#I don't even slightly subscribe to tim having robin feelings about Jason

[flowerflamestars]

where the middle meets snippet

Some long buried instinct- a mark of exactly how much time he’d been spending with Dick- Llewellyn lunged as the kid dove back into the bushes. Caught him around bird-boned shoulders, turning him back toward Dick.

Who, being Dick, feigned a swoon, grinning. “For me?”

Naturally, because billions commingled with whatever smoke delicious hell was in Gotham air had made child snatching orphan acquisition completely acceptable. Traditional. Llewellyn had already fucking participated. “We’re in over our heads with an Elle.”

“True enough,” Dick laughed, striding forward just to duck down on his haunches, smile softening. “Hi. I’m”-

“You’re Dick Grayson.” The kid didn’t try to run again, but the words seemed the break right out of him, unable to held in. Dick flicked a mystified glance up at Wells for half a second, before nodding. Wells let go.

“Yeah,” Dick said, none of his unease escaping. “Are you okay? Whatcha running from?”

Chin tipped shyly down, overgrown dark hair falling in his face, he looked about ten up close. Delicate in a way that was not helped by his oversized clothes, baggy polo sleeves emerging comically from a sweater vest. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick sounded kind, but his what the fuck expression over the kids head telegraphed even more acutely than the neon between them what he actually thought. “Think we can forgive a little trespassing. Especially if you let us take you home. Do you know your mom’s phone number, kiddo? Or your dad?”

Elle decided to make herself known with a loud sigh, arms crossed. Time overlaid- her face, smoothed with age, glittering- her face, no flesh holding onto the cliff of pointy cheekbones, grey-green putrid ooze all that remained of an empty eye socket- herself, Llewellyn blinked, herself, making a face his way at Dick’s increasing, panicked infantilization of the child in front of him.

“He’s wearing a middle school uniform,” she announced.

The errant, apparent middle schooler in question’s eyes flew open, darting from Dick to her, before settling enormous, on her cheek.

Eleanor glared back. Sighed again, like they were all very, very useless, before stomping up. “We’re going to see Jason. Do you want to come?”

He nodded, rapidly. Apparently settled, Elle went back to murdering grass with her duct-taped together boots, kid scampering along, only for them both to pause in what was more contempt than confusion when Dick offered their littlest member in question his hand.

“I don’t want anyone to get lost,” Dick shook his offending palms, giving Wells a clear help look, “Or scared?”

“Motherfucking christ,” Elle muttered, grabbing onto that horrible sweater vest to haul the kid along.

Enough was probably enough. Llewellyn caught Dick around the waist, only beginning to laugh as Dick face-planted into his sternum.

“What the fuck,” he whined. “Are all kids so mean?”

“How old did you think he was?”

Dick twisted, retaliatory, bit down on Llewellyn’s collar bone hard enough to sting. “I don’t know,” he left a kiss over the red mark, not a apology, before sinking back in. “Eight? Nine? Six? What did you think?”

“Ten,” Wells offered. “Bones are nowhere near done fusing.”

Yellow bloomed like wonder, deep dark marigold sugar blossomed fondness. “His bones.”