dick getting de-aged and everything is in a chaos for a little bit but then the batfam is finally settling in when dick goes “hey b, where’s uncle harvey?” and now everyone is like “wtf??” bc they weren’t aware of the lore™️. bruce tries to explain that “uncle harvey is sick” but dick insists on visiting him and giving him presents to make him feel better. bruce keeps saying no. dick eventually finds out harvey’s location (Arkham) from the bar computer and decides to deliver his cards and presents in person. harvey is just “wtf???” but ends up rolling with it.
Stop I love Dick originally having a good relationship with Harvey before he becomes Two-Face 😭 it makes Two-Face beating him half to death with a baseball bat all the more devastating.
But imagine little de-aged nine year old Dick sneaking into Arkham, a backpack full of Alfred’s cookies, Capri Suns, homemade get well soon cards he made with fancy art supplies he found in Damian’s room, and a stuffed animal he thinks Uncle Harvey would like. It’s a penguin, because Uncle Harvey always makes jokes about the Penguin when they see Ozzy at an event.
“Uncle Harvey! Pssst!!” Dick whispers as he unlocks the door to the room Harvey is supposed to be in. “Uncle Harv? Are you here? B said you’re sick.”
“What the hell?” a baffled voice asks, and the light turns on to reveal Two-Face in all his glory staring down at the boy who used to be his favorite nephew. Who still is, really, but he hasn’t seen Dick in ages. But he knows for damn certain the kid isn’t a little kid anymore.
“Uncle Harvey?” Dick asks, his voice shaking as he looks at the burnt half of Harvey’s face. “You’re hurt! Why aren’t you at a real hospital?”
Dick is scampering over to him, and Harvey falls back on his bed, and Dick is fluttering at his bedside with his hands hovering around, unsure of what to do. He has a very concerned look on his face, his lower lip trembling.
And something inside Harvey snaps. Because his little nephew is tearing up and going through the contents of his backpack and decorating the bedside table with homemade cards with silly drawings, shoving juice pouches in his hands, and opening a container of fresh cookies he knows must have been made by Alfred.
“You brought all this for me?”
“Yeah, B said you were sick, I wanted you to feel better.”
Harvey pulls the kid to sit on the bed with him, making sure Dick stays on his good side, not wanting to scare him. Then the kid pulls out a stuffed penguin, and Harvey has to laugh.
“I knew he’d make you feel better,” Dick tells him proudly, shoving the penguin under Harvey’s arm. “You always laugh when we make penguin jokes.”
“Does the penguin have a name?” Harvey asks, remembering how Dick always named every stuffed toy he ever got.
Harvey barks out a laugh, pulling Dick close to him.
“You really have made me feel better, kid.”
“I knew I could. B didn’t believe me, he didn’t wanna let me come see you.”
“You wanna tell me why you’re a pipsqueak again?”
Dick fiddles with his fingers, looking away from Harvey.
“I dunno,” Dick shrugs. “He said a bad guy hit me with something. Maybe I got kidnapped again? He didn’t say.”
Harvey hums, because that does sound like something that would happen to Richie Grayson, but he hadn’t seen anything about it in the news or heard any underground chatter. Arkham really does keep him out of the loop.
But he sees how Dick shrinks in on himself, and he tries to coax him back out of the shell he’s about to retreat into.
“B has lots of other kids now,” Dick whispers, tucking himself deeper under Harvey’s arm. “He wouldn’t play with me at all, and he always tells me a stupid story before bed but he wouldn’t do it even when I asked him to, and he…” Dick hesitates, because he can’t let Harvey know he’s Robin or that Bruce is Batman, but something has been bugging him and upsetting him since he woke up in this weird world where Bruce has a million other kids. “…he calls them chum, too. I thought I was the only one he called chum. He said it was special.”
He hasn’t actually heard Bruce call anyone else chum, but he knows three of the others have been Robin. That one of them is Robin right now. And it made Dick’s skin crawl and made him feel like he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Bruce Wayne is a moron at best,” Harvey tells him without hesitation. “You were always the best of his bunch, though. Always.”
“Why did Bruce say you were sick if you’re not sick? You’re hurt, that’s different. Are you in pain?”
Harvey is quiet for a moment, squeezing his arm around Dick in what he hopes is a comforting manner. It’s been a while since he’s had any physical contact with someone that wasn’t meant to be threatening.
“I’m not in pain right now, no,” he lies to the kid, because there’s no point in worrying him. “Bruce said I’m sick because getting hurt made me go a little crazy, that’s all.”
“Do I visit you when I’m big?”
“Of course you do,” he continues to lie.
“Oh, good,” Dick says with a smile.
They’re quiet again for a while, munching on cookies, until something sparks in Harvey’s mind.
“Wait a minute, how did you get in here?”
“Security guards don’t usually look down.”
Harvey laughs, and Dick grins at him.
When Batman and all his little birds rush in an hour later, Dick puts up a hell of a fight. He kicks and screams and bites, and Harvey is laughing up a storm as the Bat is nearly thwarted by a little kid.
“I’ll come visit you later!” Dick promises him from where he’s thrown over Batman’s shoulder.
“No you won’t,” Batman growls at him.
“I don’t have to listen to you!” Dick snaps, tugging at one the ears on Batman’s cowl. But then he turns to smile at Harvey, waving as he calls, “Bye, Uncle Harvey! Feel better!”
Harvey is cackling in delight even as the other bats hold him down. Not that he was trying to escape. This was the best time he’s had in years.
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