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“Bruce…”
He woke up sluggishly, eyes so heavy and leaden he only managed to get them pried open to slits and even then, everything was blurry and dark. Too dark for morning.
Slithers of alarm crept beneath the fatigue, though he couldn’t process it fully under the sludge of too little sleep. He’d only just crawled into bed maybe an hour previous from patrol. His body ached from crown to ankle and there was a dull throb beneath his right eye where he’d have an ugly black bruise in a few more hours. Everything felt like it was underwater.
“Bruce,” the boyish voice said again, slightly squeaky and wet. Like he had been crying. Bruce blinked in the dark, patted his hands blindly in the direction of the squeaky voice and came up with a pair of slim naked shoulders with skin that was hot to the touch.
Clarity, hard and brittle was starting to come. Bruce clung to it and tried to make out the image of the boy standing by his bed.
“Dick?”
“I’m sorry.”
Bruce shifted in the bed, more and more awake as his body registered the abnormality of having his ten-year old in his room in the middle of the night like this. Reaching for the bedside lamp, he flicked it on and then struggled through watery vision to see anything for a moment. When he did, he found Dick still standing beside his bed, his face ghostly pale and slicked with sweat. Eyes hollow and watery and impossibly large. He looked pitiful. Something sharp and tender latched itself onto Bruce’s stomach and made him want to do anything to make it better. Whatever ‘it’ was.
“Hey bud,” Bruce rasped, reaching for Dick’s hand to pull him nearer, “You sick?” The question was superfluous, considering the hour and Dick’s face, but it seemed natural enough to confirm.
“I threw up.”
It explained the slightly green tinge to Dick’s skin. The waxen pallor.
“That’s OK.” Where? In the toilet? His bedroom? Did he need new sheets? “You’re burning up. You cold?”
He nodded, and Bruce pushed the final cobwebs from his sleep deprived brain to get out of bed. He was already compiling a list of to-dos in his head and needs. Thermometer, fluids, Tylenol, blankets, cleaner, definitely disinfectant— should he wake Alfred and alert him to the situation?
He studied Dick, then shook himself internally. No. He could handle it.
The school—he needed to call the school too. It would be Dick’s first missed day in months. The kid had an excellent attendance record.
Focus, Bruce ordered his suddenly clogging up brain and looked back to Dick. This first, then the details later. First, he needed to help his son and focus on patient care. Just like out on the streets when he came across a victim who needed medical attention. Same shtick, different night.
Different person too. This was Dick.
“Let’s get you into some clean clothes. Where’s your shirt?”
Dick shivered, slumping into Bruce’s side as he stood and toted him awkwardly out the door and down the hall.
“I left it in the bathroom. I got—I made a mess.”
“S’OK bud. Really.”
And Bruce meant it. The kid looked miserable enough without adding guilt to the mix. It wasn’t as if he could help when or how or where he got sick. He was ten. These things happened.
When they got to the end of the hall and stepped into Dick’s room, there was the immediate pungent smell of vomit in the air and then the harsh scent of bleach trying to block it out. There were paper towels wadded up in the corner of the room, a discarded t-shirt in a pile beside it and a bed with messy sheets tossed to the floor as if in a hurry. It was obvious Dick had tried to clean up and it was oddly sweet to see how even sick, that Dick didn’t want to be a bother.
Endearing.
“Did you try to clean?”
Dick shrugged a small shoulder, his breathy sigh weary, “Yeah. I couldn’t get it good enough. My stomach hurts too bad. I got most of it.”
Bruce frowned as the first tendrils of real worry fluttered in his stomach. He was a newer parent. It would be overreacting to go straight to the hospital. But he found himself suddenly worrying about appendicitis or something else serious enough to warrant surgery. He blinked into the bedroom, felt Dick watching him, then quickly smiled for reassurance. Perhaps it was a little for both of them.
He could handle a little bit of the stomach flu without getting panicky and running to the emergency room, right? Of course, he could.
“Don’t worry about it, Dick. You’re sick. I’ll take care of everything.”
“OK.”
Bruce sat Dick down on the edge of the unmade bed, then started rummaging through the dresser drawers till he found all clean clothes down to briefs. He’d need to ask Alfred about where the carpet cleaner was. But he could get the bathroom and bedroom in a little better order while Dick got washed up.
“I want you to get a shower.”
“I—” Dick swallowed convulsively, his face waxen, “I might throw up again.”
“At least it’ll be in the shower. And I’ll be right there. Don’t worry.”
“OK.”
They managed the shower alright without mishap, particularly as it was four in the morning and Bruce was running on fumes. After wiping down the counters and around the toilet with the bleach Dick had already gotten, Bruce piled the trash together in one pile and the soiled linens in another. He then wordlessly helped to scrub Dick’s scalp with shampoo, rinsed him off, then got him dressed in clean sweats and thick socks. By the time they’d finished the process Dick was hardly keeping his eyes open and Bruce wasn’t far behind.
Giving a withering look to the hardly sanitized bathroom, Bruce made a mental note to start in on it first thing once they’d both gotten a little sleep. Otherwise, it would have to wait.
He gathered Dick close, ignoring the fatherly gut clenches he got when Dick weaved. Heading back into Bruce’s room, it was left unsaid that the boy would sleep in his bed. It only seemed natural if not expected. And so, Bruce merely pulled back the covers, got Dick beneath the folds of comforter and soft sheets, then slipped in behind him, careful not to jostle the bed. Dick didn’t feel as feverish now, but he was weak and frail and very much exhausted.
They didn’t talk again, but Bruce found himself curling a protective arm around Dick’s middle anyways. Dick appeared to appreciate the gesture and cuddled closer.
Bruce slept like a dead man for three hours. Until Dick was tossing back the covers and running to the bathroom again. It was the start of a very long day for the them both. And Bruce knew it.
This time, there was far less lag in waking up and Bruce was quick on his heels. He moved to stand behind Dick as the little shoulders shook and his stomach emptied itself. And thank God, it all got into the toilet this time around. Bruce rubbed a hand over Dick’s back, waiting until it was all finished before offering a cup of water to wash his mouth out.
It was all—very paternal. Very caretaker. And Bruce had never had the opportunity before. Nor did he think he’d be any good at it. But seeing Dick’s red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks and knowing he needed his father, absolutely flipped some sort of naturally protective switch on in him.
Unfortunately, he didn’t appear to be able to switch off.
Bruce had been worrying all day.
They’d repeated the early morning ritual of vomiting, then cleaning, then sleeping, the entirety of the day. Alfred had been an excellent help and had offered bread or ginger ale when he thought Dick might be able to keep something down, but by evening, Dick was back to hugging the toilet bowl and was sporting a moderate fever. It made Bruce—nervous.
God, he hated that he felt like some goddamn mothering hen, but he couldn’t ignore how every time he peered down at Dick, his stomach went into knots and he wondered if maybe they should go to the doctor. Was he doing everything he could? Maybe this was worse than the average stomach virus and Bruce was endangering his son by not seeking immediate treatment?
But Alfred had surely done all of this before and didn’t seem the least bit worried. He seemed more concerned about the spread of infection around the house more than about Dick’s overall health. That should put him at ease. It didn’t.
Bruce carded a hand through the sweaty dark hair leaning on his shoulder and came desperately close to pressing a kiss to the pinked forehead beneath it. Instead, he cleared his throat and worked to get Dick’s attention. They’d been stationed on the couch in the family room for the last couple of hours with a ‘puke bowl’, Tylenol, and mounds of blankets. He’d let Dick put on a favorite show, Little Mermaid, and they’d been mindlessly watching it for the second time, with no complaint on Bruce’s part. But it was time for Dick to take more meds. He’d been growing hotter and sweatier against Bruce’s side and he didn’t want to wait any longer.
“Dick?” Bruce whispered, giving the boy a little shake.
Dick blinked with glassy blue eyes up at Bruce and smiled weakly, “I’m awake.”
“You need more meds.”
“M’kay.”
Bruce propped him up, offered him a cup of water and a couple of tablets then frowned as Dick worked painfully to swallow with a hand pressed to his stomach.
“Still hurt pretty good?”
“Yeah.”
“Anywhere specific?”
“No. All over. Feels like—just sick. I dunno.”
Bruce nodded, not entirely convinced. “Do you want to go upstairs to sleep? Or maybe you want a bath?”
Dick’s nose wrinkled, “A bath? I had a shower this morning.”
“And you’ve thrown up a half dozen times since then. A bath couldn’t hurt. And the warm water might feel good, especially if you’re achy.”
“I am a little.”
Bruce lifted a brow questioningly and Dick sighed, “I don’t know if I can move,” he laughed half-heartedly, but it was too tired sounding to be amused, “I’m actually serious.”
“Then I’ll carry you.”
Dick’s eyes went wide, “I’m not a baby.”
“I know, chum.”
Bruce was already moving to lift him, hooking an arm under Dick’s legs and one at his back, it was pitifully easy to carry the wiry kid even though Dick was little better than dead weight. Any further argument died away immediately. Dick gripped Bruce’s neck with both hands, pressing his face into the hollow of his throat and Bruce felt like he couldn’t breathe for a second. His eyes stung, his stomach hollowed, and he swore his mouth had been stuffed with cotton all of the sudden.
Bruce had been Dick’s adoptive father for close to two years, but their relationship had always been more along the lines of brothers. Friends. Mentor and apprentice. Not Father and son. But this felt like holding his son and it made everything feel painstakingly real. The smell of shampoo in Dick’s hair. The feel of those feverish arms around his neck. The breaths of hot air on his throat and the light weight in his arms.
This boy, this sick little boy, was his son.
His.
He was solely responsible for his well-being and health and happiness. There was something absolutely awe-inspiring and terrifying at once about that revelation. And he cared. He cared more than anything about doing it all right. About not messing it up.
“Bruce?”
Dick was whispering into his neck, sending gooseflesh over his frame and Bruce blinked, realizing he’d stopped walking.
“Sorry.”
“You aren’t feeling sick too, are you?”
Bruce smiled a little at Dick’s concern, “No. Not at all.”
“Good. But if you do, I’ll help take care of you too.”
Bruce’s step faltered, and he almost sent them both backwards down the stairs. Dick clutched him tighter and Bruce corrected his grip, sighing with relief when they righted and kept moving without incident. “Thanks Dick. That means a lot.”
More than Dick would ever know.
In the bathroom, Bruce filled the tub with hot water on the verge of too hot, added far too many bubbles because Dick liked it that way, then stepped back to help Dick get in.
The kid sank into the water with a long weary sigh, his mouth smiling as his eyes slipped closed.
“This is nice.”
“Good.”
“Hey Bruce?”
“Yeah, chum?”
“You’ve uh—” Dick’s eyes fluttered open, the color looking Caribbean blue amidst the white of the bubbles, “you’ve been really nice to me through all this. Thanks.”
Bruce frowned, “Of course Dick. You’re my son.”
Dick’s eyes jerked to his and his mouth compressed, but it took him a moment to respond. There was a wealth of feeling in those eyes. And something more. Maybe it was gratitude, but Bruce didn’t feel like he deserved it.
“Right,” Dick said carefully, keeping his eyes downcast.
Bruce waited till nearly all the bubbles had dissolved in the tub and Dick was pruned to the point he looked like a sun-dried tomato, before draining the water. After getting dried off, lotioned, and redressed in clean pajamas, Dick quietly took Bruce’s hand and lead them both into the bedroom. Here, the bed was still unmade and there was a bottle of ginger ale on the nightstand. A tissue box sat beside Tylenol and a half-empty glass of water on the other.
The room smelled strongly of Lysol, courtesy of Alfred.
“How’re you feeling?”
“A little better.”
“That’s something,” Bruce hummed, climbing into the king size bed beside Dick. Dick curled immediately into his side like a cooked shrimp and wedged one hand under Bruce’s back, the other hooked over his throat. It felt a lot like trying to sleep with a boa constrictor, but Bruce found himself nodding off after only a few minutes, his eyes heavy and blurry.
“Bruce?”
“Hmm?”
There was a shuffling and Bruce tensed as Dick withdrew from him a little. Another visit to the toilet? How many times did that make it?
“I—I love—I love you.”
Oh.
In the protection of darkness, Bruce’s mouth was free to fall open and there was no one to bear witness to how his heart skipped and then felt like it had jerked up into his throat. He suffocated on the sensation of his chest expanded to bursting for several stilted breaths until he felt Dick’s stiff frame trying to get away from him and Bruce was forced to get out of his head.
His arms acted before his mind did, grabbing Dick hard and pulling him tight to his chest. Dick sucked in a quick breath, froze as Bruce clamped him into the suffocating embrace, then he laughed light and small and child-like. Something that Bruce had been keeping damned up, broke in two and the returning words came spilling out without his permission. He’d not said them before. Not till now. But he meant them more than he could have imagined.
“I love you too, Dick.”
Bruce whispered it. Because it felt weird coming out of his mouth and like it was an impossibly fragile thing he was letting go from his chest. It was the oddest thing to realize that Dick had stolen a piece of his heart over the last two years and he’d not even been fully aware of it. Not until now, wrapped in thin arm arms and innocent trust.
It felt—good. It felt, right.
Dick stayed sprawled over his chest like a star fish until falling asleep, then Bruce carefully moved him. The manor sighed and groaned. A breeze whistled against the window panes. And the sound of contented little snores helped Bruce to join Dick in sleep. He’d never slept so well.