"School!?"

"Gotham Academy to be precise," Bruce nodded, choosing to ignore the indignant cry Dick's objection had come out as.

Dick just stared at his father with wide, horrified eyes.

"You're kidding me. Please tell me you're kidding me!?" He squeaked.

Bruce sighed and put the paper down, looking seriously at his son from across the breakfast table. "You're turning eleven next spring and have never been a normal school. It was accepted then because you couldn't even speak English—or at least, the public didn't think you could—until this year, but now its socially neglectful of me not to get my son an education." He explained calmly.

Dick wasn't buying it. "But you're Bruce Wayne! YOU were homeschooled, so no one would think twice if I were homeschooled too! I'm not THAT bad, am I Alfred?!" He all but begged of the butler and current educator silently watching this conversation.

The old man simply lifted one correct eyebrow. "I will choose to refrain from commenting on this debate. I will however, simply wish my condolences on your future English teacher." He said dryly, turning on his heel and walking away, Dick gaping at his retreating form.

"Traitor!" He called after him, but Bruce just rolled his eyes and redirected the conversation back to the topic at hand.

"I was homeschooled, and look where it put me—in a cave." He pointed out.

Dick gave him a look. "Yeah, right, like that's an entirely BAD thing." He scoffed.

Bruce sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose in stress. "Dick… I swore when I took you in that I'd give you a normal life, that I wouldn't let you make my mistakes, to deal with loss through putting your life in danger… and I may have failed with part of that within three months due to underestimating your natural deductive skills and your stupid determination, but with all things considered I'm determined to follow through with giving you a normal life the best I can. School is where I start."

Dick couldn't respond. It was sort of an unspoken subject: talking about why they both became heroes. It was something they both understood, and that silent presence of understanding in each other was more than enough comfort most days, so bringing it up out of the blue like that was… well, it was a major signal to Dick that Bruce was dead serious about this.

Ok, he couldn't deny his intentions were in the right place. It was touching, really, but he still didn't want to go.

Time to switch tactics.

"You do know that I'll walk in being smarter than every teacher in that school combined, correct?"

Bruce bit back yet another sigh. "Yes. I do." He said in a forced calm. "But the education portion of attending school is not really what I was going for, more the experience than anything." He explained. "I know that you've been an adult mentally since you were a toddler, but hanging out with League members and criminals his hardly comforting to me. And even if Flash finally lets that nephew of his become his partner, that's hardly the kind of people you should be interacting with—to say, people in costume. You need some normal in your life."

"And Gotham Academy is normal?" Dick huffed. "In case you didn't notice, the people attending that school are socialites, as in, they're faker than if I went around handing out masks! Those aren't normal people, and as the ward of the man who OWNS the school, I'm not truly expecting a warm welcome in honest arms, if you know what a mean!" He cried.

Bruce looked sullenly at his son.

"Dick. Please."

The gypsy boy couldn't come up with a comeback to that either. Bruce didn't ask for things, he either took them, ordered people to do things, or tricked them into doing it anyway.

Again, it was serious.

But he STILL didn't want to go.

Except… she was smart, wasn't she? And she was real. Very real.

"I will go peacefully on one condition." Dick finally said evenly.

Bruce turned his head slowly to give the mischievous grin his son was wearing a thoroughly suspicious glare of his own.