Robin and Wayne Kid One-Shots

The Vents

I got this idea from Bi_Billdip_Girl and cookiethife. Good for you guys.

Dick is 10, Jason is 8, and Tim is 6.

Italics are sort of a flash-forward. It'll make more sense when you read it.

xXx

It was to no one's surprise when Bruce finally got tired of his children in the vents. It started when he couldn't find Dick for his dentist's appointment. The last straw was when all three of his wards decided it was a good idea to take milk and cookies away from Alfred's watching gaze. The whole house smelled like rotten dairy for a month until they managed to clean it up.

His solution was permanently attaching the vent covers to the walls so they wouldn't come off. Dick watched in sorrow as his escape, his haven, was cut off from him. Alfred watched disapprovingly; Bruce was being a tad harsh. The boy had learned his lesson. Besides, the butler knew that it wouldn't last very long. Not in the slightest.

Jason caught Dick's attention from around the corner. He was gesturing for his older brother to come over.

Dick followed him to Tim's room, where there were already a bunch of scribbled-on pieces of paper taped to the wall.

"Alrighty then. The enemy has made defensive action. We need a plan," Jason told him.

Dick smiled at his brother's attempt to sound older and more important. "What kind of plan?"

"I dunno. But we can't just let this happen!"

"Fine then. Let's find a vent that you can't really see." Dick was starting to develop an idea.

Jason soluted. "Yes, sir!"

At first, they were worried about Alfred seeing them. But whenever it seemed that he was about to catch them in their search, he turned around and walked the other way. Strange, that man.

Seeing that Alfred wasn't a threat, they were emboldened and started to look less carefully (Bruce had left for work). It wasn't long before they found the perfect base of operations: a vent hidden behind a potted plant. Once Jason and Dick managed to pry it off, it was only a matter of finding the most important entrances and exits (mainly their bedrooms and the kitchen) and opening them to navigation.

About a week after their adventure, Bruce noticed that he still couldn't find his children. Food still disappeared without a trace, possibly even more often than before. And it wasn't long before he found them coming out one day, giggling and carrying an empty bag of cookies.

This time, he installed an alarm and motion sensors. If they tried to take the covers off again, if they even went NEAR them, Bruce would know.

It was decided that it was time to employ Tim in their efforts.

And now they knew to be more careful.

Dick and Jason watched over Tim's shoulders as he worked.

"Are you sure you got everything? The cameras? The proximity alarms?" Jason asked.

Alfred noticed two days later when a freshly-baked batch of cookies somehow disappeared. Of course, he didn't say anything to Bruce, but he DID give the boys a chastising look at dinner that night.

"Give him a sec," Dick told his impatient foster sibling.

The longer they went undiscovered, the more fun they had with it. When Bruce was working in his home office, the boys would release foul-smelling odors upon the room in quantities just high enough to smell, but low enough to avoid him knowing where it came from.

"Yeah, I got 'em all. And guess what?" Tim beamed at them.

Bruce was getting frustrated with these untraceable odors. He couldn't tell what they were. He could barely even tell they were there, at the very edge of his senses. And he could hardly call someone in to get rid of a smell that he, with his highly-trained senses, could barely detect.

"You hacked the motion sensors," Dick realized with a bit of pride in his apprentice.

What was going on? Bruce was almost starting to fear for his sanity. But then the World's Greatest Detective realized what was going on.

"I hacked the motion sensors," the youngest bragged.

Dick ruffled his hair affectionately. "I knew you could do it. Now let's go have some fun!"

xXx

About two months after their initial hack of the security, Bruce was waiting for them as they crawled out. Dick had popped his upper half out of the vents to check if the coast was clear and was about to tell his brothers it was safe, but found an iron grip around his upper arm. He screamed for them to crawl for their lives as he was dragged from his sanctuary, his safe haven, and into his angry father's custody.

Jason and Tim did as they were told and scrambled away from what they knew would be their inevitable deaths. Behind them, they could hear their eldest brother facing judgement.

They got out in the kitchen, where they knew Alfred would be making dinner. Perhaps he could defend them.

It wasn't long before Bruce came in, Dick ominously no longer in tow. He saw his two sons cowering behind the kindly butler and stepped forward to grab them, but their apparent defender stopped him.

"Were you never a child?" Alfred asked the millionaire father.

Bruce considered this. In the vents, they were making a mess and endangering themselves. But then again...

They were still only children. And children of Batman, no less. They could handle a bit more danger than normal kids.

Without another word, Bruce turned around and went to unlock Dick's bedroom. He didn't open the door or say anything to the ward, but he was sure Dick understood that he was free to go.

There was no further mention of the vents from Bruce that day.

Or for years afterward.