The waiting room smelled like mint and something too clean to be comforting.

Dick noticed that first.

He noticed everything—how the fluorescent lights hummed overhead, how the magazines were stacked in perfectly straight lines, how the clock ticked just a little too loudly with every second that passed. It felt wrong. Places like this weren’t supposed to be so…still.

He shifted in his seat, sneakers tapping rapidly against the tile floor. His fingers drummed against his knees, then the armrest, then the edge of the chair. He lasted maybe three seconds before he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I don’t like this place,” Dick muttered, not even trying to keep the complaint quiet.

Bruce, sitting beside him, didn’t look up from the clipboard he was filling out. “That’s been established.”

Dick leaned back dramatically, groaning. “It smells weird. And they’re gonna stick stuff in my mouth. That’s—” he made a face, scrunching his nose “—that’s not normal.”

“It’s a dentist,” Bruce replied calmly. “That’s exactly what they do.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

Bruce finally glanced at him then, one eyebrow slightly raised—not annoyed, just…expectant. Like he already knew Dick was about to escalate.

He wasn’t wrong.

Dick slid off the chair in one smooth motion, landing lightly on his feet. The stillness of the room pressed in on him again, and his body reacted the only way it knew how—movement.

“Richard—”

Too late.

Dick grabbed the edge of Bruce’s arm and vaulted up, flipping cleanly over his lap. His hands barely touched down before he pushed off again, twisting midair and landing behind Bruce’s chair like it was nothing. A couple across the room startled, a magazine slipping from their hands.

“Dick.”

“I’m just stretching,” Dick said quickly, already moving again.

He stepped forward, bracing his hands on Bruce’s shoulders this time, and flipped himself over Bruce’s legs, folding in half for a second before snapping back upright. It was controlled, precise—circus-perfect—but fast enough to make it look like chaos.

Bruce didn’t flinch.

Didn’t even shift, really. Just set the clipboard aside with deliberate care, like this was an entirely predictable outcome.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Bruce said.

“I won’t,” Dick shot back, bouncing lightly on his toes. “I know what I’m doing.”

Another flip—this time sideways, using the arm of the chair as a springboard.

Bruce exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Sit down.”

Dick landed, crouched for half a second…then stood again, restless energy buzzing under his skin. “I don’t want to go in there.”

There it was.

Not just complaining. Not just fidgeting.

Something smaller. Quieter.

Bruce studied him for a moment, really looked this time—the tightness in Dick’s shoulders, the way his eyes flicked toward the hallway every few seconds.

Fear.

Dick crossed his arms quickly, defensive. “It’s stupid.”

Bruce leaned back slightly in his chair, voice even. “Then you can handle it.”

Dick hesitated.

“…Yeah,” he said, but it came out less certain.

A door down the hall opened with a soft click.

“Richard Grayson?”