-It's part 69 can I get a NICE-
-might make a mini series where league members watch the brothers, would y'all like that?-
Ages
Tim - 13
Jason - 11
Dick - 8
09:00 am
"For the last time, Bruce, I've got it. It's one day."
His colleague ignored his reassurance. "Tim will be heading out around three and will be gone until five. Contact information is on the fridge in case there's an emergency -but there won't be an emergency, right boys?" His sons nodded mutely.
"Tim, watch your brothers."
"Of course." He turned to Clark intelligently. "I'll watch them until three, and I can take over again when I get home."
"Oh, well thanks, Tim."
"It's my job." He beamed like a faulty spotlight going through a good patch.
"Jason, I don't want you to use any pyrotechnics, I don't want you to touch the stove, no boiling oil, no knives, and I want all blowtorches used responsibly and with adult supervision."
"Buzzkill." the eleven-year-old exclaimed
"and Dick, what won't we do?"
The youngest boy suddenly found the floor tiling extremely interesting. His muttering was nearly silent
"What was that, Richard?"
"snap my arm in two?"
"We aren't going to climb on things or do anything dangerous, right?" He patted his youngest's shoulder. "But you're right, we aren't going to break our arms either."
Dick nodded.
"Okay Jason, Dick, let's say goodbye." Tim knew his father would stay behind concernedly quizzing his workmate for the next four days.
"Bye." Jason skipped from the room.
"Goodbye." Dick gave his father a hug, as if he might vanish into thin air.
"Promise you'll come back?"
"I will, I promise."
"Come on, Dick." Tim gently tugged the scruff of his brother's shirt. "Bye Bruce, have a good trip -well, as good as you can."
"Goodbye, Dick, Tim, take care of your brothers, call me if Damian comes back."
"I will, Bye." Tim managed to pull off his little brother and drag him to the other room. Probably to reassure him that he wouldn't loose three parents in one year.
Clark stood dead and let Bruce threaten him.
"I don't want to hear about anyone getting injured."
"You won't hear about it -I mean- you won't hear about to because it won't happen." Clark explained hastily.
"Bruce, you don't have to worry about it, It's eighteen hours. I've got everything under control."
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10:07 am
"Jay, did you do your homework already?" Tim sat on his Jason's bed, watching his brother dig into a bag of Dorritos and a first person shooter.
Jason did't say anything.
"Is it math or English?"
Tim was torn between saying 'you can't do it later' and 'don't make me do it myself'.
"Fuck You!"
"I'll do it myself later-"
Tim suddenly realized he'd spoken aloud and turned pink. Thankfully his brother you too young to get it.
"Your're so weird. and awkward." His brother tried to ask.
"Do your homework- or no more video games." Tim grabbed his controller and swiftly put it atop the bookshelf.
"Tim!" His brother whined. "It's a live game!"
"Pause it." Tim grinned, explicitly to annoy his brother.
"I can't pause it!"
"Then you better do your homework quickly." Tim scurried form the room, slamming the door shut.
Downstairs, Clark was talking to, and supervising, Dick; who was lamenting English homework. The youngest Wayne son was not only ESL, but had to join school half-way through the year, and was deathly bewildered by all his 4th grade work sheets.
"Do you need any help, Dick?"
"What's this?" The young boy pushed his finger into the page where he misunderstood the questions.
There was a note attached to the pages, instructing the boy's guardian that Dick had been unable to do his work in class and needed to finish at home. It seemed, from context, more often than not Dick came home with notes like this; citing his confusion over the English language and inability to pay attention as cause enough.
"In this worksheet you write if the sentence starts with 'A' or 'An'."
Dick nodded. "I overstand this?"
"Overstand?"
"Like und'stand, but, not."
Dick explained; rather shyly since he'd guessed the word.
"Oh," Clark smiled, coughing out a slight laugh. "you don't understand."
"I was wrong?" He asked desperately. He seemed very insecure about his understanding of the language.
"No, no," Clark Kent reassured, scared the boy would panic and cry, he got the impression this happened frequently. "That was a very creative way to say that you don't understand something."
Dick went quiet, staring at his workbook, still emotionally stressed by the idea he might be an eight-year-old failure, incapable of understanding one of the most complicated languages on earth.
His eyes were glossy as he tried to find his pencil.
"Hey, Hey, you said you were having trouble with this one, right?" The man quickly tried jerking his attention back to the page.
"Yeah?" He croaked.
"This one is an 'A'. 'Blue is A favorite colour of mine.' See?"
Dick nodded a little. "Yea, because f is a soft sound. I und'stand..."
Clark leaned back against the bottom of the couch.
'I make a great dad, just saying...'
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03:15 pm
"Hey Jay, I'm going out."
"Kay!"
Tim zipped up his hoodie and kicked downstairs.
"Goodbye, I'm going out now."
"Where?" His brother stood and raced over.
"It's Saturday, Dickie, I have my meeting today." Tim had a small support group, he couldn't talk about stress from 'work stuff', obviously; but since he'd started (two weeks after watching the Graysons plummet to their deaths) He felt a lot more comfortable managing with his weird-ass, trauma-filled family.
"Timmy, don't go! You can't!"
Neither of the little brothers really knew what Tim's meetings were, when they asked, he always just said they made him feel better.