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Dick walked into the Watchtower running solely on willpower. When the emergency beacon had come through early that day, he had already been bone tired. Now, after the drawn out fight with some would-be alien invaders, he was one long blink away from passing out as he entered the common area.
“―with Catwoman.”
“No way!”
“Does Nightwing know?”
It seemed like Barry, Oliver, and Hal were all sitting together gossiping about something, and Dick listened in, if only to give his sleep-deprived brain something to focus on. These guys were always at the heart of the Justice League gossip mill, and whatever they decided to fixate on on any given day was usually good entertainment.
“Does Nightwing know what?” Dick asked, sitting down to join them.
Three pairs of eyes immediately focused on him. They might have looked guilty but Dick was too far beyond caring to examine why that may be. He was simply too tired to make the effort to Detective his way through League gossip.
“Well, uh, Oliver saw Batman with Catwoman when he helped out in Gotham, and they seemed pretty close,” Barry offered tentatively.
“Ugh, that sucks.” Dick knew from personal experience what it felt like to have to watch those two go at it.
“Are you okay?” For some reason Barry asked this with deep concern.
“Well I’m downright exhausted right now and would rather not hear a bunch of heroes discuss Batman’s relationships right in front of me, but other than that I’m perfectly peachy.”
The others seemed to pause at that.
“Wait, you knew?” asked Oliver, leaning in like they were discussing something secret.
Dick frowned. “About Batman and Catwoman? Of course I did, those two have been annoyingly chasing each other around since I was a kid. At this point I’m practically desensitized to seeing them play cat and mouse.” He paused. “Or Cat and Bat, I guess.”
“They’ve been together since you were a kid?” Hal exclaimed, “How old are you?”
Dick ignored the question, not wanting to get into the whole child-vigilante thing. Though, if he’d thought about it a bit more, he probably would have found it odd that Hal, who’d known him since his Robin days, didn’t have a gauge on his age.
“Catwoman is great,” he continued, “But I swear, if I walk in on them one more time I’m never going back home again.”
The three heroes were still staring at him like he was a kicked puppy.
Dick wasn’t even sure why they were talking about this. Why were these guys so concerned about Batman’s relationship? Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dick knew he was missing a piece of the conversation. But, to be fair, even if he had all the pieces Dick wasn’t too sure that analyzing a conversation about his parental figures’ relationship was something he particularly wanted to do.
“So things between you and Batman are okay?” Barry asked gently, which was weird because even though Barry probably had the most tact out of the trio, that wasn’t saying much. Why was he talking to Dick in the same tone he used for traumatized victims?
It was also a weird question, because he was pretty sure none of these heroes knew about the particulars of his at times rocky relationship with Batman. Sure, they’d all been around since the early days of the League, but they weren’t Clark or Diana, who Dick regularly talked to.
“Yeah I mean, I guess it’s as good as it ever is,” Dick offered, “We’ve been in a pretty good place lately.”
It was the truth too. Bruce had chilled out considerably lately, and was making more of an effort to make sure they were a family. Dick had even joked about Bruce getting soft in his old age, and Bruce had joked back reminding Dick that there weren’t that many years between them. Sure, they still disagreed, but their days of screaming at each other with barbs aimed only for the throat was behind them.
“So you’re still seeing him?”
What a weird way of wording it. But again, Dick was halfway to delirium and really did not have it in him to care about subtext.
“Yeah I go home every weekend to visit the kids, and we have a big family dinner. They all get right on my case if I even think about skipping a week.” Their family dinners had been a fairly new addition, but it was something Dick was grateful for. The family was getting so big, it was nice to know he’d be able to see everyone regularly. He’d even convinced Jason to show up a couple of times, and it hadn’t ended in disaster.
“Spooky has kids?!” Hal exclaimed, though Dick had been sure this was old news by now.
“And he lets you see them?” Oliver added.
“You guys know them too?” Dick was starting to get really lost. “Robin was literally up here last week.”
“Really? I always assumed that Robin was some Demon that he adopted to help him with his crusade.” Hal looked dead serious. He should probably shut down that train of thought before Hal repeated it where Damian could hear.
“That’s funny, because Robin’s the only kid he didn’t adopt. He showed up the old fashioned way.”
The room went silent as that fact sunk in.
Barry shook his head. “Okay, putting that aside for now, I feel the need to be very clear. You already knew about Batman and Catwoman?”
“Once again, yes, they’ve been on and off the entire time I’ve known them.”
“And you are fully okay with it? With your partner being with someone else?” Barry looked so earnest and kind, and Dick was just so confused.
“Yes…”
Hal whistled lowly. “Wow, your relationship must be something else. I don’t know how cool I’d be if my girlfriend regularly hooked up with someone that hot.”
The giant puzzle pieces and red flags that Dick had been ignoring the whole conversation solidified, as the section of his brain that usually made him one of the most socially adept Bats whirred to life.
Oh. Oh no.
He should have just gone home after the battle. Then he wouldn’t be dealing with this disaster of a conversation.
Dick groaned. He thought these guys were better than this. Weren’t they supposed to be extremely capable superheroes?
“Exactly what kind of relationship do you guys think I have with Batman?”
The other three exchanged a worried glance.
“You two are together, right? Like, in a relationship.” Barry seemed slightly unsure, as though he was finally catching on to the fact that Dick might not have been on the same page as the rest of them.
What had he done to deserve this? What god had he pissed off this time?
Dick let his head drop to the table and closed his eyes.
“I think,” he said slowly, “That I’m going to throw up.”
Noises of concern rose around him, but he ignored them.
“Because,” he continued, raising his head enough to meet the eyes of the idiots who’d put him in this situation, “That would be an entirely appropriate response to finding out that highly intelligent members of the Justice League, people that I consider to be friends, who have known me for over a decade, seem to think that I’m screwing my dad.”
Dick would savour the looks on their faces for years to come. Shock, disbelief, and just a healthy amount of Bat-induced fear. It was what they deserved for putting him through this.
“Now as fun as this conversation had been, I’m going home, where I’m going to sleep so long that I hopefully forget that this conversation ever happened.”
With that, he got up and started to walk away, eager to get some distance between himself and whatever it was he had just experienced.
“Oh, and if I were you,” he threw over his shoulder, “I’d maybe steer clear of Batman for a while after I tell him about this. He doesn’t believe in killing people, but I think this might make him finally reconsider.”