Disclaimers: Not even remotely mine.

Spoilers: BATMAN ADVENTURES v2 #12.

Milieu: Toonverse, toonverse, *toonverse*.

Summary: Nobody's perfect.

Ratings Note: Harmless.

*

The animatronic dinosaur in his living room is about as
problematic as any piece of non-standard home decor could
possibly be.

And that's just considering the aesthetics.

The rest...

The rest doesn't really bear thinking about, as far as Dick's
concerned -- especially since most of those thoughts had
been the kind which had sent him tearing around the world,
sent him tearing *back*... and sent him here.

He likes Bludhaven, and he likes the new place. The new
*home*. He's not ready to run again, yet --

(He knows he will be.)

-- and... yeah. He doesn't need to think.

Not about the dinosaur, not about his tendency to use the
dinosaur as a slide even more often than he had back in the
days when -- back when he was a kid, not about the fact
that it gives Bruce approximately nineteen different ways to
lurk discreetly when he's visiting.

It's possible the man had hollowed the thing out in the
years Dick was away.

(He could've thrown it out. He didn't.)

He doesn't need to --

What he needs, right now, is to just go ahead and own up
to the fact that he was about to use the dinosaur as his own
personal slide *again*, and had only paused because he'd
noticed the Big, Bad Bat lurking -- yes, *lurking* -- in a
portion of the thing's shadow.

So he does, and he slides, pushing off to give himself
enough momentum to flip into a dismount, puts his hands
on his hips, and *then* he turns to Bruce, who is smiling.
A very, very little.

"You know, you've pretty much ensured that I can never
have anyone over who isn't *us*."

"A member of the League, perhaps," Bruce says, and he's
mostly -- mostly -- talking to the dinosaur's tail.

"Do you *really* trust the Flash around an animatronic
dinosaur?"

"There are more than a few reasons why I thought this
would be better suited to *your* home, Dick. I said *a*
member, not --"

"Ah ah ah, Bruce. You lost the right to specify. What's his
GL pal's name?"

Bruce frowns at him. "John...?"

"No, the other one," Dick says, climbing the dinosaur again.
"The eight foot tall pink one."

"Hm. Kilowogg --"

"Yeah, him. *That's* who I'll invite over, *with* Wally, and
then..."

"Spend the next three years repairing the damage to your
home, reputation, and the neighboring countryside?"

Dick thinks about snickering, thinks about sticking his
tongue out, thinks about analyzing the green paint for
dangerously hallucinogenic fumes, thinks about sliding,
thinks about --

Dick holds onto the thing's spine with his thighs and leans
over enough to be looking *directly* down at Bruce.

"You," he says, "have a distinct lack of fun."

"It's been said."

"Some things bear repeating." And repeating, and repeating,
and --

"Dick."

"Bruce," and it's a little too much, all of a sudden, to be
talking to the man's hair, but talking to dinosaur spine isn't
noticeably better. "Did you have a reason to be here?"

"I..."

Raising an eyebrow at the spine of an animatronic dinosaur
is... exactly as effective as raising one at Bruce. This is just
one of those facts which should've maybe sunk in a little
earlier, but, well --

Bruce clears his throat.

-- nobody's perfect. "You don't need one," he says, and
it's... kind of a surprise that he hadn't said it before.

"All right," Bruce says, and continues to lurk.

It probably won't be the last time he has to say it. But...

That's okay, too.

*