down on those thoughts before they reached his mouth. "You'd go out alone? Without letting me know, you'd go out alone?"

"If that's what it took." Dick looked determined. "I'd much rather work with you than behind your back, though."

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face, belatedly realizing that his hand was covered in soot. He grimaced and reached for a rag. "Okay. I'll call you, and you'll let me know when you're doing patrols without me."

"And if either of us doesn't do what we've just agreed on, the other gets three straight minutes of uninterrupted time to be irate." There was amusement in Dick's eyes.

Bruce couldn't help but smile. "Fine." He held out his hand. "Deal, then?"

"Deal." Dick shook his hand. He stepped forward and smiled up at Bruce. "Sure that's the only way you want to seal the deal?"

Bruce, never being one to let an opportunity to strengthen relations to pass him by, kissed Dick thoroughly. "It's a done deal."

"Yeah." Dick stepped away and walked back over to the various melted or terribly bent hunks of metal to get back to work. "You know," he kept his voice casual, "as long as we have to rebuild the computer, why don't we make a few improvements?" It was an old argument; one that Dick knew would exasperate Bruce but also let him know that he was mostly forgiven for his transgressions.

"There is nothing wrong with the computer." Bruce's tone made it obvious that he knew they were arguing for the sake of arguing.

"A robot you overrode the computer and tried to resurrect its computer creator."

"That robot me was filled with information about how to use the system."

"Which was most likely stolen by its computer creator. We need new firewalls."

Bruce maneuvered himself back under the computer console. "First, we'll get the computer rewired and get a new monitor made; then, we'll talk about improvements."

Dick threw another hunk of metal onto the scrap pile. "Then we'll *make* improvements. I could whip up something that could keep
another evil computer from getting into our files."

"I'll think about it."

Dick smiled at Bruce's feet and kept working.