“You realize we’re practically the Gilmore Girls.”
Sitting on the edge of a table in Cyborg’s once-pristine lab, Nightwing drew Batman’s cape tighter around his body. “Well, you took me in when I was eight and you were twenty-four. That means I was born when you were sixteen.”
“And that makes us the Gilmore Girls?” Bruce asked as his hands ran over the edge of the destroyed concrete and steel.
NIghtwing shrugged or as best he could with his banged-up arm. “It’s a TV show about a young mother from a rich family who had a kid at sixteen, runs away, and works her way up from being a maid at an inn.”
“I see the very few similarities. Hard work. Young parent.”
“The biggest difference really is that her front desk personnel is French Canadian, not British, so he doesn’t make questionably edible cucumber sandwiches.”
Batman let out a noise that could have been misconstrued as a laugh. “Don’t let Alfred hear you.”
“I mean, they’re not terrible, but I wouldn’t call them good.”
The conversation hit a lull then, allowing pain and exhaustion to find Nightwing again. The lab explosion – set off by Lex Luthor or Gorilla Grodd or whoever was now a part of the Secret Society of Super Villains – had trapped them in a collapsed pocket of the Watchtower. Nightwing couldn’t tell how long they’d been holed up, but it had been some time since he regained consciousness.
“Keep talking,” Batman demanded as he picked up his tablet and began to type.
NIghtwing rolled his eyes. “You know that’ll take up more oxygen, and we don’t know if we’re cut off from the watchtower’s tanks.”
“We are, but if you lose consciousness again, we’ll be in a worse predicament.”
Which was why Nightwing currently wore Batman’s cape, despite the fact that there could be people who didn’t know Batman’s identity right outside the wall of twisted metal and concrete.
Blood had already caked upon Nightwing’s forehead and cheek from a rogue piece of concrete that hit him. He pointedly ignored the limp arm that lay across his hip as his legs dangled over the edge of the lab table.
“You just had to invite me today, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I did,” Batman said as a matter of fact, not even looking up from his tablet. “Today’s our anniversary.”
“Our what!” NIghtwing let out a high-pitched laugh. “Bruce, last time I checked, you did not put a ring on it.”
“I put one on Selina.” Batman frowned at a particular reading on his tablet and tapped across the screen. “On this day, fifteen years ago, you ran the gauntlet and officially became my partner.”
NIghtwing ducked his head, though he knew it wouldn’t hide the sudden heat that rushed to his cheeks. “You remember that? You have literally forgotten my birthday five times, but you remember Batman and Robin’s anniversary.”
“Twice,” Bruce corrected.
“I’ve only forgotten your birthday twice.”
This, Nightwing knew well. “It’s definitely five times.” He lifted a finger for each point. “The latest one, the second one, my eleventh birthday, my fourteenth birthday cuz I wanted a quad and didn’t get it, and my twenty-first.”
Batman sighed, and even though Nightwing could read Batman’s face almost as well as Bruce’s, he found the distressed lines across Bruce’s forehead and the tightening of his jaw unnerving.
“When you were turning fourteen, there was no way I was buying you that death machine, and I didn’t want to see you disappointed. So I left Alfred to give you your consolation present, and Wally was throwing you a birthday party in Central City anyway. You didn’t need me there.
“When you turned twenty-one, you were celebrating most holidays with your friends, and I would have simply been the chaperone you no longer needed. So I gave Wally my credit card number and told him to charge everything to me.”
Why didn’t Wally tell him? “Bruce, I didn’t – ”
“And on your last birthday, I visited you, even brought you drinks at Bea’s. I would have given you a present if I thought you would have taken it.”
Dick thought back to his last birthday. As Ric, he didn’t even remember the day was special. He drove his cab for ten hours and then crashed at Bea’s bar in the evening, where a friendly guy named Matches struck up a conversation and – shit.
“You know what?” Nightwing motioned toward their quasi-cage. “I feel this whole situation is entrapment.”
Batman gave him a flat, exasperated glower. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”
“I can’t let a good pun go.” Nightwing shrugged. “Any luck finding us a way out?”
“I have a contingency plan.”
Batman looked absolutely pained. “I’d rather wait a few more minutes. Unless you are in need of immediate medical attention, I think I’d like to see if I come up with a different exit strategy.”
“Bruce.” It was not a whine but damn close to one. “We’ve been in here for hours.”
“My arm is broken, and I probably have a concussion. I just want some painkillers and my bed. Whatever plan you have, do it already.”
“Hm.” Batman grumbled and then said in the lowest, most menacing growl possible, “Superman, help.”
The frustrated and annoyed look on Bruce’s face when Clark arrived was the best present Dick ever received.
