redfiona99 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redfiona99) wrote2023-05-06 05:25 pm
redfiona99) wrote2023-05-06 05:25 pm
Entry tags:
Fic - Today When (1/1, Batman TV '66)
Title: Today When
Author: Red Fiona
Fandom: Batman (TV 1966)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, DC do. ABC own this version. No money is being made from this fic.
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Aunt Harriet, Alfred and some special guest villains
Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson
Rating: I'd call this a U.
Notes: Goes a bit historically AU in 1970, the Minnesota Supreme Court decision goes the other way. Written in response to a 2011 LGBTfest prompt. The prompt asked for the DC comics version of the character and I hope the prompter doesn't mind that I went with this.
Title taken from "A Blessing for Wedding" by Jane Hirshfield - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53393/a-blessing-for-wedding.
This is fluffy and gooey. When I started writing it, I needed fluffy and gooey in my life.
Summary: When the Prince of Gotham and his former ward announce their engagement, Gotham has its usual over-reaction to all things Wayne.
~~~~
Now that they were going to get married, Bruce was willing to admit that making Dick his ward was a mistake. It was a mistake made with the best of all intentions, but a mistake nonetheless. He done it because Bruce wanted to know that if anything happened to him, Dick would be looked after and would be able to keep fighting crime. Making Dick his ward was the best way Bruce could think of in a hurry to avoid both inheritance tax and some awkward questions.
Now it was going to lead to awkward questions, but different ones to the ones he'd avoided originally. Or maybe not, they were the same questions, targeted differently. Questions such as 'what *had* his intentions been?' There's parts of the truth that Bruce can't tell to an outsider, and other parts that no-one will believe even if he told them. The history of Gotham is filled with rich men who have done terrible things to their wards.
Originally, Batman had taken Dick Grayson under his wing because Dick was a hot-head. When his family had been killed, Dick had gone racing after revenge. He might have succeeded, but he'd have found his own grave that way, without someone to stop him from tumbling ever deeper. Bruce wanted to save him from himself.
Why had he taken Dick on when he hadn't taken on anyone else? It was a feeling that, once he'd got his own revenge, Dick would want to help others get theirs. Even at the height of his rage, there’d been the traces of the good man he could become. Dick would be willing to stay. He'd be willing to risk everything to stop the same thing happening to someone else. Dick was a kindred spirit to Bruce, for all the ways that they were different.
Batman took Robin on for the best of reasons.
If Batman had Robin, it meant that Bruce needed to make sure Dick would be okay whatever happened. Dick had been nineteen when the Graysons had died, and only a quirk in Gotham's city statutes allowed for him to become a ward at that age. So Bruce made him his ward, he'd never thought he'd fall in love with him.
They tell Aunt Harriet first. They never actually told Alfred. He found them kissing in the library once. He coughed, discreetly trying to attract their attention. Apparently, it took a few coughs, of ever-increasing volume, for them to notice. They busily tried to pretend that they weren't making out against the classic literature, and Alfred didn't quite manage to hide a smile as he said, "excuse me, Master Bruce, there's a telephone call for you."
Dick managed to keep a straight face while Bruce was on the phone, but dissolved into laughter when Bruce rang off. "He'll never believe that we're only playing chess in your room now," even though, mostly, that is all they do.
That's how Alfred found out, and it's probably best that Aunt Harriet doesn't find out the same way.
It was Alfred that first put the idea of marriage into Bruce's mind. The law had changed; Bruce had been peripherally aware of it, but it had been a busy few months, busting the schemes of the Riddler, the Clock King and the Bookworm had taken time, and effort, and most importantly regarding this, brain-power. Bruce hadn't really had thinking time.
Alfred cornered him alone in the library one day. It was rare for Bruce to be separated from Dick for any great length of time, and Bruce isn't sure if Alfred planned the time to coincide with Dick's gymnastics training or if he sent Dick on a wild snipe hunt to ensure his absence.
"Master Bruce?"
"Yes, Alfred."
Alfred paused, the way he always did, when he wasn't sure if saying something was his place or not, but he felt it needed saying anyway. "Have you considered the question of matrimony?" Bruce looked confused. "To Master Dick."
Bruce hadn't, and admitted as much.
"You could, you know." Bruce supposed he could. Alfred continued, haltingly, "if Master Dick were a lady, would you have?"
It was an odd question to ask, the situation couldn't have happened if Dick were a woman. Bruce Wayne, living with a woman, without a chaperone, he'd never have heard the end of it.
But ignoring those differences, and ignoring that he was playboy Bruce Wayne, and therefore wouldn't have had a girlfriend for, what, eight, nine, oh my, nearly ten months, if he had had, any decent young man would have proposed by now.
"Sir, he deserves the right to say no."
Which was a very good way to put it. Dick deserved the right to know that he'd always be Robin, no matter what, and Bruce loved him, and that he deserved all the good things that come with marriage, not just all the responsibilities he'd got.
"Yes, Alfred ... I see. Yes, you're right." Bruce's sentence trailed off somewhat.
"Very good, sir." Alfred turned round before he reached the door. "Shall I retrieve your mother's engagement ring from the safe."
"Engagement ring?"
"I believe they are traditional, sir." Bruce nodded. "I do hope this goes more smoothly than your father's attempts. I recall it took him four goes before he plucked up the courage to finally ask. Cook and I were most concerned that your mother would have to propose in the next leap year."
Bruce laughed with him. It was nice to see Alfred smile when he talked about Bruce's father, and rare enough that Bruce treasured it.
He also treasured the engagement ring, locking it in a drawer in the desk in his study. When Alfred had told the story, he hadn't understood how his father had taken so long to propose. It had, apparently, been obvious to everyone that his mother loved him, and he loved her, so it should have been a simple matter.
Now that *he* was having to propose, however, Bruce could see why it wasn't.
He knew Dick loved him, but there was always a little voice saying "what if he says no?" Dick was his partner in crime-fighting, his best friend, as well as his sweetheart. Was Bruce willing to risk what they had, for something hadn't thought to want before Alfred suggested it to him?
And then there was how to do it. Bruce knew going down on one knee was the traditional way, but he also knew he'd look ridiculous, and he didn't want to look ridiculous, not for something this serious.
It did take him two attempts in the end. He was, originally, going to propose on their one-year anniversary, but the Mad Hatter put paid to that idea.
He didn't intend to propose when he actually did.
They were in the study. He was sat on the floor, looking at engineering designs for an improvement to the Batcomputer. Bruce didn't know why, but schematics always made more sense to him when they were laid out, not when he held them in his hand, and he was studying them in detail. Dick was sat on the chair behind him, reading the latest Asimov, and Bruce's back was resting against his legs. Dick had run his hands through Bruce's hair and kept his fingers there. It wasn't distracting, it was rather pleasant really, and it hit Bruce that this was the perfect moment.
It was them, alone, as themselves, not the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder, or playboy Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson, but Bruce and Dick and they having a pleasant, educational afternoon together, with no supervillains causing havoc. When was he likely to have this chance again?
He carefully folded away the schematics, before he turned round to face Dick. "Will you marry me?"
"Are asking if I'll say yes if you asked me?"
"No, I'm asking you now. Will you, Dick Grayson, do me the great honour of marrying me?"
In the brief pause, Bruce's heart sank.
"Yes. I mean ... yes. Yes!" Dick leaned forward to kiss him. He wrapped his hands round Bruce's jaw, kissed him on the top of the head, the forehead, his nose, before he reached Bruce's lips, and whispered, "yes," against them.
It was some time before Bruce thought of anything else, but when he did, he moved. "I've got something for you." He took the ring box out of the locked drawer in his desk. It had taken longer than he would have wanted, hands that didn't shake when diffusing a bomb suddenly deciding to quiver uncontrollably at a drawer whose lock he'd opened countless times before.
The shaking didn't get any better as he put the ring on Dick's finger. He would have to take it to a jewellers to be re-sized, for all that Dick had smaller fingers than him - there was a reason he was better at lockpicking - they were still larger than his mother's had been.
Dick sat there looking at the ring for some time, twisting it slowly around the second knuckle of his ring finger. It wouldn't go on any further, not until it was resized, but Dick didn't seem to be able to avoid fiddling with it.
"Bruce? Can I give you the ring back?"
Bruce's stomach dropped. "Yes. I mean, if you've had second thoughts ..."
"Oh, no. No, I can't think of anything I want more than marrying you," Dick smiled, nervously, "but I'm scared I'll lose it." Bruce opened his mouth to say something about resizing it. "Even if you change it so it fits, I'll still be so scared of losing it."
"I'll forgive you if you do."
"Yeah, but I won't forgive me." Dick took the ring off his finger, and gave it back to Bruce. "I love you enough to give this back." Bruce could feel the cool of the metal, barely warmed by Dick's finger, pressing into his palm. He suspected that his expression gave too much away, and that the things it was giving away weren't the whole truth because he wasn’t sure what the whole truth was. He was disappointed, sad, happy, glad and all at the same time.
"Hey Bruce, come with me." Dick took him by the hand and made him stand up. He walked Bruce to the desk. "Remember how you said it wasn't the price of something, it was how much it meant?" Bruce remembered saying something of the kind. Dick had picked up the string Bruce kept on the desk for parcels - yes, Alfred would wrap them for him, but sometimes things required a personal touch - and was cutting two lengths off. Dick took Bruce's hand again, placed it palm up on the desk and wrapped one of the two pieces of string around his ring finger. The other piece, Dick tied around his own hand. Dick held his hand up. "One day, these'll be gold bands, but I take this promise as seriously as I'll take them, as seriously as I would have done for any diamond ring. Bruce, when you say something, when you promise something, I don't need anything as proof. You've said it. That's enough for me." Bruce takes Dick's hand, kisses it, and then holds him close, because there's nothing you can say in the face of that kind of devotion.
Their wedding rings have little knots carved on them; ropes etched into the gold. Bruce wants to be reminded of that day always.
He also bought several spares, which caused much comment when the information inevitably got out, because anything to do with the Waynes is news in Gotham. The comments were mostly "jokes" about how they were replacements for when Bruce inevitably forgot the original on some model's nightstand. In reality, they were in case Bruce or Dick forgot to put theirs back on when they were swapping between identities. But that was all in the future. First, they had to tell Aunt Harriet.
They'd agreed to try to tell her on a weekend, because weekends were quieter, even Gotham's criminals needed rest, but the Joker's raid on Gotham art gallery ruined their first attempt. The second attempt saw them sitting nervously in the morning room at Wayne Manor.
"Aunt Harriet, there's something important we have to tell you." Bruce let Dick take the lead, because she was his aunt after all. "I ... um, geez, um," Bruce squeezed Dick's elbow to try to support him. Whatever happened, they were in this together. "I think you know I'm fond of Bruce. And he's fond of me. And ... and ... we're getting married."
Bruce isn't surprised that Aunt Harriet was knocked speechless, it was a lot of information, all at once. They had planned this, as best they could, and they had decided that the best way of telling her was in one go. Because any other way would involve a stumbling explanation that maybe Dick wasn't heterosexual, and they've neither of them found a word they like that's less clinical, and then another conversation later on explaining that maybe Bruce wasn't either, and maybe they were being like that together, and then a third conversation that involved the word wedding. Even though he'd been late coming to the idea of getting married, waiting that long to be married rankled at Bruce. He'd known any conversation with Aunt Harriet would be awkward, because the conversation he'd had with Dick was awkward enough and there's at least more common ground between them.
Aunt Harriet had taken the news well, once she'd gotten over her initial shock. "I'm just the luckiest woman in the world. I started today with one wonderful nephew and now I find out I'll soon have two." Bruce couldn't have hoped for it to go better.
Afterwards was trickier. Harriet managed to catch him alone - he swears he spent less time with Dick after this all came out than before.
"I don't suppose I can say that I worry about your intentions." Which Bruce supposed was another advantage of the engagement ring. "That doesn't mean I don't." Or maybe not. "He was so very young when you took him in." There was an unusually calculating look in her eyes. "You're not trying to defend yourself, which is a good sign, I think. Shows you've thought about what it looks like at least." Something like a smile flittered across her face. "He's so much like his mother. Nobody could talk her out of marrying that circus boy. Even if I objected, nothing would convince him because this is something he wants. Not that I do object, but he is so young." She grasped his hand. "None of this is because of you, or ... that you are you. I'd be saying all this if you were a woman of your age intending to marry Dick. Well, I probably wouldn't, because she'd be upset and insulted. I don't think you are." She took Bruce's hand. "All I ask is that you look after him. I'm not a young woman any more, and I'm not going to get any younger. Someone needs to look out for Dick."
Bruce promised Harriet that he will. She believed him, he thinks. He wants to believe that's because it's both true and he sounded convincing, but he's also worried that she believes him because she wants it to be true not because she thinks it is.
There was a brief, awkward silence, that Harriet breaks. "Now we have had that conversation, I start helping with the engagement party. I think you are going to need my help."
She wasn't wrong.
He and Alfred, admittedly mostly Alfred, had organised many events on behalf of either the Wayne family or the Wayne Foundation, but Bruce had underestimated the number of people who would be interested in the news of the engagement. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, theirs would be the first high-profile engagement in Gotham of this kind since the Minnesota Supreme Court had announced their judgement and kicked this whole thing off. That meant people would have been interested, and people would always be interested in a Wayne wedding in Gotham.
Because of that last detail, the press decided to riffle through Bruce's past, again, contacting every woman he'd ever been linked with in the society pages. Most of them had reacted with nothing more than a polite "no comment" but Daisy Lane had threated to set the dogs on any member of the press corps she found on her property. That fire had been why he'd dated her.
Some of the gutter-press decide to rake through Dick's past too. Bruce is used to being the centre of Gotham's attention but, in between times, he forgets how exposed he feels when it's more than just the Society Diary column taking an interest. He apologised to Dick because, well, although Dick had experienced something like this before, back when Bruce first adopted him, it had never been this sort of investigative intrusion before.
"Bruce, I knew what I was getting into." Dick's ex-girlfriends, few though they were because he's always been more strait-laced than Bruce, and certainly more strait-laced than the image of 'Playboy Bruce Wayne' that Bruce liked to encourage, had also been nothing but ladies about it.
The engagement party was shaping up to be *the* social event of the season, and Bruce had even heard rumours of people intercepting refusals to try to divert those invites. The only reason it hadn't collapsed under the weight of everything was Alfred and Aunt Harriet.
The engagement party came very close to it anyway.
Bruce knows violence isn't the answer. You can't learn and better yourself if you're hurt and sore, and people need to learn that what he and Dick have is completely normal, which means he has to be open and kind and all the things a Wayne is supposed to be. He tries in both his lives to live by a maxim of minimal possible violence. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to punch Benjamin Padgett right in his smug, priggish face. Bruce counted to ten and does all the things Batman encourages people to do when they're angry rather than resort to violence.
He might be hoping for the best more than is justified, but Bruce wants to believe that he'd be less on edge if it was just him they were talking about but the language he could hear people using to describe Dick ...
Aunt Harriet saved the day, appearing at Bruce's elbow with a cocktail. "Why, Benjamin Padgett, I'm so pleased to see you here. I wasn't sure you'd be able to attend, what with all the things I've been reading about your company in the newspapers."
Padgett stammers something, takes the cocktail and blessedly leaves Bruce alone. "Thank you so much."
"My pleasure Bruce."
Bruce gains an even greater respect for Aunt Harriet that day. She recognises every face and knows just what to say, who to encourage and who to shut down, and how to stop them without creating a scene. She stops Padgett before he starts again an hour later, and somehow corrals the gossiping trio of Mrs. Elizabeth Philpott, Miss Ruth Phillips and Mrs Martha Platt (nee Phillips) away from everyone else so they can't distort anything they hear or see. He suspects it's something she's learned to do - it can't be fun being a high society spinster, and Bruce hadn't fully considered that before. He resolves to be kinder in future, stop people when they start bad-mouthing women in Aunt Harriet's position, rather than just turning away and ignoring them.
Aunt Harriet sits down carefully but decidedly when the party's over. "I hope that's taken the sting out of it for the wedding." Bruce toasts her with a left-over glass of champagne and hopes she's right. Dick looked like he'd had a shock, unlike Bruce and Aunt Harriet, he hasn't had a lifetime of the society scrum, and a few years as a Wayne ward wasn't enough preparation for the tightrope walk the day had been.
"I think I understand why my Mom chose to elope," is how Dick summarises it later.
"Unfortunately, we can't." Bruce is a Wayne after all, and in his case, an elopement would only attract even more attention. This way, the worst of it will be done with after the ceremony.
Bruce hadn't considered how bad the worst of it could get, and how his secret identity would make it worse. People said things to Batman that they'd never say to Bruce Wayne, particularly when talking about Bruce Wayne.
He knows his role is to help the police, to handle those criminals whose methods are beyond official resources. The Wayne fortune allows him access to technology that the Commissioner could only dream of. He knows they're doing their best, and he'd never criticise them, but there are times when he thinks they could do better.
This was a case in point.
Bruce, as Batman, was visiting Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. They had the day's edition of the Globe open in front of them. Because it was Gotham, the engagement was still news even after the party is over and done with, although at least it had dropped to page four.
"You know, Commissioner, I'm still not sure about all this." The way the Chief was pointing at page four made it quite clear what he was referring to.
Commissioner Gordon pulled the face he always pulled when he was thinking about something, and Bruce couldn't help but interrupt. "Surely, if two people love each other, they ought to be allowed to get married."
"Well, yes, I suppose you're right," said the Commissioner.
"But ...," it looked like Chief O'Hara was about to argue.
"If it's alright with Batman, it's alright for me. When has Batman ever been for anything that isn't in Gotham's best interest?" said the Commissioner. And Bruce would have been pleased with that testimonial, but it shouldn't take Batman to make sure the law treated everyone fairly.
The bachelor parties were both almost disasters, for multiple reasons. First of all, there was the difficulty of rounding up Dick's old friends, spread around the country in different circus troops as they were, then there was the press trying to gate-crash the parties, and then they were both separately kidnapped.
The Penguin kidnapped Dick from his bachelor party, holding him for ransom. Batman and Batgirl rescued him. There was no harm done, Dick was doing a very bad job of pretending to still have his hands tied behind his back (for sailors, the Penguin's henchmen did a very poor job of knots, which might explain their lack of legal employment in the field). It wasn't so much that Bruce was worried, really, he'd seen Dick was fine, and Penguin didn't hurt hostages because it meant people would be less likely to pay next time he kidnapped someone. No, the Penguin saved his death traps for Batman and Robin - with the Penguin, Dick was in less danger than Robin was, so it wasn’t worry, it was a realisation. The thing Bruce had realised after the kidnapping was that he would always have to be careful now, if Batman was caught looking too closely at Dick Grayson (or indeed, Bruce Wayne at Robin), even just checking that he was alright, then he could expect it to be in the Gazette and he does not want or need another round of Wayne features in the Gazette.
Bruce hadn't expected trouble at Dick's bachelor party, a dinner and dance with some of Dick's old friends, and he'd expected even less at his own, which was being held at the back of his club. While he knew that some of the clubmen were as rotten as the rogues gallery in Gotham Penitentiary, he knew they'd stop anything too rowdy for fear of the light of publicity shining on them. What Bruce hadn't counted on was the audacity of Catwoman.
He hadn't noticed the taste of the sedative in the few unavoidable sips of whiskey he'd taken. He had noticed its effects, but the fake bliss of the drugs meant he hadn't cared. *That* had definitely worn off by the time he came to.
Once awake, he could tell he'd been taken to Catwoman's new lair, the giant stuffed mouse and the bag of kitty litter would have given it away, even if his charming hostess hadn't been there when he'd woken up. He was still slightly disorientated, and glad she gave him a clue as to which of the two possibilities he was supposed to be with her opening question of "Are you with us, Bruce?"
"Miss Kitka, I presume." The ropes that tied him to the chair were tied well this time.
"I'm so pleased you still recognise me."
"How could I forget such a charming woman?"
Catwoman smiled. "It took me six months to break out of prison this time, a girl worries she might be forgotten."
"Never."
"Never?"
"Of course not."
"And yet, there's a very nice engagement ring, a very nice, very expensive engagement ring on your finger. If you were anyone else Mr. Wayne, I would try and steal it." Bruce can't control the way his hand curls up to try to protect the ring, not that it does anything but display it more prominently. Catwoman has already told him she won't try and steal it, and he believes her.
Then again, if she's not going to try to steal the ring, why has she kidnapped him?
"I thought we meant something to each other, Mr. Wayne." Bruce is not in a position to explain that yes, they could have been something, something grand, but he knew she'd never give up crime, and Batman couldn't turn a blind eye to Catwoman's crimes, law and justice were more important that personal happiness.
"We could have, if you could stop yourself stealing things. But we both know you wouldn't."
Catwoman laughed. "Bruce Wayne, ashamed of my history?"
"Not your history, your future. You would have thrown me over for the first caper that interested you enough." She smiled, acknowledging the truth of the statement. Bruce is slightly ashamed of himself, worried he's selling Dick short. "We could have been something, but I have something now."
"No regrets, I like it." There's something sphinx-like in her features when she asks, "does he make you happy Bruce?"
"He does."
This time, she does smile. "That's all I needed to know." She blows a handful of dust in his face, and the next thing he knows, he's being delivered to Wayne Manor with a bell tied round his throat. Nothing's been stolen, most definitely not his engagement ring, so everyone wants to know why Catwoman kidnapped him. Even the Commissioner had to admit that Catwoman didn't do things without reason. Bruce wasn't sure how to answer, he’s not going to tell them what really happened, and he didn't want to add a crime she hadn't committed to Catwoman's rap sheet, so he pretended he couldn't remember anything of his captivity.
The Commissioner was worried that Catwoman had brainwashed him or something, setting up a grand crime for the day of the wedding, and was insisting that Bruce have a police escort until afterwards, which complicated everything greatly, because there was no way he could turn it down. He'd tried to suggest it was a waste of Gotham resources ("nonsense, Mr. Wayne, the eyes of the world will be on Gotham that day, we can't look bad") or that he didn't want it ("to be sure, we understand, but we can't have anything happening to you"), but it was inescapable and the only way he's been able to square it with his own conscience is by having the Wayne Foundation pay for any overtime this requires.
So Batman was having to evade the police, as well as sundry criminals. Bruce Wayne's wedding, meanwhile, had fought off at least three plots by supervillains, and a bill from the florists that Bruce almost assumed was an extortion attempt. Aunt Harriet had smiled at him when he'd said that, apparently this was par for the course.
They'd had journalists pretending to be caterers, criminals pretending to be caterers, and the actual caterers having a meltdown over the quality of the basil available at this time of year in Gotham.
The press was full of rumours about where they were honeymooning, thankfully, no one had found out they were going skiing in the Rockies. He wanted to do something with Dick that they'd never done together before, and the resort looked so peaceful.
He'd come up with a cover story for Batman being away, he'd left to travel to a meeting of the world's crime fighters in London last week. Batgirl had been very kind and gracious and agreed to cover for Batman in his absence.
Bruce had always believed in the immense kindness of people, and he'd seen it in the run up to the wedding. People who had no reason to care seemed to be honestly pleased for him, taking happiness in someone else's joy. They'd gone out of their way to help him try to organise a wedding that would live up to the Wayne name, and fulfill his and Dick's sentimental requirements. One of Bruce's requests was that the wedding be held at Wayne Manor, rather than the courthouse. He has nothing but bad memories of the courthouse, and the Mayor had understood, and had expedited some paperwork.
It wasn't going to be an entirely traditional wedding. For instance, no one was walking anyone down any aisles, and the one person who'd suggested it had got half way through the sentence before juddering to a halt saying, "oh my! Bruce, I'm sorry, I didn't think."
They had bowed to tradition in one thing, Bruce and Dick hadn't seen what the other would be wearing and were going to enter from separate wings of the house.
The Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court had pulled rank in order to officiate. While the Mayor was politely indignant, Aunt Harriet was misty-eyed and smiling. "Bruce, I might be the only person left who appreciates that Judge Platt was the senior partner in the law firm your father started out in."
She wasn't, when the Judge had called on them to tell them, Bruce had caught him and Alfred catching up in the kitchen, the Judge helping out with the washing up. The Judge was very decisively rinsing the plates when he said, "Alfred, if you think I'm letting anyone else marry Tom Wayne's kid, you must be joking." Bruce longed to hear more, Judge Platt was the only person he'd ever heard call his father Tom instead of Thomas, a live human not an alabaster memorial, but he knew he'd be barging in to a private conversation, so he let it be.
It's Judge Platt who's standing in the middle of the room, holding everyone's attention. Dick looks stunning in his morning suit, but bashful like he couldn't believe everyone was looking at him. Bruce couldn't believe anyone ever wouldn't look at Dick. He doubts he looks any less bashful however. Hands that are steady defusing bombs are shaking, and he just hopes he can get through the vows without his voice breaking.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today ..."
~~~~
End note: Yes, their skiing honeymoon gets interrupted by the obvious person, but if they'd gone anywhere sunny, they would have run into one of Professor McElroy's digs. I think criminal enterprises just happen to them.
Many adventures are had when either Batman or Robin is caught in public with a wedding ring, and the reverse, on those few occasions when either Bruce or Dick is spotted without theirs on. Alfred becomes very good at surreptitiously passing them rings.
You all know the Gotham Globe, right, the Gazette is it's downmarket rival. Imagine the National Enquirer with a Bruce Wayne fixation.
LJ notes: This is the fic that is known as "Exit, pursued by Aunts".
Author: Red Fiona
Fandom: Batman (TV 1966)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, DC do. ABC own this version. No money is being made from this fic.
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Aunt Harriet, Alfred and some special guest villains
Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson
Rating: I'd call this a U.
Notes: Goes a bit historically AU in 1970, the Minnesota Supreme Court decision goes the other way. Written in response to a 2011 LGBTfest prompt. The prompt asked for the DC comics version of the character and I hope the prompter doesn't mind that I went with this.
Title taken from "A Blessing for Wedding" by Jane Hirshfield - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53393/a-blessing-for-wedding.
This is fluffy and gooey. When I started writing it, I needed fluffy and gooey in my life.
Summary: When the Prince of Gotham and his former ward announce their engagement, Gotham has its usual over-reaction to all things Wayne.
~~~~
Now that they were going to get married, Bruce was willing to admit that making Dick his ward was a mistake. It was a mistake made with the best of all intentions, but a mistake nonetheless. He done it because Bruce wanted to know that if anything happened to him, Dick would be looked after and would be able to keep fighting crime. Making Dick his ward was the best way Bruce could think of in a hurry to avoid both inheritance tax and some awkward questions.
Now it was going to lead to awkward questions, but different ones to the ones he'd avoided originally. Or maybe not, they were the same questions, targeted differently. Questions such as 'what *had* his intentions been?' There's parts of the truth that Bruce can't tell to an outsider, and other parts that no-one will believe even if he told them. The history of Gotham is filled with rich men who have done terrible things to their wards.
Originally, Batman had taken Dick Grayson under his wing because Dick was a hot-head. When his family had been killed, Dick had gone racing after revenge. He might have succeeded, but he'd have found his own grave that way, without someone to stop him from tumbling ever deeper. Bruce wanted to save him from himself.
Why had he taken Dick on when he hadn't taken on anyone else? It was a feeling that, once he'd got his own revenge, Dick would want to help others get theirs. Even at the height of his rage, there’d been the traces of the good man he could become. Dick would be willing to stay. He'd be willing to risk everything to stop the same thing happening to someone else. Dick was a kindred spirit to Bruce, for all the ways that they were different.
Batman took Robin on for the best of reasons.
If Batman had Robin, it meant that Bruce needed to make sure Dick would be okay whatever happened. Dick had been nineteen when the Graysons had died, and only a quirk in Gotham's city statutes allowed for him to become a ward at that age. So Bruce made him his ward, he'd never thought he'd fall in love with him.
They tell Aunt Harriet first. They never actually told Alfred. He found them kissing in the library once. He coughed, discreetly trying to attract their attention. Apparently, it took a few coughs, of ever-increasing volume, for them to notice. They busily tried to pretend that they weren't making out against the classic literature, and Alfred didn't quite manage to hide a smile as he said, "excuse me, Master Bruce, there's a telephone call for you."
Dick managed to keep a straight face while Bruce was on the phone, but dissolved into laughter when Bruce rang off. "He'll never believe that we're only playing chess in your room now," even though, mostly, that is all they do.
That's how Alfred found out, and it's probably best that Aunt Harriet doesn't find out the same way.
It was Alfred that first put the idea of marriage into Bruce's mind. The law had changed; Bruce had been peripherally aware of it, but it had been a busy few months, busting the schemes of the Riddler, the Clock King and the Bookworm had taken time, and effort, and most importantly regarding this, brain-power. Bruce hadn't really had thinking time.
Alfred cornered him alone in the library one day. It was rare for Bruce to be separated from Dick for any great length of time, and Bruce isn't sure if Alfred planned the time to coincide with Dick's gymnastics training or if he sent Dick on a wild snipe hunt to ensure his absence.
"Master Bruce?"
"Yes, Alfred."
Alfred paused, the way he always did, when he wasn't sure if saying something was his place or not, but he felt it needed saying anyway. "Have you considered the question of matrimony?" Bruce looked confused. "To Master Dick."
Bruce hadn't, and admitted as much.
"You could, you know." Bruce supposed he could. Alfred continued, haltingly, "if Master Dick were a lady, would you have?"
It was an odd question to ask, the situation couldn't have happened if Dick were a woman. Bruce Wayne, living with a woman, without a chaperone, he'd never have heard the end of it.
But ignoring those differences, and ignoring that he was playboy Bruce Wayne, and therefore wouldn't have had a girlfriend for, what, eight, nine, oh my, nearly ten months, if he had had, any decent young man would have proposed by now.
"Sir, he deserves the right to say no."
Which was a very good way to put it. Dick deserved the right to know that he'd always be Robin, no matter what, and Bruce loved him, and that he deserved all the good things that come with marriage, not just all the responsibilities he'd got.
"Yes, Alfred ... I see. Yes, you're right." Bruce's sentence trailed off somewhat.
"Very good, sir." Alfred turned round before he reached the door. "Shall I retrieve your mother's engagement ring from the safe."
"Engagement ring?"
"I believe they are traditional, sir." Bruce nodded. "I do hope this goes more smoothly than your father's attempts. I recall it took him four goes before he plucked up the courage to finally ask. Cook and I were most concerned that your mother would have to propose in the next leap year."
Bruce laughed with him. It was nice to see Alfred smile when he talked about Bruce's father, and rare enough that Bruce treasured it.
He also treasured the engagement ring, locking it in a drawer in the desk in his study. When Alfred had told the story, he hadn't understood how his father had taken so long to propose. It had, apparently, been obvious to everyone that his mother loved him, and he loved her, so it should have been a simple matter.
Now that *he* was having to propose, however, Bruce could see why it wasn't.
He knew Dick loved him, but there was always a little voice saying "what if he says no?" Dick was his partner in crime-fighting, his best friend, as well as his sweetheart. Was Bruce willing to risk what they had, for something hadn't thought to want before Alfred suggested it to him?
And then there was how to do it. Bruce knew going down on one knee was the traditional way, but he also knew he'd look ridiculous, and he didn't want to look ridiculous, not for something this serious.
It did take him two attempts in the end. He was, originally, going to propose on their one-year anniversary, but the Mad Hatter put paid to that idea.
He didn't intend to propose when he actually did.
They were in the study. He was sat on the floor, looking at engineering designs for an improvement to the Batcomputer. Bruce didn't know why, but schematics always made more sense to him when they were laid out, not when he held them in his hand, and he was studying them in detail. Dick was sat on the chair behind him, reading the latest Asimov, and Bruce's back was resting against his legs. Dick had run his hands through Bruce's hair and kept his fingers there. It wasn't distracting, it was rather pleasant really, and it hit Bruce that this was the perfect moment.
It was them, alone, as themselves, not the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder, or playboy Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson, but Bruce and Dick and they having a pleasant, educational afternoon together, with no supervillains causing havoc. When was he likely to have this chance again?
He carefully folded away the schematics, before he turned round to face Dick. "Will you marry me?"
"Are asking if I'll say yes if you asked me?"
"No, I'm asking you now. Will you, Dick Grayson, do me the great honour of marrying me?"
In the brief pause, Bruce's heart sank.
"Yes. I mean ... yes. Yes!" Dick leaned forward to kiss him. He wrapped his hands round Bruce's jaw, kissed him on the top of the head, the forehead, his nose, before he reached Bruce's lips, and whispered, "yes," against them.
It was some time before Bruce thought of anything else, but when he did, he moved. "I've got something for you." He took the ring box out of the locked drawer in his desk. It had taken longer than he would have wanted, hands that didn't shake when diffusing a bomb suddenly deciding to quiver uncontrollably at a drawer whose lock he'd opened countless times before.
The shaking didn't get any better as he put the ring on Dick's finger. He would have to take it to a jewellers to be re-sized, for all that Dick had smaller fingers than him - there was a reason he was better at lockpicking - they were still larger than his mother's had been.
Dick sat there looking at the ring for some time, twisting it slowly around the second knuckle of his ring finger. It wouldn't go on any further, not until it was resized, but Dick didn't seem to be able to avoid fiddling with it.
"Bruce? Can I give you the ring back?"
Bruce's stomach dropped. "Yes. I mean, if you've had second thoughts ..."
"Oh, no. No, I can't think of anything I want more than marrying you," Dick smiled, nervously, "but I'm scared I'll lose it." Bruce opened his mouth to say something about resizing it. "Even if you change it so it fits, I'll still be so scared of losing it."
"I'll forgive you if you do."
"Yeah, but I won't forgive me." Dick took the ring off his finger, and gave it back to Bruce. "I love you enough to give this back." Bruce could feel the cool of the metal, barely warmed by Dick's finger, pressing into his palm. He suspected that his expression gave too much away, and that the things it was giving away weren't the whole truth because he wasn’t sure what the whole truth was. He was disappointed, sad, happy, glad and all at the same time.
"Hey Bruce, come with me." Dick took him by the hand and made him stand up. He walked Bruce to the desk. "Remember how you said it wasn't the price of something, it was how much it meant?" Bruce remembered saying something of the kind. Dick had picked up the string Bruce kept on the desk for parcels - yes, Alfred would wrap them for him, but sometimes things required a personal touch - and was cutting two lengths off. Dick took Bruce's hand again, placed it palm up on the desk and wrapped one of the two pieces of string around his ring finger. The other piece, Dick tied around his own hand. Dick held his hand up. "One day, these'll be gold bands, but I take this promise as seriously as I'll take them, as seriously as I would have done for any diamond ring. Bruce, when you say something, when you promise something, I don't need anything as proof. You've said it. That's enough for me." Bruce takes Dick's hand, kisses it, and then holds him close, because there's nothing you can say in the face of that kind of devotion.
Their wedding rings have little knots carved on them; ropes etched into the gold. Bruce wants to be reminded of that day always.
He also bought several spares, which caused much comment when the information inevitably got out, because anything to do with the Waynes is news in Gotham. The comments were mostly "jokes" about how they were replacements for when Bruce inevitably forgot the original on some model's nightstand. In reality, they were in case Bruce or Dick forgot to put theirs back on when they were swapping between identities. But that was all in the future. First, they had to tell Aunt Harriet.
They'd agreed to try to tell her on a weekend, because weekends were quieter, even Gotham's criminals needed rest, but the Joker's raid on Gotham art gallery ruined their first attempt. The second attempt saw them sitting nervously in the morning room at Wayne Manor.
"Aunt Harriet, there's something important we have to tell you." Bruce let Dick take the lead, because she was his aunt after all. "I ... um, geez, um," Bruce squeezed Dick's elbow to try to support him. Whatever happened, they were in this together. "I think you know I'm fond of Bruce. And he's fond of me. And ... and ... we're getting married."
Bruce isn't surprised that Aunt Harriet was knocked speechless, it was a lot of information, all at once. They had planned this, as best they could, and they had decided that the best way of telling her was in one go. Because any other way would involve a stumbling explanation that maybe Dick wasn't heterosexual, and they've neither of them found a word they like that's less clinical, and then another conversation later on explaining that maybe Bruce wasn't either, and maybe they were being like that together, and then a third conversation that involved the word wedding. Even though he'd been late coming to the idea of getting married, waiting that long to be married rankled at Bruce. He'd known any conversation with Aunt Harriet would be awkward, because the conversation he'd had with Dick was awkward enough and there's at least more common ground between them.
Aunt Harriet had taken the news well, once she'd gotten over her initial shock. "I'm just the luckiest woman in the world. I started today with one wonderful nephew and now I find out I'll soon have two." Bruce couldn't have hoped for it to go better.
Afterwards was trickier. Harriet managed to catch him alone - he swears he spent less time with Dick after this all came out than before.
"I don't suppose I can say that I worry about your intentions." Which Bruce supposed was another advantage of the engagement ring. "That doesn't mean I don't." Or maybe not. "He was so very young when you took him in." There was an unusually calculating look in her eyes. "You're not trying to defend yourself, which is a good sign, I think. Shows you've thought about what it looks like at least." Something like a smile flittered across her face. "He's so much like his mother. Nobody could talk her out of marrying that circus boy. Even if I objected, nothing would convince him because this is something he wants. Not that I do object, but he is so young." She grasped his hand. "None of this is because of you, or ... that you are you. I'd be saying all this if you were a woman of your age intending to marry Dick. Well, I probably wouldn't, because she'd be upset and insulted. I don't think you are." She took Bruce's hand. "All I ask is that you look after him. I'm not a young woman any more, and I'm not going to get any younger. Someone needs to look out for Dick."
Bruce promised Harriet that he will. She believed him, he thinks. He wants to believe that's because it's both true and he sounded convincing, but he's also worried that she believes him because she wants it to be true not because she thinks it is.
There was a brief, awkward silence, that Harriet breaks. "Now we have had that conversation, I start helping with the engagement party. I think you are going to need my help."
She wasn't wrong.
He and Alfred, admittedly mostly Alfred, had organised many events on behalf of either the Wayne family or the Wayne Foundation, but Bruce had underestimated the number of people who would be interested in the news of the engagement. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, theirs would be the first high-profile engagement in Gotham of this kind since the Minnesota Supreme Court had announced their judgement and kicked this whole thing off. That meant people would have been interested, and people would always be interested in a Wayne wedding in Gotham.
Because of that last detail, the press decided to riffle through Bruce's past, again, contacting every woman he'd ever been linked with in the society pages. Most of them had reacted with nothing more than a polite "no comment" but Daisy Lane had threated to set the dogs on any member of the press corps she found on her property. That fire had been why he'd dated her.
Some of the gutter-press decide to rake through Dick's past too. Bruce is used to being the centre of Gotham's attention but, in between times, he forgets how exposed he feels when it's more than just the Society Diary column taking an interest. He apologised to Dick because, well, although Dick had experienced something like this before, back when Bruce first adopted him, it had never been this sort of investigative intrusion before.
"Bruce, I knew what I was getting into." Dick's ex-girlfriends, few though they were because he's always been more strait-laced than Bruce, and certainly more strait-laced than the image of 'Playboy Bruce Wayne' that Bruce liked to encourage, had also been nothing but ladies about it.
The engagement party was shaping up to be *the* social event of the season, and Bruce had even heard rumours of people intercepting refusals to try to divert those invites. The only reason it hadn't collapsed under the weight of everything was Alfred and Aunt Harriet.
The engagement party came very close to it anyway.
Bruce knows violence isn't the answer. You can't learn and better yourself if you're hurt and sore, and people need to learn that what he and Dick have is completely normal, which means he has to be open and kind and all the things a Wayne is supposed to be. He tries in both his lives to live by a maxim of minimal possible violence. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to punch Benjamin Padgett right in his smug, priggish face. Bruce counted to ten and does all the things Batman encourages people to do when they're angry rather than resort to violence.
He might be hoping for the best more than is justified, but Bruce wants to believe that he'd be less on edge if it was just him they were talking about but the language he could hear people using to describe Dick ...
Aunt Harriet saved the day, appearing at Bruce's elbow with a cocktail. "Why, Benjamin Padgett, I'm so pleased to see you here. I wasn't sure you'd be able to attend, what with all the things I've been reading about your company in the newspapers."
Padgett stammers something, takes the cocktail and blessedly leaves Bruce alone. "Thank you so much."
"My pleasure Bruce."
Bruce gains an even greater respect for Aunt Harriet that day. She recognises every face and knows just what to say, who to encourage and who to shut down, and how to stop them without creating a scene. She stops Padgett before he starts again an hour later, and somehow corrals the gossiping trio of Mrs. Elizabeth Philpott, Miss Ruth Phillips and Mrs Martha Platt (nee Phillips) away from everyone else so they can't distort anything they hear or see. He suspects it's something she's learned to do - it can't be fun being a high society spinster, and Bruce hadn't fully considered that before. He resolves to be kinder in future, stop people when they start bad-mouthing women in Aunt Harriet's position, rather than just turning away and ignoring them.
Aunt Harriet sits down carefully but decidedly when the party's over. "I hope that's taken the sting out of it for the wedding." Bruce toasts her with a left-over glass of champagne and hopes she's right. Dick looked like he'd had a shock, unlike Bruce and Aunt Harriet, he hasn't had a lifetime of the society scrum, and a few years as a Wayne ward wasn't enough preparation for the tightrope walk the day had been.
"I think I understand why my Mom chose to elope," is how Dick summarises it later.
"Unfortunately, we can't." Bruce is a Wayne after all, and in his case, an elopement would only attract even more attention. This way, the worst of it will be done with after the ceremony.
Bruce hadn't considered how bad the worst of it could get, and how his secret identity would make it worse. People said things to Batman that they'd never say to Bruce Wayne, particularly when talking about Bruce Wayne.
He knows his role is to help the police, to handle those criminals whose methods are beyond official resources. The Wayne fortune allows him access to technology that the Commissioner could only dream of. He knows they're doing their best, and he'd never criticise them, but there are times when he thinks they could do better.
This was a case in point.
Bruce, as Batman, was visiting Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. They had the day's edition of the Globe open in front of them. Because it was Gotham, the engagement was still news even after the party is over and done with, although at least it had dropped to page four.
"You know, Commissioner, I'm still not sure about all this." The way the Chief was pointing at page four made it quite clear what he was referring to.
Commissioner Gordon pulled the face he always pulled when he was thinking about something, and Bruce couldn't help but interrupt. "Surely, if two people love each other, they ought to be allowed to get married."
"Well, yes, I suppose you're right," said the Commissioner.
"But ...," it looked like Chief O'Hara was about to argue.
"If it's alright with Batman, it's alright for me. When has Batman ever been for anything that isn't in Gotham's best interest?" said the Commissioner. And Bruce would have been pleased with that testimonial, but it shouldn't take Batman to make sure the law treated everyone fairly.
The bachelor parties were both almost disasters, for multiple reasons. First of all, there was the difficulty of rounding up Dick's old friends, spread around the country in different circus troops as they were, then there was the press trying to gate-crash the parties, and then they were both separately kidnapped.
The Penguin kidnapped Dick from his bachelor party, holding him for ransom. Batman and Batgirl rescued him. There was no harm done, Dick was doing a very bad job of pretending to still have his hands tied behind his back (for sailors, the Penguin's henchmen did a very poor job of knots, which might explain their lack of legal employment in the field). It wasn't so much that Bruce was worried, really, he'd seen Dick was fine, and Penguin didn't hurt hostages because it meant people would be less likely to pay next time he kidnapped someone. No, the Penguin saved his death traps for Batman and Robin - with the Penguin, Dick was in less danger than Robin was, so it wasn’t worry, it was a realisation. The thing Bruce had realised after the kidnapping was that he would always have to be careful now, if Batman was caught looking too closely at Dick Grayson (or indeed, Bruce Wayne at Robin), even just checking that he was alright, then he could expect it to be in the Gazette and he does not want or need another round of Wayne features in the Gazette.
Bruce hadn't expected trouble at Dick's bachelor party, a dinner and dance with some of Dick's old friends, and he'd expected even less at his own, which was being held at the back of his club. While he knew that some of the clubmen were as rotten as the rogues gallery in Gotham Penitentiary, he knew they'd stop anything too rowdy for fear of the light of publicity shining on them. What Bruce hadn't counted on was the audacity of Catwoman.
He hadn't noticed the taste of the sedative in the few unavoidable sips of whiskey he'd taken. He had noticed its effects, but the fake bliss of the drugs meant he hadn't cared. *That* had definitely worn off by the time he came to.
Once awake, he could tell he'd been taken to Catwoman's new lair, the giant stuffed mouse and the bag of kitty litter would have given it away, even if his charming hostess hadn't been there when he'd woken up. He was still slightly disorientated, and glad she gave him a clue as to which of the two possibilities he was supposed to be with her opening question of "Are you with us, Bruce?"
"Miss Kitka, I presume." The ropes that tied him to the chair were tied well this time.
"I'm so pleased you still recognise me."
"How could I forget such a charming woman?"
Catwoman smiled. "It took me six months to break out of prison this time, a girl worries she might be forgotten."
"Never."
"Never?"
"Of course not."
"And yet, there's a very nice engagement ring, a very nice, very expensive engagement ring on your finger. If you were anyone else Mr. Wayne, I would try and steal it." Bruce can't control the way his hand curls up to try to protect the ring, not that it does anything but display it more prominently. Catwoman has already told him she won't try and steal it, and he believes her.
Then again, if she's not going to try to steal the ring, why has she kidnapped him?
"I thought we meant something to each other, Mr. Wayne." Bruce is not in a position to explain that yes, they could have been something, something grand, but he knew she'd never give up crime, and Batman couldn't turn a blind eye to Catwoman's crimes, law and justice were more important that personal happiness.
"We could have, if you could stop yourself stealing things. But we both know you wouldn't."
Catwoman laughed. "Bruce Wayne, ashamed of my history?"
"Not your history, your future. You would have thrown me over for the first caper that interested you enough." She smiled, acknowledging the truth of the statement. Bruce is slightly ashamed of himself, worried he's selling Dick short. "We could have been something, but I have something now."
"No regrets, I like it." There's something sphinx-like in her features when she asks, "does he make you happy Bruce?"
"He does."
This time, she does smile. "That's all I needed to know." She blows a handful of dust in his face, and the next thing he knows, he's being delivered to Wayne Manor with a bell tied round his throat. Nothing's been stolen, most definitely not his engagement ring, so everyone wants to know why Catwoman kidnapped him. Even the Commissioner had to admit that Catwoman didn't do things without reason. Bruce wasn't sure how to answer, he’s not going to tell them what really happened, and he didn't want to add a crime she hadn't committed to Catwoman's rap sheet, so he pretended he couldn't remember anything of his captivity.
The Commissioner was worried that Catwoman had brainwashed him or something, setting up a grand crime for the day of the wedding, and was insisting that Bruce have a police escort until afterwards, which complicated everything greatly, because there was no way he could turn it down. He'd tried to suggest it was a waste of Gotham resources ("nonsense, Mr. Wayne, the eyes of the world will be on Gotham that day, we can't look bad") or that he didn't want it ("to be sure, we understand, but we can't have anything happening to you"), but it was inescapable and the only way he's been able to square it with his own conscience is by having the Wayne Foundation pay for any overtime this requires.
So Batman was having to evade the police, as well as sundry criminals. Bruce Wayne's wedding, meanwhile, had fought off at least three plots by supervillains, and a bill from the florists that Bruce almost assumed was an extortion attempt. Aunt Harriet had smiled at him when he'd said that, apparently this was par for the course.
They'd had journalists pretending to be caterers, criminals pretending to be caterers, and the actual caterers having a meltdown over the quality of the basil available at this time of year in Gotham.
The press was full of rumours about where they were honeymooning, thankfully, no one had found out they were going skiing in the Rockies. He wanted to do something with Dick that they'd never done together before, and the resort looked so peaceful.
He'd come up with a cover story for Batman being away, he'd left to travel to a meeting of the world's crime fighters in London last week. Batgirl had been very kind and gracious and agreed to cover for Batman in his absence.
Bruce had always believed in the immense kindness of people, and he'd seen it in the run up to the wedding. People who had no reason to care seemed to be honestly pleased for him, taking happiness in someone else's joy. They'd gone out of their way to help him try to organise a wedding that would live up to the Wayne name, and fulfill his and Dick's sentimental requirements. One of Bruce's requests was that the wedding be held at Wayne Manor, rather than the courthouse. He has nothing but bad memories of the courthouse, and the Mayor had understood, and had expedited some paperwork.
It wasn't going to be an entirely traditional wedding. For instance, no one was walking anyone down any aisles, and the one person who'd suggested it had got half way through the sentence before juddering to a halt saying, "oh my! Bruce, I'm sorry, I didn't think."
They had bowed to tradition in one thing, Bruce and Dick hadn't seen what the other would be wearing and were going to enter from separate wings of the house.
The Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court had pulled rank in order to officiate. While the Mayor was politely indignant, Aunt Harriet was misty-eyed and smiling. "Bruce, I might be the only person left who appreciates that Judge Platt was the senior partner in the law firm your father started out in."
She wasn't, when the Judge had called on them to tell them, Bruce had caught him and Alfred catching up in the kitchen, the Judge helping out with the washing up. The Judge was very decisively rinsing the plates when he said, "Alfred, if you think I'm letting anyone else marry Tom Wayne's kid, you must be joking." Bruce longed to hear more, Judge Platt was the only person he'd ever heard call his father Tom instead of Thomas, a live human not an alabaster memorial, but he knew he'd be barging in to a private conversation, so he let it be.
It's Judge Platt who's standing in the middle of the room, holding everyone's attention. Dick looks stunning in his morning suit, but bashful like he couldn't believe everyone was looking at him. Bruce couldn't believe anyone ever wouldn't look at Dick. He doubts he looks any less bashful however. Hands that are steady defusing bombs are shaking, and he just hopes he can get through the vows without his voice breaking.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today ..."
~~~~
End note: Yes, their skiing honeymoon gets interrupted by the obvious person, but if they'd gone anywhere sunny, they would have run into one of Professor McElroy's digs. I think criminal enterprises just happen to them.
Many adventures are had when either Batman or Robin is caught in public with a wedding ring, and the reverse, on those few occasions when either Bruce or Dick is spotted without theirs on. Alfred becomes very good at surreptitiously passing them rings.
You all know the Gotham Globe, right, the Gazette is it's downmarket rival. Imagine the National Enquirer with a Bruce Wayne fixation.
LJ notes: This is the fic that is known as "Exit, pursued by Aunts".