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It had been a rough night in Gotham. Bruce had been injured the night before and it was bad enough that Alfred still had him drugged and on bed rest. So Batman hadn’t been out or even at the computer. But even without Batman it should not have been as bad as it was.
In fact the night had started off looking pretty good. Cass was back in town for a little bit and she had offered to go on patrol with them. The night had started off light, they were even able to let Damian go off on his own; giving Robin some solo experience.
So, the night should have been easy but then the Riddler happened; to everybody. Each of the boys (and Cass too) had run into him at some point in the night and had been unable to stop him, getting only cryptic messages that amounted to “ha ha, you can’t catch me.” This had pissed everybody off (and considering both Jason and Damian have been trained to kill…) at the end of the night the decided they need to regroup at the cave and let Bruce know how the night had gone.
That lead to a second bad part of the night; deciding who got to tell Bruce the bad news this time. The boys started to debate how to decide who got to tell Bruce the instant the last person was in the cave. They were so into their debate they didn’t even notice Cass slipping off and going upstairs.
“We could draw straws.” Dick suggested.
“No that’s stupid, how ‘bout rock paper scissors?” Jason shot back.
“Big Bang Theory version or traditional?” Tim asked at the exact same time Damian said yes.
“No. No way. We can’t do that.” Dick shook his head and waved his arms around for emphasis
That got Tim and Jayson’s attention. Damian just smirked.
“Why not?”
“Damian cheats.”
“How do you cheat at rock paper scissors?” Jason was curious. You never know what is going to be useful when.
“Body language,” came Dick’s response.
“Tt. It’s not my fault you’re easy to read, Grayson.” Damian retorted.
“I am not easy to read. I am a complete mystery. Why don’t you just go up there and tell him, Damian? You’re ten. You’re cute(ish), still a child. He won’t do anything too harsh to you if he’s mad.” This got a laugh from all three of Dick’s brothers.
“Or you could go since you’re the oldest?” Tim gasped still laughing.
“No Way Jay should go he’s the prodigal son.”
“Just ‘cause I came back from the dead does not make me the prodigal son. I’m not the only one who’s left and come back, Dick. You and Tim both left why doesn’t one of you go?”
“Hey, Timmy, why don’t you go? You’re better at giving bad news then the rest of us any way. I mean between your day job and our night job you have twice as many opportunities.”
“Yeah, Drake. You go. Besides you’re the most expendable”
“Enough!” Bruce’s voice shocked all four of his sons. They had been so caught up in trying to decide who would go tell Bruce they hadn’t noticed him come down to the cave. “Cass already told me how the night went. We’ll deal with the Riddler and the fact that you all managed to not be aware of your surroundings first thing tomorrow. For now get up stairs. Damian I’ll be talking to you later.”
The boys started to leave with a course of “yes sir” when Bruce pulled Tim aside.
“You’re not you know.” He said to his third son.
“Not what?”
“Expendable. You’re… you’re my son and I need you and your brothers need you; even if we sometimes… forget.” Bruce said as he hobbled to the elevator.
Tim smiled and followed his family up to the manor.
