Archive of Our Own ^beta

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“-not to mention the situation that it puts me in! If I had been even one minute too late, I would’ve had to pick between saving you or those civilians”. Dick resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Bruce would know somehow, even with the mask, and that would start a whole other tirade.

He considered mentioning that Bruce wasn’t “a minute too late” and he likely never would be, but he didn’t have the energy to argue so he let Bruce continue. “When I tell you what needs to be done, I expect you to follow my lead so I can focus on my work and not on chasing after you”. Bruce sighed, “Your resistance to my orders is slowing us down and until it stops, I can’t let you back out in the field”.

Dick’s eyes widened and he shot up. “What? Are you benching me?! Over this?”. Bruce didn’t even blink at his outburst, “Yes”. “That’s not fair!” Dick cried, “I messed up one time”. Bruce gave an incredulous look, “It wasn’t ‘one time’, you’ve been ignoring my orders for weeks and I let it slide because they were small slip ups. This is different, what you did was dangerous. I won’t let you back out until you’ve shown me you can do as I say without arguing”.

This time, Dick did roll his eyes, “So what, you’re gonna go out alone? Aren’t you the one who always says it’s dangerous for me to go out alone? It’ll be difficult for you to ‘focus on your work’ with no help. And how do you-“. “I’ll bring Batgirl.” Bruce cut in before Dick could even finish his sentence. “Barbara? How would she be helpful than me? She doesn’t even know all our procedures!”

The idea of Babs going out on patrol with Bruce alone set something off inside him. They wouldn’t even make a good team alone. There’s a reason why it’s Batman and Robin, not Batman and Batgirl. That just sounded stupid.

“Barbara is more than capable of helping out in the field”. “Not as capable as me!” Dick shot back, “I know way more than she does and I’ve got more experience”. “You may have more experience, but she listens in the field more than you do, and that makes her irreplaceable”.

Dick felt his blood boil, “Oh, but I am replaceable?” Bruce could feel a headache forming from this argument already, “You know that’s not what I said”. “It’s what you implied”, Dick countered. Bruce felt his headache throb, “I didn’t imply anything, all I said is that Barbara is a valuable asset in the field and until you clean up your act, she will be my only asset in the field”.

Dick didn’t think he’d ever hated babs much as he did in that moment, “Fine, whatever, I’m going to go change”. Dick ran off before Bruce could say anything.

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Dick was sitting on a bench waiting for Alfred to come pick him up from school when Barbara skipped out the doors, humming a tune he faintly recognized. She bounded up to him and sat down.

He glanced at her sideways, but she didn’t seem to notice. There was a sparkling excitement in her eyes, and he had no clue why. “Hey, Babs” he started cautiously. “Hi, Dick!” she exclaimed, “How are you?” she asked, a little too happily. Dick was kinda getting weirded out.

“Fine…” he responded, unsurely. “Cool” she offered. She started humming again and Dick paused, “Why are you so chipper?” Her soft song stopped. “Chipper? I’m not chipper” she said. He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Well, ok,” she continued, “I am, but it’s not like anything happened”. Dick waited for her to keep talking, but it seemed that was it. “Ok, so why are you in such a good mood? Did you just have a nice morning?” he questioned. “No,“ she laughed, “it’s just that patrol last night was really fun” she finished. Patrol?

“Oh.” he breathed, feeling a strange pang in his chest. Babs didn’t seem to notice his mood shift, “Yeah, we had to do this really long stakeout, like two whole hours”. Dick looked down at his shoes to hide his expression. Two hours? That wasn’t that long, he could stay put for a stakeout for twice that amount of time.

“But,” Bab’s voice rang out, “then we got to get to the fun stuff and B was actually pretty good company!”. Dick looked back up at her “B?” he questioned. “Yeah?” she started, “You know, B?” she looked at him weirdly. “As in Bruce?” he asked. “Duh” she retorted. He felt that pang again, a dull throb, twisting his lungs.

Babs must have noticed because she immediately asked, “What? Is there something wrong with me calling him B? I thought it was fine. I mean, you do it all the time” she rambled. That was true, he did call Bruce ‘B’ all the time. It was just a nickname. So what was the problem? “Yeah, no, it’s whatever” Dick replied quickly. “Ok…” Babs responded, “Cool. Anyway, as I was saying. It was just… fun, you know? I thought it would be boring without you, but I actually learned a lot from those few hours and they were pretty entertaining!”

Dick stared at her blankly, not sure what to say. He felt… angry? No, not really. Or he wasn’t sure. There was no reason to feel angry at Babs. She hadn’t done anything wrong, really. He was a little upset that she got to go out for patrol when he was stuck at home with nothing to do. Yeah, that was it. He just wanted to go on patrol.

“Oh!” she shouted, “I almost forgot. He also told me I was getting really good with computers. Well, he didn’t say that, but he went, ‘Hrn’ when I downloaded what we needed way faster than he told me to, which was basically like saying, ‘Wow, you’re so much better than I thought you were’ and that’s a pretty big compliment, you know?” Dick felt that that throbbing feeling spread and surge under his skin, his face heating up. How would she know what he was saying? Dick was the translator for Bruce’s weird bat noises, not Barbara. Now, he was sure he felt anger.

But that didn’t make sense, barbara still hadn’t done anything wrong. She just assumed what Bruce said. In fact, she’d done something right, apparently. Downloading whatever information they needed better than he could. Anger bubbled up and the words slipped right out with it, “I don’t know if that was a compliment,” he huffed, “you’re not really good enough for that”. That was a lie, Barbara was good with computers, great, even. But he felt the need to crush whatever high she was riding from bruce confirming that.

“What? Yes, i am!” she argued incredulously, “I’m better than you!”. True. “No, you’re not,” Dick fibbed, “you don’t even have as much practice as me.” That part was correct. Honestly, it made no sense for her to go out when he had more training. “Yeah?” she replied, “well, B took me out for patrol, not you. So clearly, I must be better at something, even with less practice.” Dick seethed. “Don’t call him B” he said simply. “Why not?” she asked, “It’s just a nickname”. And that was also true. ‘B’ was just a nickname, there was nothing special about it.

“Because“ Dick reasoned, “I’m telling you not to and I made the nickname”. That was a pretty flimsy reason, but he didn’t have a better one because he really wasn’t sure why Barbara using that name bothered him. “You don’t own it” she said with an eye roll. “Doesn’t matter,” Dick replied, “it’s annoying. What if I started calling your dad Jim?” Barbara gave him a look, “What does my dad have to do with this?” He didn’t know, her dad actually wasn’t in the conversation. He wasn’t sure why he brought dads up. Whatever, he was getting frustrated and Barbara was being annoying.

“Nothing!” he shrieked, “I don’t know! Just don’t call bruce ‘B’”. She glanced at him weirdly for his outburst. “Ok, fine. Whatever. I won’t” she acquiesced. “Good” he grumbled. She kept looking at him strangely before finally blurting, “You’re acting weird”. Dick seemed to take offense by that. “No, I’m not!” he disagreed. “Um, yeah, you are” she countered, “I think not being able to go on patrol is getting to your head”. Screw her.

Dick snapped back, “I think going on patrol alone is getting to your head”. She shot him a withering look, “That’s not fair, you go on patrol with just Bruce all the time, but when I do it, it’s a problem?”. He paused. Barbara was right and he knew it. But he was angry and he didn’t know why. “Yeah, it is.” he answered curtly.

She scowled, “Why?”. He didn’t know, it just was. “Because you’re not as good as me. You’re gonna mess up and ruin something” he explained. He didn’t mention that it already felt like something was being ruined. Barbara fumed, “Yeah, well you already made a mistake. That’s why you’re benched and I got ice cream last night .” His eyes snapped up to look at her in shock. “Yeah,” she smiled “B” emphasizing the nickname, his nickname, the one he came up with, “took me to get ice cream after patrol.” Dick felt that angry stinging feeling rush through his whole body again.

Barbara continued, “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to be nice since you can’t come but if you’re gonna be a jerk about it, then so will I. We went out for ice cream last night and B said if I do good tonight, we can get Batburger. Patrols are a lot more fun since you’ve been benched”. With that, she walked off and tossed a ‘see you tomorrow’ over her shoulder.

Dick felt a shaky trembling under his skin. It wasn’t plain anger that’s for sure. Whatever it was, it hurt, and he felt like crying. His eyes were watering and his face burned. Just then, Dick saw Alfred pull up to the school and quickly wiped a stray tear that fell down. He took a deep breath and gathered his bag to get in the car.

Whatever, Barbara could go get food with Bruce and call him nicknames and get cryptic compliments. It didn’t matter to Dick. Wasn’t he mad at Bruce? Yeah, he didn’t care. In fact, he was happy, maybe Barbara would keep Bruce off his back. Yeah, that stinging feeling from before was just annoyance at the mention of Bruce’s name. Duh, why hadn’t he realized that earlier?

With that thought, he climbed into the car and began polite small talk with Alfred about his day.

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Hello! I am so sorry, but I’m discontinuing this fic for now because I just can’t bring myself to write. I’m not really interested in DC right now, so I have no motivation. I apologize to anyone who has gotten invested and thank you for your support. The good news is I will likely pick back up on DC at some point and will continue then. For now, I’ve gotten back into my BNHA/MHA phase and hope to start writing about that. So if you’re interested, be on the lookout for fics from me. Again, I apologize and thank anyone who has taken the time to show me support. 🩵