He's a child again

Chapter twenty-six

"Rough morning. He's struggling to wake up and he doesn't want to take his medicine," he explained. He jostled the acrobat in hopes of getting him to notice his brother, and hopefully find sitting with him more interesting so he could sneak him medicine successfully, but only got a whine in return. "He also appears to be glued to my side. Found him in my bed this morning but I don't remember him coming in."

"Sounds like he had a rough night as well," Alfred commented. He shot the boy an empathetic look and swiftly took the pills from Bruce's hand, taking over the job to hide them. In all fairness, he was better. Bruce could recall many a time that he'd been handed food after vehemently denying to have any type of medicine as a child and never tasting it to question the habit. He wondered sometimes if the butler snuck sleeping pills into his food sometimes when sudden drowsiness ever took over him in his study.

"I can take him. You're probably itching to get back to work," Jason offered. 

"I've worked with him like this before," he replied, ignoring the dig. "Unless you want to go with Jason?" he asked. 

"Later."

"Well, I don't know. I'd have to check my busy schedule." That got a little giggle out of the lad which on mornings like these felt like drawing blood from a stone. "I'll pencil you in for after lunch, alright? Got some business to take care of first."

"Heading back to the safe house?"

"Just for a few things. Besides, you'll be working on the biological stuff and you know I'm more of a literature analyst," he explained. "I'll be back though. Kid will need someone who can keep up with him."

"Are you insinuating I'm too old to take care of a child?" Alfred asked although he did so with a small smile to show he was teasing. 

"Somehow I don't think there's a correct way to answer that so I'll be waiting at the dinner table."

Breakfast was fairly normal aside from the fact that Dick was like an overgrown leach who wouldn't leave his mentor's lap and refused to eat in favour of remaining in a state between snoozing and napping. His sluggish behaviour brought up concerns about his head injury but Bruce was quick to reassure them that this was typical nine-year-old acrobat behaviour. Sometimes it was typical twenty-something-year-old behaviour depending on how little sleep Dick was running on and how comfy the bed was. Enough of Dick's partners mentioned it in passing and he wasn't entirely surprised the habit was had to shake. 

"You've got to eat something," Damian insisted, sounding more concerned than he would have liked to. 

"Alfred did make you your own special pancakes," Bruce added. This would've had any other person in the Wayne household gain an appetite and abandon whatever they were doing but the encouragement to eat only brought the boy to tears. 

"They're different," he hiccuped, evidently distraught that something had been made especially for him. For a moment, the billionaire wondered if he knew there was medicine in there but he pushed away that thought because Dick still didn't know this was a habit the butler had when dealing with uncooperative patients. "No more different," he pleaded. Alfred had come in at this point to see if anyone needed top-ups of coffee and, more preferably for his conscience, orange juice and frowned at the adverse reaction to the effort he'd put into the food. Only, he didn't exactly blame Dick for not appreciating the extra care put in today. Although only hearing the latter sentence, Alfred wasn't stupid. There had been so much change going on recently that it was only natural the acrobat was begging for comforting familiarity in a world so different from the one he remembered. He'd taken most of it on the chin but, again, this was a rough morning.

"Alright, Master Dick, we'll have no more tears at the breakfast table. I'll make you the ones using the exact same recipe you used to have," Alfred assured him.

"M sorry," the little boy muttered. "Wasting food."

"And you'll remember I'd rather you have an enjoyable experience. Besides, don't you remember our compost heap?" The thought of something still being there even now had significantly brightened the boy's spirits despite it being over a compost heap. "It'll be eaten one way or another."

"See, Dickie, it's not the end of the world," Bruce added to show his support. He didn't really know why he felt the need to tack on when things felt sufficiently wrapped up but he felt like it was something a father was supposed to say. The acrobat nodded and returned to leaning his full body weight onto his mentor as he fought off heavy blinks. 

"What's got you so upset about change?" Steph asked. "You were quite happy meeting everyone before."

"Coz it's everywhere!" he pouted. "If I'm gonna be old again then I'm gonna be different and if I stay it's still different. Too much."

"What do you mean you'll be different when you're older? We've already told you we've got that sorted," Tim reminded him.

"Dick said so," he mumbled, wanting to go back to snoozing but he'd decidedly said too much for that to be an option. Bruce gently shook his shoulder to keep him awake and mouthed an apology when he got a glare.

"What did Grayson say?" Damian pressed.

"M'ganns DNA...have remnants of her. Change our physiology." Fuck.

"I didn't even think," Tim began. "Yeah, you'd take on some of her shapeshifting abilities."

"So change. Don't want it." To be honest, neither did they.