Robin one shot part 3!

Dad?

TW: ROBIN IS GONNA GET HIS ASS BEAT

Bruce smiled to himself as he watched Dick make full use of the sprawling garden. Summer was upon them and they were having some rare good weather which meant they could sit outside for longer than twenty minutes without freezing. 

"He's doing well, isn't he?" Alfred commented, watching as Dick continued his performance to no audience. They often found the boy doing that. He'd do flips and cartwheels, perfecting some sequence that wouldn't be performed for any crowds but perhaps once had. They decided not to question and he never pulled them aside to show them the act. They'd gladly watched the full thing if he ever wanted to show off his moves. Even as a vigilante, Bruce wasn't half as capable of performing such things and Alfred was long past the days of being able to learn how to do it let alone actually pull it off. The boy giggled as he failed a trick, collapsing onto the grass in a crumpled heap. 

"He's an acrobat, Alfred. I wouldn't expect much different," Bruce replied, not taking his eyes off his ward until he was sure everything was okay. The butler tutted at him and handed him a mug of deep black coffee.

"I mean with being Robin, sir. I feared it would be much too scary for a boy his age but he's taken to it rather well," he explained. 

"I told you he'd do well. He's got a good heart and he needed to help people as I do. I'm just glad it's me training him and not anyone else because God knows what he's capable of," Bruce responded. His adoration for his ward was clear and it had only grown in their time together. Alfred never thought he'd see the day that a young child would be running around the manor causing havoc that would be used to embarrass the boy in the future but here they were. Admittedly, he hadn't foretold the vigilante double life part of said child but that just meant he had to keep his scrapbook hidden better. "I thought about bringing him out more often given that he doesn't have school during the holidays and we both know that he'll fly through his homework for the summer in the first week. Tonight Ivy is going to hit a factory so I might suggest it to him then."

"How often are you suggesting? I won't have him out every night fighting crime. It's a vacation at the end of the day, I'm not having him go back to school more tired than he left it," Alfred pointed out, his warning clear.

"I'm aware," the younger drawled in an almost adolescent way despite being in his twenties. "I was thinking more so every other night. The more experience he has, the better."

"I can't say I entirely agree with that." Bruce glanced at him in confusion. "Experience would be helpful in work but would it be helpful in his personal development? He's already witnessed something no child should see and we're frankly quite lucky that he's been able to return to the lad he had been before. If he sees more traumatic things, who says he'll be the same?" He didn't get a response but he didn't wait for one either. He simply gave his surrogate son a pat on the shoulder and went back inside to attend to his chores in the hopes that Bruce would think it over. 

"What were you talking about?" Dick asked, suddenly appearing beside him. It was one of the few tricks he hadn't been taught and it never failed to catch his new guardians off guard. This time was no different as Bruce jumped upon finding him so close and barely had time to reign in his training. He really needed to warn Dick about not scaring him like that. 

"We were talking about bringing you on patrol more."

"Really?" the younger gasped. He practically had stars in his eyes as he jumped up and down excitedly. "You mean it? You really mean it?"