Chapter Text
It was a rainy Gotham evening… The kind of rainy, cold evening that gave one such a bone-deep chill that could only be washed away by a shower the temperature of the surface of the sun. The kind of numbing cold that made you instantly feel like you were going to get sick after a mere five minutes exposed to the elements. The kind of cold that made you dream of hot summer beach days.
Miserable. Wet. Bleak. Frigid.
The Gotham City Police Headquarters, however, was at its usual capacity for red hot chaos: phones were ringing off the hook, typewriters clacked and clicked, and every officer grumbled about paperwork that had apparently multiplied overnight.
Inside Commissioner Gordon’s office, a meeting of the minds was taking place. Batman stood still beside the officer’s desk, his cape pooling at his boots like a shroud. Across the desk, James Gordon rubbed his eyes and sighed through the latest report.
“This one’s messy,” he said, pushing a file toward the Caped Crusader. “We’ve got three witness statements, all of them with conflicting information making them unreliable at best, and no sign of Daggett’s men after the docks incident two nights ago. I’m at a loss for words, my friend...”
Batman didn’t speak when he took the papers, searching through them. Narrowing his eyes at the lack of evidence and the statements that countered each other with dubious realism, he pondered another thought.
“Perhaps Daggett was smart enough to actually cover his tracks this time. Or employ multiple ‘witnesses’ of his own…”
“You mean he staged the whole thing?”
“Possibly. If he’s really after a new drug development, he’ll want to keep it hushed to avoid suspicion… or unwanted competition.”
Meanwhile, out in the main bullpen of the precinct stalked another figure on his own mission. A small figure in red and green that was usually attached to the hip of the Dark Knight. A small yellow caped vigilante about three feet, ten and seven-eights inches tall.
This particular brightly clad figure, whose color scheme resembled a stop light, slunk around the tables, ducking behind chairs, balancing near the water cooler, and hedging around filing cabinets… his black hair bobbing and weaving like a shark fin in the ocean of desks.
His masked focus did not bother to consider the humored uniformed grins that watched him silently go to work…
Ten-year-old Robin, the newest member of the vigilante duo as of four weeks ago, sneaked and peeked around the corners, finally tip-toeing over to his final destination smack dab in the middle of the precinct.
Renee Montoya leaned back in her chair, lips twitching with amusement as the boy’s small petite frame landed on its prey. She leaned over and whispered to Officer Ramirez who was leaning over her desk also observing the whole thing.
“Kid’s got guts.”
“Or a death wish,” Ramirez dryly murmured back into his coffee cup, watching as the Boy Wonder crouched beside the large desk that belonged to the gruffest, toughest, snarkiest, ill-mannered, and angriest officer on the squad:
Detective Harvey Bullock.
Robin looked around once… twice… three times, just to be sure he wasn't spotted by the larger man. His eyes darted suspiciously, dramatically, like a cartoon spy… and then seeing no sign of the burly crab, he set to work. Pulling out the tool of the trade from his utility belt, he yanked off the cap… stuck his tongue out in concentration… and squeezed the perfect amount of super glue in a circular ring on the desk top… then ever so cautiously lifted Bullock’s steaming hot cup of coffee and placed it directly on the ring of glue, squishing it securely.
A few officers covered their mouths to keep from snickering.
Robin grinned to himself, proud of his job well done, gave two more quick worrisome looks around to make sure the coast was still clear, and then beamed again at the prank. Scampering like a mischievous squirrel back toward Gordon’s office, he cackled quietly to himself the entire way.
When he finally made his way stealthily back into the Commissioner's room, Batman didn’t turn around until he heard the door click shut.
“Where were you?”
Robin blinked his doe eyes, smiling. “Just getting a drink.”
There was something about the too-pure tone that made Batman pause. It was too casual, too chipper… too innocent. The taller hero’s eyebrow lifted just a millimeter. Seeing no other signs of devious behavior, he returned back to the paperwork and Gordon’s commentary about the case.
Meanwhile…
Harvey Bullock strode back into the room, drying his hands on his frumpy shirt as he exited the bathroom. Grumbling something about cheap paper towels, he lumbered over towards his desk with an off-putting scowl that screamed ‘don’t speak to me right now…’.
Unbeknownst to him, nearly every officer who had been witness to the shenanigans just a mere five minutes ago of the miniature protector that now prowled the streets was struggling to keep in their giggles… The suspense was killing them.
Harvey plopped himself down at his desk with a hefty grunt, exhaling harshly as he ran a rough hand through his hair.
“I tell ya, Montoya, there oughta be a law that says no workin’ on nights this cold, amiright?”
Renee cleared her throat and sipped her coffee, sweetly agreeing with the man.
“You said it, Harv…”
Bullock cracked his knuckles, paying no mind to all eyes that were zeroed in on the events to transpire, and took one look at his coffee. Smiling to himself, he must have remembered it was there, grateful for its presence.
The man reached for the mug to enjoy a tasty sip of–
“Huh?”
The mug wasn’t moving. It was stuck.
"What the..."
Harvey frowned and gave it one more tug. Nope. The mug wasn’t budging. He studied it, frowning curiously, seriously puzzled, and saw the mug was somehow fused to the desk top. How? He had no idea…
Grumbling under his breath, he stood and crouched over the porcelain coffee holder and tried again.
Nothing.
Bracing himself, he wrapped both hands around the boggling bond-job–
“You’ve gotta be kidding me, who in their right mind–”
–and yanked.
This time, the coffee mug did come free from the table… along with a swatch of the cheaply veneered surface, two containers of pens, half of the folders and files, the computer keyboard, and the liquid inside that splashed out and all over his front shirt as he plummeted flat backwards onto his butt with a loud thud.
The entire precinct froze for half a second, then erupted into laughter. Harvey Bullock, red-faced and furious, grouched and swore, sputtering and spitting the mess of Joe that spilled all over him.
“SON OF A—!” Bullock rolled on the floor, drenched in coffee, glaring at the sticky desk as officers doubled over in laughter, “Alright! Who the hell super glued my frickin’ coffee mug to my desk?!”
Montoya was crying from laughter at this point along with every other officer who knew exactly what had happened… and how.
Even Gordon could hear it from his office. He frowned at the uproar and rose from his desk, frowning, puzzled, muttering to himself, “What in blazes is going on out there?” He stormed over past Batman and Robin and flung open his door to see the ruckus out in the bullpen, officers doubled over, slapping knees, wiping their tears.
As he did, Batman did not move only to glance at Gordon’s direction as the white-haired man swung open the office door. Robin, in fact, also stood very still beside him, pretending very hard to be invisible.
Jim Gordon stepped out and took one look at his crew… then over to Bullock who was standing now and flailing around: tie and shirt stained, face wet with brown liquid, his sleeves dripping, his desk half destroyed. The Commissioner gaped and gawked, half angry and half sorely bewildered.
“Bullock? What the hell is going on!?”
The soaking wet, beet-faced detective ground his teeth together and threw his hands in the air, flinging and spraying even more caffeinated liquid around.
“Some wise guy glued my mug to my desk! I mean look at this!” He glared around at the red-faced cacklers, displaying the broken mug that still had pieces of splintered wood adhered to the base, "Who did it, huh? Huh?! I'll find out! Don't think I won't. And when I do, I'm gonna ring their no-good rotten slimeball necks!"
While Jim Gordon shook and hung his head amid the roaring laughter of the crowd and open threats, Batman slowly, evenly, and pointedly rotated around to fix a low questioning glare towards his smaller partner who was still for some reason not bothering to engage in even attempting to look at the chaos.
“Robin…”
The boy looked up towards his guardian who had settled his suspicious sights on his younger ward. Instead of cowering and breaking down at the low gravely tone that rumbled dryly, Robin blinked and smiled innocently up to the darker gaze that bored into him.
“What?”
The Dark Knight only raised an eyebrow, daring the boy to fess up. However, Robin’s sweet cherub grin only grew.
Bullock, meanwhile, had caught sight of the little red-and-green leprechaun behind the caped figure who was still in the office on the other side of Gordon. He gasped and growled, pointing towards the kid with an accusatory bark.
“You! You did this! I bet it was you! It was, huh!?”
Gordon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Harvey, do you honestly think that this ten-year-old glued your coffee mug to your desk in the thirty seconds he was out there?”
“YES! That’s exactly what I think!”
“Detective…”
“Don’t ‘Detective’ me, Jim, look at him! Look how smug he looks!”
"Enough! Just get this mess cleaned up, okay? And now!”
Bullock huffed and snorted, wiping his sleeve, muttering under his breath while his eyes sent daggers over towards the masked pipsqueak. Gordon apologized to the Dynamic Duo and excused himself to the restroom while Batman maintained his focused questioning glower on the small lad who refused to give up anything other than an angelic smile of his own.
The office door closed again. The bullpen was still buzzing with laughter. But now that they were back in the privacy of just the duo, Robin walked over, climbed onto the sofa, and peeked out through the window shades into the precinct. He saw Bullock, dripping and furious, muttering and flipping out royally while the other officers still chortled at his expense.
Robin looked back up to Batman, posing a sweet concern that belied his ornery intent.
“He’s not really that mad, right?”
Batman stared down at his ward for a long hard moment, taking a good considerable pause as he studied the underestimated crafty, sneaky, and mischievous obnoxiousness he may or may not have just unleashed on the unsuspecting detective and the rest of the Gotham City Police Department. If his calculations were correct – and they usually were– what he had done bringing this little orphan into the crime fighting mix would be sure to give at least ten officers ulcers… or aneurysms… or both. Stress and anxiety and paranoia would rain down on them and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
But suddenly, out of nowhere, a glimmer of a smirk crested ever so subtly on the masked hero’s lips.
“Next time,” Batman warned dryly, “try not to commit property damage.”
The Joker would have some serious competition with the feral smugness that grew on the little Bird’s face…