A/N: Title from Mumford and Sons' "After the Storm" which I may or may not have listened to the entire time I was writing this. Cover image is "Everybody Loves Alfred" by ~gabzillaz on DeviantART.
Dick starts the tradition after Batman and Robin's first official victory together.
"How is this one any more official?" Bruce asks, amused.
"This was the first time they said it!" Dick exclaims. He has rust flakes sprinkled in his hair and cape and mud splattered across most of his face, but his smile glitters in the moonlight. "This was the first time they screamed 'Batman and Robin'!"
Bruce hums as he untangles his grappling line from where it's caught in the rubble. Dick scrambles up his back and onto his shoulders, obscuring Bruce's vision with his upside-down manic grin.
"We should celebrate!"
He raises an unimpressed eyebrow; Dick gets the message and nimbly flips off. He looks properly chagrined for all of three seconds before he bounces forward again and tugs sharply at Bruce's cape.
"Please?"
Bruce makes the mistake of looking down at the earnest wide-eyed pout directed at him. He sighs; drops his hand on Dick's head. "Ice-cream?" he asks, eventually.
Dick beams at him, all innocence and uncontrollable excitement, and it isn't right, it shouldn't be possible, for such a small concession to bring so much joy.
Bruce offers him a twist of his lips in return.
After twenty-six closed ice-cream parlors, twelve failed attempts to convince Dick to just eat ice-cream at the Manor, and two hours of grappling—flying, Dick insists—around the city, they finally find the Moo-Moo Palace Creamery in a dingy, forgotten corner of Gotham.
It's open. And, as far as Bruce can tell, that is the extent of its positive attributes. A couple of words come to mind to describe the place. Garish. Nauseating. Over-the-top. Pink.
"Awesome!" cheers Dick, and summersaults off the edge of the building, landing with gusto in front of the monstrosity. Through the smudged windows, he catches a glimpse of the lone server dropping an armful of bowls, mouth hanging ajar. The bejeweled cow lounging above the doorway smiles beatifically at him.
Bruce sighs.
"Uh," says the server. He's still standing in the middle of the chaos of dropped bowls, staring blankly at Robin.
Dick tilts his head and widens his smile. "I said: we're here for ice-cream, Mr…" he squints at the sequined nametag "…Cranstly?"
Mr. Cranstly blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Rubs his face and tries again.
"Yes," he croaks. "Um. Of course."
He wades carefully back to the counter and gestures vaguely at the enormous menu mounted on the wall.
Dick spends fifteen minutes in agonized indecision between mango and coffee-nut crunch before picking cookies and cream, three minutes attempting to engage Mr. Cranstly in conversation, seven minutes chattering at the man once he realizes the former is still questioning his mental sanity, another ten minutes insisting that Bruce also get a scoop ("Batman and Robin celebration," he reminds him), and finally, when Bruce has endured four minutes of Dick protesting that vanilla is the most boring flavor ever, and seriously, B, how could you, he decides his reputation has taken enough of a beating and blindly shoves some cash at Cranstly and sweeps Dick out of the parlor.
Dick waves good-bye at Cranstly from around his cape. And then, after a moment's thought, he waves up at the cow too.
No, scratch that; he has no reputation anymore.
"Thank you," Dick says suddenly, crossing his legs on top of the Batmobile. Bruce peers at him over his ice-cream.
"For tonight. For agreeing to celebrate," He flaps a hand at the smoky buildings crowding the alley. "For all of this."
There's a fragile expression on his face and Bruce is blindsided by the urgent need to fold his cape around the delicate boy in front of him; to hide that beautiful vulnerable open look from the rest of the world. Or maybe to hide from it.
The silence stretches.
He settles for a short nod. Then, almost hesitantly—as hesitant as Batman can be, in any case—he wipes the last smears of cookies and cream from the boy's nose.
And Dick must understand something (is altogether too good at deciphering him, Bruce thinks), because he relaxes into a wide content grin and all but launches into him, forcibly claiming a hug when Bruce has to hold him around the waist to stop from being strangulated.
The boy is an octopus.
"Glad you enjoyed it too, boss," he chirps, pulling back a bit to smirk at him.
Bruce grunts and maneuvers him into the Batmobile.
Later, when they're halfway to the Manor, Dick wriggles in his seat and faces Bruce, oddly solemn.
"It's decided then," he announces, "Batman and Robin ice-cream celebrations are a tradition now."
His gaze flicks to the steering wheel, Bruce's shoulder, and back to his face. "An official tradition, right?" he finishes softly.
Bruce's knee-jerk reaction is a loud and resounding no, but he can feel the prickle of puppy-dog eyes along his cheek and before he turns his head he knows he's fighting a losing battle. And, okay, just sitting with Dick and rubbing ice-cream off his nose and listening to his laughter peal through the streets was not a complete waste of time.
"At that place?" he protests. It sounds weak even to him.
"I like the cow," Dick confides.
Bruce has to suppress the violent urge to drop his head onto the steering wheel.
It becomes a second-Wednesday-of-the-month official tradition, and they follow it religiously.
Nothing less than a full-scale Arkham breakout is enough to justify calling off Batman and Robin Ice-Cream Night, and even then, when the night is finished and they limp back to the Manor, bruised and hurting and tired to the bones, Alfred will be waiting with two bowls of ice-cream.
There's one memorable instance where Batman and Robin had finished patrol early and are in the middle of ordering when Bruce notices the winged signal splashed among the clouds. When they crest the roof of the GCPD building ten minutes later, Robin is holding a cone of mint chocolate chip that he promptly pushes into Commissioner Gordon's hand.
It is a testament to everything the man has seen that he simply tucks his pipe back into his pocket and accepts the ice-cream without a word.
Moo-Moo Palace Creamery is also part of the tradition. Bruce tries to convince himself that they only return to the bejeweled shiny mistake because it is the only ice-cream parlor open past midnight (Bruce has checked. Countless times.) but will admit, under extreme duress, that he's grudgingly fond of it. Of the memories wrapped in and around it.
Dick will never ask for the same ice-cream flavor twice. Mr. Cranstly—who is almost always there when they visit and has regained the use of his voice and wits since their first outing—will grin merrily at Dick and indulge the boy as he asks to sample four different flavors and usually ends up picking an entirely different one.
"Don't you have a favorite flavor?" Bruce asks once. They're perched on a skyscraper, licking at their cones and peering at the city through wispy clouds. Everything glows a hazy burnt orange in the smog.
"Well, I have favorites," Dick answers, drawing out the final letter into a hiss. "But how can I pick one favorite without trying everything first?"
"Everything," Bruce echoes, biting down on a smile.
"Of course," Dick says earnestly, "Otherwise it wouldn't be fair. Any of them could be the one!" He thinks for a minute and wrinkles his nose. "Well, any of them except vanilla. Waaaaaay too boring, B."
Bruce laughs. It's more of a bark than a laugh, really, grating and low and rusty with disuse. But Dick kicks his legs back and forth against the edge of the building and laughs with him.
It echoes back at them from the depths of the city, light and dark and high and low. It sounds nice, Bruce thinks.
It sounds like family.
The first time Bruce takes Jason, he laughs so hard he nearly falls off the roof.
"You're telling me," he wheezes, ignoring Bruce's glare, "the goddam Batman walked in there and bought ice-cream?"
But as soon as they've walked in the door and Jason finds the expansive menu on the wall, his cackles vanish and his mouth falls open. Bruce permits himself a brief vindictive smirk.
Mr. Cranstly hurries over, bright smile on his face.
"Robin," he booms, "Good to see you, dear boy! What will you try today?" He leans across the counter conspiratorially, the move guaranteed to make Dick laugh, even when he grew too old to be rightly amused by such antics.
(Dick would lean across the counter as well, equally secretive look in place. And Bruce would pretend to be exasperated.)
Jason fidgets. A muscle tenses in his jaw.
"Just one scoop of Neapolitan, mister," he says. There's none of the easy charm Dick oozed in dollops.
But his crooked grin and heartfelt thank-you to Cranstly when he's handed his scoop are more than enough to stir something in Bruce's chest. It's the same something that rustled every time Dick looked up at him with that thousand-watt grin, or solved a case, or fired off puns with alarming rapidity at villains who promptly regretted ever taking up a life of crime.
Then, of course, Jason laughs so hard at the sight of Batman and his little cone of vanilla ice-cream that he drops his own onto the floor.
The something doesn't stop stirring though.
Jason never says thank-you, really, in so many words.
But that night when they are enjoying their ice-cream on the edge of Wayne Tower (his birds, for all their differences, have the same perch), capes flapping in the wind, Jason eases himself next to Bruce on the ledge. He's close enough that Bruce can feel the heat radiating from his body.
"Why?" he asks, squinting up at Bruce.
"It's a celebration," he answers gravely, "for Batman and Robin."
"He started it, didn't he?"
"Yes," and Jason stiffens.
"Yes, he started it," he continues, "but tonight's celebration was for us."
And Jason, who for all the time Bruce has known him has carefully cultivated a one-foot minimum distance between them, nods, takes another serene lick of his ice-cream, and leans his head on Bruce's arm.
Bruce very carefully does not freeze, or stop breathing, or anything else of the sort that would ruin the moment. Contrary to the widely-circulated notions his so-called friends very loudly proclaim he does have tact.
(See, Dick says, amusement clear in his posture, ice-cream makes everything better!)
Bruce hates himself a little (a lot) for wildly wishing for a moment that there was a different dark-haired boy next to him.
Nightwing never comes to Batman and Robin Ice-Cream Night.
And Bruce supposes he forfeited the right to ask him to come the same night he took away the mantle that was never his to take.
Then, about three months after Nightwing and Robin's first explosive meeting, he starts to notice that Jason's visits to Titans Tower always correspond with tubs of vanilla or Neapolitan ice-cream appearing in the Cave freezer.
Jason shrugs. "They always have too much in their freezer." He throws his arms in the air, exasperated. "I dunno if they're preparing for the next heat wave or alien invasion or global disaster, but there's no way I'm refusing to take some perfectly good ice-cream with me."
"Besides," he continues with a scowl, "it's hard enough wrestling a tub of Neapolitan away from that damn red and yellow trashcan."
"Language," Bruce says. His throat is suspiciously tight.
Jason is very, very adamant that Neapolitan is unequivocally the best ice-cream flavor ever invented, and that Bruce is clearly very, very daft for suggesting he try anything else.
But Bruce is persistent. He's been told it's one of his, ah, defining traits.
"How 'bout we make a deal," Jason says, mouth twisting mischievously. "I'll try a new flavor each time, as long as I also get Neapolitan."
Bruce purses his lips. "You just want two scoops of ice-cream."
Jason sticks his tongue out. "Duh."
Bruce briefly contemplates whether tipping Jason off the roof would cause significant harm. It probably would, he decides after a minute. To Bruce that is. Alfred would never forgive him.
Jason waggles his tongue. Bruce glares.
"Fine," Jason huffs, "if I ever find something that tastes better than Neapolitan, then we'll go back to one scoop."
Bruce offers his hand. "Deal," he says crisply. Jason's grin as he shakes his hand cracks his face in half and shaves years off his shoulders. He looks painfully young.
Bruce twitches an eyebrow. "You'll have to try every flavor on the board, Robin," he rumbles, "Including avocado."
Jason chokes and nearly hacks up a lung.
They never make it to avocado. They never even make it halfway across the list.
And it's a long time before Bruce thinks about anything as mundane, as frivolous, as ice-cream again.
By the time Tim enters his life Bruce has become so accustomed to dismantling the very idea of Robin from his life and work that any 'official' traditions that may have existed have long ago been locked away into their own special fail-safe adamantium mental boxes.
New boxes for new traumas, a Batman approved method for successfully dealing with life.
And for those who tried to convince him otherwise, Bruce had no qualms telling them to shut the hell up and mind their own damn business.
But it's surprisingly easy, almost natural, to fall into a routine with Tim. It's easy to maneuver around him in the Batcave, it's easy to crouch side-by-side silent as whispers in the rafters of a building, it's easy to fight with him at his back and trust that he only needs to direct his attention forward.
It's not easy calling him Robin, though. Some ghosts are never content to sleep.
On the whole, though, Bruce would say this new fragile experiment is going well. As well as he could have hoped.
Then he overhears one of Nightwing and Robin's conversations one rainy evening.
It's a quiet patrol, the rain coming down thick and heavy enough to deter all but the staunchest or most unhinged criminals. Bruce lands a little heavier than he would have liked on the ledge above where Robin and Nightwing are huddled together under the scant cover of a snarling gargoyle.
Nothing. Not even the slightest bit of recognition from his birds. Bruce scowls and edges forward, fully meaning to promise them a month of hellish workouts if they couldn't hear someone landing a mere four feet from their heads, when Dick leaps to his feet, face furious.
"That," he growls, "was possibly the stupidest bullshit I have ever heard come out of your mouth."
Tim remains hugging his knees, refusing to look up at Dick.
"What happened to 'Batman needs a Robin'?" Dick continues, throwing his arms out.
"That's still true. I just don't think I'm…what he's looking for."
Bruce watches in bewilderment as Tim tucks his face into his knees, shoulders slumping. Dick sinks back onto his knees, anger gone as quick as it arrived, and gently pushes Tim's face back up.
"Timmy, listen to me, you're the best possible person for this job. You're better than me, you're better than…" he sucks in a sharp breath "you're better than Jason, you're almost reaching Alfie's level when it comes to sheer brilliance, you bonehead."
That brings a shaky smile to Tim's face, but he says mock-seriously, "You're skirting awfully close to blasphemy there, Nightwing. Nobody comes near Alfred's level of brilliance."
Dick chuckles. "Forgive me, you're right, that was excessive."
"But...I don't think B thinks that. I think what he wants most is for you to be Robin again."
Dick lets out an exaggerated groan and drags Tim into a half-hug with his left arm.
"Well, B is a bonehead too, and if we don't get back to this miserable wet patrol he'll be a furious bonehead who'll make us wish neither of us ever thought associating with him was a good idea."
Tim snorts and shoves Dick off the ledge, diving gracefully off after his affronted yelp.
Bruce is left alone with the pounding rain and his own whirling thoughts. Everything sounds strangely muted beneath the drumming in his head.
Alfred only quirks an eyebrow at him.
He's regressed back to age twelve, sitting hunched on a stool at the kitchen counter, cradling a mug of hot chocolate as Alfred cleans up for the night.
"Well, Master Bruce, you haven't shown the boy he's anything worth looking twice at."
Bruce sputters in indignation. "I made him Robin!"
"After he begged for it."
"But I trained him, I made him my partner! I work with him just fine!"
"And nothing more than that, sir." Alfred looks up from scrubbing a pan to raise his brows meaningfully.
Something ugly coils tighter in Bruce's chest, around the boxes in his head.
"No."
"Master Bruce!" Alfred scolds, the disappointment dripping from his tone making Bruce duck his head. Alfred closes the tap and comes over to Bruce, laying a hand on his shoulder in a rare display of affection.
"A partnership works both ways, sir."
Bruce smiles wryly. "Thanks Alfred."
Alfred nods crisply and walks back to the sink, calling over his shoulder, "Now go take that hot chocolate somewhere else and let me get back to my work, Master Bruce, or else you won't be getting any breakfast tomorrow."
A little less than a month later he lands silently behind Nightwing and Robin on one of their dual patrols again, and this time he's gratified to see them both acknowledge him with a brief nod.
"Patrol is done for the night."
When they both stare back at him with identical baffled expressions he clears his throat awkwardly.
"It's Wednesday. Specifically, it's the second Wednesday of the month." he says gruffly. Dick huffs out an incredulous laugh and Tim's mouth hangs open.
"Batman and Robin Ice-Cream Night?" Tim asks after a moment. Bruce nods gravely, and his chest twinges painfully at how Tim's entire body lights up.
Dick smiles softly at Tim before crossing his arms and turning a glare at Bruce. "It's about time."
Bruce misses the time when everything between them wasn't a stand-off, misses it with an urgent longing that sucks all the fight out of his voice.
"You could come," he pleads.
For a moment Dick wavers, and Bruce allows something like hope to uncurl, before Dick's face closes off again, and he shakes his head.
"No. This is a Batman and Robin celebration, and I'm not part of that partnership anymore."
And they're back. Back to daring the other to back down out of misplaced pride or love, Bruce can't be sure which.
A loud groan breaks the loaded silence.
They both turn startled looks at Tim, who takes his face out of his hands in favor of giving both of them an Alfred-worthy exasperated glare. "You two are such idiots."
"You," he turns an accusing finger at Bruce, "is a simple apology so hard? And you," the finger moves to Dick, "if we can all say that 'Batman, Robin, and Nightwing will never die' then I'm personally completely fine with making this a Batman, Robin, and Nightwing Ice-cream Night. Now come on, it's already twelve thirty and you both know the place closes at one!"
With that he tosses a last glare at the pair of them and leaps off the building.
Dick shakes his head at the place where Tim was a moment ago, and Bruce clears his throat awkwardly again.
"Dick, I—"
"It's fine, B." Dick glances up at Bruce, bemused smile twisting his mouth to the side. "I forgave you for that a long time ago. Robin's right, I was just being an idiot."
Bruce nods. He's slightly dizzy and loose-limbed, a little like someone replaced his bones with rubber and then set him teetering on a tightrope. Over a waterfall. During a hurricane.
Dick's face breaks slowly into the thousand watt grin that still dazzles Bruce with its intensity before he mock-salutes and summersaults off after Tim.
"Don't keep us waiting, boss!"
When they drop down in front of Moo-Moo Palace Creamery they don't see Mr. Cranstly, but they do make the teenage girl working at the counter drop her phone with a clatter. She has green hair, a nose ring, and the look of someone faced with the realization that pigs can fly, and oh, they also poop glitter.
"He was telling the truth," she mutters to herself, phone still forgotten on the ground, "the old man's stories were true."
"Speaking of him," Dick says, "where is Mr. Cranstly, Miss Sood?"
"He's on vacation, has been for the last month," she stammers, coloring slightly, "and please, call me Tara."
Tim snickers quietly, and Tara shakes back into herself.
"Right, uh, ice-cream." She stoops to pick up her phone and slide it into her pocket. "Well, you're all still going to have to pay, crime-fighting heroes or not, because otherwise that money comes out of my paycheck, but what can I interest you in today?"
She gestures at the wall menu and gives them all a mostly cheerful smile. It's a little manic around the corners, but Bruce mentally gives her points for regaining the use of her voice so quickly.
Dick orders cookies and cream with a wry smirk at Bruce, Tim regards the flavors with intense calculation before ordering the mango sorbet, and Bruce quietly mutters 'vanilla,' to the girl while his two boys snort into their ice-cream behind him.
"See you next month!" Tim calls to Tara as they make their way out with their cones, and her answering laugh is just a touch hysterical.
Bruce knows that Dick is the messiest ice-cream eater he has ever seen, licking only one side until the whole scoop teeters unsteadily and letting what seems like half the ice-cream drip off the cone; he knows that Jason is, by comparison, remarkably neat, and always prefers to lick the scoop into a sharp tower and then bite off the top; he knows that Tim devours his scoop in neat concentric circles, making it a personal challenge to keep the rough shape of the ice-cream exactly the same until he gets down to the cone.
But he has no idea how Stephanie eats her ice-cream.
He has a thousand excuses available, a thousand straws to hang by. She was only Robin for a few months. Moo-Moo Palace Creamery was destroyed in the initial quake before Gotham descended into chaos. He was too busy training her and restraining her to scour Gotham for another place.
But in the deep recesses of his mind all the straws disintegrate the moment he grasps for them; all his half-formed explanations ring hollow and void. She had lain on that metal gurney in front of him, torn and battered and tortured—but not broken, never broken—and asked him with a raspy raw voice if she'd ever really been Robin.
"Of course you were," he'd said, tone carefully neutral while it felt as though someone was taking pleasure in ripping his ribs out one by one.
"Of course you were," he'd said, while he remembered how a snide voice in the back of his head had constantly commented on her inferiority to Tim, had repeatedly referred to her as Tim's temporary replacement.
"Of course you were," he'd said, while inside, he shattered apart.
Of course Stephanie Brown had really been Robin, if only Bruce hadn't been too self-absorbed to realize it before she was running on fumes and her last handful of heartbeats.
Bruce is uncomfortably aware that he is being used.
When a two day stopover in Gotham before traveling to Korea on Batman Inc. business had turned into a month-long stay due to injuries sustained during patrol, Dick had looked shockingly satisfied under the concern.
"At least now you'll stay for longer than a handful of days," he poked Bruce carefully in the unbandaged part of his chest, "and spend some time with your family."
Bruce couldn't muster the energy for a proper Bat-glare, so he settled for coughing disdainfully into his arm.
Then, today, before heading down to the Bat bunker, Dick had looked in on Bruce reading in bed, and said with a manic grin, "Be sure to rest up now and be ready to be up late, Bruce."
Bruce felt the dread really seep in when Damian stuck his face under Dick's arm and nodded agreement.
"Tonight is the night for strengthening our familial bonds, Father, as Grayson informed you. Your conscious presence is required."
Dick had winked at him. "I even got special permission from Alfie."
And now, Bruce is watching the steady, almost endless stream of people into his room. All carrying bowls of ice-cream.
First Barbara wheels herself in, bowl of mint chocolate chip balanced carefully on her legs, and tosses him a bright smile before placing herself next to the armchair. Tim walks in a moment later with a light brown ice-cream scoop, and folds himself onto the foot of Bruce's bed. Bruce detects a faint whiff of coffee, which in his opinion is a little excessive, but he knows better than to voice that out loud. Cassandra and Stephanie walk in side-by-side, Stephanie chattering quickly while Cass giggles and nods. Cass immediately drapes herself on the bed next to Bruce as well, cradling her Rocky Road easily and nudging Tim over to make room. Stephanie gives Bruce a tentative smile and then takes her ridiculously colorful ice-cream over to the armchair next to Barbara. Finally, Dick strolls in with two bowls of ice-cream in his arms, and hands one over to Bruce before settling down on the floor at Barbara's feet.
It's vanilla, with…black sprinkles? Bruce looks closer. With Batman sprinkles.
He isn't sure what his face is doing right this moment, but whatever it is, it causes Tim to snort loudly and Stephanie to dissolve into helpless giggles while the rest snicker and Dick grins mercilessly, eyes twinkling.
"They're actually really popular, Bruce, you can find them in every grocery store in Gotham."
In the middle of the general ruckus Damian walks in and sniffs haughtily at all of them. Bruce holds his breath as he glares at Tim on Bruce's bed for a moment, but then he storms over to Dick and looks grudgingly pleased at the hand Dick drags through his hair.
This sets off another round of laughter that Bruce can't help but join, can't help but treasure, because Dick was right, he doesn't spend enough time with his family. He breathes easier than he has since he fought his way back to the present as Alfred walks in with his own scoop and a DVD, as Dick rubs a spot of ice-cream off of Damian's nose, as Tim and Stephanie bicker loudly over the sadly ignored movie ("Coffee ice-cream, Tim, really?" "Well, it's better than whatever that sugary mess is!" "Birthday cake, Tim, it's practically cake inside ice-cream, this is what heaven tastes like.").
However, an hour in, ice-creams finished, and peace largely restored, they all jolt into high alert when there is a distant tinkle of broken glass from the ground floor.
Cass is actually almost through the window to investigate before Dick calms everyone down and explains, "I, uh, may have gotten Jason a tub of ice-cream and broken into his house to put it in his fridge." He rubs his head sheepishly. "There's a possibility he didn't take that so well."
Sure enough, there is video footage of Jason in his Red Hood getup flashing the camera two middle fingers after lobbing an ice-cream tub through the glass of the front door.
But the tub of Neapolitan is empty. And again, Bruce breathes easy. It's a start.
At some point in the night half of them fall asleep on the other half, sprawling and snoring unashamedly, but Bruce lies awake watching them all.
Bruce is no poet; he prefers dealing with blows and puzzles rather than slippery words, but he knows what he would name the fragile warmth sitting low in his chest that tingles all the way to his fingertips and soothes electric touches across the dark places in his mind.
Home.