beware:

🦻 ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ: ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ​🇫​​🇺​​🇱​​🇱​ ​🇧​​🇦​​🇹​​🇹​​🇪​​🇷​​🇾​     — Right hand fingers touch his mouth before flicking away from his body.¹ His eyebrow is lifted in question but he figures he already knows the answer. Clint feels concussed. A hiss he can’t hear falls unfiltered from his mouth as he feels gloved hands at the back of his head.

Bad?¹

Can't be certain without tests but the odds were likely. He hovers behind him a bit longer, inspecting much closer just in case there would be any other proof of harm before he settles back to move to the archer's view.

                  " Yes. "

He answered simply but not before taking his cape off to drape around his shoulders and call in the bat-wing. Leslie was closer. She could help figure it out while he makes sure to keep Clint alive until his daughter comes find him.

lovesick fools. @worldsokayestdad

They've been awake for nearly thirty-six hours chasing the case she had suggested a few days ago at the Hall. It felt like Batman had been the only one listening to her, willing to help her night & day, but mostly nights. This time at the Batcave.

She had been reading that sentence way too many times. Black Canary insisted she was fine. Five minutes later she was asleep in the chair beside the Batcomputer, arms folded, head tilted awkwardly. ( thank God she had not been drooling over his desk ! )

Meanwhile, Bruce finished going over surveillance footage, all focused & all very serious. Very Batman. He looked over, Dinah was still asleep. He paused for a second, probably pondering on his next move. Finally, he walked over to wake her... paused... gently brushed a blonde strand of hair away from her face. Without thinking, he pressed a brief kiss to the top of her head. Then immediately walked away as if nothing happened.

A platter of tea in one hand and a cough into the other as if BRUCE hadn't noticed him eavesdropping even before that.

" No. " It is the only warning he gives him as he walked on over and took a cup in the hopes that would be enough to keep the man quiet, standing just a few feet from Dinah and hopefully out of earshot. Temporarily ignoring the fact how even whispers can carry in a space like this.

" I didn't say anything, Master Bruce. " Alfred's voice quickly retorted, setting the platter down on a different table and hover closer to his stubborn son. " It's been years since Miss Kyle. Don't you think something less complicated might be a better change of pace? "

Bruce's eyes turn to Dinah then. Hands clenching around the cowl in his hand as if that would offer better understanding to the situation or his own feelings.

" She's already got a lot on her plate. It would be a big ask to involve mine in hers. " He argued, curtly, trying to put the best words to use when they still feel so jumbled in his head. " Enough. You might wake her. " Quickly trying to shoo him away then so they could be left alone until he could see Dinah stirring.

He leaned forward, snatched the bottle, TURNING it in his hand. "------- &&& for the record, if we were bros, I’d know your tragic backstory, your favorite color AND we’d have at least one regrettable road trip together." A pause. Then he cracked the seal.

He looks on, slightly amused. Picking up a nearby stick he could use to poke at the fire as the soft sizzle of a fresh opened bottle interrupted the short quiet that followed.