Prompt: "I'm not hungover, I'm just sick"

"He smelt like a brewery," Bruce insisted to Alfred. The pair were in the kitchen whilst Dick was upstairs, throwing up whatever he'd eaten prior. Although with how long he'd been vomiting, he was probably down to just throwing up the water they'd given him and any painkillers along with it. 

Of course, Bruce was sympathetic to that fact. He would never wish his ward to be so miserably sick and if the world did his bidding, Dick would never get so much as a cold. His sympathy found some bounds in knowing the sickness was self-induced. He naturally expected to find Dick with his head in the toilet after a heavy night of drinking at some point but he assumed, incorrectly it seems, that he wouldn't be faced with it for another seven years. Maybe six or five if Dick fell into the popular crowd at university.

"He's fourteen," Alfred replied dismissively. "I highly doubt that he would drink in the first place but also within the home of one of your colleagues is an absurd assumption. If he somehow did all that and managed to drink too much, I can tell you that we wouldn't hear a peep from him. It's hard enough getting a straight answer when he's got so much as a papercut."

"They're teenagers."

"And why would Barry have alcohol? It's my understanding it has very little effect on him."

"There's still his wife." Alfred tutted. "So, you're saying it's impossible for a bunch of teenagers to rebel once in a while? Even I snuck some of Dad's liquor when I was his age."

"I'm not saying it's impossible but I am saying it's unlikely and uncharacteristic. They're vigilantes, for heaven's sake."

"All the more reason for them to get in over their heads trying to prove they're mature enough." 

"Have you asked Master Dick about it?"

"Of course not. He'll just say no."

"I still suggest you ask him. If he did drink last night then he's already facing the worst of it. There'd be little point in lying now." Bruce sighed. 

As much as he trusted his butler's advice and valued his opinions, this missed the mark. Dick knew how serious it was if he was caught underage drinking. He knew it wasn't something his mentor tolerated and he risked immediate benching until he proved himself worthy of the title again. Even if he was throwing his guts up. Then again, maybe he was out of it enough not to think of lying. It was worth a shot he supposed. He could hopefully pin down which of the idiots his ward was friends with had suggested and provided the alcohol in the first place.

With a glass of water Alfred had sent him up with, Bruce entered Dick's bedroom. His ward had the covers over his chest but had kicked his legs out, successfully tangling himself with the fabric and pulling his pyjama pants up to his knees. He had a desktop fan pointed directly at his face which was sweaty and pale. He almost looked miserable enough for Bruce to save his questioning for another day. Almost.

Bruce set the water on the table and then sat at the foot of the bed. 

"How was the sleepover?" he asked. 

"Fine," Dick answered, his eyes screwed up tightly. Migraine, Bruce decided. 

"Nothing interesting happened?"

"Not really." He nodded along. Obviously, he wouldn't get a straight answer on the first few tries. He hadn't expected to. Still, it stung a little that Dick wasn't forthcoming. 

"Here's the deal, Dick. You admit that you drank something last night and we brush this under the rug. Chalk it up to teenager angst. If you lie to me then you're only going to dig your own grave and I'll have to bench you," Bruce told him. There was a brief moment of silence where all he could hear was the fan. Then, the acrobat opened his eyes and slowly turned his head to look at him.

"You think I'm hungover?"

"I don't think, I know."

"I'm not hungover, I'm just sick."

"So, if I call your friends now, they'll say you didn't touch a drop of alcohol last night."

"Yeah because I didn't."

"And you're sure of that?"

"As sure as I am sick," he snapped. He turned back to the fan and closed his eyes. "Y'know what? Go call them. Then you can come back in here and take me to Leslie who'll tell you just how stupid you are."

"If you're confident."

"More confident than you are competent," Dick muttered under his breath. "Just call 'em outside. You're making the headache worse." 

Bruce already knew the truth and didn't really fancy calling Dick's friends just to be fed the same lie. He needed to pick one person from the group, one who would be easy to break and spill the beans. Wally was his first thought but the speedster had known him for a little too long and had become a little more stubborn when giving up the truth even when he knew Bruce was well aware he was lying. He needed someone who was still unnerved by him. Someone who with only a small prod would spill everything, the truth included but encapsulated with random other awkward truths. 

He called Mount Justice. 

"Hello! This is M'gann, who's this?" Just the person he wanted. 

"Batman." There was a long pause. 

"Hiiii," she greeted awkwardly. "What's uh- what's up?"

"Robin has been throwing up all morning."

"Oh no! Is he okay?"

"It's a hangover, he'll get over it. What I want to know is how much he had to get like this."

"Had?" She seemed confused which he wasn't exactly surprised by. She didn't always catch on to hints.

"There was alcohol at your sleepover. We both know that so don't try and deny it."

"Whaaat? Alcohol? Pshh, that's- that's illegal I would never-"

"M'gann."

"I totally wouldn't ever do that!"

"M'gann. Robin is very sick right now," he continued. "I need to know how much."

"Is he really that sick?" 

She sounded worried which he didn't doubt she was. Kids did stupid things and when those kids were also so fundamentally different to the humans around them, it made sense that they didn't think about the consequences for themselves but also for their friends. Maybe most of them had been fine and able to sleep it off so she had no reason to assume it would affect people differently. The show she was so obsessed with followed the usual 'special' episode technique where if alcohol was brought up, there was never anything explicit like a hangover but rather finding an empty bottle with serious background music. Maybe smelling a flask and wincing.

"He hasn't kept any food down. He's barely keeping water down. If he's had too much, I need to treat him sooner rather than later."

"Fine! Yes, there was alcohol and I'm really sorry but we were all super curious about what would happen and it wasn't a lot and he told us not to but we still did. I swear I didn't know alcohol was communicable like that!" 

He swiftly swang from smug to confused. Communicable? Did she think a hangover was like a cold?

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't know it was airborne. Everyone else was fine!"

"It isn't. You have to drink alcohol to be drunk and subsequently have a hangover," he explained, feeling even more puzzled. 

"Oh," she replied. "Then, how did he get a hangover?"

"By drinking alcohol."

"But he didn't drink any?" she said, matching his confused tone. 

Paused, Bruce stared at Dick's room. If he didn't drink any then why did he smell of it? You didn't get that musk from casual drinking with people. You barely got it from going to a pub. They had to be going hard for that smell to stick to his clothes and he would almost certainly have to been drinking too. He couldn't be that sick so quickly without having a hangover, could he?

"I know he did. He stunk of it."

"Oh, no, that's because Wally tried to shotgun a beer but it just sorta got everything. It soaked all our clothes. We washed ours but Robin left early. He said he was tired and wanted to go home."

It seemed somewhat implausible but this was Wally they were talking about. He was profoundly clumsy and didn't often look before he lept. Yet, if Dick knew that he smelt like beer then why didn't he explain what happened when Bruce questioned him about this being a hangover? He knew Bruce didn't care too much about what rules the team broke as long as his own ward wasn't involved in the mess. 

"How did he seem when he left?"

"He looked tired. Connor said he heard him throwing up but Robin said he was brushing his teeth and accidentally made himself gag. To be honest, he didn't look too great when he went out."

"He went out?"

"Yeah, he said he needed some air at like midnight. We were gonna go with him but he said we couldn't when we were drunk."

"So, he didn't have anything."

"No. He didn't want to and we didn't wanna force him. Is he gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Thanks, M'gann."

"Are you gonna tell our mentors?"

"I'll think about it," he replied before hanging up. He knew it was a little cruel but now he knew Dick was really sick, he needed to start treating it like an infection rather than a hangover. He also needed to show he wasn't too proud to admit he was wrong.

Dick was curled into a ball when he re-entered the room, just a tuft of hair peeking out from beneath the blanket. He sat back down in the same spot and hesitantly put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"You call 'em?" Dick asked. 

"I did. M'gann explained everything. I'm sorry I didn't trust you," he answered. He hoped apologizing straight away would mean more than if he'd left it for the end of the conversation. Dick seemed to respond well and peeped his head out to look at him. "Since this isn't a hangover, when did the symptoms start?"

"Promise you won't be mad." He normally wouldn't promise such a thing but the circumstances were different. He'd already stepped out of line insisting this was a hangover before he had all the evidence and he didn't fancy digging an even bigger hole for himself.

"I promise."

"Y'know ages ago when you said to be careful climbing the rocks outside Mount Justice?" A week ago he'd mentioned it in a team meeting since they had been battered by the sea recently and covered in slippery algae. He hadn't banned them from using the rocks since he knew it was good to practice climbing and maintain stamina but he was close to it. He was giving them a chance to prove they would listen and be careful. "So, Kal and I wanted to see how fast we could get to the top. M'gann was timing. I slipped a little and cut my knee but I swear I didn't think it was bad."

"Can I see?"

"I don't think you want to."

"I know I want to," Bruce replied. The younger pushed himself up carefully and pulled back the covers, pushing up his pant leg to reveal a bandage. It was cleaner than he expected. He was ready to see dirty wrappings and blood leaking through but there was only a small dot of red in the middle. "Who did the dressing?"

"I did."

"Your first aid skills are getting better."

"You're out of the dog house now, B. You don't have to keep sucking up," Dick joked. "I've been trying to keep it clean but at the sleepover, I just started feeling really sick." Which was likely when he stepped out for air. He began undoing the dressing, hoping it was something they could handle in-house rather than call Leslie for. 

"About the sleepover," Bruce began, "M'gann admitted there was drinking. You could've told me what happened. You have to admit it looked suspicious that you come home smelling of beer and then start being sick."

"I promised I wouldn't. I thought you'd bench them or tell their mentors."

"I might but that will be for their own safety."

"Didn't seem like you cared much about my safety when you thought I drank."

"That's because I have expectations for you."

"You don't have any for them?"

"They're on the floor." Dick chuckled to himself but was interrupted by his own hiss of pain when the wound was exposed to the air. 

The wound looked angry. There were red lines stemming from the cut and travelling around his knee. It was weeping, the sides of the wound an ugly colour you don't want to see in a cut ever let alone a cut received days ago. The area around it was swollen, painfully so. Bruce did his best to hide his discomfort but Dick could read him like a book.

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"You cleaned this?"

"Yeah with that peroxide. The thing that bubbles."

"Just with that?" He nodded. "I think you pushed the debris further into the wound. You've got an infection, a bad one at that. I'll have to call Leslie. For now, I'm going to let it get some air."

"It's not sepsis right?"

"I doubt it but it seems to be aggressive. Holding off on giving you a checkover didn't help. That's a fault on my part." He should've done a check anyway. He should've had the benefit of the doubt before insisting it was just a hangover. "I'm sorry chum."

"I should've said something."

"Why didn't you?"

"Didn't wanna cancel the sleepover," he responded. "Guess we both messed up. You more though."

"I won't deny that."

After an earful from Alfred and Leslie, Bruce gave his ward the antibiotics prescribed and stayed with him for the evening in case he took a sudden turn for the worse. He also had the very fun job of explaining that no, his ward didn't have a hangover and yes, he did find out that the team had snuck some beers at the sleepover and yes he didn't alert everyone right away because he was busy.