𝐂𝐈𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐘 ━ peter parker

xii. ″double-fisting the drinks″

"You don't have to come," Dick reiterated, balancing the phone between his cheek and shoulder. He was trying to pour the sugary electrolytes from a sports drink into his water bottle to hide it from Bruce during training – the man would never forgive him for poisoning himself with Red Dye 40. He cursed lightly as the liquid rushed over the edges of the lid, spilling on his Gotham Knights vest. "I just thought it would be fun. And the, uh, the publicity would be good, you know?"

Peter replied, his voice buzzing with nervous trepidation on the other end of the call. "I just, wouldn't it be kind of weird? I didn't get an invite or anything."

"It's just a movie premier, Peter," Dick grinned. "You can be my plus-one!"

True to his word, Dick did feel better about the whole 'Spider-man' fiasco. Or well, it was mor elike he just didn't think about it as much. There were better things to worry about, right?

A hefty sigh followed his words. "I guess."

"You guess?" the Wayne heir snickered. "I know."

He could practically hear the other boy roll his eyes. They might not have seen each other the past week, like, physically, in their public personas (not since that dreadful date, anyway) but Dick had taken great efforts to familiarise himself with every aspect of Peter Parker. Mostly, it came from multi-paragraph ramblings that Ned sent, because the other boy proved to be highly stand-offish. Which was... hardly surprising, really. Alas, Dick hadn't really discovered anything interesting, other than the fact that Peter had specifically time-tabled slots in his schedule dedicated solely to speed running Lego Star Wars on his beat-up PS3.

Although it did help that the NDA he'd signed forced Peter to actually answer Dick's calls – rare as they may have been. And he liked to think they had a casual acquaintance burgeoning, at the very least.

"If it's black tie, I don't have anything to wear –"

"Alright, now you're just making excuses to spend time with me," Dick teased. "I never said it was black tie."

"I... w-what?"

"You want me to take you shopping! If you wanted me to be your sugar daddy, all you had to do was ask Pete.

"Seriously?" Peter groaned.

"I'm kidding. Well, not really. But I am serious about the invite, dude. You don't have to come," Dick murmured, twisting the lid back onto his water bottle, taking a quick swig of Gatorade, and setting it down on the floor beside him. He was careful to place it on the cave's stone floor and not the gymnastics mat he'd painstakingly dragged into the practice room.

The other boy spoke quickly – quick enough to make Dick raise an eyebrow. "Uh, it's... you know. We've got to keep up appearances, right?"

Hah. "Yeah. We do," Dick sighed. He moved the phone away from his ear, placing it on speaker before setting it down beside the bottle. Dropping to the floor to stretch and limber up, he continued: "Still haven't given me an answer... Hey, did you read the link I sent you?"

"Oh. Er, the... Daily Bugle one?"

"Yeah," Dick muttered, touching his forehead to his knee, feeling a delicate tug in his hamstrings. Jeez, he was so stiff. "I think it has the best pictures of the lot."

"I don't know. I thought the Star's piece was quite good," Peter mumbled, and Dick was almost 100% sure the other boy hadn't actually read the article yet. Thumbs clicked against a phone screen on the other end of the call, and a smile worked its way onto the teen's face.