Author's Note: Here's the first half of a little Father's Day piece featuring young Dick. My goal is to post the second half on Father's Day.

After you've enjoyed 'Batgammon' I hope you'll swing by my website at www dot jleehazlett dot com and check out some of my original fiction. Fans of young Dick might enjoy 'The 57-10', while those who prefer a good crime story will like 'The Hand Job'.

As always, happy reading!

Alfred wasn't sure what he had expected when he left the kitchen to see what his younger charge had been up to all morning. What he was sure of was that finding the full contents of the games closet scattered about had never crossed his mind as a possibility. "…Master Dick," he sighed as he surveyed the bright boxes stacked in teetering piles all over the floor, "what on earth are you doing?"

The ten-year-old backed out of the open closet with his hands full. "I'm looking for backgammon." He tiptoed through the maze he'd made, found a spot for the load in his arms, and then turned to face Alfred again. "But I can't find it anywhere. We have it, don't we? I mean…" Dick indicated his handiwork. "We have every other game ever made."

"It certainly seems that we do," Alfred agreed. "Particularly when one sees them all out at the same time."

Dick blushed. "…Oh. I kind of made a mess, didn't I? Don't worry, I'll put it all away like it was. I just want to find backgammon first. Do you know where it is?"

"I do know where it is, young sir, but I'm afraid you won't like my answer." The truth of the matter was that Bruce had long ago banished the game from the house. The fit of pique in which he'd pronounced that sentence had come after a string of near-wins against Alfred in which the then-preteen's strategy had been flawless. Only his luck had been lacking, and the butler knew full well that his inability to control that factor had been what drove Bruce over the edge of tolerance.

Usually Alfred wouldn't have complied with an order as absurd as the one that had been issued that day. It would have been far more reasonable to hide the game in his own rooms until a calmer age arrived, as he had done with other objects upon which Bruce's baleful eye had been turned. The backgammon incident had been the first of the boy's full-on pubescent rages, though, and the intensity of his ire had convinced Alfred that it was best to abide by his charge's wish. The high-end board and pieces hadn't been cheap, but they weren't family heirlooms, either. They had been gotten rid of without much guilt on his part.

Dick blinked at him for a moment after he'd finished giving a simplified version of the events of two decades earlier. "So…we don't have it at all?"

"I'm afraid we don't." Dick sighed sadly, and Alfred felt his own mouth turn down in response. "Was there some special reason you were looking for it?"

"It's just something I used to play with my dad, and I thought maybe Bruce and I could play it together, too. You know, since this weekend is Father's Day and it's supposed to be rainy and gross out. But I guess he wouldn't want to play backgammon even if we did have it, since he didn't like it before." Dick glanced at the numerous containers he'd removed from storage. "I probably should have asked you if we had it before I dug through everything, huh? It would have been faster."

"It would have saved you a fair bit of time, yes, but that isn't cause to feel bad about the method you chose instead. I see no reason to fault you for seizing the initiative and helping yourself. Provided, of course, that you put everything back where it belongs."

Dick's expression turned pleading. "Will you help me? Some of those shelves are higher than I can reach from the ground. It will go way faster if I don't have to climb up to put things away like I did when I got them down."

Alfred shuddered and tried not to think about the injuries that could have resulted had the boy fallen in the confines of the narrow walk-in closet. "If you'll bring me the stacks, Master Dick, I will fill the shelves that are too tall for you. And if in the future you should want something that you can't reach without climbing, come and get me. Master Wayne would not be happy if he knew you were secretly scaling the furniture."

"But you won't tell him, right? If I promise not to anymore, I mean?"

The child's tone was so eager that an indulgent smile slipped across the butler's lips. "If you promise to stop treating the household fixtures as a jungle gym, young sir, it will stay between us."

It took a mere fifteen minutes for them to replace everything that Dick had pulled out. Alfred wasn't surprised to learn that the boy had created a mental system to help him track where each stack had come from. Such mind tricks were, after all, the sort of thing that Batman was keen on. "Last one!" Dick announced finally. "…There. Thanks for helping me, Alfred. Now I know what all my options are for Sunday. Although I really wish Bruce didn't hate backgammon so much. Dad and I used to play it all the time…"

"Which game do you think you'll suggest in place of it?" Thinking about a happy activity in the near future, Alfred hoped, would keep his charge from dwelling on the reason why he wasn't able to spend Father's Day with his biological parent. Besides, so long as they were already standing in the middle of the collection he might as well pull out the box that was most likely to be wanted when the weekend arrived.

"Umm…gosh. There's so many. Can I think about it?"

"Of course you may. Just let me know by Saturday evening, and I'll be sure to have whatever you'd like out and waiting for you and Master Wayne to enjoy together."

Dick beamed. "Thanks, Alfred. You're the best." And with that he scurried from the room, headed off on some new pre-lunch adventure that Alfred was sure he couldn't even begin to imagine.

Alfred left at a slower pace, deep in thought. Many of the things he had once had to hide from Bruce had been successfully re-introduced as his charge aged; maybe now was the time to add backgammon to that list. Even if it didn't make the billionaire happy, Dick's joy at seeing the game was sure to counter any negativity. The fact that the boy had gone through an entire closet looking for it just so he could share something with his second father that he'd enjoyed with his first wouldn't be lost on Bruce, either. Of that much, Alfred swore as a plan coalesced in his head, he would make absolutely certain.