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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Chapter Four
Damian was standing motionless before a wall of pink boxes containing brightly colored plastic monstrosities. He didn't understand any of it, despite hours of preliminary research via Youtube videos of commercials. His research demonstrated that these items were, in fact, what females of Lian's age found "fun". He narrowed his eyes at what he considered to be a particularly grotesque bobblehead attempting to imitate a cat. At least the large eyed candy colored ponies were cute.
Dick kept wandering off to other sections of the toy store, but periodically returned to stand at the end of the aisle, impatiently tapping his fingers against his crossed arms. After five repetitions, he decided to speak up. "C'mon Damian, you're starting to wig out the employees. Will you just pick something?"
"If it were that easy, I would have done it by now," Damian snapped.
Dick walked up to Damian, scanned the row of toys, and grabbed one of the larger boxes containing various candy colored ponies. "Here. She likes these."
"Well then she might have them already. Either that, or one of her friends will have purchased them for her already. It's too obvious."
Scowling, Dick set the box back on the shelf and picked another one. "How about this one? Roy was saying she liked the Rainbow pony the best."
"I repeat, then someone will have done that for her already."
"Fine! I give up. If you need me, I'll be in the DVD section."
As soon as Dick was out of sight, Damian slipped his smartphone from his pocket and looked up My Little Pony. He discovered that these particular toys were only the latest incarnation of a toyline for girls that had been around since the 1980s. He pulled up E-Bay and bought toys he was sure Lian wouldn't already own. He then went to the DVD aisle and coolly informed Dick that he was done.
Dick quirked an eyebrow. "You didn't buy anything."
"Yes I did."
Dick shook his head, and decided it wasn't worth questioning.

Almost all of the ponies Damian ordered arrived before the end of the week, which was perfect since Lian and Roy were coming for dinner on Saturday. Sensing that this was more important to Damian than he was letting on (as anything important to him would undoubtedly be), Dick called in some favors and had some of his friends patrol Gotham the night of the visit, meaning they'd most likely get to enjoy a quiet night in (although with Dick's luck there'd be another Crisis).
Alfred helped Damian wrap the toys in festive pink paper, commenting occasionally that there certainly were a lot of them. Damian mentioned that more were coming, but quickly assured the butler that he wasn't going to bother wrapping those. He'd decided to forward the remaining packages to Star City as soon as they arrived. Alfred looked more than a little relieved as he finished curling the ribbon on the last present before beating a quick retreat.
Damian surveyed the mountain of gifts on his bed and accepted the possibility that he may have gone overboard. It seemed though, that where he couldn't assure the quality of his presents given his lack of experience, that quanitity ought to be taken as a sign of good intention. He was still observing the presents while thoughtfully chewing at his lip when Dick knocked on his door.
"They're here."
"On my way."
Damian found Lian was in the living room. She was showing Alfred some new crayon drawings she'd made on the ride over, and she was wearing a princess costume instead of a dress, which was odd, but the only thing about it that bothered Damian was that he felt he should have placed which character the dress was meant to emulate. He'd been staring at princess merchandise for hours earlier in the week, and that particular glittery yellow gown looked familiar.
Her father was sitting on the couch behind her with her backpack, but Damian barely acknowledged his presence, something that had become second nature.
"Hi Damian!" Lian smiled brightly as soon as she saw him lurking in the hallway. She skipped across the room and threw her arms around him. Startled, he stiffened and waited for the embrace to end. She'd hugged him twice before, when they were at the amusement park, and as such he'd prepared for the possibility that it may happen again, that being the only reason he hadn't instinctively pinned her when she'd come charging at him.
Lian squeezed him tightly before she let him go. "Did you really invite me over here yourself?"
"Y-yes," Damian answered, feeling a bit unsure of himself. Had that been presumptuous?
"Thank you so much! I love visiting my friends houses." Apparently not.
A slow, wavering smile formed on Damian's lips. "You're welcome."
The adults watched the interaction visibly expressing shades of surprise. "She's meta," Dick murmured.
Roy hadn't heard him clearly. "Are you calling Lian names?"
"No, I'm just saying, she's gotta have some superpower we've never taken into account. Look at him. She got Damian to smile."
Roy nodded. "It's kinda creepy."
"I can hear you talking about us, and I don't appreciate it," Damian snapped. Roy and Dick had the good grace to look guilty about it. Lian turned around and eyed them curiously.
"Miss Lian, would you care to accompany me to my room?"
"Sure."
He offered her his arm, which confused the little girl, so she took his hand instead and swung it as they walked down the hall and into his room. Roy and Dick waited for the door to shut before they started laughing.
"That should not be as funny as it is," Roy snorted. "I mean, I mean, I know it's sad really that he doesn't know how to act like a kid, but..."
"No, the look on his face when Lian hugged him was pretty priceless," Dick agreed.
Alfred muttered something under his breath, and left under the pretense of hanging Lian's pictures on the fridge.
As soon as Alfred was gone, Roy scooched closer to Dick on the couch. Dick crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow, and Roy scooched right back to his own cushion. "Roy, the kids are right there."
"I know, I was going to behave...y'know, mostly. So...you skipping out on the real party Sunday?"
Dick scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I dunno. Things have been kinda crazy here. We've had conspiracy after conspiracy pile up on each other, and I'm starting to think that Tim was onto something about Bruce being alive...there's a lot to investigate. And since you guys are here today..."
"Hey, that's cool. I get it." He did look a little disappointed though, which surprised Dick. He didn't expect that his presence at a birthday party would really be missed.
Roy wrapped an arm around the back of the couch and tapped his fingers impatiently against it. "So...what are we going to do while the kids...I dunno how to word what's going on in there. Play and..."
"Gather anthropoligcal data on the habits of young female Americans," Dick filled in. Roy snorted. "We could watch a movie."
"Oh thank God. I was afraid you were going to say sit quietly and read." Roy hopped off the couch to start digging through the DVDs while Dick let out a noise of exasperation.
"Not that there's anything wrong with it, but when have I suggested sitting quietly and reading as an activity with you?"
"When we were sixteen."
"Well that was before I knew you very well, and to be fair, at that point I wasn't aware you lacked an attention span."
Roy flipped him the bird without looking up from the shelves of DVDs by the entertainment center. He seemed surprised by something. "What?" Dick asked.
"You've actually got some real movies here. I was expecting it all to be, like, history channel documentaries or something."
"For starters," Dick said, sneaking up behind Roy and resting an arm lightly on his back. "I only watch history channel documentaries to make fun of them and would certainly never own them. But Damian and I have collected a decent amount of PBS documentaries. We've got some good episodes of Nova, if you're interested in educational televsion. Or maybe a Ken Burns special?"
"Do I have to dignify that with a response?"
"Ass. Just put in one of the Simpsons seasons."
"That was the plan."
Meanwhile, in Damian's room Lian had unwrapped her presents and, after gushing about all of her new ponies and the giant pink castle to go with them, Lian had decided to teach Damian how to play with them.
"I'm not sure this is a gender appropriate activity," Damian objected.
"What do you mean?" Lian asked.
"I'm a boy. I thought these toys were for girls."
"Oh. Well Grandpa Ollie plays with my toys with me a lot, and he's not a little girl. I don't think it matters as long as you're playing with someone else."
Damian still felt unsure of himself, but he obediently took a seat in front of the castle playset and waited for instruction. Lian picked up a white unicorn pony with a red mane and made her gallop in front of the castle. "Clop-clop-clop. It sure is a pretty day in Ponyville, don't you think so?" Here she looked pointedly at Damian.
"Oh, er..." He selected a blue pegasis with a pink mane. "Yes. It is quite lovely."
Lian giggled at him. "What do you wanna do today? It's perfect weather Mrs. Flying-pony. We could do anything."
Damian looked at his pony skeptically. "I don't think those wings are big enough to get this horse airborn."
"Maybe it works by magic or superpowers instead. I know a whole buncha people who fly without wings."
"That is true, I suppose. You know, if you let me take this pegasis down to the Bunker, I probably could make her fly."
"Really?" Lian asked, face lighting up.
"Well, I did build a flying batmobile."
Lian seized him in another one of her frighteningly sudden hugs. "Damian, you're like the bestest playmate ever!"
"Well, I do tend to excel at things."

They melted three pony figures before Damian got one in the air, and even then it only hovered weakly. Lian was pleased with that, but Damian promised to keep practicing until he got them to fly the way they did in the cartoons.
Things started getting hectic again, but Dick felt like he was managing it better than when he'd first put on the cowl. He and Damian had evolved into a real partnership, which made a huge difference. To make it even better, he actually started hearing from Tim again, albeit sporadically.
Dick ended up forgetting about Lian's party entirely until he bumped into Donna at the Watchtower.
"Are you wearing a silly band?"
Donna glanced down at her silver Amazonian cuff bracelet, which had a pink silly band over it, and held it up for inspection. "It's in the shape of a clarinet. From Lian's goody bag. We all missed you at the party."
"Oh shit. I meant to call, at least. Roy didn't seem mad, did he? He was over at our place the day before, and we gave Lian our presents then-"
"Dick, you don't have to explain yourself to me," Donna said, laughing. "We all know how busy you get. It was fine, Roy seemed fine, and Lian had fun. She got a good haul of presents too."
"Yeah, well we've been spoiling her rotten since Roy brought her back from Cheshire's, so that's not a surprise. He really seemed okay about me blowing him off?"
Donna frowned, considering him with that piercing mother-hen stare she used to use on them at Titans Tower. "I think he actually was a little upset."
Dick glanced around the corridor they were standing in to make sure it was devoid of other Costumes (although that meant nothing thanks to heroes with enhanced senses), and then lowered his voice. "It's not just me missing the party, is it? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"It's okay Dick. Frankly, emotionally you boys are idiots and I think you need all the help you can get," Donna said, rolling her eyes.
Despite the gentle teasing, Dick was thankful that Donna was willing to counsel him through this stuff. They'd gone through the highly awkward experience of both thinking they were monogomously dating Roy when they were teenagers, and the drama that followed had resulted in Roy stepping down from being a full time Titan. It was really good of Donna to overlook all that and try to help the two of them now.
"He did tell me he was annoyed you didn't show up, but what's really bothering him is that if he wants to see you, he has to drag himself up to Gotham. Have you really not gone to Star once since you started dating again?"
"I don't really have the luxury of leaving Gotham unless it's for a case. Like I said, things have been crazy-"
"I know." Donna smiled in a way that was more of a wince. "But when has that ever not been the case? You always have more going on than the rest of us, except possibly with the exception of Wally when he switched over to being the Flash. We get it. More people target you than us, and your cities go nuts. But the fact that you haven't visited him even once is the kind of thing that can legitimately hurt someone's feelings."
Dick frowned. "I did tell him it was a bad idea to date me right now, and he said he could deal with it and that I shouldn't worry about it. I told him I'd be a shitty boyfriend and that I couldn't really carry my weight in the relationship."
"And it was very sweet of him to say that he didn't need reciprocation from you, but c'mon Grayson, you're not stupid. You had to know that was typical Harper bravado, right?"
When she said it like that, it seemed so obvious.
"Well...I was planning on heading up to the Manor today to do some poking around. Did I tell you, we got some intel that Bruce might not be dead?"
"Congratulations. Go hug your boyfriend."
"You know, you're supposed to be the nice one."
Donna laughed. "Dick, I love you like a brother and that is in fact the only reason you haven't tasted Amazonian wrath for jerking around a man I happen to care about very deeply."
Dick bristled at that. "I'm not jerking him around this time! I've been straightforward about everything. He knew what he was getting into."
"Mm hm. Does that really make you feel better?"
"...no. I'll go hug him."
"Good man."

Dick changed into street clothes and teleported down to Star City. He hadn't actually seen Roy's new house yet. It was cute. Nice little one family with a good sized backyard. They had targets set up in the yard, one with fierce looking red arrows crowded against each other in the center, another smaller one with little pink arrows scattered on the grass in front of it.
Dick knocked on the door and waited to be let in. It took a few minutes, but eventually a frazzled looking Mia Dearden greeted him. "Oh, hey. You're not looking for a teamup, are you? Roy's on monitor duty tonight."
"No, I was just coming by to say hi. Is he leaving already?" Dick glanced at his watch.
"He's supposed to go in a half hour, but Lian's throwing a tantrum so...yeah. Not a great time for a visit." Mia shook her head. "She normally loves it when I babysit."
"I wouldn't take it personally Mia. I'll just poke my head in so he knows I tried, okay?"
Mia shrugged her shoulders and waved him inside. "Suit yourself."
He could hear Lian yelling from upstairs. "You've been gone every night this week! Every night! You skipped Daddy-Daughter Day again! Please-please-please just stay home tonight?"
Dick navigated his way through the house, stepping around half unpacked boxes, paint cans, and the normal debris that accumulated when a single dad couldn't find enough hours in the day to clean up after an energetic six year old. There were still party decorations up in the living room.
He felt a twinge of guilt, seeing the state of the house. Dick knew Roy hated moving Lian around as much as he did, and that he always tried to make their houses seem like homes as soon as possible after a move. Clearly taking out time for excursions to Gotham was interfering with some of his fatherly duties, which Dick felt to be more important than crime fighting.
Donna was right. Dick needed to try harder to carry his weight in this.
Lian had stopped screaming by the time Dick got to her bedroom. He knocked on the open door and peeked into the room. Roy was wearing his costume, except the mask, and holding Lian as though she were still a toddler. She had her arms securely around his neck and had buried her face in his chest. Roy locked eyes with Dick and mouthed 'five more minutes'. Nodding, Dick went downstairs to wait.
Mia was in the living room, setting up an arts and crafts project on the coffee table. She smiled at him, only showing a little bit of tension. "I know Lian's got some separation anxiety going, but I think this one might have gone over better if he hadn't told her he was leaving broccoli for supper."
Dick shook his head. "Hey, at least he didn't have you break it to her."
"That's true, I guess."
Dick and Mia idly chatted for a few minutes, and eventually Lian ran in looking more like her cheerful self. "Daddy said I could stay up late and watch all three of the Toy Story movies together if I behaved, so I'm behaving now. Do you want to wear the Jessie hat or the Woody one? Because I have both! Grandpa Ollie got me both costumes for my birthday!"
Mia pretended to think for a minute. "I think I'd prefer Woody's."
"Okay, I'll go get them."
Mia snorted. "Grandpa Ollie got her those costumes along with a bazillion other things."
Roy was leaning against the doorway. Dick got up, nodded at Mia, and they walked into the kitchen. "So...what brings you by?"
"Among other things, a powerful guilt trip from Donna." Dick figured it was best to be truthful. "Uh...sorry I haven't been a very good boyfriend so far."
"Dick, you made it really clear you weren't going to be able to offer much, and I told you I could handle it. I'm handling it."
"Yeah, but...you've been giving me a lot of support. I don't want it if...I mean, you should be unpacked by now. Anyway, it's just not fair. I'll try harder."
Roy stroked the side of Dick's face, rubbing his gloved thumb over Dick's cheekbone. He loved the feel of Roy's gloves. They weren't abrasive like the Bat uniforms, and the caress felt like the tender motion it was meant to be. "Dick, I really don't care. I'm just glad you didn't dump me."
"I don't want you to settle. You deserve better."
"I don't know about that, but I am happy with you. And you know I'd tell you if I wasn't."
Dick wasn't sure that was true, but he was willing to let it go for the moment. He leaned in for a kiss, savoring every wonderful sensory detail that went with kissing his man. There was something hot about the way Roy felt and smelled when he was in his costume (the leather with his natural musk was so erotic even his tacky aftershave couldn't kill the surge of lust hitting Dick in the groin). Maybe losing the bet wouldn't be so bad...Dick could probably modify the batsuit to make it less prone to electric castration in the bedroom.
Roy broke the kiss, and Dick made a small sound of loss that he honestly hadn't heard from himself since he was a kid. "Sorry Dick, but I've gotta get going. I'm a responsible Justice-League type now, remember?"
"Yeah yeah."
"If you want, you're welcome to visit. It's just monitor duty."
"I've actually gotta work on a case tonight. I was just dropping by to say hello. I'm, um, going to try to do that a bit more often."
Roy smiled, stroked Dick's cheek again, and then went into the living room to say goodbye to Lian.

Dick and Damian endured a long night at the Manor that resulted in some pretty significant discoveries. Even though he was, as usual, pretending otherwise, Damian was rattled by what his mother had done to his skeletal system and Dick couldn't say he blamed him. Hell, he was pretty disturbed by the fact that Talia had turned her child into a remote controlled kill-bot. After making plans to seek Talia out and "discuss" the deep invasion of privacy, the two had decided not to talk about it ever again, and they'd both taken some time off to destress from the disturbing encounter.
Damian went down to the Bunker to keep working on Lian's ponies, leaving Dick on the couch with his laptop.
Damian still barely understood what one did with plastic ponies, but after a few hours of effort, he was able to make one of the pegasis ponies soar across the bunker with relative grace. He smiled in satisfaction, then picked up one of the unicorns and started thinking about ways to modify it. There had to be something he could do other than simply making its horn glow.
Then Dick walked into the bunker with a pained expression on his face Damian had rarely beheld on him. He may not have been very good at conventional social cues, but sorrow he understood perfectly. "What's wrong?"
Dick tried to speak, but at first only shook his head. Damian stood up and approached him, and after a moment Dick found his voice. "Damian, I'm so sorry...Lian is dead."
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Birds and Bees