We Tripped On The Urge To Feel Alive.

Dick: I hate how everyone thinks or just assumes that my favourite superhero is Superman. Like how did that even get out? Why is it like something everyone know about me? It isn't even true!

Tim: As a professional stalker, it's probably because Clark and Bruce think it's Superman.

Dick, serious: Trust me, Clark knows it isn't Superman.

Jason: Then why does he keep giving you his merch?

Dick: It's different, okay? He always gives me the first piece of his new merch. It was originally because I was possibly the only child he knew, but now, it's just our thing.

Tim and Jason: *raise an eyebrow*

Jason: But you know what that looks like to others, right? Superman giving you his merch?

Dick, opens mouth, closes it, opens it again: I never considered that. But still, you'd think people would ask, right? I mean, between the three of us, we have the same favourite.

Jason, immediately: My favourite is Wonder Women.

Tim, not having it: Your favourite member of the Justice League is Wonder Women, not your favourite superhero.

Jason: *huffs but doesn't disagree*

Dick: And you know what? Even when I was younger, Supes was never my favourite—

Bruce: *walks within hearing range but not visual range*

Dick cont.: I liked that he smiled and laughed, you know?

Jason and Tim, with their backs to Bruce: *look absolutely baffled*

Bruce: *freezes*

Dick cont.: Superman could just... save a kitten... or you know... stop a crash and then go fight Lex Luther and then crack a joke with a kid. He could do anything and that appealed to me. I liked that.

Bruce, heartbroken at the implication that Dick liked Superman more because Clark smiled and laughed whilst in costume while he was bound by the constraints of the persona he created for himself: *walks away, out of hearing range*

Dick: But really, my favourite superhero was never costumed. It was Bruce... Well, it is Bruce, not was.

Tim, grinning like a gremlin: Was huh?

Dick: NOPE! Not was, is and forever has been and will be. Just like Batman is my favourite costumed hero.

Jason: I still say Wonder Women is bet—

Dick and Tim: *give him the look*

Jason: Alright, fine. But Bruce is my dad, okay? I'm biased. Of course, he's my favourite. He saved me! If I wasn't biased, it would be...

Tim and Dick: *Stare harder*

Diana rests a hand on Clark's shoulder, shaking her head. "I am sorry, friend." His shoulders sag, and Dick feels worry flutter in his stomach as he steps properly into the room.

"Supes? You alright?"

The blue fingers of his glove itch to reach out, but he needs a better read on the situation first.

"Bruce is avoiding me."

Okay.... "And you're not mad? Usually you two get into a second fight about it."

Diana nods. "Indeed. The issue is, Nightwing, they never had a first fight."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"Which is why..."

"Yup."

"You're worried."

"You know it's bad when he gets like this." Clark rubs his face. "Have you guys noticed anything?"

Dick thinks back. "No, I was at the manor with Tim and Jason yesterday, but we didn't see Bruce."

A week later, Dick climbs through Clark's window, smiling apologetically when Lois startles. "Hey guys, sorry to bust in."

"'Marry a superhero,' they said," she mutters, giving him a kind smile as she takes her plate and moves from the dining table to the kitchen island.

Clark's gaze rakes over him, and Dick slips into Lois' vacated seat.

"Dick?"

"It's Bruce." Clark's fork freezes on the way to spearing a piece of pasta, and it's Superman whose eyes snap to his. "I've noticed something."

"Everything alright?" Lois calls when Clark sags in his seat, like he did last week on the Watchtower.

"'S not hero business, Lo, c'mon back."

The three of them catch up through dinner, after Dick is served up the serving Clark was going to have for lunch tomorrow. (Lois had offered hers, but the garbled noise of affront from her husband set the two of them into a fit of giggles as Clark made perfectly clear he was not going to let that happen.)

It's afterwards, as Dick curls up in their armchair and the couple settles into the accompanying couch, that they return to the broody elephant in the room.

"He won't look at me. Not when I'm looking back. But he's just been staring at me, all sad-like, whenever I'm not looking at him. And it's even worse on patrol! The first thing I noticed was he smiled at me, in the cowl, which wasn't that unusual, but there wasn't anything smile-y around. Then I was joking with Tim, and he laughed, which he never does in the field, you know what he's like."

"Mm," Clark hums.

"So, you know, I checked him for contamination, and that's when the staring started. He looked so down in the dumps during the checks, and it hasn't stopped since."

Clark nods, tracing the lines of Ma Kent's throw as he thinks. "He's like that with me, too. That's how Diana and I caught on, anyhow. Every smile, or time I was the one to guide a child away, he'd get all down until the mission distracted him again."

"But Bruce loves kids."

Lois takes a sip from her water, humming in the back of her throat. "And you know he's always gearing up that deadpan humour of his, to try and make the Superman crack a smile at the wrong moment."

"Ass," Clark mutters, without venom.

"So, it's both of us."

"What did you do?" Lois asks sternly.

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"Not a thing, babe."

"Really? Nothing at all in the last week? You didn't talk bad, you didn't do anything?"

"No!"

"No."

ShenJiu my pretty princess