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Chapter Text

Flash’s P.O.V

It was a fairly simple mission. Barry and Ollie were meant to just get in, grab a few files, and get out, easy enough.

Well apparently not.

They were in Bludhaven looking for a lead on several murders that had been turning up in their respective cities around the exact same time. When they investigated, all the victims seemed connected in some way. So when they’d found a clue about the suspects, they decided to check it out together. The only problem?

Their suspect worked in Bludhaven. A truly terrible city that was crawling with criminals at every hour of the day. It wasn’t quite as bad as Gotham in terms of villains, but they made up for it with their sickening slew of violence and constant robberies.

The warehouse had an intense security system, and they’d wanted to get through with as little fuss as possible. Luckily for them, while they were staking out the location, they ran into the local vigilante, Nightwing. A few League members had worked with him on a few occasions before, so they knew that he was better than most with technology. And they trusted him well enough that he’d been invited into the Watchtower once. Though he had declined becoming a member of the league, saying that he had enough responsibilities, and that he didn’t want to embarrass someone too much just yet. Whatever that meant. Anyway, he’d been happy to help of course, and they’d made it into the warehouse with nothing to worry about. Until they tried to leave that is.

You know the one downside of having an entirely bright red suit? You’re not very good at being sneaky. A guard had seen them, and they’d alerted all of the others. They’d all dealt with their fair share of criminals in the past, but the ones in Bludhaven? Those were an entirely different breed.

They were surrounded at all sides, when a guard made a lunge for the copy of the files that Green Arrow had in his hand, only to be knocked aside by a swift kick from Nightwing. He moved with an easy grace, twisting and turning in ways that seemed unimaginable for a normal human, laughing gleefully every time he used a particularly complicated flip to dodge their weapons. Though granted, Barry didn’t actually know whether Nightwing even was a human or not. He reminded him of Batman in that way, though no matter how many times Batman claimed he wasn’t a meta, Barry wasn’t entirely sure he believed him. They had a bit of a similar look going on too. Actually, he should really get them introduced at some point, maybe Batman would appreciate having someone around that could relate to him more. As much as he could anyway, this was Batman they were talking about after all.

Nightwing knew how the thugs of his city worked, and with their assistance, they were all down in no time.Though none of them made it out completely unscathed. Arrow had taken a few nasty falls that would surely bruise, and Barry had taken a stab wound to the shoulder from a luckier guard that managed to catch him by surprise, and though it would heal fairly quickly, he still had to wince. Nightwing had several thin cuts along his arms, nothing particularly life threatening, but Barry felt a little bad about it considering he’d only gone in to help them.

“Don’t sweat it. Been a little while since I’ve had people to watch my back, I’ve had a lot worse,” Nightwing waved him off, grinning unabashedly.

“Why don’t you head back with us to the med-bay? We can get you fixed up there,” Green Arrow offered.

Nightwing seemed deep in thought for a moment, before shaking his head with an oddly mischievous smile, “Sure, why not?”

Oddly enough, it seemed that the majority of the main members of the League were in the Watchtower that day, save for Batman. They greeted them warmly, extending a few empathetic words as they regarded their injuries. Nightwing was weirdly familiar with the layout of the base, not even having to pause in order to ask which direction the med-bay was.

Green Lantern’s P.O.V

“Hello Hal, I heard that Flash and Green Arrow have brought along a visitor?” Diana questioned. He nodded in confirmation.

“Nightwing. The one from Bludhaven that-”

“What was that about Nightwing?” I jumped in the air slightly as I heard a dark growl rise behind us. I turned to face none other than the Dark Knight himself, a man so deep within the shadows that it was practically impossible to keep track of him.

“Shit Spooky, what the hell? You have got to stop doing that.”

“Ah, hello Batman, how is Gotham?” Diana greeted warmly. He regarded her with a polite nod.

“Fine. Now, Nightwing?” he questioned suspiciously. If they could actually see his face, they would’ve pictured him raising an eyebrow at them. But unlike the majority of the league, Batman remained stoic in the face of their choices to reveal their identities, continuing with his mysterious and paranoid asshole thing he had going on.

“Right, I’d forgotten you haven’t met yet. Nightwing has helped us on a few minor instances, he’s quite lively,” Diana remarked.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, why has he come up?” he scowled.

“Relax, Nightwing’s cool. Turns out he was helping Barry and Ollie grab some files or something. They brought him to the med-bay-” with that, Spooky swept up his cape, walking in the direction of the med-bay with a gait too quick to be normal. Poor Nightwing was about to get interrogated so badly, Diana was quick to go after him, and he followed after her shortly. When they caught up with him, he was staring directly at Nightwing. Somehow, Nightwing was holding his gaze with little fanfare. Gosh he wished he’d been that calm when he met Batman for the first time, he’d practically shit his pants then, he was terrifying. Nightwing was first to break the silence, and when he did- well all Hal could think, was rest in peace.

“Hi B.”

“Nightwing.” Batman spoke stiffly.

“What. Happened.” he glared at Nightwing, but there didn’t seem to be as much heat behind it than normal. I swerved my head in shock as Nightwing gave his response.

“Don’t give me that look B, I mean we both know Agent A’s had to force you down for much worse,” he laughed. Laughed. At the fucking Batman. Who was this guy again? He was hardcore.

Batman sighed, stepping calmly to sit on a chair in front of Nightwing. He took his arm in a surprisingly gentle fashion, eyeing one of the bandages with a scrutinizing look. Nightwing seemed to roll his eyes behind his blue domino mask.

“I’m sorry, what?” a voice squeaked. Oh right, Barry and Ollie were here too. Hal had to wonder if they were as dumbfounded as they were. The two vigilantes seemed to pay them no mind.

“It’s not that bad, B.” There it was again, B. Hal had barely registered it the first time, he was too caught up in how he had laughed at Batman. A man renowned for being one of the most terrifying beings on Earth. He was the stuff of nightmares. The ultimate symbol of vengeance. Who in the universe was bold enough to give Batman a nickname, and who the hell was Nightwing for Batman to not punch his lights out? I mean sure, Nightwing was already a bit hurt, but he doubted that would’ve stopped him considering his wounds weren’t that serious. Hal had so many questions, and it looked like he was going to get absolutely zero answers.

“Why are you up here then?”

“Just wanted to visit y’know? It’s been a while B. You haven’t called me in a long time. That just hurts,” his smile betrayed his false anguish, he shook Batman’s hand off of his arm before resting his palm dramatically over his heart.

“You truly wound me.”

“You saw me three days ago,” Batman said flatly.

“Alright fine, I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’m about ready to head down anyway, tell Agent A I said hi.” Hal and Diana stepped aside as the two approached the doorway. They all shuffled after them as they neared the zeta beam, where the rest of the league was present. Nightwing waved goodbye before turning to the zeta, but before he could, he seemed to change his mind about something. He turned back towards Batman, and jumped at full force into his arms, with Batman catching him with practiced ease, though his face looked much more resigned now. A silence fell over the hall as they stared at the duo in awe. Bringing his arms around Batman in a hug, Batman awkwardly patted his shoulder to signal the end of it. Leaping back towards the zeta beam, Nightwing turned one final time saluting them all with two last damning words.

“Bye dad,” and with that, Nightwing was gone.

Chapter Text

Batman’s P.O.V

If you were to ask Batman on a good day what one part of his life would be that he’d never give up for the world, assuming he actually gave you an answer, he’d say that it would be his children.

But it was moments like these where he at the very least wished his kids would give him a god damn break.

As soon as their visitor had gone, the hall erupted in shouts, and if it weren’t for how annoyed Alfred would be, he’d have already thrown himself into space by now.

“Did he just call you dad?!”

“Batman, I know you don’t trust us completely, but why wouldn’t you tell us about this!?”

“How the fuck did that happen?! Wait, actually don’t tell me, I don’t want to know-”

“Your son is a vigilante?? Is he not allowed to work in Gotham or is that just a rule for us?”

He eyes the zeta beam longingly, weighing whether or not it’d be worth it to try and avoid their questions for now. They’d inevitably continue the next time he saw them, probably doubled in force…

But he was really too tired to deal with this right now. Jason had just stolen all the Batmobile tires, including all the spares this morning in an act of pettiness (one that honestly felt quite nostalgic nonetheless), Tim had spilled coffee over some very important research papers, and Damian had apparently threatened bodily harm to a student that insulted cats. He had enough to deal with at the moment without whatever shit Dick had just pulled on him. He’d have to give them answers sooner or later.

He liked later.

Unfortunately, Nightwing works fast.

*The Next Day*

His comrades' words began to blur together as Batman lamented the poor life choices that led up to this moment.

He’d been really looking forward to taking a semi-relaxing day off, not that he could really relax at all with the amount of children in his house fighting over pretty much everything. But then he’d gotten a call from the watchtower, saying that one of his rogues had ended up in Metropolis.

Thoughts raced through his head. Did they hurt anyone? Why hadn’t he seen their capture on the news yet? Who was it? Penguin? Scarecrow? Joker? Whatever stupid guardian of fate is out there, please don’t let it be Catwoman, he’d never hear the end of it.

But no, it was worse than Catwoman.

If he knew this was what he was going to come up to, he would’ve stayed home and sent Nightwing in his place. He would have to get him to promise not to reveal anything else, but at least the League already knew about him and he understood the situation. In front of him stood Superman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow, the “villain” they’d caught was sitting between them.

Bound by a glowing green rope undoubtedly made by Green Lantern’s ring, was Red Hood. His previously estranged, second son.

He scanned his son for any important injuries. His annoyance aside, if they’d used any unnecessary force on Jason, he was going to make their lives a living hell. Luckily, he seemed unharmed. His helmet lay beside his chair rather than on his head, his guns were on the table (speaking of which, he should really make sure the league learns that when they take someone’s weapons away, they shouldn’t leave them just three feet away from the person they’re restraining), and he practically lit up with glee when he spotted Batman in the doorway.

What was Jason even doing in Metropolis in the first place? It couldn't have been a case. Jason rarely worked on cases outside of Gotham, and if he did, then it was probably one that Oracle had sent him, so Batman would’ve known about it since it would be on file on the Batcomputer. After Jason had stolen all his tires, he’d left a note saying that he was going to visit Star City, so what was he doing all the way in-

Oh. Of course.

Damn it Nightwing.

The grin on Jason’s face let him know that he’d figured it out. He really hoped the next one would just be a little less dramatic at the very least.

But who was he kidding? His kids? Less dramatic? He’d have a better chance convincing Lex Luthor to give up his villain career and join a circus.

Jason hadn’t been on a case, he’d started up trouble on purpose. He chose Metropolis because he knew that Superman would hear him. And the bat symbol on his chest would be enough to convince him to bring him up to the watchtower.

Why did he choose to adopt so many children again?

“Batman! There you are, hey before we get into this, can we talk about what happened yester-”

“No.”

“But-”

“Don’t we have more pressing issues to deal with here, Superman?”

“Is that all I am to you, Old Man? Just another issue you have to deal with?” Red Hood said with a faux sadness. Though there was an underlying tone there that he should probably address as soon as he gets Jason back to the manor.

“Old Man? I mean I know Batman’s been working longer than most of us but he can’t be that old- wait, oh no, don’t tell me,” Green Lantern groaned.

“Look, all I did was follow a lead on a drug heist, it just so happened to end up in Metropolis. Didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, just beat up a thug or two when the Boy Scout here flew over. And for the record, if he hadn’t grabbed me, then I would’ve gotten the code to their hideout by now,” Jason explained. He didn’t seem to be lying. But if there was anyone that knew how to fool the Batman, it was his children. Then again, Clark wasn’t trying to disprove it either, so his fight must’ve been real.

Which would mean that the case just hadn’t been showing up on the Batcomputer for some odd reason, a bug in the system perhaps. He’d have to get Tim to look into that.

Or it could’ve been Oracle purposefully keeping it from him.

Despite her breakup with Dick, their friendship was going strong. It wouldn’t be surprising if he’d managed to drag her into it. Which did not bode well for him in the slightest.

“Red Hood has been identified as an anti-hero since I last updated his file. Even so, I want my rogues in my city, this isn’t your problem,” he said instead.

“It became my problem when he showed up in Metropolis unannounced,” Clark argued.

“I already told you that I wasn’t doing anything wrong-”

“So are we just going to ignore the ‘Old Man’ comment?” Green Lantern cut in.

“Looks like it,” Green Arrow responded. Batman would’ve kept insisting, but then Red Hood’s communicator went off, a familiar voice echoing through the hall.

“Hey Little Wing! Are you still up for family game night this weekend?” Nightwing questioned.

“Long as dear old Dad still wants me there,” he threw a challenging look at Batman. Despite the situation, he melted a little. His relationship with Jason had been improving a lot ever since he’d been welcomed back into the family and the Lazarus’s effects lessened, but he wasn’t always quite sure how to treat Jason without pushing his boundaries. Getting called Old Man was common, a subtle jab, and he’d accepted it just fine as long as Jason was speaking to him, but he hadn’t called him Dad since before Batman had failed him back in Ethiopia. Even if it was still a little mocking, after that, there was no way he could deny him anything, even in front of his colleagues. He was trapped.

“Of course I still want you there, Hood,” he answered, sighing.

“Great! See you then!” The call hung up. And with that, Jason slipped out of the ropes with ease, the light dissolving as Green Lantern gawked at them. Superman was in a similar state. Green Arrow however, looked more calculating. Like there was something almost familiar about how Red Hood was regarding Batman.

Red Hood swiped up his guns and helmet, but Clark was ready to grab onto him again. This time however, Jason wasn’t making it easy for him as he pulled out a shard of kryptonite that Batman had given all of his children in case of emergency. Green Arrow aimed his weapon at Red Hood, but he was stopped swiftly by a rubber bullet, and not taking any chances, Red Hood took another shot at Green Lantern, so that if he reigned in his bearings, he’d at least have more time. Batman didn’t bother trying to stop him as he ran for the zeta beam. As soon as he was a safe distance away, Batman plucked up the shard of kryptonite from Superman’s shoulder, with Clark coming out of his pained daze just in time to hear Red Hood’s parting words.

“You’re going down this weekend Old Man!”

Chapter Text

Batman P.O.V

As soon as he’d gotten home that night, he’d threatened, begged, and bribed all of his children (regardless of whether they still lived in the Manor or not) to stop finding ways to be brought to the Watchtower to cause him problems with the league. He assumed the next on the list would be either Tim or Cass. But given Cassandra was currently out of the country, he figured Tim would be his best bet. Alfred had been present for each of those altercations and try as he might, he wasn’t quite able to hide his laughter.

“Tim, don’t listen to Nightwing or I’m replacing all of the coffee in the manor with decaf.”

“Nice try Bruce, but we both know that you can’t survive on decaf any better than I would.”

“Tim please, the League already knows about Dick and Jason, please don’t make it any worse, I lose enough sleep as it is.”

“And so do you for that matter, but promise me you won’t hack into, get invited, or be kidnapped back to the watchtower and I won’t tell Alfred about all the Redbull you’re hoarding in your room. I’ll even buy you more Tim, please-”

“Tempting. But no promises B, it’s Alfred. He probably knows already and is just waiting for a time to strike when he knows I’ll feel most guilty. Besides, I think I’m the least of your problems. If anything, you should be watching out for the Demon Brat.”

“Tim”

“Oh so he and Jason can get away with trying to kill me every other week, but I can’t call him a demon?”

“Actually scratch that, Jason’s toned it down a lot. Gotta go though B, I’ve got a case to work on. Good luck with Nightwing, you’re going to need it.”

He probably wasn’t wrong about Alfred all things considered. Alfred knew everything that went on in this house. If only Alfred was actually willing to tell him about Nightwing’s plans, but it looked like he was enjoying himself too much for that.

“Alfred, I’m going to start going gray.”

“That point has long passed Master Bruce. Perhaps not long after you adopted Master Dick in fact.”

“Yes. And I wasn’t even thirty at that point. Imagine how bad it’ll be if this continues.”

“You can join the club Master Bruce. Or might I suggest hair dye?”

His attempts at convincing Damian seemed to go even worse than his attempts to convince Tim. While Tim had cut him off quickly but left him with a smidge of hope, Damian made it clear that he was set on making matters worse.

“I must see these cretins myself. I must attest to whether they are truly worthy of working alongside the house of Wayne.”

“Damian they are perfectly fine, that’s not necessary-”

“Nonsense Father. I will not allow them to sully the name of Gotham’s most prized vigilante. It is bad enough that you allow absolute imbeciles like Drake onto the team, but at least he is technologically competent.”

“That’s perhaps the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say about Tim.”

“He has admittedly improved in my eyes. But I must see what the sorry excuses for heroes that believe themselves worthy of being your teammates are bringing to the table. Nightwing has assured me of Superman’s abilities, but he is nothing when faced with a fucking green rock.”

“Language Damian. And no lethal uses of kryptonite.”

“If you do not wish for me to call the situation as it is, then you should not have allowed me to work with Todd.”

“It was a bonding experience that I only went along with because Nightwing suggested it.”

“Tt. Well I suppose it worked in a way, he is at least tolerable. I particularly look forward to testing the limits of this Green Lantern you speak of.”

“That, I’m fine with. But I will drag him out myself if I have to as long as you don’t break into the Watchtower.”

“The sentiment is appreciated, but no thank you father. I would miss the opportunity to see the rest of the League if I were to accept. Next time you see Nightwing, tell him I send my regards.”

From there, the conversation only seemed to cycle endlessly as he made fruitless attempts to get his youngest to stop trying to beat up his teammates. Or at least make him promise not to curse them out when he meets them.

*One Week Later*

Batman had tried to avoid the League altogether for as long as possible. But it seemed that Oliver was getting suspicious. He’d called him a day earlier under the pretense of a business deal he wanted to make, only to begin questioning Bruce on how his “nightly activities” were going.

He’d had to turn up his Brucie Wayne persona up all the way to eleven, and had gone into a non-explicit, but clear rant filled with plenty of innuendos, (that he hoped none of his children were present to hear) regaling Oliver with the nights he’d spent at the club during the past month. And he had been to a club once or twice, just on a case and not to have a party.

Well, except for that one time on the roof of an abandoned club with Catwoman. But that was an entirely different story and Oliver didn’t need to know about that.

While Oliver would probably have a little bit of a hard time looking him in the eye at the next gala, it would be worth it, since his secret seemed to be safe for just a little while longer if nothing else.

But it seemed that the consequences were finally catching up to him, as he could not hold out any longer when the League meeting he himself had scheduled before everything with Nightwing had happened, began to approach. He’d half considered putting the manor under a lockdown to avoid any mishaps, but that seemed a bit extreme, and he doubted that Alfred would appreciate it. He’d also considered just locking his kids in their rooms for a few hours, but no doubt they’d just escape and would take revenge on him later.

The room had silenced as soon as he’d walked in. They all seemed to want to ask him questions, but if they were too scared to try, then he wasn’t going to oblige them.

He’d barely gotten past his discussion of the League’s budget when the monitor signaled an emergency call. He mentally prepared himself for whatever he’d see. There was a chance that it was his children messing with him and that he shouldn’t pick it up, but there was also the chance that it was a genuine emergency and he couldn’t afford to risk that. So he stood idly by while Superman moved to accept the call.

And he regretted it immediately.

Attempting to aggressively push each other off of the Batchair so they could sit, were two of his sons.

Tim and Damian.

Eventually they screeched to a halt, deciding to just share the chair, with Tim taking up most of the space and Damian hanging awkwardly on the remaining edge, with his legs sprawled over Tim’s.

Clearly noticing the similarities the two shared with Nightwing and Red Hood with their domino masks, Superman looked towards the Dark Knight.

“Um. Batman, I think it’s for you.” Batman hung his head in resignation. There went the last of his dignity. As well as all the work he’d put in to sway Green Arrow away from the truth, as he now seemed to stare at Batman in an entirely new light. His last hope would be to convince him that while Bruce Wayne had plenty of children, Batman only had four. That hope looked very, very slim.

“Robin, Red Robin. What’s wrong?”

“His cat keeps knocking my coffee off the counter!”

“He’s a cat! It is in his nature, Father- tell him he is being a nuisance!”

“Why can’t you just ask Agent A or Nightwing to solve this for you? I’m busy here.”

“We tried. Agent A already told us to ask Nightwing, and then Nightwing told us to ask you.”

Oh great, so this was on purpose, then? No wonder they’d managed to resolve their seating arrangement so easily. There wasn’t actually a problem. Fine.

This was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine.

“Red Robin is allowed to be annoyed, Robin. If anything, you should tell Nightwing he’s being a nuisance.”

“Whatever for?”

“Nevermind. Please try and stop your cat from wasting T- Red’s coffee. I doubt you’d appreciate it if Red did the same with your tea.”

“Red Robin is not a cat. He would have no excuse.”

“Robin. Apologize, please.”

“Tt. Not a chance, I propose we settle this with a fight.”

“Best idea you’ve ever had, Demon Brat. And what better place to use as an arena than a state of the art, high tech, space headquarters? See you in a bit B!” and then the connection was cut. Batman groaned as he buried his head in his hands, hearing the zeta beam in the distance.

“Batman, what’s going on?” Black Canary questioned. But he didn’t seem to hear her, instead turning to the doorway.

Why?

Green Arrow’s P.O.V

Something was off about all of this.

In the doorway, were two boys dressed in red kevlar costumes, not unsimilar to the one that Nightwing had worn. The older boy had a bo-staff strapped to his back, while the smaller one held a katana.

He had never seen Batman so stressed. These kids were obviously his, and he’d given up on any stoic facade he’d pushed before. His body language reminded him of someone.

These boys looked about the same height as his old friend, Bruce Wayne’s children, Tim and Damian. Argued just like them too. Well they barely constituted as friends nowadays considering they barely saw each other unless it was at a gala. One of which was coming up soon. But he’d seen Bruce just as long-suffering as Batman was now, whenever his own kids were involved.

Could it be?

Bruce was a lot more serious when they’d gone to school together. He’d changed a lot since then. But wouldn’t he know if he was Batman? He’d known him for years.

Then again, Oliver hadn’t told Bruce he was Green Arrow either. But Batman knew his identity. Everyone in the league knew his identity. If Bruce was in the league too, he’d have mentioned his identity to Oliver at the very least.

Right?

Batman’s P.O.V

“Stop. You are not going to fight in the Watchtower of all places.” He spoke, shaking off his annoyance as he grabbed onto the boys capes, keeping them apart before they finished readying their weapons.

“He started it,” Tim scowled.

“Red, please.”

“Father, if I am not permitted to fight with Red Robin, then I must demand you allow me an opponent among your league.”

“Kid, you’re like ten.” God damn it Hal, shut your mouth for once please.

“You reprehensible bastard! Face me on the mat then, you piece of-”

“D- Robin! That’s enough!”

“Father! You always speak of how the Green Lantern always annoys you, and how you often wish to punch him but refuse to do so too often out of courtesy, but I have no such qualms!”

Kill him now please.

“Robin, we’ve talked about this. Red, please take him home. I’ll figure out whatever this is later.”

“I don’t know B. He seems pretty determined. And you can’t deny how funny it would be.”

“Red.”

“You know the batglare doesn’t work on me, B.” Batman heard a small ‘What the fuck’ in the background.

Tim seemed to take pity on him finally, putting away his bo-staff and grabbing Damian by the arm.

“Okay, I’ll see you at home then Dad.”

“Farewell Father. I expect your assistance with training Titus as well as Alfred the cat when you return.”

They both left with oddly smug faces. He collected his papers before turning to leave, only to realize that the entire league was standing between him and the entrance, with apprehensive looks on their faces. He’s said it once, and he’d say it a hundred more times.

Damn you Nightwing.

Chapter Text

Batman P.O.V

There were so many things that upset him.

Guns, annoying businessmen, (most) metas in Gotham, clowns. Fuck he hated clowns so much.

There were also plenty of things that he cared for deeply.

Justice, darkness, a nice glass of wine after a particularly long day, punching clowns. He loved punching clowns a whole lot. He’d be glad to do that later.

But right now? What was causing him grief? What did he want to throw behind him and shield from every bit of pain in the world?

His family. Frankly, he wasn’t sure which category his children fit into at the moment.

His team wasn’t going to budge, he could’ve tried taking them down of course, he knew perfectly well what weaknesses he could exploit to get his way.

But then he’d have to deal with them later, his avoidance would only give them a newfound vigor. Knowing their luck, some otherworldly threat would come along to try and destroy the world again and he’d be forced to work with them again. And they would hardly be able to focus with the amount of questions running through their heads.

But then again…there was the reason he’d hid his family in the first place to consider. He had wanted nothing more than to protect them, the Justice League was filled with idiots, sans a few exceptions (mindly Dinah, Diana, and Martian Manhunter), but idiots as they were, they were all incredibly powerful idiots. He was no stranger to mind control, while he understood they wouldn’t attack his children of their own free will, there was no telling what could happen if that was taken from them. Or the potential threats that could occur if any information was leaked to another more dangerous source. His kids had been trained for any possibility he could think of. But even he knew that not every plan is going to go exactly the way they wanted it to.

Like right now, for instance.

He and Nightwing were going to have words.

Superman P.O.V

Batman sighed resignedly, turning back to the table and plopping himself down into a chair almost childishly. But it would do no good to underestimate the man now. The rest of the team regarded Clark pointedly, remembering that the Dark Knight often conversed more openly with him than the others. Not that the bar was very high, but it’d always been a proud point for Clark.

But Batman hadn’t even told him about any of his children. The thought that Batman didn’t trust him as much as he thought he did saddened him considerably.

“Batman. I know you’re not exactly the most open person, and you are entitled to your privacy-”

“Then why are we having this conversation?” Batman cut him off gruffly.

“This is a big thing Batman. We’re just worried about you. None of us knew you had, well- anyone really,” he tried in vain, to draw out a softer side.

“Well now you do. All the more reason for you to stop requesting to help in Gotham. As you can see, I have more than enough help.”

“You are not the only person in this room with a family, we’ve all told each other about ours in the case something happens and we need to contact them. But you never indicated that you had anyone for us to contact in that case, let alone people in the vigilante community.” Clark himself had personally made sure that his parents would be well protected if the time arose that he’d be unavailable. Diana had done the same with a few of her Amazonian sisters, as well as an old friend of hers named Steve Trevor. The rest of the league had given them similar contacts. But not Batman.

“You weren’t privy to that information because it didn’t matter. As you said, they’re vigilantes. They understand the risks, and they know what they’re doing. And they knew how to get to me if they really needed me.”

“The point of our system is to make sure that those we care about are well taken care of, even when we are not around. You have been on off-world missions before Batman, as have the rest of us. It would’ve been prudent for your children to have access to the same protection,” Diana argued.

“They know what to do if a problem arises without me there. What it was specifically is my business, and mine alone.”

A silence fell as Batman faced them almost effortlessly. He seemed to have finished with them, as he returned to his feet, throwing them a glare that would make even the strongest villains cower in fear.

“Well can we meet them again?” Flash blurted out suddenly. Perhaps Clark had imagined it, but he thought Batman’s glare had softened slightly, but the moment passed as quickly as it came.

“We shall see.”

“Those are your only ones, right? Just four?” Green Arrow questioned, failing to hide the suspicion in his voice. What was that about?

Batman grunted, nodding. Even then though, four was a lot for such a brooding loner. He had to wonder what their mother was like. Sensing Batman’s darkening mood, the league parted to allow him to pass, they’d gotten all they could at the moment. They weren’t going to push their luck.

-That Weekend-

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

Wayne Enterprises had a charity gala tonight, and most of his children had laughed in his face when he asked them to go. They only made appearances at galas when they knew they could all get together and cause mayhem. Just to keep him on his toes, they said. However, Alfred had been able to wrangle two of them to go this time around, he wasn’t too worried about one of them, the other however?

Well it’d be a miracle if he survived this night without having to down a bottle of alcohol.

“I don’t know about this Bruce,” Duke spoke, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He and Bruce sat in Bruce’s study, having finished getting ready.

“You don’t need to stay for the whole thing if you get uncomfortable,” he assured one of the newer members of his family.

“You can hang with me all night if you want,” a voice in the doorway said. Bruce’s demeanor darkened, turning with a scowl as he faced the blue-eyed man in the doorway.

Dressed in a dark blue suit with a white tie, his dark hair neatly styled, and a cheerful smile on his face, Dick Grayson was the picture perfect son.

Who knew he’d be such a pain in the ass sometimes?

“Hi Bruce,” Dick laughed as his father figure continued to openly glower at him. Duke’s eyes darted between the two of them concernedly, before a look of understanding dawned on his face.

“Ohhh, is this about the incident with the League?”

“Dick.”

“Bruce.” Dick replied, the smile never leaving his face as the infamous bat-glare had zero effect on him, a feat brought on by years of experience- as well as some questionable instances that he’d added to a scrapbook of his most embarrassing moments.

Needless to say, whenever a new bat joined the nest, not that he was planning on adding another anytime soon, any intimidating presence Bruce had quickly died when Dick gave them their “initiation,” with every one of his children (plus Alfred occasionally) coming together to tell them humiliating stories about their experiences with Batman. Bonding happily with nothing to ruin the moment, at the expense of his dignity.

He loved and hated it at the same time.

His stare-down with his oldest son would have to wait however, as Alfred seemed to be getting impatient, and no one wanted to deal with an annoyed Alfred. No one.

He, Dick, and Duke were ushered into the car with little fanfare, and they quickly arrived at the destination. He’d planned on taking Dick aside as soon as possible, but as his son linked arms with a tall woman with fiery hair and a purple dress, it was clear he’d have to wait. Duke had excused himself to get food, so it looked like Bruce would unfortunately have to go and entertain some of the high society guests with his Brucie Wayne persona. What joy.

He spent the next few minutes discussing boring business arrangements with people that would most definitely stab him in the back if they ever got the chance, but were for now, too afraid to pit themselves against one of the most influential companies in the world, and would instead put their efforts into getting on his good side and climbing their way up the social hierarchy while secretly gossiping about him when they thought he didn’t notice.

He was Batman. Of course he’d notice. Not that they’d know that of course. He was just glad that Lex Luther wasn’t among the businessmen at the party tonight, he was far too sober to deal with another annoyance.

The highlight of his night so far had been a short conversation with Jim Gordon about the causes the proceeds from the party were going to. It was a good thing he hadn’t drank anything yet, or his willpower would’ve probably crumbled and he’d be complaining to him about the Justice League as if they were good friends. Which they were, just not as Bruce. He enjoyed the interaction nonetheless. But it had ended awkwardly when Dick and his date danced past them and Jim was reminded of his son’s breakup with Barbara, regardless of the two’s status as friends, it wasn’t exactly a subject either of the two wanted to touch with a ten foot pole, so they went their separate ways. Clearly Bruce’s night wasn’t going too well.

Luckily for him, it seemed the night wouldn’t turn into too much of a waste. A manicured hand slid around him from the back, several shiny pearl bracelets on her wrist.

“Hey there handsome” A voice purred in his ear.

“Selina” he turned to face her, taking her hand in his own, and pressing a kiss to it. She was as gorgeous as always, wearing a long, strapless, black dress and matching heels, her lips painted a nice, dark shade of red. He noted that the necklace she wore was most definitely stolen, as he’d heard from Jason when he asked him to come to the gala, she’d stolen one from a store near his territory and he hadn’t bothered to stop her because he was busy with a drug heist, but he didn’t bring it up. Instead, he began to close the short distance between them.

“Heard the boys were giving you a hard time.”

“You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had.”

“Oh poor thing, well I know what would make you feel better..”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“Well I’d be happy to show you if you’d meet me upstairs, but after a dance first, of course”

“I’m happy to oblige-”

They were unfortunately interrupted by a familiar voice calling his name, he would’ve cursed if he’d had the chance after he recognized whose voice it was.

Oliver. Fucking. Queen. Otherwise known as Green Arrow.

Why him?

Oh yeah that's right, damn you Dick.

Chapter Text

-A few minutes earlier-

Oliver Queen P.O.V

Honestly, he hadn’t been sure he wanted to come to the gala tonight. Sure, the food was always great, but Bruce already threw a ridiculous amount of parties, so it wasn’t like it was very special, and he was dead tired. He hadn’t been getting much sleep after meeting all of Batman’s children, and he wanted to deny the connections he was making because they just made his head hurt. Going to the gala might’ve made things worse. But he wanted answers, and if he wanted them- then this was the best opportunity to find them.

He wasn’t entirely sure it was worth it yet. There were reporters everywhere, and Dinah wouldn’t be too happy if he put himself in a bad position with the media. He’d had to refrain from expressing his frustrations, and politely excuse himself from various conversations with the Gotham upper-class before he finally found someone that could actually be useful.

Dick Grayson. Bruce’s son. Who happened to share the exact build as Nightwing. As Bruce did with Batman. And if he couldn’t stop comparing those two, then he was going to lose it. It was time to put his mind to rest. He’d spotted him just as his date had gone to get a drink, so Oliver was quick to seize the opportunity.

“Oh hey Ollie, how’s Dinah?”

“Doing pretty well, afraid she couldn't make it tonight though. How have you been? Haven’t heard much news recently.”

“Oh just the usual, just got back from a case with my team,” Dick responded, an odd smile on his face. A case? A team? What?? Nightwing- Dick- no, wait- the Titans? No. Hold on. What?

“Case?”

“Confidential I’m afraid. I don’t think my boss at the police force would appreciate me sharing any of the details before we get everything straightened out for the public announcement,” Dick answered, seemingly unaware of the man’s panic. Oh, right. Oliver had forgotten that Dick was a police officer now. That explained plenty. He was about to ask another question when a younger boy suddenly rushed over to them.

“Hey Duke, how’s your first gala going?”

“I can’t believe you’re able to sit through these, there’s so many people and- who’s this?”

“Right, I forgot you haven’t met yet. Duke, this is Oliver Queen. Ollie, this is Duke Thomas, you might’ve heard by now that Bruce is fostering him,” Dick explained.

“Another kid? Where does Bruce even keep finding all of you?” he questioned, dumbfounded.

“I mean, he did find me in a circus. I think Duke here was an especially unique addition to the family though. Really lights the place up, you know?” Dick declared. Duke shot him a warning look. Well what did that mean?

“Well it’s nice meeting you, Duke.”

“Nice meeting you too, sir.”

Before an awkward silence could come along, something flashed in Dick’s expression, and an almost manic smirk grew on his face.

“Oh! Sorry, I should’ve asked earlier, are you here for Bruce? I can point you in the right direction” Dick offered eagerly.

“That’d be great actually, where to?”

“Right over there, near one of the exits. Go right ahead, he doesn’t look too busy.”

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

It appeared that someone out in the world was working tirelessly to make sure his night was absolute shit.

(hint: it’s probably Dick)

Of all the times that Oliver could’ve interrupted his conversation tonight, it had to be this one? He’d have given anything to get out of speaking with the other socialites, but nope. Not today.

“I see that you’re a bit preoccupied at the moment, find me later, don’t forget, you still owe me that dance,” and then his one saving grace disappeared into the crowd. Response aside, she seemed a little miffed at the interference in their usual game. That was going to be fun dealing with later.

Not.

What’s worse, she was leaving him with the blonde nuisance that he’d unfortunately come to know as his friend. Let’s see…should he go with business Bruce Wayne, or playboy Brucie Wayne?

“Oliver,” he greeted with the most cheerful smile he could muster.

“Have you been enjoying the party?” he continued.

“Yeah yeah, it’s great- anyway can I talk to you in private?”

Playboy Brucie it is.

“How forward of you. Well for that face, all you needed to do was ask,” he slurred drunkenly. Oliver’s cheeks tinged slightly pink, but he managed to press on with a scowl.

“Seriously Bruce, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“That’s fine, uh- we can talk in the stairway?” Oliver nodded, walking briskly out of the ballroom. The two men took a seat on the steps, and Oliver regarded him warily.

“I know you, Bruce. You’re not stupid when you’re sober. You don’t smell like alcohol in the slightest. And you’re no lightweight either”

Well damn, he’d forgotten about that, he had to blame this on his interaction with Selina, which had clearly made him let his guard down. And the rest of his children for making him soft. How come Oliver could only be observant when it annoyed him? Why not on missions?

Could he play the petty card? It always worked for his children.

“Well maybe I was a little annoyed and didn’t want to talk to you after you called me away from my date,” he scowled. Not like he was lying.

“Look, I’m sorry- but Dick said you weren’t busy.” Of course he did.

“This won’t even take that long, and you can be on your way.”

“What is it?” He knew damn well what it was.

“How has your week been?”

“Is that it? It’s been fine, a bit stressful at work, but normal for the most part. A phone call would have sufficed Oliver.”

“Have you been going out at night? Y’know sleep is important when you’re stressed so maybe cut back on the night activities?”

“I already have. Most Gotham parties aren’t all that fun when you go everyday anyway.”

“Right. Parties. Y’know I’m not feeling too great about this one either, no offense. Just a bit tired myself. I think I’m gonna head out now, let you get back to whatever you were doing. Have a good night Bruce.”

Oliver Queen P.O.V

It seemed like everything was fine and he was worried over nothing. He was glad. He just wanted to clear his head a bit before he went home, maybe take a walk around the street. Appreciate the very few nice areas that Gotham had to spare, like the shopping center a block away from the venue. But unfortunately, because it was Gotham- everything had to go wrong.

Not even ten minutes later, and someone jumped out to mug him. Now, he could’ve easily fought off a normal thug, and the only thing really stopping him was the camera pointed at him from the alley, but he could easily ask Batman to have any evidence of his fighting prowess erased.

But before he got the chance, something bright knocked the criminal down. And Oliver might’ve just felt his soul leave his body then and there.

Standing over the criminal was a dark-skinned boy at about average height, wearing a bright yellow suit and helmet, a large white bat symbol gleaming on his chest.

What. The. Fuck.

“Hey man, are you okay?” he asked, awkwardly. It was only then that Oliver realized that he was just standing there, with his jaw hanging as he stared unabashedly at the new arrival. It was then that a shadow materialized behind them, and Oliver let out a shriek. But at least if he was here, and he’d seen Bruce back in the gala just a little while ago, there was no way Bruce was Batman, right?

“Signal.”

“I’m sorry Batman, Nightwing sent me over- and he was really nice about it and I just couldn’t say no-” the boy blurted out, before being cut off by Oliver.

“Is he new? I didn’t know you had anoth- I mean, had any teammates outside the Justice League,” he rambled. But Batman didn’t grace him with an answer.

“Signal, it’s fine. I’ll talk with Nightwing. This is part of Red Robin’s patrol route, he has it handled. You should be going now. So you can make it in time for your day patrol. Like you’re supposed to.”

“Uh- yeah, yeah. I’ll head out in just a minute. Bye B!”

Just to be sure, Oliver sent a quick text to Bruce’s cellphone, and he sighed in relief when he was given a response within seconds, all while Batman was still in front of him.

-Two Days Later-

Batman P.O.V

“You said you only had four children!”

That was the unanimous thought of all of his Justice League coworkers.

He’d overheard Oliver regale Flash and Green Lantern with the story of what had happened the night of the gala the day after it happened. So within a few hours, everyone in the League knew that he had a fifth partner. And now the rest of them wanted to meet him. Of course he’d said no. But then he remembered that he had bugged the Watchtower and all of his children knew about it and were clearly out to get him.

Because the screen sprung to life without any indication of why, other than the appearance of Oracle’s symbol. And sitting in the Batchair, was Signal. His only good child left. Apparently Dick had decided that an appearance to Oliver in his civvies wasn’t enough to satisfy him. The only chance he actually had at keeping one of his secrets. Down the drain.

“Hi everyone? So, I was asked to introduce myself to you, so- I’m Signal. I’m kind of one of Batman’s sons? Not exactly, but kind of? We work together. Family in any case”

“Does he know my identity?” Green Arrow whispered in his ear.

“I didn’t tell him if that’s what you’re asking. But he and the others probably got into my files at some point.”

“I thought those files were meant to be super well-protected?” he accused loudly, causing everyone’s heads to turn to him. Signal’s voice rang out in an answer.

“They are, but Red Robin and Oracle are both really good hackers, so they weren’t much of an issue. Don’t worry about the files though- they are still safe.”

“How can they be safe when a teenager was able to hack into them? And who’s Oracle?” Black Canary asked.

“Red Robin is highly skilled. His computer skills often surpass my own, he’s actually the one who helped with the access restrictions.” Batman responded.

“And Oracle’s one of Batman’s other kinda but kinda not kids.” Signal continued. Was he holding cue cards? Oracle’s voice came over the speaker as well.

“I think someone needs to give Nightwing a dictionary for his next birthday. But he’s not wrong, I’m Oracle, I work behind the scenes for the most part, but I was the first Batgirl. Don’t get too comfortable Batman, you’ve only scratched the surface of Nightwing’s plans.”

He wanted to bang his head against the table, reputation be damned.

Superman’s next statement made him want to cry.

“Wait- first Batgirl? As in, there are more?? I didn’t know there was even one!”

Would it be too late to ask Alfred to put him in therapy instead of taking in children to compensate for his terrible childhood?

Yes, yes it was.

Nightwing. He loved him, and his other children dearly. But god fucking damn it.

Chapter Text

Batman P.O.V

At this point he might as well just quit the Justice League and save himself the trouble.

Because this was getting ridiculous. At least he got a break from Green Arrow.

But this was worse. So much worse.

-One Hour Earlier-

He’d foolishly agreed to help Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Superman when they’d alerted him to an attack in Metropolis, instigated by several of his own rogues in addition to Cheetah and Solomon Grundy, so he felt responsible for making sure they were stuck back in Arkham. He was at least confident enough that Wonder Woman and Superman would be kind enough to question him about his children after the mission rather than during it.

Green Lantern however was an entirely different story. Because for all of the intelligence that came with being a pilot, Hal Jordan was almost as much of a pain in his ass as Nightwing was.

At least he actually liked Nightwing.

He’d deal with him for now though. But the other reason he was happy to come help was that he needed a break from Gotham. It wasn’t like anyone particularly close to him would just randomly choose to show up in Metropolis when there was plenty of crime for them to deal with in Gotham if they got bored.

He had three Gotham rogues participating in this team up, but he’d only been informed about two of them, both of which weren’t particularly threatening, so it was truly a wonder why Cheetah or Grundy had willingly teamed up with them. Condiment King was annoying, and the stains were hard to get out, but it’d be easy to round him up. Kite Man was here too, and no one really took him seriously in the slightest.

The other Gotham villain involved however? A bit more of a challenge.

Scarecrow.

While definitely not the most dangerous villain in Gotham, dealing with him wouldn’t be as easy as the other two. Especially when they hadn’t even realized he was part of the operation.

Wonder Woman was dealing with Cheetah, as expected. Superman was keeping up with Grundy and the miscellaneous henchmen spread around the streets. Which should’ve been his first tip off that something was wrong. Because while these henchmen were no match for the Man of Steel, they fought akin to the criminals in Gotham. Hal was making sure all the citizens were out of the area. And he was lugging Condiment Man and Kite King away to a police car. He’d been calm until Superman’s voice rang out over the comm system.

“Batman! There’s ticking going off under the building on the corner of Wall Street!” That was all that he’d needed to hear before he took off into the building. Oracle was quick to send him the layout of the building, and all of the most likely spots that a bomb could’ve been planted. And he found it. Right as there were only three seconds left on the timer.

He’d braced himself for the explosion, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a cloud of green smoke in the air.

Fear toxin. He hadn’t had time to put on his mask when the room was filled with it entirely, his vision changing as even the pipes started to release green fumes.

It would be okay, he assured himself. Superman would be able to hear what was going on. And if not, then someone in the cave would notice his vitals and alert them. Wouldn’t mean this was going to be painful. It was going to be a nightmare going back to the cave and dealing with all of their worrying.

But then the real nightmare began.

Images flashed before his eyes, swarms of bats rushing at his head, screeching and loudly beating their wings, the background sound of a man pleading for his life, and then the sound of a gunshot and a woman crashing onto the floor. But those were nothing. Images that had been curated in his mind, that he’d seen over and over again. The next one hurt more. It was Dick. Shouting about how happy he was to no longer have to be Batman’s sidekick, how he was tired of him, how he was sorry he’d ever been adopted. That last one never happened. But it fit in so well with what they’d said before Dick formed the Teen Titans that it was hard to separate. The next one however, made his heart want to pound out of his chest. He felt his breathing quicken, and his fists clenched uselessly.

Just as useless as he was.

A hysterical cackle. Green hair. Clown makeup. A rope. A knife. Electric shocks.

Another gunshot.

A hospital bed.

An argument.

A bloodied crowbar.

An explosion. He let out a strangled sound.

Another fucking cackle.

A funeral.

An angry son, again.

An acid green pit.

More cackles.

Screaming. He barely registered that it was him.

That was all he saw before he blacked out.

-In Present Time-

When he came to, he was tied to a post, his utility belt missing, and his three companions tied up next to him. How they’d been overpowered was beyond him, and he didn’t particularly care at the moment. They were all already awake, and they all looked highly concerned. He was still panting.

“Batman? Are you alright? You were turning a lot in your sleep,” Diana questioned. Something in her expression told him that she wasn’t mentioning something. Superman would’ve pressed him further if it weren’t for the fact that there was a small shard of kryptonite above his head. Enough to inhibit him, but not too concerning in terms of his life.

“Uh, Spooky, why were you crying?” There were definitely dried tear tracks underneath his mask, and his throat was dry. Diana shot their comrade a reprimanding look. He took a deep breath through his mouth, doing his best to regain his composure.

“Leave it. I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are Batman, what Green Lantern meant to ask was whether we could help with whatever is troubling you. There is no judgment here.”

“We’re being held hostage right now. We need to focus on what’s important. What have I missed?”

“I woke up first but I don’t have much intel.” Green Lantern answered sheepishly.

“Figures.”

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?”

“Boys. Please, there is no point in arguing amongst ourselves right now. Batman is right, we should be focusing on getting out of here.”

“Hey, why don’t you call one of your other teammates? You said that they know how Gotham rogues work, Nightwing and Red Hood-”

“No!” he spat. It came out more forceful than he’d wanted, his teammates recoiling in surprise at the sheer venom in his voice. But he wasn’t dragging them into this. They were capable and he was fine working with them. But not for this one. He couldn’t take it if either of them-

“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.” A smooth voice purred, he looked up, and sitting on the rafters with a mischievous grin on her face, was Catwoman. She dropped almost soundlessly to the ground.

“Bat,” she grinned.

“Cat,” he responded, his voice finally back to normal.

“How did you even know we were here?”

“Agent A sent me. It was just me, Oracle, and Nightwing left in the cave. Nightwing would’ve come himself, but he sprained his wrist on patrol when he was dealing with Mad Hatter, so A had to bench him. Argued really hard about it though. He’s been worried out of his mind since he and Oracle saw your vitals drop. You’ll need to call him as soon as this is all said and done.”

She turned to his teammates with an appraising look, stopping on Diana.

“Cheetah really needs to get her own act, everyone knows the whole cat persona is my thing.”

“Um, aren’t you one of Batman’s villains?” Green Lantern questioned.

“I prefer anti-hero.”

“Catwoman.”

“Yes, darling?” he heard Hal sputter in the background.

“Could you untie us now?”

“And what do I get if I do?” she whispered in his ear. Definitely not quiet enough considering Hal’s widening eyes, and Diana’s raised eyebrow.

“I’m sure you can think of a few requests that I can help with,” he replied, much quieter than she was, mind you.

“Well you’re not wrong. Alright handsome, I’ll give you a little help.” Selina untied the binds on Diana, Hal, and Clark, pocketing the kryptonite for herself. He couldn’t blame her, you could never be too careful.

She didn’t untie him though.

“We’ll catch up. Avoid the first floor and the basement. They’re all stationed on the top floor, but you’ll set off the alarms downstairs. Try to surprise them.” She gestured for them to leave.

“Thank you for your assistance, ma'am,” Clark added, still looking very confused, before leaving with Hal and Diana.

“Cat.”

“Oh don’t give me that look. I just helped. I believe we have some business to take care of. They’re not going anywhere.”

“I suppose not.”

Green Lantern’s P.O.V

“So is Spooky just casually hooking up with one of his rogues during a mission right now? I honestly can’t believe that sentence just came out of my mouth”

“Are we certain we should’ve left them alone? She might still attack him” Diana mentioned.

“I doubt it. He didn’t seem very alarmed,” Superman offered.

“Oh no, he seemed perfectly fine. More than fine really,” Hal snorted, receiving a swat on the arm in retaliation.

-Ten Minutes Later-

He heard Batman and Catwoman speaking as they approached. It was more than intriguing.

“Don’t think you can fool me, Bat. I know you too well for that. You’re even more stressed than usual. What happened before I got here?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised. Well that was more than he ever gave them, he had to admit, it was nice to see Spooky act so human for once. Even if it was with Catwoman. Not that he could blame him too much though. It was clear they had history. And Catwoman was hot. So was Batman, not that he’d ever say that to his face. He knew all about complicated relationships with villains, he still wasn’t sure what was going on with him and Carol after all, but maybe they’d be able to figure it out. Maybe. Very hard emphasis on maybe.

Batman P.O.V

Selina had been able to see through him, as always. But if he gave it any other thought then he wouldn’t last through this mission. And he had a score to settle.

This newfound determination, in addition to what they could discern of their plans, it was much easier to put an end to the debacle. Selina didn’t leave his side at all during the fight, only leaving when the police came by, only for them to find her sitting on top of the Batmobile afterwards.

“So this is the famous League of Justice you teamed up with? Gotta say, bit of a downgrade darling,” she spoke, ignoring Green Lantern’s noise of protest, hopping down and coming to a stop in front of their approaching figures with an easy grace, shamelessly observing Wonder Woman.

“Except you. Now you seem like fun.”

“Why thank you. It was nice to fight alongside another shield sister for once. Your technique is quite admirable. I must ask why Batman has failed to mention your connection however.”

“Oh we like to keep things, ah, a bit on the quiet side you see, quite unlike our-”

“Cat,” he interrupted, glaring in annoyance.

“Yes?” she answered, a faux sense of innocence in her voice.

“Are you quite finished?”

“Well I don’t know, perhaps you could hel-” he didn’t even let her finish before he picked her up, and placed her in the front seat of the Batmobile, turning back to his coworkers. Hal and Clark were gaping at him, while Diana only looked on in disinterest. Before he could close the door, she tapped him on the shoulder, whispering something that only he and Clark would hear. He let out a sigh, before reluctantly turning to Wonder Woman.

“She’s inviting you out for drinks with her and the other Gotham City Sirens.”

“The Sirens?”

“Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.”

“Would it be alright if I brought Black Canary? We’ve been meaning to get together but have been unable to so far. I think she’d enjoy this.”

“Hm. She’s fine with that. I’ll send you her contact details,” he shut the door before she could ask him to destroy his dignity any further. He moved to get into the driver's seat when Clark stopped him.

“Batman, uh. Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but are you two married? I saw a diamond ring on her finger,” Clark asked. He tilted his head to the side in thought, before responding.

“We’re not.”

And that was that. He drove back to Gotham with Selina and he would be fine after avoiding his team for another few weeks. If he had the chance.

Well he supposed this one wasn’t Nightwing’s fault. But if Nightwing hadn’t gotten injured then he wouldn’t be in this particular mess if nothing else. Truthfully, any of his children would’ve been better. For once, he had to complain that Nightwing hadn’t sent one of his siblings, how ironic.

But he couldn’t count him out just yet.

Chapter Text

Batman P.O.V

It’d been weeks since the last time Nightwing had sent someone up to the Watchtower. He was perfectly aware that it was only a matter of time before it happened again. He just had no idea who it would be this time. Selina had thrown him off too much.

In more ways than one.

It seemed that the League had decided to take pity on him, because no one tried to badger him about Catwoman’s appearance this time around. He’d been able to go through the motions with little interference, and he’d been happy.

Everyone knew that Batman was a highly professional person, and they were respecting his decisions by leaving him alone.

There was one person however, that did not.

Okay, more like a lot of people. Just not within the League.

But he was about to quit coming to the Watchtower altogether if things like this kept happening. At least he was alone this time around, he could at least try to contain the chaos. It could’ve been worse, he was well aware of that. The very thought horrified him, but he wouldn’t put it past anyone in his family to want to go all out.

None more so than Stephanie Brown.

Some would say that he was surprised when mountains of a sparkly substance coming in varying shades of purple began to rain down from the roof as soon as they opened the door into the main meeting room. Or that he was surprised that there was only one spot left untouched by the infernal menace that was what looked like thousands of dollars worth of glitter. Or even that there was a blonde girl in an entirely purple suit and mask right in the middle of said spot. And they’re right that he was surprised.

But no, none of those were what surprised him.

What surprised him was that his own meeting chair hadn’t been specifically targeted by whatever mechanism Spoiler had undoubtedly roped Red Robin into hooking up to the highest points on each wall.

What terrified him was that his chair was practically spotless in comparison to the others, though there were still stray specks that had made sure it did not come out unscathed.

She must’ve felt bad about something. That’s the only reason she would’ve gone easy on him here.

He didn’t want to ask how things could get worse. Because he knew damn well that they could.

Okay, so Stephanie wasn’t legally his daughter. But she might as well have been. Sure, they argued, he hadn’t always been very good at managing his relationship with her, but they’d gotten past that. They learned. Or so he hoped, there were always times that he doubted whether an underlying issue was hiding behind his sense of comfort.

But that’s what meant he wasn’t as angry as he should’ve been here. Because if she was comfortable enough to prank him to such an extent, then he’d done something right. Didn’t mean he wasn’t annoyed. He loved his children to death, biological, legal, and emotional.

But one day, they were going to drive him to his death.

“Took you long enough, I’ve been up here for hours!”

“It’s been twelve minutes, Spoiler” Oracle’s voice rang out from her comm.

“Yeah, and I haven’t had any pancakes in hours.”

“You could’ve used the kitchen,” he sighed.

“All you have is store bought pancake mix. It’s like you want me to stomp on everything that Agent A’s ever done for us.”

“Spoiler, what do you need?”

“Right to the chase, course you are. Don’t be lame, Bruce. I’m just here to see what’s so cool about this place that everyone has been coming up here. Just seems like the Batcave without all the bat flare.”

“Liar, you literally begged to be the next one sent up” Oracle’s voice chimed in.

“Not the point Babs!”

“No names in the field Spoiler.” Damn Nightwing for starting all of this.

“Oh please, there’s no one else here. I know it’s your turn on monitor duty, you wouldn’t have left the door open if you thought there was anyone else here.”

“Hm.”

“Anyway, what have you got to do around here? Other than train.”

“You know what I do up here. I know you’ve all bugged the Watchtower.”

“Yeah that’s true. It’s pretty boring.” A slightly awkward silence passed over them. And everyone knows that Batman would never be the one to break it, so it was up to Steph.

“Hey, while I’m here, do you want to help me prank everyone’s rooms?”

“...”

“I have glitter in almost every color of the rainbow, feathers, toilet paper, spray paint, the works.”

“...Do you have yellow?”

“I do yeah, leftover from the last prank I pulled on Signal during patrol.”

“Start with Green Lantern.”

“Wait, really? You’re actually gonna let me do it? I don’t have to bribe you or make empty promises to behave? I don’t have to beg you not to tell Agent A? I seriously don’t even have to get Oracle to hack the Zeta and sneak back in when you’re not looking?” Batman had already shouldered one of her bags and walked out of the room, cape whipping dramatically behind him.

“Oh hell yeah!”

-Several Hours Later-

…Could you really blame him for giving in? He gets to bond with his pseudo daughter, and piss off Green Lantern? He could die happy at this rate. Or at least semi-happy, whatever. She’d gone back to the manor now, and he’d be quick to follow.

No room but his own had been left alone, though he wouldn’t be surprised if Stephanie came back to do it by herself when she knew he was too busy to stop her.

On second thought, perhaps it’d be best to throw in just a little bit of glitter in his room. It would seem less incriminating. He took a handful of black glitter from the bag Stephanie had left with him, before heading into his room. The moment he stepped in however, he was reminded that he of all people should never underestimate a member of the Batfamily.

He remembered his suspiciously blank chair in the meeting room. Well, seems like the other shoe had finally dropped.

Because the room had already been hit. By a massive bomb filled with glitter in red, green, and yellow. Spelling out the words, “The Dead Robins Club” on the ground. A sinister message if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was definitely from the Dead Robins Club. He still hated the name. He turned to his walls, which were covered almost entirely in paint, with feathers continuously blowing around the ceiling. One wall in particular caught his attention, as there were various phrases painted on in his children's vigilante colors.

“Batman is the Superior Hero. With the Exception of Robin,” forest green words in a surprisingly elegant scrawl considering it was done in spray paint. There were also little animal illustrations surrounding the words, including but not limited to a cow, a cat, a dog, and a turkey.

“Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?” in bright red, with purposeful streaks underneath to look like dripping blood. Classic literature, dramatic font, talks of injustice? That was Jason, no doubt.

“We Luv U B! U Can’t Ground Me LOL” In cobalt blue with hideously neon green shading. There was also a drawing of a slightly misshapen blue bird, with its wings hugging a frowning bat. There were darker green lines detailing the individual feathers of the wings, which must’ve been Damian’s attempt to help, but he hadn’t gotten far.

“COFFEEEE” in dark red, over a yellow splotch of paint. Did he even need to explain that one? There also seemed to be a finished to-do list of cases taped next to it.

Perhaps his only consolation, was a message written in bright yellow, that was far smaller than the others, only saying the word, “sorry”

The most atrocious of the paintings however, was in purple, which contained no pictures, additive information, or eloquent wording, just “FUCK BATMAN”

Well damn everyone then. Except Alfred.

Honestly still wasn’t as bad as what they’d done to Green Lantern’s room. Yeah no, he wasn’t dealing with this right now. He’d clean it when Alfred forced him to. Right now, he was leaving the Watchtower before anyone walked in on this. So he wiped the glitter off of his boots to make sure he’d leave no footprints, and all but ran to the Zeta tube.

-Three Days Later-

He had been ignoring the insistent calls of the League ever since the incident. He knew nothing major was happening. He didn’t bring it up to his kids either, who seemed to take his silence as a sign to not say anything. And he would’ve continued to do so today if it hadn’t been for Nightwing getting a personal call from Green Arrow instead.

“Hey B. Ollie said that there’s a blonde kid raiding the Watchtower kitchen that said she’s affiliated with us.”

“...Nightwing.”

“Yes, dad?”

“Nevermind.”

So here he was, in another incredibly awkward position, Spoiler being the only one to make a sound, loudly eating the pancakes she’d cooked before he came, wordlessly offering him a slice of bacon. It also appeared that Green Arrow was scrutinizing him with little attempt to be subtle about it. The others amongst the group included Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the Flash.

“Batman, we’ve put up with you avoiding the League the last few instances, but this time is just a bit too much to handle,” Aquaman spoke up.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining, you’re rarely up in space! Hell, you haven’t even met most of his gremlin sidekicks yet-”

“Partners! We’re not his fucking sidekicks you asshole.”

“-But I’m up here plenty and my room’s a fucking nightmare right now and I’m sure as hell not cleaning it up!” Green Lantern groaned.

“Then find another room,” Stephanie advised in faux innocence. She was definitely smiling underneath her mask.

“I know you had something to do with it!”

“You got any proof?”

“Well no, but-”

“Then your accusation has no weight to it and I will not be answering your questions until I have a lawyer on standby-”

“Spoiler.”

“What? I will not stand for these ridiculous, absurd, stupid, uh what’s another word for- oh, ludicrous! I will not stand for these ludicrous accusations!” He could only sigh in response, before turning back to the League.

“Hey I don’t care who trashed my room, I’m just upset she stole a bunch of the snacks in the kitchen!” Flash cut in.

"I mean, B said I could use the kitchen last time I was up here."

"You've been up here before?!"

“Rest assured, the food in the kitchen that needs to be replaced will be well taken care of. Along with whatever else we need to add to the list. Within reason.”

“And what about my room?”

“I’ve got my own room to clean up. Figure it out, you have a lantern ring, so either figure out how to put it to use, or use whatever brains you have that make you worthy of it. Though why it would’ve chosen you in the first place is still beyond me.”

“Hey- I resent that! Anyway, what-”

“Batman, I have the utmost respect for you, and while it’s correct I am rarely up here, as necessary considering my position in Atlantis, I would appreciate it if everyone could refrain from sullying my quarters, purely because there may come a time that I do need it.”

“My apologies, Aquaman. I understand.”

“Oh what the hell! So he gets an apology, and he gets a solution, but I get told to fuck off? Arrow, back me up here!”

“Considering it a training exercise. You can certainly use a more of an out of the box challenge after how your last mission went.”

“I sent my apology to the group chat! It’s not my fault that hotdogs are so-”

“Batman, may I speak with you after this?” Green Arrow said.

“I’ll have to take a rain check on that. Gotham problems. Spoiler, let’s go.”

“Bye everybody! Glad to see Batman is making friends for once!”

“Spoiler.”

“Yeah, yeah- I’m coming B!”

Chapter Text

Batman P.O.V

Spoiler came up to the Watchtower a couple times afterwards, just to hang around while they worked. Or to pull a few smaller-scale pranks than she had previously. He was too resigned to do anything about it by now, so he just left her be. She particularly enjoyed talking to Flash and Green Arrow oddly enough. The latter felt like Batman was avoiding him (he was right), so he tried getting information out of his (not) daughter. That proved easier said than done, because jokes aside, she was still a bat. He’d have better luck getting information from a brick wall.

Or that’s what he would’ve said if it weren’t for the fact that Spoiler was seemingly trying to mess with him on purpose.

“Hey Spoiler, you said that Batman had how many kids?”

“Don’t think I ever did. Why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason, just curious. I've met a lot of you by now after all.”

“Try asking Batman. He’d love to talk to you I’m sure,” she blinked at him innocently, tilting her head to the side like a confused puppy.

Right before throwing a glitter bomb in his face.

Green Arrow sputtered, spitting and trying to wipe the glitter from his beard.

And no, Batman would not like to talk to him. He already tried. He got the same response every time, fucking Gotham troubles.

“Has Batman ever grounded you for these pranks?” Flash questioned, rapidly shaking excess glitter off of his shoes, some still sticking anyway.

“He’s tried, that’s for sure. But I don’t work alone at home, he can’t ground all of us in the same place if he doesn’t want to make things worse for himself. Besides, he isn’t the boss of me.”

“He kinda is though.”

“On the field, maybe. But at home? Hell no. He’s in the same situation as the rest of us.” Oliver perked up at the prospect of new information.

“And what does that mean exactly?” he spoke as casually as possible.

“Oh y’know- sure Batman’s the face of the brand, but everyone knows who’s really in charge-”

“Spoiler.”

“S’up B. How’d your date go?”

“Spoiler.”

“What? You said the League knows about Catwoman.” He subconsciously clenched his hand around the small box in his pocket.

“Go home, Spoiler.”

“Oh come on! I’ve only been here for like half an hour.”

“There’s cookies.”

“Oh why didn’t you say that in the first place? Bye losers! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” And then she was gone.

“Hey Batman, can we ta-”

“Gotham troubles.” And then he was gone.

-Several Weeks Later-

Things could not stop going wrong. Life hated him. Had he not suffered enough when his parents died? Apparently not.

Okay, maybe he was being a little bit dramatic.

The annual meetings had started up again, and the subject of the one from several months ago had been finances, the League budget. And everyone had to put in their two cents about how it would be spent. Not to ignore the fact that he and Ollie were the largest benefactors and still couldn’t do anything without a majority vote.

It’d lasted the entire day, with no consensus being made, they’d all agreed to reconvene at a later date. And still, nothing was going right. And what was worse?

A supervillain decided to call in and threaten them. Again. This one wasn’t even that threatening, just annoying. The villain had given them a week to agree to their demands and surrender themselves. The next time that everyone had confirmed their availability for an extra meeting wouldn’t be for another two months. He was not going to spend another few months on this stupid meeting. So once he tracked the villain back to their location, he analyzed the situation, and he made a last minute call. He swiftly excused himself from the arguing inhabitants of the League meeting room.

“Batman to Batwoman. Batman to Batwing. Come in”

“This is Batwoman”

“Batwing here, report?”

“I need Batwing to come to the Watchtower. And I need Batwoman to take down a low-level rogue for me. You can reconvene with us afterwards.”

“Outside of Gotham?”

“Yes.”

“What do you need me for at the Watchtower? I thought Tim helped with repairs.”

“How much has your father told you about his work at Wayne Enterprises?”

“Enough that with a little grey hair dye, I could probably go in and do his job for him without anyone noticing.”

“Good. You’re a good match for this task then.”

“And what is that exactly? I was in the middle of a cage fight, so I haven’t been keeping up with any of the news today.”

“It wouldn’t be in the news. This is a more personal issue. Your degree in business management is going to come to use here.”

“Uh, what?”

“Just get up to the Watchtower.”

“Nightwing just told me that I should use this as leverage to get up to the Watchtower myself,” Batwoman informed him.

“Tell Nightwing to leave me alone.”

“He said to ask you what the magic word is.”

“Please.”

“Nope, it’s cookies.”

“Of course it is,” Batwing laughed.

“Be glad I’m giving you a warning, Batman. I’ll see you both soon.”

“Hm.”

Superman looked at him quizzically when he walked back into the meeting room, undoubtedly having heard his entire conversation. Frankly, he was too tired to care at this point.

“Clark has informed us that you invited someone to help with the case,” Diana said, curiously.

“He’s a competent negotiator, with fine skills in engineering, as well as company management.”

“I think she meant the woman you called to deal with the wannabe. But have we met this new guy before?” Black Canary questioned.

“No.”

“Well what’s his name?”

“Batwing.”

“Damn, another bat? Where are you even finding these kids?”

“Just off the streets. I’d hardly call myself a child though,” Batwing’s voice rang out from the doorway, causing several League members to jolt in shock, some more violently than others.

“How did you get in without the Zeta beam announcing you?!” Flash gasped out.

“Well I could tell you, but then the clan would have to end you.” Flash gulped, before sheepishly sitting down as Batwing dropped his serious expression in favor of a lighthearted grin.

“Or adopt you. Whichever comes first. Any thoughts, Batman?”

“He’s incredibly volatile and about as stealthy as a baby elephant.”

“Oh I’m sure we could find a place for him somehow. It worked out well enough with N. Remember Nightwing’s original Robin uniform when he first started out?”

“I already told you. We tried for weeks to get him to wear pants and change the colors.”

“You let someone fight crime with you in the nude!?” Green Lantern shouted.

“No!” he snapped.

“He had shorts on. If you could call them that,” Batwing snickered.

“It’s easier for acrobatics! You both know that! I was young, I didn’t know anything about suit design!” Nightwing protested over the comms.

“You could’ve at least put tights on. Your suit now does just fine. Hell- even your Discowing suit was more practical,” Batwing remarked.

“That’s debatable,” he muttered.

“And it’s still not enough for you people! I mean really, the amount of lectures B gave me over this. At least I was creative, Mr. I had my dad design my suit-”

“And good thing I did. It can do a hell of a lot more than yours could.”

“You might be able to fly, but-”

“Alright, enough! This isn’t what I called you here for Batwing.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll call you back Nightwing,” Luke laughed.

“See you soon!”

And with that, Batwing adopted a carefully professional persona, pulling out a briefcase for dramatic effect, and plopping it on the table, before taking a seat next to him.

“Okay, someone give me the run through. Let’s get down to business.”

-Two Hours Later-

He was glad he’d given in and brought Batwing. It’d taken him no time to make sure that everyone’s ideas were heard, and he easily cultivated a nice compromise for how to spend the budget. Lucius would be proud if he’d been present.

He hadn’t been worried about that part, he knew Luke could get it done. It was when the business pretense dropped, that he resigned himself to the embarrassment.

“Hey B, she said to tell you she’s on her way up.”

“Who’s on her way up?” Barry questioned.

“Oh, just another associate of ours.”

“Another one!? Dude, you’ve got like, a problem” Hal exclaimed.

“She’s not my child.”

“Neither am I if it makes any of you feel any better,” Batwing cut in.

“It really doesn’t,” was the unanimous answer. He let out an audible sigh as the zeta announced another presence in the Watchtower. A woman with a black kevlar suit strolled confidently into the room, her hair just as brightly colored as the red bat symbol emblazoned on her chest.

“Batwoman,” he acknowledged, the woman in question sending him a mocking grin as she gave him a salute.

“Batwoman huh…Is this the missus then?” Hal questioned, an eyebrow raised. It took years worth of practiced self control to avoid blanching at the thought. Batwoman on the other hand, could not resist at least making a disgusted expression.

“How heteronormative of you.”

“Hell no. They’re related. She’s just uncreative,” Batwing responded, grinning unabashedly.

“Bold words coming from someone who also uses the Bat moniker,” Batwoman scoffed.

“At least I didn’t go with something like Batboy or Batlad. That sounds like something Nightwing would’ve come up with.”

“Hey! I resent that!” a voice rang out from Batwing’s comm.

“The Batarangs. The Batcomputer. The Batchair. The Batmobile.”

“Hey, the car was already named by the time I joined. And I’m the only one who picked an original hero name! Oracle came up with Batgirl! Not to mention how many of you decided to take Ro-”

“Turn off the comm Batwing.”

“You’re no fun Dad,” Nightwing whined in annoyance, but he was definitely smiling. Batwing said goodbye, turning off the comm. Only to put his hands behind his back and turn it back on when he thought Batman couldn’t see him. He was wrong. Damn you Nightwing. Always a terrible influence.

“Love that guy, we should have him around more often” Green Lantern suggested.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on Batman, I bet you’d just love getting to spend more time with Nightwing now that he lives in another city, the empty nest syndrome the first time he worked out of Gotham was real bad,” Batwoman teased.

“I don’t need to see him at work.”

“And you thought inviting me up here would make him back off?” Batwing questioned, giving him a judgemental look. Batwoman quickly mirrored his expression.

“Well, this has been a riveting experience, care to introduce us?” Wonder Woman asked politely, he did not miss the fact that Green Arrow was squinting at Batwoman as if she seemed familiar.

“She knows who you are,” he grumbled.

“Humor me.”

“Personally, I’m more interested in getting to know you. I heard quite a bit from B, but he’s a bit drab, isn’t he?” Batwoman spoke, grinning.

“Well you certainly have me curious. But please, call me Diana.”

“His description isn’t even close to doing you justice Diana.”

“Flirt on your own time Batwoman, I need your status report.”

“The suspect in concern has been appropriately apprehended. Just a guy in over his head after falling in a vat of chemicals and stealing some outdated Lexcorp tech. He just chose to shoot for the stars with no experience beyond a few bar fights, instead of working his way up to villain status. Nothing to worry about, was hardly a challenge. Had Doctor L and Agent A check me for anything out of the ordinary just in case, nothing. Oracle has the full report.”

“Very well. We’re going home then.”

“Not so fast! I’ve only just gotten up here.”

“And yet, you’re already giving me a headache.”

“Hey, she just finished a case meant for us. I’d say a proper thanks is in order,” Clark appeased, like the annoying gossip he was.

“How are you related to Batman?” Green Arrow questioned, a trace of desperation caught in his voice.

“The family way. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you all, your thanks is unnecessary,” Batwoman dodged the question as infuriatingly as any member of the Batfamily would. Green Arrow dropped his arms to his lap in frustration, earning a sharp elbow from Black Canary as he came off rather rudely.

“I must disagree on that front, you did us a great favor, both of you have, perhaps you’d be interested in speaking with us while we give you both the tour?” Diana offered, offering her hand out for Kate to shake.

“While a tour would be appreciated, I think I could manage my way around on my own. Personally, Wonder Woman- I’m more interested in what you have to say-”

“Alright that’s enough. Batwing, let’s go.” He took his annoying cousin by the shoulders, turned her around, and began to push her out of the room.

“Call me,” she had the audacity to mouth, turning her head to smirk at Wonder Woman.

“Honestly B, why do you even bother?” Batwing laughed as they neared the zeta tube. He chose not to dignify it with a response.

“Hey, what’s Agent A making for dinner tonight? He told us to stop by once we were done” Batwoman implored, rather loudly for that matter. Once they’d all arrived back in the Batcave, Batwing spoke.

“Alfred mentioned that he invited Commissioner Gordon too. Guess who he’s bringing with him?”

“Oracle?”

“Nope. Someone you know though.”

“Wait, hold on- Montoya?”

“Right on the dot”

He loved Alfred, he really did. The man was like a father to him, he’d stuck with him through the worst times of his life, never swayed to leave despite the stress he continuously brought upon him. God knows that he’d given him plenty of gray hair before and after he’d become Batman. And he would never regret expanding their lonely little duo into this giant family brand. And he had gotten better with time, minimizing the risks of fatality in any way he could. Even if not by his own will.

But sometimes he really wished the man would stop contributing to his gray hair instead.

Green Arrow P.O.V

Huh? For some odd reason, Superman seemed to have folded into himself as the three bat-themed vigilantes departed, muttering under his breath a sentence so quietly that only he seemed to have heard. A sentence that made him wish beyond anything in the world, that he had Martian Manhunter’s mind reading abilities.

“Who’s Agent A?”

Chapter Text

Alfred Pennyworth P.O.V

It was rare for all of Master Bruce’s children, legally or otherwise, to get together all at once, especially with Master Dick residing in Bludhaven, and Miss Cassandra often being out of the country. But tonight was a special occasion.

Wayne Family Game Night.

It’d be a bit amiss to refer to it as an annual event, But they were common enough. Every game night was a truce, no pranks, at least not on each other, no serious arguments, and especially no Monopoly.

There were a plethora of games that had been banned within the manor grounds as Master Bruce continued to collect more children, Monopoly had been first to go, unsurprisingly. Even when it had just been Master Dick and Master Jason, it had been far too much to handle. I had indulged them in a single attempt to reintroduce the game into their schedule, but it had quickly gone ablaze.

Literally. They’d had to replace the coffee table, and they’d wasted a plate of cookies when it had been knocked to the ground in the chaos.

Subsequently, I had come to the conclusion that it would be best to avoid the risk of allowing them to play the Game of Life, and so it followed in a similar fashion. The next game to go was Clue. They were all unsurprisingly skilled, and yet Master Timothy triumphed every other round. Damian happened to be sitting next to Tim, that is enough said about what was bound to happen there. Scrabble had been next, Master Jason appeared to be in tears as he lamented Master Dick’s butchering of the English language. And then there was Catan, things had gone so quickly that it was all a blur, all anyone could understand was that they’d managed to shatter three windows, destroy a television, and there were now holes punched through the kitchen door. They’d tried to ban physical violence after that, but there was only so much that could be done to curb Master Damian’s temper.

And it appeared that there was another game about to join the list.

Bruce Wayne’s P.O.V

He, Dick, Jason, Cassandra, Tim, Stephanie, Duke, and Damian were sitting in a circle around their newest coffee table. Alfred had been quite proud of the selection, so he hoped that it would stick around longer than the last one did. So perhaps it was a miscalculation on his part when he agreed to join them for a game of Uno.

Especially with these specific rules.

“Draw two, Dick” he’d begun. Like an idiot.

“Draw four, Little Wing,” Dick sang, stacking a blue +2 card over his own.

“Hell no. Draw six, Replacement,” Jason countered, slamming the card onto the table. He let out a sheepish apology as Alfred admonished him warningly.

“I’d rather not, sorry Cass, draw eight.”

“Ten,” she smiled, gesturing to Duke.

“Let’s keep this going, plus twelve Steph.”

“Are we playing with the rule where we can stack a +4 over a +2?”

“I’d say that’s fine yeah,” Tim responded. Bruce reluctantly nodded along with Cass, bracing himself for the potential fight.

“Absolutely not!” Damian growled. There it was.

“Too late Baby Bat, the council has spoken!” Jason exclaimed mockingly. Damian’s eyes narrowed dangerously, Bruce noticed his hand beneath the coffee table, reaching instinctively for a weapon that wasn’t there.

“Drake! This is your fault!”

“Hey! Tonight’s meant to be a truce! Draw sixteen Dami, we’re barely starting, you have time,” Dick spoke placatingly, plopping Alfred the Cat into Damian’s lap.

“Tt. Fine, even with such a setback, I will reign superior,” a statement that would’ve been a little more intimidating if he hadn’t been cuddling with the cat he named after their butler/pseudo grandfather.

Tme had gone by, Damian had in fact gotten plenty of good action cards and was gleefully taking his revenge, as someone had reversed the direction at one point, and thus Stephanie was taking the brunt of his rage. Others had gotten unlucky and had had to draw until they had a card to play, so only Stephanie had more cards than she had started with, a whopping twenty-two cards in comparison to her original seven. Damian was left with only six.

They’d had a few other close calls prior to this, when Jason had been skipped eight times in a row, only having played twice since the beginning of the game, eye twitching as he grew more visibly frustrated. But a cookie from Alfred had been enough to calm him down.

“A yellow reverse,” Tim announced, the turn returning to Cass, who looked at the two she sat between, before she played the only yellow she had left.

“A zero.” And as the rules they’d agreed on depicted, if a seven were played, they’d get to choose who they would swap cards with, but a zero being played would mean they would all have to hand their cards to the next person in the sequence. Steph let out a whoop of happiness as she happily accepted Duke’s five cards. Which meant that her twenty-two cards would be going to-

Damian slammed his hands upon the coffee table, readying to launch himself upon the person who had prompted the zero exchange.

“I’ll get you for this Drake!” he snarled, flinging his cards onto the ground as Alfred the Cat jumped off his lap in surprise. Bruce could only sigh as he collected the cards Damian had meant to give him as Cassandra held Damian back, while Tim yelled back his own qualms. He silently counted the amount of cards each person had, noticing that Duke had only two cards left, just as he had had before the switch.

“Duke wins,” he decided, eager to be over with the round.

Dick’s P.O.V

“Okay everyone! Maybe we should take it down a notch, let’s play something a bit simpler!” he suggested.

“How about ‘Never Have I Ever?’” Duke suggested.

“Perfect choice Duke! Alright everyone, for this version, put both of your hands up, each time you’ve done one of the questions, put a finger down, the last one left wins!”

“Alfred, would you like to join us for this one?” Bruce offered, clearly hoping the man’s presence would encourage them to calm down for the time being.

“I’m a bit busy Master Bruce-” but after seeing Bruce’s pleading expression, he relented.

“Alfie! Why don’t you start?”

“Very well, never have I ever burned toast,” he spoke, pointedly eying Bruce, Dick, and oddly enough, Tim.

“In my defense, I was very tired,” Tim commented.

“What’s Dickhead and the old man’s excuse?” Jason snorted.

“Give me a break, I may have burned toast, but Bruce has managed to burn soup before.”

“Can we please move on?” Bruce sighed.

“I believe it is your turn, Master Jason.”

“Alright, never have I ever gone by a name beginning with the letter D,” Damian scowled as he, Duke, and Dick all put a finger down.

“Isn’t Dick’s name technically Richard?” Duke questioned.

“He still goes by Dick, who knows why, but I’d say it counts,” Stephanie said.

“I often call Timothy by his last name,” Damian argued. Tim, rolling his eyes, put a finger down for the sake of peace.

“Tim?” Cass prompted, moving across the circle to pull Damian to her side.

“Never have I ever gone on patrol in scaly green short shorts.”

“Damn it Dickhead!” Jason groaned.

“Hey no one said you couldn’t change the uniform,” he complained.

“But short shorts, really? And in bright ass green?”

“Fine, it wasn’t my best moment! I’ve gotten better, thank you very much. And hey- why is everyone targeting me??”

“Don’t worry man, I’ve got you. Never have I ever lost at Twister.”

“Thanks Duke! Wait, you haven’t? I didn’t know you were that good at Twister.”

“Oh I’m not, I’ve just never played it”

“Oooh! Well now we have to play it later!” Dick grinned.

“Oh fuck no! You always win that game!”

“Exactly. And besides, come on Jason! You wouldn’t want to deprive poor Duke of such a fun growing up experience, would you? He’s the only one here that I haven’t played Twister with before!”

“We have plenty of shit in our initiation every time we bring in a new bat, we don’t need to add losing to you at Twister to the list.”

“Ugh, figure it out later! My turn now, never have I ever had black hair!!” Steph declared triumphantly as everyone else in the circle put a finger down.

“Never have I ever dated a metahuman,” Cass continued. Dick groaned, left with only a single hand left.

“I believe it is my turn now. Never have I ever used a color in the name of my vigilante identity.” And there went Red Hood, Red Robin, and Black Bat.

“Never have I ever gone over a week without sleeping,” Bruce said.

“That’s just because Alfred puts tranqs in your coffee when he thinks you’ve had enough.”

“Still means I haven’t been awake for longer than a week.”

The game went on a bit longer, until finally there were only three people left, Alfred, Jason, and miraculously, Dick. It was Alfred’s turn next, and what he said was an admittedly perfect conclusion, even if it did mean that Dick lost.

“Never have I ever had the affinity for surrounding myself with people with red hair.”

For Dick, they had Babs, Kori (who he’d most recently spoken to), Wally, Roy, a few other civilians, many of which he could say that he had at the very least considered that there might be something there, even if the connection didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision- but he had to admit that it did happen quite a lot. For Jason, they had Babs, which was expected. Plus Roy. And Kori for that matter. But in more recent times, they also had Artemis of Bana-Mighdall.

It was only fitting that Alfred was the champion of a game revolving around knowing each other's life experiences, you could never get anything past him. Anything that happened under this house, even if they tried to hide it- Alfred was guaranteed to find out, whether he did anything about it or not is an entirely different question.

This time, he chose to actually do something with his knowledge, win.

A good thing too, he was probably the only one that no one would try to dispute.

Tim Drake’s P.O.V

“Think we could use something a bit more exciting now Dick,” Jason complained, snatching a handful of chips from the Green Arrow themed bowl Steph was using, earning a loud complaint, and a swat to the shoulder from Cass. Wait…

Green Arrow.

And that’s when Tim had an idea. For the first time that night, he shared a grin with Damian, who seemed to catch on to the same idea Tim had had.

“Hey Bruce, how close has Oliver Queen come to figuring out our plan yet?” He only received a look of exasperation in response.

“I believe I will sit this one out, Master Bruce,” Alfred spoke primly, walking off.

“Alfred please don’t leave-”

“Father, you’ve yet to answer Timothy’s question.”

“Why don’t we just ask Ollie ourselves?” Jason said in faux innocence.

“I just don’t think that’s a good idea, Jaylad.”

“And why is that, Dad?” They all, sans Duke, shared a grin of pure evil as Bruce deflated at the name.

“...Don’t go overboard.”

“Yes!”

Dick pulled up Ollie’s contact on Bruce’s phone, handing it back to Bruce as it began ringing.

“Bruce! Great that you’ve called! I’ve been meaning to talk to you about a few things-”

“Ollie! Wonderful to hear from you old friend, say is your ward there at the moment? My two eldest sons wish to say hello.”

“Uh, Roy? Not right now no, I didn’t know how they even knew him, uh- that reminds me, how are your kids doing, Bruce? Busy down there in Gotham?”

“Oh nothing beyond the usual, you know how company management works, Tim, my third son, truly a remarkable businessman!”

Right, business. Say uh, how exactly do your sons know Roy?”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you themselves, they’re right here, you can talk to them”

“Oh, really? Uh- oh! Hi, all of…all of you, uh- there’s a lot of you isn’t there, no more hiding in the woodworks right? Heh, heh. Ha.” Ollie really needed to practice his poker face, it’s like he wasn’t even trying to be subtle. He already seemed crazy when it was just Dick and Jason in view.

“Hm…I mean, this is a good portion of us! You haven’t met Cassandra yet, have you?”

“I believe I have actually, um- a while ago though, nice to meet you again.”

“You as well,” Cass responded, hugging Dick’s side and giving a smile far too sweet to be real. It seemed almost threatening, Oliver could feel it too if the sweat on his forehead was anything to go by.

“So you wanted to know how Jason and I know Roy, yes?”

“Uh, yeah- that’s right”

“We get together sometimes y’know, we’ve got a lot in common” Jason responded, emphasizing the word ‘lot’ while idly twirling a gray nerf gun he’d pulled from seemingly nowhere. Tim and Damian snickered as Dick pulled on his blue hoodie with black sleeves.

“Do any of you play sports by any chance? Roy certainly likes a couple.”

“Oh yeah we do! Cass here loves dancing y’know, and I used to love playing basketball with Bruce when I was younger.”

“That’s nice- any interest in, oh perhaps, martial arts by any chance?”

“My work at the Bludhaven station takes up a lot of time I’m afraid. But that’d be a great thing to get Damian into! We’ve been wanting him to get out and connect with others, this would be a good opportunity in addition to all of the friends he’s made in art. Dami, come say hi!”

“Hello sir!” Damian, for the sake of the bit, made sure to put on the nicest voice he could muster, utilizing all the smiling lessons he’d gotten from Dick to help him get what he wants. And right now- he wanted to drive Ollie into an early grave.

“Hello there Damian, I hear you like art, what do you like drawing?

“A lot of things! I like plants. They’re very vibrant and peaceful, nature is just so fascinating!”

“That’s great. Uh Bruce said Tim was there too right?”

“Right here Mr Queen!” Tim moved into the frame, grinning as he and Damian wrapped an arm around one another in a hug to sell the act. Duke, out of frame, was slowly sinking to the ground while Stephanie stifled her cackling with a pillow. These two had decided that their appearance within the call would be a bit too obvious, even for the lack of subtlety they already displayed, and had opted to let the others fuel the flame. Bruce meanwhile, was stuck with his head in his hands, refusing to look at them.

“You can just call me Oliver, Tim. Most people do, uh it’s great to see so many siblings get along so well.”

“Mhm! And it’s all thanks to Bruce y’know, couldn’t be more grateful for him. Say, Father's day is coming up, do you have any ideas for us to help it go smoothly?” Jason smiled. By now, all five of them were smiling far too sweetly.

“I remember a few movies we liked watching together when we were kids?”

“Good enough, say Ollie- have you seen any news from Jump City lately?”

“Yes actually! Heard uh, a bank robbery got stopped by a group other than the police.”

“Oh really? Who? I was talking about the fact they were filming a new superhero movie over there! I heard they were basing a character off of one of Star City’s vigilantes. Arsenal or something?”

“Oh that- yeah one of my business partners is involved with the project actually.”

“Who were you talking about though?”

“It’s not important, tell Bruce I said bye, I’ve gotta head out for a date with Dinah”

“Bye Ollie!” Alfred walked in as the call ended, taking in the scene before him.

“I believe it best if you bring down your energy again before Master Bruce has a heart attack. How about a game of ‘Headbandz’ next? Unless you’ve decided that you no longer have objections to Master Dick’s suggestion to play Twister?”

“Y’know what, for that effortless performance Dick, I’ll let you have this one” Jason relented, Dick fist pumping the air in excitement.

“You coming, Bruce?” Duke asked, as they moved to another room to set up the board. After a moment of silence, he got up, shaking his head.

“Damn you Dick, for starting all this.”

Oliver Queen P.O.V

“I’m telling you Dinah! It’s weird!”

“I won’t deny that, but you think Brucie Wayne is Batman? Ollie, listen to yourself. It wasn’t that long ago that he knocked over the champagne tower at a gala and started drunkenly waltzing on the dance floor, by himself.”

“I’ve known Bruce since when we were teenagers! He’s not stupid!”

“I’m not saying he is, I’ve seen his work at Wayne Enterprises, I’m saying that he’s not disciplined enough to be Batman. Can you really see Batman letting his guard down so easily in front of highly prejudiced, corrupt socialites?”

“No, but I can’t really say much considering I barely know the guy. All of his children act so differently than Bruce’s kids, I didn’t see a single sign of animosity between each other, or with Bruce, but vigilantism tends to be pretty stressful so maybe-”

“Look, one of the points you’ve been caught on the most is that Dick and Jason know Roy, you think that they’re connected because of vigilante work, but have you ever even heard Roy mention one of Batman’s kids?”

“Maybe, maybe not! Roy barely talks to me anyway- he might not even know that they’re Batman’s kids! Ughhh, why wouldn’t he tell me? I wouldn’t snitch on him to the rest of the league.”

“You’re seeing Batman at the next meeting, you said you couldn’t figure out who to match Bruce’s daughter Cassandra to, because she’s probably not Spoiler, so judging by Batman’s track record, if there truly is another child he’s hiding, they’ll probably show up sooner or later.”

“And if he just dodges me again?”

“You said that Batman has been avoiding you and that Bruce pretended to be drunk because he wasn’t too eager to talk to you either, why would Bruce call you first then?”

“Maybe he was actually drunk this time, I don’t know!”

“Look, I’m not saying this is impossible. But you can’t go into this like a headless chicken, lay out the facts and calm down. You’ll get more answers if you keep a clear head.”

“Urgh, fine. I’m getting a whiteboard, I need to write this down.”

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

“Master Bruce, are you entirely certain that every member of the main Justice League must be present for this mission?”

“Not the entirety, Aquaman has business to attend to, he’ll be sitting out this time around. Alfred, last time we sent Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Aquaman to this planet, they all returned charred and wholly unsuccessful, with little idea of what even transpired, let alone how to actually face up against a threat of magnitude, and regardless of my contempt for Lantern, four formidable warriors returning without even a general consideration of what went wrong is highly concerning, for everyone,” he explained calmly, attaching his trusted utility belt to his body.  

“And it was your technology in the cave that was able to make sure they could send for assistance from space, the young masters and Miss Barbara are all out of town now, who is to maintain your position here?” Alfred questioned, raising an eyebrow as he straightened his cape. 

“With the entirety of the original Justice League members present, as well as Green Arrow and Black Canary, I am certain we are prepared enough to handle whatever problems arise.”

“Hm. And your own plans?”

“There is only so much I can do with so little information. But I’ve constructed plans for any Gotham rogues that may potentially be involved, though this doesn’t seem to be any of their styles, nor does it fit with the main rogues of Central City or Metropolis.” 

“Very well Master Bruce. Shall I expect you to be back before the next gala?” 

He could tell how unimpressed Alfred looked even with his back turned to him. 

“Must I go to this one?” he sighed.

“It has been over two months since a scandal has arisen. If I didn’t know any better, it’s almost as if Bruce Wayne could be a marginally competent person,” Alfred remarked.  

“Bruce Wayne is. Brucie Wayne isn’t,” he corrected. 

“Hm.” Bruce frowned. 

“Why does it sound like you disagree with that notion?”

“Master Bruce. Perhaps my standards are too high, but frankly a marginally competent person should be allowed to step into the kitchen and toast a slice of bread without setting the toaster ablaze.”

“That was over a decade ago, and you haven’t given me a chance since.”

“Nor do I plan to.”

-One Week Later-

Alfred was right. As usual.

The entirety of the League had in fact been necessary to take down the aliens who had planned their invasion, all of which were incredibly quick, and wielded metal weapons loaded with an unknown liquid substance, the effects of which seemed to vary between colors. 

Green, upon being hit, caused the victim to lose memory of anything that had occurred within the last hour. Red would cause blistering boils to sprout over any exposed skin. And blue would cause those who were hit to become extremely sticky, often unable to move their limbs off a surface, or accidentally leading to them being stuck to another person. Yellow put the victim in a trance that made them believe they would die if they stopped moving. 

A real pain in the ass. 

Even more so when the Flash, and Superman were both hit with the yellow substance. They had flown and ran respectively, at a destructively high speed, losing control of their ability to change directions, injuring several League members in the crossfire, and worst of all-

Wrecking a sizable portion of both the Batplane and Wonder Woman’s invisible jet. 

What’s worse is that the aliens, able to keep up with their speed, though not their endurance, were able to hit Flash with the red substance, and Clark with the blue, and now they were both in pain, Barry mostly, on the ground, literally attached at the hip, as he attempted to work on an antidote within the partial wreckage of the Batplane. 

The effects of the yellow substance had worn off several hours ago, but almost everyone on the team, minus himself and Black Canary, now suffered their own blisters, whether it was on their face, or a limb. He himself had only been hit by the blue substance.

Which unfortunately meant his right arm now had to move in tandem with Green Arrow’s left leg, as his friend had been knocked back by an alien just as Bruce’s arm was hit by the unknown substance. 

(A substance he would have to categorize, solve,  and update within the Batcave systems to avoid this embarrassment from ever happening again. Just another thing to add to his ever increasing utility belt)

The only reason they’d won was because the ones left conscious the longest eventually ran out of ammunition, and the rest of the League was able to get ahold of themselves long enough to direct their abilities into finally taking them down, and steal samples of the substances from one of their fallen enemies. 

This unfortunately meant that he was struggling quite a bit to actually test everything within his miniature laboratory. And it also unfortunately meant that Green Arrow was endlessly trying to get his attention in order to talk about his kids, whilst simultaneously trying to keep his balance whenever Bruce raised his arm, and subsequently, Oliver’s leg.

Which was the very last topic that he wanted to deal with right now. If he kept going, Bruce was going to raise his arm and ‘accidentally’ knock him flat on his ass.  

But, if they wanted to get off the planet anytime soon, they would need backup. He doubted any of them fancied the idea of scrounging around a hostile, unfamiliar planet for the materials needed to fix their equipment. 

He hadn’t expected any of his kids to be available, but then again he had underestimated the amount of time they would spend off world. If anything, he could at least get them a message so that they wouldn’t yell at him for worrying them, and Nightwing could potentially send for one of his damned millions of questionable friends to go after them. 

So it was a pleasant surprise when Stephanie’s voice rang out from his comm. 

“Sup B, hey while I got you here, do you think your fridge could fit an eight foot tall waffle stack?”

“I could’ve sworn you were nowhere near my kitchen right now.”

“I’m not, but for future reference, y’know?”

“Spoiler.”

“Oh, is this a work call? Your Batman voice slipped,” Stephanie replied, her tone turning neutral. 

Wait. Had he been speaking differently?

Yep. There were several league members who were looking at him like they’d never seen him before. His voice modulator must’ve taken damage during the scuffle with the aliens.  

“Is something wrong up there? Boss said you were up in space for something.”

“Hm. We’rve run into some complications with returning to Earth, but we’ve recovered some useful information for any future altercations. Would you be able to send up one of the backup jets?” he consciously lowered his voice until it matched the modulator almost perfectly. 

“You have more than one backup jet?!” Hal questioned incredulously.

“Rich people,” Barry groaned from his spot on the ground. 

“Hold on, hey Spoiler, is that you?” that was Green Arrow. He didn’t like where this was going. 

“The one and only.”

“You mentioned that ‘the Boss’ said Batman was up here, but isn’t Batman your boss?” Silence. For a few peaceful seconds, there was only silence on the other side.  

But that sentence was not that funny. 

It did not deserve that level of cackling Stephanie. 

It took a whole six minutes and thirty-seven seconds for Stephanie to reign in her composure to light chuckles. 

“He might’ve been boss of me for a little while when I was in that dorky traffic light costume, but he’s sure not the boss of me now. Even if he still was, everyone in this family knows who’s really in charge, and it definitely isn’t Batman!” 

“Traffic light?” Black Canary asked. 

“Y’know, the R’s. Frankly the purple suits me better.”

“So, if not Batman, who is at the top of your command?” Martian Manhunter chimed in. 

“His name’s Agent A, he’s the best of us. He’s been here with B since day one. Frankly it’s a crime you haven’t given him credit here, Batman, after all that man has put up with for you and your nightly costume parties” Stephanie responded, palpable amusement in her voice. He didn’t grace her with a response. Clark twitched slightly at the name in recognition. 

“Jeez Spooky, everytime I think we’ve reached the bottom, we find more of your weird hellspawn!” 

“Oh Agent A isn’t one of B’s hellspawn, in fact…” Pause for dramatic effect. The leaguers unashamedly leaned in to ensure her words had their full attention, ignoring Batman’s grumpy expression that he knew he must have been wearing over the past twenty minutes. 

“It’s more like Batman is Agent A’s hellspawn.” 

Of course. Of course. Batman couldn’t have nice things. Only darkness. Only suffering. Only pain. Like evil children and nosy coworkers. 

Naturally, the League was sent into a frenzy of screeching, “WHATs?!” and “SERIOUSLYs!?” and yada yada, Bruce had been through this before, he didn’t want to do it again. He chose to ignore any of their inquiries, even as Green Arrow kept pushing his leg forward to keep his arm away from turning off the comm and force Batman to acknowledge him. Only Martian Manhunter remained silent. He let out a sigh of great magnitude as Stephanie chose to avoid answering any questions either, continuing her cackling fit before sobering up so quickly it gave a few of them whiplash. 

“If things are rough up there, I’ll call everyone right now and we’ll be up as soon as possible. We’ll come running, just say the word.”

“No, you’ve all got your own lives, and work to focus on, we’ll be fine for now, the plane will be enough,” he assured her. That turned out to be a slight miscalculation on his part, he could practically feel the smirk twisting through her expression. 

“In that case then, I’m going to have some fun with this. No worries B, help is on the way.” That tone was far too gleeful to avoid being suspicious. He had a good idea why too. He just hoped he was wrong. 

“Batman? This Agent A, is he, uh, your parent?” Clark asked. In all but blood, he was. Even if it went more unspoken than anything else. But that wasn’t a can of worms he was opening today. 

“Batman has a parent?!” 

“Most people have parents Hal,” Black Canary chided. 

“Yeah, but this is Batman we’re talking about, I mean I figured his kids might be more like, normal cause they’re just half of Batman-”

“Jordan, I would silence you if it weren’t for how your scans say you have a minor concussion. That restraint means nothing after that heals.”

…

It was unfortunate to say that he was not wrong. 

Through the clear, round windows of one of his planes, was a tall, well-dressed elderly man with gray hair only on the sides of his head, a mask set firmly on his face. A sight he knew incredibly well, and was usually rather comforting. But not this time.  

He could’ve just asked Stephanie to pull one of his kids away for a bit. One that they’d already met, that is. It’d still do him no good if Stephanie had chosen to throw Blackbat into the mix too. It’d only be temporary and he would be more than willing to help them with anything he might’ve unintentionally disrupted. But no, he wanted them to prioritize themselves. He grudgingly stepped towards the plane as Alfred beckoned him forward, the rest of the League following to the best of their abilities. Oliver soon gave up on trying to jump on one leg, choosing to, rather bravely, launch himself across Batman’s shoulders, carefully keeping his leg at an angle that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable for Batman’s arm, accompanying the gesture was a scrutinizing look as if daring him to throw him off. 

It was something that garnered several shocked remarks from the surrounding members of the League, but while Oliver normally would've wilted under the force of the batglare, he only flinched heavily with a harsh shudder, stubbornly remaining in place.

Almost like his terrifying reputation had taken one too many hits and finally shattered to Oliver and Oliver only. Almost like they were decently close friends who saw each other constantly at parties, friends who’d known each other for years on end, friends who had once drunkenly sobbed over a chick flick in each others arms during their teenage years, friends that were well acquainted with and held a healthy amount of fear for one Alfred Pennyworth. Friends that needed to have a nice, long chat. 

Damn it. 

“Perhaps an introduction is in order, Master Batman,” his pseudo-father figure cut in, offering no sympathy for the situation he’d found himself in. 

“Agent A,” he grumbled, offhandedly gesturing at the man. Alfred threw him a look, eyebrow raised. He stared back defiantly. For about seven seconds before he wilted. 

“Everyone, this is Agent A. He was my first associate when I took on my mission. The one that Spoiler felt the need to reference. Please don’t annoy him. A, you already know the Justice League.” The last comment he’d directed towards the league gained some apprehensive expressions. 

“It’s a pleasure to speak with the man tenacious enough to raise a warrior like Batman,” Wonder Woman spoke happily, offering a handshake to the man that was graciously accepted, going on to shake hands with every other member, including Oliver, who couldn’t seem to quite get over his very presence in front of him. 

“The pleasure is all mine. I trust you all have finished here, then? It appears that some of you are in a bit of a, predicament,” Alfred clicked his tongue, eying Oliver practically piggy-back riding his charge, and Clark and Barry still glued together at the hip.  

“Nothing we can’t handle,” he confirmed, receiving a nod in return. 

“I took the liberty of preparing some resources that should at least reduce those blisters, do help yourself to them. They’re just in the back,” Alfred offered. It was Bruce’s turn to raise an eyebrow at him, not that you could see through the cowl, but Alfred got the picture. 

“Spoiler sent you. But I never informed Spoiler what injuries the team obtained.” Alfred only hummed in response, turning to the dashboard. Bruce turned, eying the small monitor showing the vitals for the entire family. There was another screen across from it. It took a moment to click. 

“You were monitoring my mission!” he complained with a scowl, perhaps not noticing that his normal gravely voice was pitching higher and higher with his indignance. There were several snorts in the background that he chose to ignore. 

“I believe a man as paranoid as you are should be of perfect understanding of the why behind that. Not to mention the amount of times you yourself have attempted to bug the young masters.” 

He didn’t have a retort for that. 

Barry Allen P.O.V

He really appreciated how hard Clark was trying to keep them in a comfortable position right now. They’d both watched the back in forth between the newcomer and Batman with shock. Batman, backing down like that? Sure he hadn’t been able to control his kids very well, but Batman, the Batman, was actively following orders from some random old guy that probably weighed a solid fifty pounds less than he did. How scary could this guy be anyway? 

Well, he had to correct himself there. The man was from Gotham, something in their waters was just weird. Plus, if he’d been hearing correctly, the dude was Batman’s dad! How crazy was that? He had to wonder what that was like. Did Batman have a curfew growing up? What happened if Batman refused to eat his vegetables? WAS BATMAN EVER GROUNDED?!

Did this guy have to give Batman ‘the talk’?

Okay, no. He was going to stop that line of thinking right there. 

What was really fun to see was Batman shuffling off to a corner, presumably checking over his suit for bugs. Poor Arrow was still attached to his back, he had to admit he was ballsy though, he couldn’t imagine testing Batman like that, gosh- was he sulking right now? 

He totally was. 

“Soooo, Agent A?” Hal greeted innocently, the man turning to him with a neutral expression. 

“You’re Batman’s father, right?” The man paused, in an odd manner, he shifted his eyes over to Batman, appearing to silently ask him something, the man stared back, Barry couldn’t tell what it was, but something must’ve passed between them, because the man gave a pensieve nod in response to Hal’s question. What was that about? It’s not like knowing Batman had a father really narrowed down much about his identity. 

“Right, so would you by any chance have any, uh..interesting stories, to tell about Batman?” That broke Batman out of his state, lunging forward to stand next to his father, his face twisted in annoyance. 

“Batman, I believe that alone tells us plenty,” Black Canary laughed. 

“Oh trust me, Mr Lantern, I have plenty.” Batman released a sound, one that if Barry didn’t know better, sounded eerily close to a whine. 

“But perhaps it would serve us best to save those for another day, after all- you are all still in recovery,” the man relented at Batman’s slightly pleading glare with a slight chuckle. Batman’s arms noticeably relaxed. 

Despite the man’s surface-level willingness to share funny details about Batman’s life, he honestly ended up being one of the most mysterious of the people Batman introduced them to. He was perfectly polite whenever one of them would strike up a conversation as they prepared their return to Earth, but he seemed just as proficient as Batman was at avoiding anything actually incriminating, or even with any presumably harmless detail beyond the most basic answers. 

Green Arrow had gone quiet though, that was interesting considering how eagerly he’d been asking Batman questions about his life with his kids recently, but maybe he just wasn’t pushing his luck. Barry would’ve tried asking more questions, but honestly he’d been left pretty sore from all this, and left the questions to Hal, and Diana, Clark and J’onn occasionally offering their two cents. 

Batman meanwhile seemed to be struggling to figure out where the hidden bug was that Agent A had mentioned prior, sometimes the man would glance back at Batman smugly, not offering a single hint as to how he’d managed to listen in on the happenings of their mission. 

He could’ve sworn he’d heard Batman mutter just a little too loudly under his breath about ‘helicopter parenting,’ Clark definitely heard it if his abrupt laugh was anything to go by.  

It wasn’t long before they arrived back at the Hall of Justice. Batman, utilizing the samples he’d gotten from the trip, was able to whip up an antidote for the unnamed blue substance fairly quickly, and Barry breathed a sigh of relief as he was finally granted full range of motion. The other three would apparently take more time, but the blisters would likely heal over time anyway. 

Now that that was settled, Agent A grabbed hold of Batman’s shoulder, and started perhaps the best interaction Barry had heard all day.

“Off we go now, the young masters will be expecting your arrival.”

“I’ve still got a report to file.”

“No need for that Batman, you’ve already done plenty, one of us can handle that,” Clark mentioned, stepping back when Batman turned the batglare onto him. But he ceased the visual assault on their heartbeats when Agent A swatted him lightly. 

“None of that now, you heard the man. You haven’t slept in days, it’s time you rest.”

“It’s not even midnight yet. Gotham needs patrolling.”

“Not from you it doesn’t. It’s been covered, you need your rest if you’re going to be able to do anything tomorrow young man.”

“I’m a grown man,” he argued. 

“A grown man with no regard to his health obviously. I will not allow you to put yourself at further risk in this state. And that is final.”

“But Al-” he cut himself off, tensing. God he sounded like such a petulant child. Everyone present couldn’t help but grin in amusement. 

“Now see here, would you really like to pass these habits down onto the children?”

“They have plenty of bad habits without my influence,” he mumbled. 

“Exactly why we shan’t make it worse. Come along now, if you can get a reasonable amount of sleep in, I’ll allow you a cup of non-decaf coffee once you awake.” That seemed to spur Batman into finally moving, the two leaving for Gotham immediately with a short goodbye. Barry turned to the others. 

“That just happened, right? None of those ooze things made me start hallucinating the past few hours?”

_________________________________________

!BONUS!

Selina Kyle P.O.V

There weren’t a lot of reasonably priced bars in Gotham that weren’t frequented by prominent rogues or criminals, but it was always nice when you actually found one. So that was where she and the sirens had taken Black Canary and Wonder Woman, all of them in toned down versions of their usual costumes. 

“Thank you again for the invitation, it’s quite nice to be able to meet other strong women within the hero community.”

“Anti-hero community, darling. But it’s our pleasure, I can’t imagine it’s all that fun to be surrounded by so much testosterone all of the time.”

“So how did all this happen anyway, this thing with Batman?” Canary directed her question at Selina, who pretended to ponder it deeply before responding. 

“The fucking or the vigilantism?” Ivy snorted. 

“Either.”

“What can I say, have you seen that man before?” Selina smirked.

“Better yet, have you seen Catwoman before?” Harley complimented, grinning as she took another swig of her drink. 

“God I remember one of the suits he tried, such a long time ago, it was so short lived, but I can’t believe how well the man was able to fight in those boots, they were borderline thigh highs.”

“It’s not as bad as you would expect honestly, at least in my experience” Wonder Woman offered. 

“Alright, I came here for fun, not to talk about Batman, I get enough of that as it is,” Ivy cut in with an eye roll. 

“Yeah I got a better question, hey Wondy- how much does alcohol affect you? You’re down like seven drinks and you don’t even look tipsy yet,” Harley questioned. 

“My Amazonian heritage allows me a rather extensive tolerance yes, I’ve yet to find any alcohol among men that has had much effect on me,” she answered. 

“Well isn’t that handy, eh Ivy? There’s a contest this place has every week, get through a bottle or two of their strongest alcohols without passing out or throwing up and you win a free t-shirt.”

“Harls, it’s nothing special, it’s just a t-shirt with the bar logo.”

“It’s an embroidered logo, Ivy, hand embroidered! Come on, how about it, Wonder Woman, a souvenir from your first night out in Gotham?” Harley asked.

“Speaking of which, does Batman know you brought us into town today?” Canary inquired. 

“Probably not, think he figured I’d have done it sooner than now if I was going to actually go through with my offer, but who cares?” Selina shrugged nonchalantly. 

“I think it’d be delightful to participate in a contest, but it does feel a bit unethical considering my advantage.”

“Let’s all do it then, we can just have some fun with it, and it’s not like we’d be cheating them out of something all that valuable” Canary agreed. 

“Woooo! Alright ladies, up! Let’s make some bad decisions tonight!” cheers went up as they clinked their glasses together. 

Off in the distance, a pair of deep green eyes gazed through the open doorway into the bar, set on the five women in open contemplation, before turning away.

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

He wasn’t sure how this time around, but he was certain this was indirectly somehow Nightwing’s fault. 

So damn you Nightwing. He hadn’t said that in a while, weirdly. He’d just gotten terribly used to it, he supposed. He probably deserved it for something even if he wasn’t technically part of Agent A’s introduction to the Justice League. It was just the straw that broke the camel's back. 

Could he just go back to medical school and forget this ever happened? Give up the cowl to a perfectly capable successor? (Cass maybe, he doubted Dick would want it again, and he wasn’t handing it over to a ten year old Damian, that was for sure) 

Okay, maybe not medical school, everyone knew how that turned out last time after all. He didn’t fancy the idea of joining Harley in her exploits and frankly he had too much in his head to unpack before being stable enough to handle going back to those psychology courses. 

But what about something else? Culinary school maybe? No, that wouldn’t work, he’d have to bribe his way in and his kids would never let him live that down. Law school was off the table too, no thanks Harvey. 

What about a firefighting academy? There were plenty of explosions in Gotham, he’d never be out of work, he could save some cats in trees or something. Might earn him some points with Selina, or maybe Damian. Yeah that’d work. He could recreate himself, change his image, change his life. It’d get him out of this conversation, wouldn’t it? 

No, no it wouldn’t, he had to rationalize. It was a bit too late for that. 

But frankly his hair was graying enough as it was without Oliver fucking Queen finding out his secret identity all because his adoptive father couldn’t resist a chance at taking care of him, unfortunately embarrassing him in the process. The audacity of that man really, he should have him fired.

(He would sooner enter a steamy marriage to Lex Luthor before he ever genuinely considered that, but you all know that already) 

Oliver, was currently pacing in front of him in one of the many, many sitting areas of Wayne Manor, with thankfully most of his children out of town at the moment, Damian having gone to visit with Dick in Bludhaven. Only Tim and Duke were left, and they were fairly sensible without another negative influence around. Hopefully. He’d better steal their tech to be sure Dick isn’t feeding them any schemes. Again. 

Actually, that was a lie. Tim was a tiny stalker who wouldn’t go to bed more than three times a week, and would forgo it altogether if he could, and Duke dressed up in a Robin-inspired costume to lead a youth vigilante movement with a ton of other random teenagers. All his kids were all little shits, he lamented. 

“I can’t even believe you! I mean- years of friendship! Like I know we haven’t had the time to talk as often, and we’ve obviously had a lot going on, you especially I mean- you’ve got kids just coming out of the woodwork-” 

“Oliver.” 

“But seriously! We went to highschool together, you’ve known my identity even before I actually tried revealing it to you! What happened to the solidarity Bruce?! All that boarding school shit, I’ve gone to you for relationship advice! God I can’t believe I’ve asked Batman for dating advice-” 

“And child advice.”

“Which is seriously crazy because you’re literally in love with a- HOLD ON A DAMN MINUTE! Selina Kyle?! She’s Catwoman? Oh god all your kids are heroes too- wait does Roy know?! Bruce did you actually encourage those kids to fuck with me over that video call, you asshole-”

“Oliver.” 

Oliver paid him no heed as he continued ranting. He wasn’t even sure if the man was even stopping to breathe anymore. He couldn’t even tell whether this was just intense annoyance or if Oliver was genuinely angry about it. Okay, how was he going to handle this? He had some options. 

With Dick, after their most explosive fight that led to him running away to begin the Teen Titans, he’d started to just let him wear himself out until he’d gotten enough out of his system for them to talk calmly, he usually deserved it anyway, Bruce knew he messed up sometimes. God knows he had spent enough time fighting with his son to know that yelling back and widening a rift was not worth losing him again. He’d give Jason some time too but he’d have to cut him off before he spiraled into self-loathing. Or would something more direct be better in this situation? 

He’d like to think that he’d gotten better with dealing with things. He wasn’t perfect, he’d still mess up, as his children delighted in reminding him, but he was trying , with all of them. 

For the record, he did care about Oliver. He did feel a tad guilty about keeping his identity from him. He felt plenty guilty about all the shenanigans he and his children had put the man through. 

He seemed to be winding down though, his voice was lowering to a normal volume, his arms weren’t waving as rapidly, to the point his voice was beginning its shift from raging accusations to incredulous rambing.

“Jeez, how do you even handle those kids? Guess I get why they’re like that with such a dramatic bitch like you for a father figure, bet this is some kind of karma for you, I’ve only met them, what- twice each? I couldn’t imagine ever living with that, I mean you saw how badly I handled Roy, and that was one damn kid-”

It was still a surprise, when Oliver finally made eye contact with Bruce, stopping in his tracks. 

Before throwing his head back in a bellowing laugh, grinning from ear to ear. Bruce smiled in response, shutting his eyes briefly as memories raced through the men’s minds. 

They’d be okay, he decided. 

Hal Jordan P.O.V

“What kind of superhero hooks up with their own villain!?” 

Most of them, truth be told- or at least as far as Hal could tell. Himself included obviously. 

Though admittedly it didn’t seem his relationship with Carol was going in a very good direction right now. 

Guy Gardner- a newish addition to the Justice League, though he sure as hell wasn’t the one to recommend him. The dude had his merits- but man was he an ass . And that was saying a lot coming from him, he prided himself on making people (mostly Spooky) go gray.

(Assuming the man had hair anyway, he didn’t actually know.) Huh. That was an interesting thought. Of course every one of the main members of the Justice League had wondered at least once what Batman was hiding beneath the cowl. For all Hal knew, Spooky could be as bald as Lex Luthor, or have hair as nauseously bright a green as a highlighter. 

But for as much grief as he gave Spooky at any opportunity- he had to admit, he was on the guy’s side this time. 

He, and Barry had been having a talk about all the weird associates Batman had from Gotham that kept showing up, which had Hal vigorously waving his arms as he recounted the meeting he, Wonder Woman, and Superman had had with Catwoman a while back. He’d thrown in a couple insults about how way out of Batman’s league she was, obviously- that’s just his job, but for the record, it was mostly joking, he was shocked that Spooky of all people was hooking up with his rogue, but that’s cause it was Spooky. 

He was hot. Hal would easily admit that. He just didn’t think Batman had time for anything like that. But then again, he hadn’t thought Batman would have had the time to acquire a gazillion children either, but here they were. 

Listen- he and Batman weren’t the closest, but he knew damn well he was higher on his list than Guy Gardner of all people. He was allowed to shit on Batman, he’d earned that right damn it! 

Guy hadn’t been privy to any of what had gone on with Batman’s associates, and he hadn’t even been included in his and Barry’s conversation, he’d just happened to walk into the cafeteria and overhear them. And of course, was dumb enough to blow up about it to Superman and Wonder Woman when they arrived not long after. 

“This isn’t really any of our business,” Wonder Woman said curtly. See, Hal told them it’d be a dumb idea to let him in, but no- they could use more raw power or some dumb crap. 

“We’re seriously just letting him off?! He’s consorting with a notorious Gotham rogue-” 

“And who could blame him?” a melodic voice echoed through the entrance. The group turned towards the source, spotting a fairly tall woman with medium black hair, dressed in a typical magician inspired costume, paired with black fishnets, and boots. The one and only, Zatanna Zatara. 

Zatanna P.O.V

Oh the wonders brought on from knowing the Batman himself as a teenager. I mean really though- who was this guy to judge? 

“What do you mean ‘who could blame him?!’” 

“All I see here are two attractive, perfectly consenting adults participating in perfectly normal behavior,” she responded. Hadn’t everyone had a crush on Batman at one point or another anyway? Plus she could definitely see the appeal for Catwoman, though she didn’t know her personally. 

“In any case, Catwoman is far from the worst rogue out there. Last I heard, she’s been going by an anti-hero status, and I trust Batman’s judgment of the situation” Superman affirmed, and it was obvious the conversation was over, the red-headed Green Lantern stomping off. 

“Oh, Zatanna! Speaking of anti-heroes, I’ve just had a wonderful idea: you should come along to ladies night with Black Canary and I. It's been far too long since you’ve been back at the tower. Not long ago we were joined by a few of Batman’s rogues, Catwoman included, they’ll be joining us again,” Wonder Woman offered. 

“While I’d love to, I’m afraid I’ll have to put a rain check on that. I've got business to handle with Batman at the moment regarding your last mission, there’s a few things he wants me to look over.” 

-Several Days Later- 

Diana Prince P.O.V

They’d decided to forego another bar night in Gotham, especially after they’d been given a temporary ban from the bar they’d gone to, after managing to drink over a half of the bar’s entire supply of alcohol mind you. So the group had made the collective decision to let Wonder Woman pick the next bar, while Dinah would have the next turn. 

It was a shame Catwoman couldn’t make it this time, but she supposed it might’ve been for the best. DC wasn’t even close to having the same familiarity with the rogues of one of the worst cities on the continent that they would serve them so willingly. She’d been informed that Harley and Ivy would be arriving in disguise. Though she didn’t see how that would help considering Ivy was completely green, she appreciated the effort on their part to avoid disrupting the peace. 

They had not, however, informed her that they would be late to their get-together. 

“Are we certain they’ll show up?” Dinah expressed, though she didn’t seem all that put-out about it. Not out of distaste, no. But she seemed…tired.

Which on most days would’ve been perfectly understandable, throwing one’s self into protecting the good of mankind was hardly without its troubles. She couldn’t help but inquire as to what had her friend so exhausted. 

“Ugh, don’t worry about me. It’s just Ollie, he’s been just a little insufferable lately, can’t say I entirely blame him though,” Dinah sighed in response. 

“Whatever for? Shall I confront him? If there is any way to help I am sure I can-” 

“No! No, no. Sorry Diana, it’s just- not really something I can share without incriminating someone else. I promise you though, it’s nothing bad, it’ll pass soon enough.” 

“Nevertheless, perhaps a night of fun will be just enough to loosen the burden. Could you perhaps text Harley and Ivy? Perhaps something unexpected has arisen.” Just as Dinah pulled out her phone, her ringtone rang through the air. She leaned forward to take notice of the caller ID when Dinah furrowed her eyebrows in concern. It wasn’t a number saved to her phone, it didn’t appear to even have an actual number, only a picture in its place. A picture of a stylized O, with a green mask symbol appearing in the middle. Oracle’s symbol, she recognized after a pause. 

Batman. 

“Batman, not using the comms I see, something wrong?” Dinah questioned, hastily accepting the call. 

“Luthor is on his way to DC. Moderate threat level. Sending the coordinates now. We’ll join you shortly.” 

“Can’t catch a break, can we?” Diana said as the call hung up. 

“Oh I don’t know, I think maybe this is just what I need to get some energy out,” Dinah grinned. 

“Well then, let us hurry. Best not to let the others have all the fun, correct?”

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

His instincts were rarely false, and he’d had a bad feeling about this from the start. Luthor alone would’ve likely been easy enough for a few of them to deal with perfectly fine. But that wasn’t the case here. It wasn’t uncommon for villains from different cities to team up with Gotham’s rogues, there was something so purely terrifying about Gothamites. Something so twisted in their heads that made it so just about any plan seemed plausible. 

Villain or not really, he doubted most would find it all that appealing to go toe to toe with the average Gothamite, they hardly had any fight or flight instincts anymore, it was just an attitude by now. Especially in the daytime. Which was ideal considering the only one on the day shift was Signal. If they felt the need, they’d punch first and ask questions later, if they were desperate, then they start running, but there were problems in Gotham far too often to allow them to constantly interrupt their daily lives too much.

There were exceptions to that obviously. Joker was one. But luckily, it wasn’t Joker he was dealing with this time. A lot of rogues were depending on the severity of their scheme. But any normal criminal was just that, another person. If they were robbing a supermarket in broad daylight, most people would just go on shopping. Robberies in the night however, were usually affiliated with a higher power. The night, and its crime, belonged to the Bats to deal with. 

Mr Freeze was a formidable man, and funded by Luthor and armed with kryptonite dust? Well now you have a problem. At least it seemed Luthor’s current kryptonite stash was dwindling. 

Freeze and Luthor had decided to block out the sun, likely choosing to come to DC because they’d assumed neither of Superman or Batman would be there to stop them in time. It was thanks to Selina and her connections to Gotham's underground crime that he’d been informed of Luthor’s involvement. Hal, Clark, and Diana were dealing with him right now, while Dinah had joined him to handle Freeze. 

No, he did not choose to acknowledge the elephant in the room. He knew for a fact that she knew now just as Oliver did. Oliver had seemed quite excited at the prospect of his bragging rights before he’d returned to Star City. 

Though honestly, five Justice League members was probably still a bit overkill for this, but he really wanted to get this over with and go home as soon as possible, he’d promised he’d go to an art showcase with Damian tomorrow. And he was fairly certain Damian was dragging Tim with them too- and no way was he going to miss a chance at seeing those two bond for once. 

God he was starting to sound like Nightwing. How horrible. 

If he starts using words like “aster” or “traught” next then Jason’s allowed to shoot him. 

A blast of cold air went rushing past his head, and he dodged to the left, shaking himself from his musings, knocking three goons down as they came at him. He returned his attention to the main threat, taking out a batarang while keeping in mind the next few goons about to rush him. He braced himself to handle both, before the ground began rumbling. 

A wall of thick green vines rocketed upwards, sending the unsuspecting thugs flying back into a brick wall. 

Boisterous laughter arose from behind Freeze, the man turning only to be hit full force with a massive red hammer. 

Oh joy. Two thirds of the Gotham City Sirens. His two least favorites at that. 

“Canary! How ya been hon?” Harley yelled gleefully. Poison Ivy dramatically stood upon a pair of moving vines, bringing her closer to the group. 

“Oh y’know, same old, same old. Hey where were you two? Wonder Woman and I were waiting on you at the bar, did you get lost or something?” 

“Not quite no, hey Bats! Ives and I got something we need to talk to you about after we deal with ol’ Freezey over there!”

“I am not getting paid enough for this. If it was gonna just end up like this, as usual- I wouldn’t have bothered making the commute,” Freeze groaned, readying his gun anyway. 

-Twenty Minutes Later-

The group met at a rendezvous point near the bar Diana had wanted to apparently take the sirens and Canary to. Dinah and Diana offered to take Freeze and Luthor into custody themselves, but they would return later. 

“Spooky, for once- I am begging you to tell me that these two are more of your associates and I’m not going to have to fight them. I’ve been up since two in the morning,” Hal complained.  

“They are. Unfortunately” 

“Aw come on Batsy! Why the grumbling, you and I go way back!” 

“I go ‘way back’ as you say, with plenty of rogues.” 

“You really do, it’s honestly concerning sometimes,” Ivy chimed in, shaking her head. 

“Hey now! You and I struggled through med school together, have some solidarity Bats!” 

“You finished medical school- with Harley Quinn ?” Clark asked dumbfoundedly. 

“Wrong! He didn’t finish, dropped out to fight crime in kevlar underwear and a pointy ear cowl! Had the audacity to leave me to finish finals alone!”

“As much as I’d love to complain about Batman, Harley and I do have something important to talk to you about.” 

“If this is about the trees in the national park again Ivy, I told you, you can’t just strangle anyone that-”

“First, fuck you- I can, I will, and I have. Second, no that’s not what I meant. We’ll table that discussion if we have to.”

“What then.” 

“We ran into your youngest when he came back from Bludhaven and decided to go on patrol without telling anyone.”

Damn it, of course he did. 

“He was patrolling around Sel- Catwoman’s usual spots, probably hoping to find another stray he could take in. Like father, like son,” Harley continued. He could hear Hal snort in the background, along with a brief chuckle from Superman. 

“And?” 

“He spotted your ex a couple buildings away.” Vague, considering he had a ton of ex’s, but by the context, he could definitely guess which one this was. Clark stood slightly awkwardly behind him, though Hal didn’t even bother hiding how he perked up in interest. 

“Threat level?” 

“He said she seemed to be examining the area too, nothing specific, but he was worried she was lingering for too long, not sure why she’s there, but Robin said he’d warn Cat, asked us to warn you too just in case since he knew we were going to DC.” How did Robin even know he was coming here? 

Oh right. Alfred’s stupid trackers that he still couldn’t find. 

“Did she seem like she’d actively confront her?”

“From what Robin said, unlikely.”

“Did Robin speak to her?” 

“He didn’t want to engage just yet in case you disapproved.” The fact she probably already knew he was there anyway went unspoken.

“Did he just ask you to tell me that, or did he actually choose not to talk to her?”

“From what I could tell, kid didn’t say anything.” That was odd. It wasn’t like Robin to leave something like this without personally checking it over. No one in the family cared about disrespecting his orders. Especially when he hadn’t even explicitly given them one yet. Not unless they’d done something. 

Oh he swore if he came back to another box of stray cats in his house. 

“Er- Batman? If this is so important, you can head off. Lantern and I should have everything covered here,” Superman offered. He nodded in acceptance, flipping his cape over his shoulder and disappearing back into the shadows. 

“Show off,” Ivy scoffed. Diana and Dinah were spotted off in the distance. 

“We’ll let you all get back to your day off. Nice meeting you two, uh- and for what it’s worth, I hope whatever’s going on with the trees gets resolved,” Clark responded politely, offering a handshake to the two women, earning a very enthusiastic one, and a fairly normal one. 

“Say, you got any good Batman stories?” Hal questioned, smirking. Clark sighed, grabbing the man’s arm and dragging him off into the air.

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

He did in fact come back to another box of stray cats in his house. Four cats to be specific. He was not surprised in the slightest and frankly he couldn’t bring himself to care all that much right now as his hand subconsciously clenched around the item in his pocket. 

“Father, what are you to do about Mother?” Damian questioned, as he absentmindedly played with the smallest of the cats with a laser pointer. Tim was laying on the couch behind his younger brother, a cat having fallen asleep on him, and Damian refusing to let Tim get up and risk waking their new (probably temporary) addition to the household. 

“Talia is bound to know that I’ll show up at one point or another considering how you chose to leave it alone. Chances are, I won’t need to track her down myself.” 

“Do you want us to come with you?” Tim offered. 

“Not yet. This is…an unexpected development, it complicates things, as you both know. But there’s nothing to suggest an overarching threat, if she were here on Ra’s behalf, she wouldn’t have been so out in the open.”

“Drake would be in no position to help anyways. He has yet to sleep within the past ten days, if he goes on much longer, he will break the guinness world record” Damian scoffed, Bruce turned sharply towards his older son. Tim swatted his brother in the head, earning a glare of contempt but no retaliation. That was progress. Progress was good. 

“I only speak the truth. Drake was up at the Batcomputer all night on a case and only survives now on energy drinks.”

“First off, I’ve long since broken the record for nineteen days awake-” 

“ What. ” 

“What exactly was that, Master Tim?” Tim seemed to remember that he and Damian were not in fact the only ones in the room. 

“Nothing, Alfred. Nothing at all-”

“It most certainly was not! Drake-” Damian’s outcry was cut off by Tim shoving a pillow into his face and smothering his next words. Damian punched the pillow away with a scowl, rising to launch himself at Tim before he realized there was still a cat in the older boy’s lap. 

“Tim, I’m cutting you off, no more caffeine,” Bruce let out a long suffering sigh. 

“What do you mean you’re cutting me off!? Don’t tell me you’re any better-” 

“Master Bruce is in fact better, Master Tim- as I have yet to ever allow him to ever go as long as nineteen days without proper rest under this roof. And I refuse to allow you to reach that stage again .” 

“I have my own apartment,” Tim defended weakly, slumping further into himself at the sight of Alfred’s ire. Better him than Bruce. 

“And how is that relevant to this conversation?” The unspoken threat was ever-present. Nothing was going to stop Alfred Pennyworth once he had his mind set on something. 

“I’ll go to bed,” Tim grumbled in defeat. Damian smiled smugly from his place on the floor, taking the cat that had chosen Tim as his resting spot. 

“Six hour sleep minimum everyday. For the next few days,” Alfred decided. Tim stalked up the stairs, muttering under his breath, but gave a conceding nod. 

Tim Drake P.O.V

He did not in fact go to bed. Not straight away anyway. But Alfred took all his cases, for Wayne Enterprises and for Red Robin. He might’ve tried stealing some cases from Nightwing or Red Hood if he didn’t think they’d rat him out immediately.

Stupid Demon Brat. Stupid lack of situational awareness. He’d gotten sloppy enough that he hadn’t even hidden his stash from the last time he’d needed another energy drink. It’d been right out in the open and Alfred was quick to confiscate it, agreeing to return it in a few days. Granted, Alfred probably already knew where he typically hid them anyway. 

This caffeine ban was going to be hell . 

Instead, he took out his phone as he settled himself under the thick, warm covers of his bed. Absentmindedly scrolling through his contacts until he kept to the one he needed. The phone rang just twice before the recipient picked up. 

“Tim?” Conner Kent. Kon-El. Superboy. Superman’s son slash brother depending on who you asked. One of Tim’s best friends. Who he could finally openly interact with in costume now that Superman knew Red Robin existed. 

“Hey Con, you remember that time when you and I snuck out to-”

“Oh no. Stopping you right there. Last time we tried that-”

“Con, it’s an emergency!” Okay maybe he was getting a tad whiny. But it’d only been ten days, and he’d even taken a nap a few days ago. He couldn’t seriously be getting benched after just ten days awake, that was basically nothing. Probably would’ve been let go too if Damian hadn’t brought up the stupid record. He hadn’t even hit the hallucination point yet. He was perfectly fine. 

Perfectly fine. 

“Urgh, can’t believe B might be dealing with the League of Assassins and I’m stuck on bedrest.”

“Woah, League of Assassins? Everything okay?” Okay. In his defense, maybe he was just a bit more sleep deprived than he thought he was. He hadn’t really thought that much of what letting it slip would mean. And also-

Maybe he was feeling just a little petty. Considering he had a feeling he knew where this was going to go. 

“Yeah, yeah. Batman has to deal with the Daughter of the Demon Head or some shit. Nothing he can’t handle. Probably. In any case, can you please-” 

“Hold on- this thing seems bad enough that Batman might-” 

“Con there’s always the chance that things are going to go wrong, he’s…well he’s Batman, so he has to be okay, y’know?” He purposefully let his voice dip closer to pitifully unsure rather than just vaguely concerned. And yeah there was some truth there- he was kinda worried about Bruce. But that came with the territory, frankly things could’ve been a lot worse. But oh well, he could make it worse instead. 

If anyone asked later, he was just being a worried son who didn’t want his dad to get hurt. This would help Bruce. Physically anyway. 

Mentally? Well maybe not so much. 

Clark Kent P.O.V

He was still at work when Conner called him. Conner didn’t call him very often, let alone when he knew he was working. So he couldn’t help the immediate spike of concern. 

“Conner, what’s going on?” he answered his phone confusedly. 

“Hey, have you talked to Batman recently? A friend of mine said some things.”

“Last I spoke to him was when we apprehended Lex the other day, why?” 

“Did he mention anything about the League of Assassins?” 

“What?” No he had not. Although- there was that conversation he’d had with- no. He shouldn’t be speculating about Batman’s personal life. The man barely trusted him enough as it is if he kept his horde of family members a secret. Although- the way that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy had regarded Batman’s ex was a bit of a cause for concern. 

“You remember Red Robin?”

“That kid that burst into the Watchtower? Batman’s son? Since when did you know one of Batman’s sons?” 

“Since a while ago, keep up. Anyway, he seemed pretty shaken, I offered to see if you could do anything for him.” 

“Do you have any other details you could give me?” 

“Uh, Red said to talk to Nightwing at some point today. He said I could send you his number.” 

“Alright. Thanks for the heads up Conner, I’ll see what I can do.” 

-Several Hours Later-

“Uh, hello? Nightwing?”

“Hi Superman! Red mentioned there was something you wanted to talk to me about.”

“There was something Red Robin mentioned to Superboy that worried him. Are you aware of what your father is handling with the League of Assassins?”

“The League of- well yes, but I’m surprised Red mentioned it,” a breathy, slightly uncertain laugh from the other side of the phone. 

“Sorry could I get back to you in a minute? I have something I need to talk to Red Robin about real quick.”

“No, no- take your time, no worries. Don’t be too hard on him please,” When Nightwing got back, his voice was noticeably more cheerful, so he supposed the talk must’ve went well. 

“Right, what did you want to know?”

“I just wanted to see if there was any way we could offer any help. I don’t know much about Ra’s Al Ghul, but I know he’s a major threat.” That was an understatement, that was for sure. 

“Mhm. He’s not exactly your average cartoony maniacal supervillain. Batman got a set day for a confrontation recently. Do you mind if I make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead.”

 “Sending the date and time right now. Would you mind having reinforcements sent with him? I’m afraid the other Bats and I would arouse a little too much suspicion, our presence would likely only escalate the situation, the League knows us, they know we’re a threat to them. You’re outsiders. You can step in if things get ugly, they won’t be prepared for you.” 

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t think I could make it personally, but I’m certain someone else from the Justice League would be more than willing to lend him a hand after all he’s done to help.” He’d promised he’d spend that day with Lois and Jon, and if Nightwing didn’t seem too particularly concerned, Batman may not even actually need his help. 

“If I could make a suggestion as to who?”

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

He had not been surprised when he’d received a note to meet Talia on top of the main Wayne Enterprises building. He had not been surprised when Tim smiled evilly at him the next morning. (He didn’t know why he was smiling like that, but it’s not like his kids making his life difficult was exactly a new thing)

He hadn’t been surprised when Alfred decided to include him in Tim’s caffeine ban, try as he might to convince him otherwise. He was not surprised when Dick decided to make a surprise visit to Gotham the day before his scheduled meeting. He wasn’t surprised that Nightwing made an appearance in the cave the next day, hanging from the rafters with a grin. 

What he was surprised about however, was that Green Arrow and the Flash were in his Batcave, without him knowing. He glanced at his oldest son with a deadpan expression. 

“Blame Red, believe it or not I’m just the accomplice this time around.” He turned to his teammates with a sigh. 

“State your purpose for being here.”

“Superman gave us a call, he said you were having trouble with the League of Assassins,” Barry responded. 

“Well, one of them anyway,” Nightwing muttered under his breath. 

“Nightwing.”

“Told you, wasn’t my idea. But who was I to deny my little brother’s request? It’s so rare to see him actually ask for help with a case. Gets that from you really.” 

“Br- Batman. I know you have your issues with working with others and all that jazz, but if what Superman mentioned was right, if this is worrying one of your sons-” 

“He’s not worried, Arrow.”

“Oh come on B, that’s not true. We’re always worried about you.”

“Son you know damn well this isn’t a normal mission.” He couldn’t bother hiding his annoyance this time, Flash was visibly surprised at his more casual words. At least Nightwing looked a little sheepish, but even he could tell it was a bit late to call things off.

“If you must accompany me, you will accompany me from a distance .”

“Understood Batman!” At Barry’s response, he turned solemnly again to his son. 

“Will you be following?”

“Obviously. Red and Robin would come too but Agent A’s still benching Red, and Robin’s taking over his route with Red Hood today.”

“Hm.” 

-Twenty Minutes Later-

He’d ensured that the other three were stationed as far as they possibly could be, enough that they could see them, but not to the point where they could hear their conversation. Though he had no doubt that Nightwing was listening to the conversation anyway through a bug in his suit he’d yet to find. (Thanks a lot Alfred) 

Talia wasn’t there yet when he’d first arrived. But she was close. He could tell. The minute he landed on the rooftop however, a few assassins sprung up from the side of the building. A six on one fight? He was almost offended. 

He made quick work of his attackers, and only then did Talia finally make her presence known. The minute she stepped into the light, an arrow whizzed past his face, Talia caught the arrow with practiced ease just as it was within reach of her shoulder, tossing it off the side of the building, entirely unfazed by the projectile. He turned his neck, hoping the power of the batglare would translate from a distance. It must’ve worked, as Barry and Oliver, two brightly colored figures across the pitch black Gotham skyline, lowered themselves back into a relaxed position. 

“Beloved.”

“Talia.”

“I do believe it’s in rather bad taste to bring others to such a meeting.”

“And what of your own companions?” he gestured to the immobile assassins at their feet. 

“Simply a precaution. I trust Damian’s training is going well if you-”

“Damian was perfectly capable of taking a group like that down long before he arrived. I know for a fact that you made sure of it. What do you really want, Talia?” The silence stretched on, but neither seemed willing to back down from their stance. He heard a faint sound from his comm, something that could be easily attributed to the wind. But he knew better. If he gave a signal, help would be on the way. But Talia didn’t seem all that eager to begin her own fight. That much he could tell, wasn’t what she was here for.

“Talia,” he prompted. The woman closed her eyes, taking a long, deep breath. 

“There was something my spies became aware of not long ago. Something one of your vigilante companions mentioned in their vicinity,” she seemed weary, tired even. Even regretful in a way. He racked his brain for what could possibly have shaken her so much. It couldn’t have been something stupid like a prank, perhaps they’d referenced something about the continuous revelations the League had about his familial relations. 

And that was when it hit him. 

-One Week Earlier-

He’d sat his children down in the manor. They hadn’t all been in the same place at one time since their last game night. Dick, Jason, Cassandra, Tim, Stephanie, Duke, and Damian. They were joined by Barbara and Alfred this time. He’d had a rather important announcement they needed to make. Something they all deserved to put their two cents in for. Whether he’d listen came down to a few factors.

“Hey Old Man, get on with it, will you? I was in the middle of mission planning.”

“Liar, you were reorganizing the shelf of Jane Austen books in the library,” Tim pointed out. 

“What do you know, Replacement? Maybe I was getting inspiration.”

“And what, pray tell- would you be able to discern about handling a drug ring from domestic society-driven novels written in the 1800’s?” Dick raised an eyebrow, smirking.

“First off, stop looking at my fucking cases, asshole! And besides, maybe it’ll help me be eloquent enough that I won’t get stuck with some dumb catchphrase like ‘holy hole in a donut Batman!’ Or some other holy kind of shit”

“I only said that one time first of all-” Their bickering was silenced by a soft shushing sound from Cassandra, who gazed at him expectantly. 

“Right, as you’re all aware- there’s been a lot of history between Selina and I-” he was interrupted by a loud squeal. 

“It’s happening, isn’t it?!” 

“What is?” Damian asked, a grumpy look in place. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Babs remarked. 

“While I’d rather not assume Master Bruce- are you?” Alfred trailed off, glancing wistfully at a picture off to the side. 

One of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne.

“How did it happen?” Tim blurted out. He shook his head. 

“It hasn’t yet, I wanted to ask you all what you thought first.”

“What are you even referring to, Father?” Damian questioned impatiently. Dick winced slightly, smiling in acceptance to Bruce, before softening his features further as he turned to their youngest family member. Tim and Jason looked vaguely uncomfortable, tensing a little as they regarded their youngest brother. 

“Damian. I just want to preface, that I know this is a very important decision, and I didn’t want to decide on something like this without talking to all of you beforehand.” Damian furrowed his eyebrows slightly, for a split second before his face smoothed over and he came to the correct conclusion. The group waited with baited breath to hear the boys reaction. He was deep in thought, that much was evident. 

He knew that this would have a major impact on everyone in some way or another. Most of them had an out though, they had their own places to rush off to when they needed time to think, even though a bat would likely end up breaking in and dragging them back to their rightful place in Gotham when they’d decided it was time they needed to talk, kicking and screaming if they must. 

It was a great relief to everyone when Damians shoulders relaxed, nodding in his fathers direction, appearing only slightly strained by the news, many thoughts were likely going through his head, but he seemed more disoriented than truly sorrowful. They all internally ceased holding their breath, comforted by the simple gesture. 

“Very well Father, Kyle is an adequate candidate to add to the House of Wayne. Far better than any of the harlots you march around with during publicity events. Frankly, it was about time you’d settled down. Have you chosen a ring yet? I am certain I could choose a better ring than any one of these buffoons,” he announced triumphantly, the last on the tension in his body seeming to disappear. There were a few offended sounds from the others on the couches, but not much else. They were far too happy with this result to be truly upset. 

“Well, Dami is the artist of the household after all,” Dick conceded, smiling fondly. 

“While the input is appreciated Damian, I’ve actually decided on this one,” he reached into his pocket, taking out a small box that he’d been saving for quite some time now, contemplating whether it was really the right time for it to see the light once again. Ultimately, he’d decided it was. 

His mothers ring. Elegant, and expensive, as expected, though not quite as dramatic-looking as the jewelry Selina was surely used to pilfering from whatever random jeweler or museum she desired. He hoped she’d like it. He told his children as much. 

“So, how do you intend to have this go?”

“Well I was thinking-”

-Present Time-

“Hm,” he breathed. Talia looked at him, piercing green eyes capturing his image. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Nightwing taking a rare bout of pity on him. He ushered their red and green companions away from the edge of the building, blocking their view of their impending conversation. This was going to be a long conversation. It felt like they’d stood there for hours.

But he supposed they both deserved some closure. If nothing else. 

“My father has heard the news as well. He had asked me to make one last attempt.” 

“Talia-” 

“I will not force such a decision upon you like this. I do not come to ask you for your hand. Not this time.” 

“Why stalk her then?” he asked, of genuine curiosity. 

“I wouldn’t be the only one affected by this choice of yours, Batman. I wanted assurance.”

“Of what?”

“That she would not stand as an obstacle for our son. I’ve yet to speak to him about this, but I heard that that she’d once offered him assistance the day I examined her holdings. I did not intend to harm her unless necessary. A matter yet to be justified.”

“The box of cats. I remember.”

“I do not claim to like your decision, Beloved, nor your partner herself. Neither do I completely understand Damian’s connection to those creatures. But both, for his sake, I will respect.”

“...I’m sorry.” 

“You shouldn’t be. It is what you want, you can not always control that, I know that much.” 

“Talia. How we’ve acted, it can’t go on like it always has. But regardless of how things have happened since then, I don’t regret what happened between us.” She closer her eyes once more, breathing heavily. 

“I know you don’t. In another life Beloved, perhaps we would have stood more of a chance. I trust this won’t get in the way of Damian’s development. That is all I came for.”

“It won’t. The kids, all of them. They have to come first. I’ve long since learned that lesson.” She nodded solemnly, bowing her head with her eyes closed. 

“Til we meet again, Bruce Wayne,” she spoke calmly, turning to leap away. But his voice stopped her one last time. 

“Damian has another art showcase in two weeks.” Talia turned towards him once more, nodding briskly. And then she was gone. 

-Two Hours Later-

Nightwing had recorded clips of what Barry and Oliver had to say during the earlier parts of the conversation, the three having heard part of it, before Nightwing had decided enough was enough, and allowed them to have privacy. 

It was a little funny listening to Barry and Oliver panic this time, he had to admit. 

“Sorry, did he just say Talia? Like Talia Al Ghul? As in Daughter of the Demon Head Talia?” 

“I’m not surprised you’ve heard of her.”

“Well then why aren’t we helping!? Man, the way Bats talks about her crimes is no joke!”

“Oh I’d bet yeah.”

“How are you so calm about this?” Oliver questioned suspiciously. 

“Listen a bit.” 

“One last attempt!? Nightwing, come on-”

“Relax. She didn’t mean an attempt on his life.”

“Then the hell did she mean?!” 

“Oh.”

“Wait, huh?! His hand? Does she mean like she wants to cut his hand off or does she mean-” Nightwing was quick to cease Barry’s tangent, tensing as the conversation began to steer into more personal territory. 

“Oh shit. Okay, no. I’m turning this off. Come on, he’ll be fine.” 

He was grateful that Nightwing had chosen to allow them more privacy. He seemed even genuinely ashamed later, when Barry had left the cave. Red Robin had also felt that a chastizing from Bruce would’ve been well within his right. But after some obligatory complaints, Bruce assured them both he was fine, they hadn’t known this was what Talia had wanted to address, though it was better it’d happened sooner rather than later. 

While Nightwing had let them have their conversation in peace, he did still deign to answer a few of their questions. Which he also recorded. Joy. 

“Wait seriously? That’s Robin’s mother!? Batman slept with Talia Al Ghul?!”

“Guess I can see the resemblance. Kid was practically feral last time we met him.”

“Not so much feral as he was bloodthirsty. Believe me, you caught him on a good day.” 

“Are they about to make out? Should we leave?” 

“No. Or at least they better not be. And yeah, I’ll escort you back to the Batcave.” 

“Is this just like, a thing he does? Lantern said he flirted with Catwoman a lot too. Does he flirt with all his villains?”

“Hm, not exactly. There’s been a couple though.”

“Hey Arrow, now I’m curious. You and Batman have like this whole mostly tech based vibe y’know, so you’re like kinda similar.”

“I guess?”

“Have you ever hooked up with any of your villains?” Oliver directed his gaze at Nightwing, exasperated. Nightwing however, took that as an opportunity to butt in. 

“Oh, are you asking if I have, Arrow? Oh absolutely! See, there was-” Bruce personally was thankful for what was obviously an attempt to distract them further from any thoughts about him and Talia. 

But he was also personally glad the recording cut there. 

What he was not personally ecstatic about however, is the fact that Oliver wouldn’t leave. 

“Talia Al Ghul?! That’s who Damian’s mother is!? Are you kidding me?”

“Oliver, it’s been ten years.”

“The League of Assassins, Bruce! Not even like, a random ninja either. I’ve heard you complain about Ra’s so many times, when you were hooking up with his daughter? Come on, really?” 

“I take it he hasn’t told you what prompted this talk with Talia?” Nightwing laughed. 

“Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, Nightwing. Oliver, Ra’s was actively trying to get me to marry her at one point long before that. He wanted me to be the heir to his Empire. I refused. Damian came along instead. Those attempts have been few and far between since then. He’s turned most of his attention to my Batman escapades now.” 

“Okay. Sure. Cool. But I don’t see how that makes anything better, Bruce! Barry and I were having a crisis on that roof! He’s already texting me to confirm whether or not he hallucinated everything.” 

“Tell him he did,” Bruce said simply, Nightwing snorted. 

“You kept a shit ton of secrets from me Bruce, how many more do I have to handle before I’m finally done?”

“Oliver, take it from the kid who’s been with him the longest.” Oliver leaned forward to hear. 

“It never ends. His secrets have secrets. He just keeps getting more secrets every year. And then those secrets obviously end up developing more secrets within them. Don’t bother trying to uncover them all. Your brain will explode.” 

“I’m starting to see that.” 

“Are you staying for dinner, Oliver?” Bruce interrupted. 

“I would, but it’s meant to be date night, so I’d better head out soon. I’m calling you about this later, Bruce.” 

“Alright, I won’t answer later.” 

“Ass.” Once Oliver had left, Nightwing tore off his domino mask, having kept it on even though Oliver could probably guess who he was by now even if he didn’t say it directly. He had a concerningly innocent expression on his face when he asked his adoptive father a question.

“Hey, has Zatanna finished examining the samples you brought back?”

“She has. Nothing too out of the ordinary that my own chemical supply couldn’t fix. Why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason. But it’s safe to experiment with them, now?”

“Dick. What are you planning?”

“Oh it’s not really what I’m planning. Just uh, keep your eyes peeled in a few days, yeah?” 

“Dick.”

“Love you Dad.”

“I should’ve just went to therapy.”

“Yes. Yes you should have.”

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson P.O.V

Honestly, things weren’t quite as fun now that Oliver knew about the family’s existence. His reactions were always the best of the League’s after all. But for times like this, it wasn’t like him knowing would matter that much. 

It still wouldn’t save him after all. 

After the amount of experience he’d had with aliens, Dick Grayson knew a thing or two about extraterrestrial substances. Naturally after the substance Bruce brought home became the catalyst for his identity reveal to Green Arrow, it had gotten him and his brothers thinking. And frankly, no one could save you once all of the Robins put their heads together.

With a little extra assistance from Zatanna, he and his brothers had made some less harmful modifications to the samples Bruce had brought back, and then chemically created a surplus of each one. The four colors seemed too perfect an opportunity to pass up, and they’d each claimed one for themselves, ready to use them against the others in an ultimate Batbrother battle. 

The red substance was claimed as Jason’s, what had originally meant to give the victim intense blisters, now made the victim feel the sensation of being harmlessly, but just as frustratingly, ticked all over. 

The yellow meanwhile was claimed as Tim’s, the yellow had initially put the victim in a trance that made them believe that they would die if they stopped moving. An effect that really was just a bit too potentially trauma-inducing for a group like this. They’d obviously forgone the more sinister side of the substance, and now it would simply make the victim have the intense desire to dance. 

Green was claimed by Damian, originally it would’ve given the victim memory loss of the last hour. But where was the fun in making each other forget about the pranks they pulled on each other? They’d hardly be able to hold their reactions over each other's heads if they didn’t even remember reacting that way. Damian was a little miffed about the alteration he received, the substance would now put the victim in a five second daze, but he’d been mollified when his brothers assured him that he had free reign for those five seconds, and that surely he must be up to the challenge if he was such a superior Robin? 

Blue was obviously Dick’s color. They’d actually decided to leave that one alone. They had the antidote anyway, and wasn’t it a little too perfect for the hug monster that was Dick Grayson to use the substance that could make people stick together? 

Naturally all four substances would be kept under the strongest security possible, and only used within the manor, far away from any potentially villainous eyes, (unless you counted Red Hood and Robin’s occasional murderous tendencies, or Nightwing’s even more occasionally, but that was neither here nor there, get over it Batman.)

But what would have been even more fun than a prank war between the Wayne brothers? At least according to Dick. A Wayne Brothers team up! 

But not their usual teams, no. Usually it would be Dick and Damian vs Tim and Jason, but they’d decided to switch things up a bit this time around. Now, it would be Dick and Tim vs Damian and Jason, those two were a disaster waiting in the wings really, but who was he to deny his little brothers the opportunity to bond? 

Alfred had heard about the teams chosen and then promptly decided to take a vacation to visit his family back in England. Bruce had tossed away all his dignity and curled up onto the couch with his head in his hands at the news before calling Alfred over the phone to beg him to come back. His efforts were futile, naturally. He’d be back for the next gala though, none of them were going to miss this one, prank war or not. 

Meanwhile Duke had declared the manor on lockdown and gone to stay in one of his safehouses until it all blew over, though Dick had invited him, and Steph to join in. Steph had declined in favor of meeting with Cass in Hong Kong, and they’d be flying back together so Cass could fully transition back to living in Gotham full time, as she’d been going back and forth since then. 

We’d be here forever if I recounted every single encounter in the prank war, but there are a couple that stand out for certain. The first attack, surprisingly, was by Tim, on Jason while the man was cleaning his guns during a video call with Roy Harper. 

Jason Todd P.O.V

“I’m telling you Jason, Ollie’s been such a pain in the ass, he’s been monitoring me constantly, look he’s even calling me right now! It was nice to know he cared at first it’s not even funny anymore” 

“You can talk to me about helicopter parenting once Ollie puts thirty four tracking devices in your suit all at once.” 

“First of all, Ollie’s not my parent- wait thirty four ?!”

“Minimum. That was a while ago but I can’t be quite sure I found them all, it is what it is,” Jason absentmindedly reached backwards towards another gun on the table. Granted, he’d been super pissed when Bruce tried that, but he didn’t actually mind too much anymore. It felt a little desperate of Bruce, but knowing he’d tried to do the same with all of his kids back then was a nice reminder of how he was actually part of the family again. Still gave him hell over it obviously, he had a reputation to hold up after all. 

Huh, this didn’t look quite like one of his- 

*SPLAT*

He wasn’t quite sure what the hell Tim did, but he would be sure to be impressed later when he wasn’t planning on throttling the little shit. 

The gun, which wasn’t his evidently- had been shot as soon as he’d lifted it upwards, even without his hand anywhere near the trigger, but thankfully he hadn’t ended up putting a bullet in his own head, but rather a mouthful of yellow alien sludge. 

In the far distance he could hear the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack playing, and next thing he knew, he was swaying around the Batcave, only just in eyeshot of his phone, allowing himself to be dipped by an imaginary partner, lovingly caressing the air, leaning back and twirling to the music, speeding up and slowing down every so often as the tempo suggested. 

In the process he managed to leap gracefully towards the table, his arm cutting through the air and snatching one of his actual guns, loaded with rubber bullets, and when his body had turned enough- 

*BANG *

He let a row of bullets fire, none hitting the exact same place because his body wouldn’t stop fucking moving- 

None of them met their mark as he heard his two competitors yelp only to dodge every bullet with practiced expertise. 

In all your fantasies, you always knew- Jason was happily fantasizing the moment he could shove his brothers off a fucking cliff; he ran out of bullets. Of course he fucking ran out of bullets, he’d been in the process of taking them out so he wouldn’t fire on himself on accident while he polished his guns. 

And in this labyrinth, where night is blind- Jason blindly chucked his gun as hard as his more delicate dance moves would allow in the general direction of his brother's voices, but he couldn’t quite get the angle right and it bounced harmlessly off the wall of the cave. 

Sing, my Angel of Music!- There were no angels in this fucking house, he didn’t care how many people sang Dick’s graces as a vigilante, he didn’t care how many times they’d babied Tim cause they wanted him to take care of himself, THERE WERE NO ANGELS HERE, SO SAYS JASON TODD!

The music finally came to a cease, and Jason’s bones grew weary, crashing into the table during one last spin and tumbling over, his thigh now pressed up against the phone and obscuring Roy’s view. His brothers, taking advantage of his disorientation, sprinted away like the cowardly assholes they were. Roy was surprisingly not laughing at him. Didn’t look all that concerned either though. 

“You good there bro?” 

“I will be, after I bury Dickwing and the Replacement in a hole for a few days and then use the lazarus pit to bring them back to life so I can put a bullet through their skulls, that is.” Jason rolled over so he could see Roy’s expression. 

“That seems impractical.”

“Mhm.” 

“What was that anyway?” 

“Stupid prank war. Don’t worry about it.”

“Effects were temporary then? So not gonna dance yourself to death?” 

“Unfortunately,” Jason replied suspiciously.

“Well in that case-” Roy promptly burst into a fit of cackling that would give even Dick Grayson a run for his money. Jason scowled, flipping his traitorous friend off with no remorse. 

“You wouldn’t do any better you ass.”

“Oh- oh no I know! Believe me I know!” That did not make Jason feel any better.

“Oh don’t look at me like that Jay, no no seriously, I was totally mesmerized,” it’d maybe help if he would stop laughing then. 

“Todd, what’s going on here?” Oh look, it was his current favorite brother. Little brat wasn’t typically at the top of his list admittedly, but it looked like that was changing. Jason turned his head, adamantly refusing to get off the floor just yet, taking note of the mess his unexpected choreographed routine had created, there were plenty of new scratches and a few holes in the walls, plenty of knocked over equipment, some accidental, some purposeful. 

And he’d spilled his fucking milkshake. What the fuck. 

“Take a guess,” he said gloomily, gesturing to the yellow muck still all over his face. 

“You’re in luck then. I have an opportunity for you to gain your revenge soon. One that you may actually want to recruit Richard for.”

“Dick?! The hell would I ask him for? He had a part in this shit too!” 

“I’ll call you back Jason, plausible deniability and all that,” Roy spoke cheerily, hanging up. 

“You can always get him back later. This is important. My intel is extremely valuable to all of us.”

“Whatever, spill it then.”

Dick Grayson P.O.V

“Timmy’s on a what?! ” he found himself screeching. 

“A date, Richard- are you deaf?” 

“With who?” Jason asked incredulously.

“It appears that similarly to yours and Richards' affinity for attracting redheads, Drake is rather partial to blondes.” 

“Someone we know? Steph? Cassie Sandsmark? He’s gone out with both already but it’s not like this family ever knows how to leave their ex’s as ex’s.”

“Neither, as far as I can tell, this one doesn’t even have any real connection to the superhero community. Someone named Bernard Dowd, you might be familiar with his internet presence.”

“Isn’t he that one guy with all those conspiracy boards? Heard B mention him once, said he also had an argument with Jimmy Olsen online over the usual Gotham vs Metropolis rivalry.” 

“You said you thought it’d be fun to crash their date, but how serious are they?” Dick asked concernedly. 

“I’m uncertain. Drake’s covered his tracks well, I must admit.”

“No connection to the superhero community though, none whatsoever? Not even like a grandparent that used to be an assassin? Maybe a childhood best friend that ended up being an alien?” 

“Nothing.”

“Huh, good for the Replacement then. Not often one of us gets involved in a romance that actually lets us take a break from work.” 

“I doubt that considering Dowd was making attempts to discover the identity of Batman a few weeks ago over Twitter. And before you ask, yes I’ve already stalked him, you need not pry further into the logistics of his background, he is no threat.” 

“What about his feelings for Tim?” 

“You worry too much Dickface, if something like a prank war is all it takes to scare the guy off, then is he really worth it for Tim? One of Gotham’s greatest detectives, who found out Batman’s identity before he was even out of elementary school, our perfect little baby stalker?” He supposed Jason wasn’t wrong about that. Alright, he’d been convinced. Not to help- mind you, Tim was still on his team in this war, but it’s not like he had to tell him about this. He knew Damian had heard Tim recount his plan to get Jason by switching out one of his guns to one of the cats, but he didn’t tell Jason anything. So, sorry Tim- he’ll make it up to you later. 

Or not. He still hid a serious romantic relationship from his brother after all. This reminded him though, he hoped Kori was still up to going with him to the next gala, Bruce had plans, and he needed Kori to be there so he could squeal about it to someone without them pushing him off. Cough cough, Jason. 

-Several Hours Later-

Tim came home, red in the face both from embarrassment, and from the red sludge courtesy of Jason, and stomping through the doors. Bruce, having just spent his time fixing things in the Batcave, offered to get him something to eat, but Tim’s anger had melted away in favor of the usual horror that came with the idea of eating Bruce’s cooking, rushing off to his room with an awkward thanks but no thanks. 

“How’d it go?” he regarded Jason and Damian warily as they followed after their brother. 

“Todd blasted him and then decided to manually add on to the tickling while I questioned his new match to see if he was worthy of the House of Wayne. Personally, I found him uninteresting, but adequate enough.” 

“Do I need to do damage control?”

“Nah, just let him cool down. I’ve seen Timbo mad before, he’s not actually that mad right now.”

“If you say so.”

Damian was next to be hit. Dick had too much experience with pranks to let his brothers get him too easily, thanks Beast Boy. Damian had asked for Dick’s assistance with setting up his art supplies in the garden, begrudgingly accepting his eldest brother's hug, secretly smiling into his shoulder. Unfortunately, his brother had chosen to betray his trust and as soon as Damian tried to pull away after the three quick seconds he’d allowed the hug to go on for, Dick blasted him with the blue slime and wrapped his arms around his brother once more. Trapped in one of Dick’s famous octopus hugs for the next hour or so, Damian sighed in faux despondence, and decided he and Grayson might as well just watch an animal documentary until the effects either wore off, or Grayson forfeited the antidote. 

The other two brothers in the house, and Bruce, would eventually join them outside on a picnic blanket, and it ended with an impromptu family gathering as they all sat down to paint peacefully with their youngest family member. The day ended with Alfred the Cat, in place of the real Alfred, dipping his paw in some paint and signing each of their art pieces, all varying in subject, but all coming down to one theme, family. 

Truthfully, the time Jason and Damian got Dick was a time where he’d just decided to let them. Tim was part of their scheme this time too, looks like he hadn’t taken too kindly to finding out Dick knew about Damian’s plan for Bernard. He’d very quickly noticed his brothers hanging from the rafters of the Batcave, he’d been up there plenty of times himself after all. Damian was the one to take the shot, hitting him square in the back, at least away from his face like Tim and Jason had gotten. 

It took them five seconds to get down from the rafters and close enough to do anything, so the compulsion to stay still wore off, just for Damian to hit him once more. Jason took a vat of feathers from underneath the table, another five seconds, another shot of green sludge. Good thing he wasn’t wearing anything he didn’t care about. Tim and Jason tipped the feathers, in varying shades of red, over their brothers head and watched them all stick to the green slime all over his chest and back. Damian took another shot to his legs, and this time, they wrapped toilet paper around his legs, tying them together. Noticing Damian ready to take a shot at his head next, Dick decided enough was enough and ducked, the slime grazing just above his head, hurtling towards- 

*SPLAT *

Oh, oh this poor man.

Oliver Queen had come along with Bruce today to work on a case, both men stood in the doorway as the chaos unfolded. But only one of them was hit.

The green wasn’t even the right shade for his suit. 

The Batbrothers had never been ones to waste an opportunity however, having never moved faster in their lives, Bruce stepped aside as his children charged his old friend with leftover feathers and toilet paper, Dick kicking his own paper aside, Damian shooting Oliver once more for good measure. Bruce only raised an eyebrow. 

“Don’t worry old man. We’re just helping Damian with a school project about the American Revolution. We’re helping with some extensive research about what the colonists would do to British tax collectors,” Jason announced.

“Considering Damian’s history class is currently studying the Protestant Reformation in Europe, I find that hard to believe. But at least it's not real tar then. And the toilet paper?” 

“A nice modern twist,” Tim added helpfully. Unlike with Dick, Oliver seemed too frozen in shock to stop them, proving a third shot of green sludge to be unnecessary, so he stood there for a good fourteen seconds before he actually protested. 

Dick had to bet Alfred must’ve been really enjoying his vacation. 

-Two Days Later-

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

The night had come. The night of the Wayne gala celebrating the anniversary of the creation of the Martha Wayne foundation. 

It was also the night he was going to propose to Selina. 

His children, biologically, legally, or otherwise- had promised to be on their best behavior, around Selina that is. He didn’t really care as long as they didn’t wreck the party entirely, they had mostly free reign. And now that Alfred was back, he’d make sure they kept to that promise. Not that he really expected them to ruin it anyway, they knew how important this night was. 

Dick and Koriand'r were dressed in matching violet outfits, though his other sons had opted for black suits with hideously patterned ties. Rather out of character for Dick to be the one that could actually be considered fashionable. He noticed his oldest had been grinning throughout the entire night, so he’d likely need to steer Selina away from him whenever possible. Jason meanwhile was too busy fending off rich socialites hoping to catch his attention, with Damian coming over to snap at people whenever necessary. Cassandra had hidden under a table, playing card games with Tim, Steph, and Duke, every once in a while the table would be jolted by a frustrated King’s Corners player. 

Jason’s plight reminded him however, that Brucie Wayne was hardly exempted from those problems. But the horde of men and women seeking his romantic interest soon parted as another figure made his way towards Bruce. 

Lex Luthor. Damn, it didn’t take him very long to pay off the authorities at all. Especially because he hadn’t even heard of Luthor getting cleared enough to walk free yet, though he had been busy fretting about all of his plans. 

He’d wanted one day. One free day. That’s all he’d asked for. But he should’ve known justice didn’t take breaks. 

“Brucie- long time no see! Lovely little soiree you have here.”

“Lex,” Brucie didn’t speak curtly often. Bruce did, sure. But Brucie? It was no wonder people turned to stare when they heard the coldness of his tone. 

“Gotta say though, I don’t recall receiving an invitation.”

“Must’ve gotten lost in the mail.” 

“You typically send out invitations online.”

“Whoops.”

“Nevermind that then, in any case- there’s something I was hoping to talk to you about.”

“I’m sure it’s something that could’ve been said in an email.”

“Well but it appears you’ve been having some email problems recently, hm?” Bruce let Luthor lead him towards an emptier corner of the room, where all of his kids could still see him, especially Officer Dick Grayson, who was to public knowledge, officially trained in combat and acrobatics. Bruce took two drinks from a waiter he’d taken note of the entire night, knowing for sure that Lex hadn’t had any contact with him. Instead of handing one to Lex, he drained both glasses, maintaining eye contact with the other billionaire the entire time. Lex rolled his eyes, grabbing his own drink, sipping solemnly before breaking the tense silence. 

“If my informants are correct, you have some financial connections to the Justice League.”

“Your point being?”

“Don’t you recognize how odd it is that our country depends on so many aliens for their protection?” He spat the word ‘alien’ like it was a curse. 

“It’s a better option than leaving it up to the American government if you’ve got a foot in their doors.”

“My own, well- problems aside, you can’t honestly expect me to have such unwavering faith in a group like this.” 

“A group like what exactly?”

“You know fully well what I mean. I just think that you should take your decisions into more consideration in the future. It is your money, and I know you can spend it as you see fit, but you’re hardly the only one affected by those…outsiders, actions.”

“You’re treading in dangerous waters Luthor.”

“Let me be honest with you Bruce, from father to father- you can’t seriously expect these ruffians to be able to protect your city. To protect your defenseless children - not when they’ve been so  often put in such careless danger with the Justice League in char-” 

It was honestly a surprise that Bruce had let him keep talking that long, considering it was people like Luthor that made it so his kids even required any protection. It was not a surprise that the punch knocked him back so far. 

Bruce’s fist had reared, slamming with enough force into Lex Luthor’s jaw to break a few bones, with all the instinctual ease that came from years running across the rooftops of Gotham against villains far stronger, far more psychotic, than a completely unarmored Lex Luthor. And just in time for Superman to fly through the doors of his building, the crowd murmuring and pointing towards the scene. The only ones particularly surprised were those from outside of Gotham. No man as rich, muscular, seemingly sweet and airheaded, and sought after by supervillains and common crooks alike, was going to survive a place as dark and corrupted as Gotham without knowing how to throw a half-decent punch. 

“Mister Wayne! I’ll take him off your hands now, thank you for that- he’s meant to be serving prison time at the moment. Are you alright?” Superman questioned, collecting the bald man crumpled at his feet. He was about to answer when a pair of arms slinked around his midsection, her head coming to rest just above his shoulder. 

“He will be once I’ve gotten his hand all fixed up, come along now handsome,” Selina spoke, purring as she neared the end of her sentence. She led him away from the crowd, they both knew he’d taken much worse, but it was the principle of things here. Resting against the counter in an empty hallway as she bandaged his knuckles, Selina spoke coyly, resting her hand gently on his face. 

“I seem to recall that our last gala interaction was rather rudely interrupted by a spiteful green elf.” 

“It was.”

“Shall we rectify that mistake?”

“While I’d love to, there’s something I’d actually like to show you first. You may want to change your shoes though.” 

“I can handle anything in heels, Dear. So what’s this meant to be?”

“Join me up on the roof, won’t you?” She raised an eyebrow, hand on her hip. 

“Should I be changing into something a little more, familiar for that setting?”

“Come as you’d like. I’ll follow your lead. As long as you’re you, it’ll hardly matter. You’re Selina Kyle after all, and every part of you is magnificent.” She blinked at his words, slightly stilted and awkward, but sweet all the same. She smiled and took his offered hand, climbing out onto the balcony that would lead them upwards. 

“Going soft on me now, Bat? What’s going on- oh.”

Koriand’r P.O.V

“Kori. Kori. It’s happening!” 

“Yes, I heard- it’s most wonderful” 

“Kori you didn’t see what he had planned up there, it’s incredible! He’s decorated it so perfectly and meticulously-” his girlfriend let him gush as much as he liked, jumping in with her own cheerful exclamations at certain details. It had been rare to see him so openly relaxed as he was now, for as long as the Titans had been in existence, Nightwing, or Robin as he’d been back then, was the one who was always on edge. Slade, or Deathstroke she supposed, came to mind in particular. He’d grown far more easygoing as time went on, extremely so, with some notable exceptions, but still. It was nice to see. 

“-he wrote a speech too but he’ll probably fuck it up and go without it, B loves a good plan but he’s never very good at mixing plans with emotions-” 

“Oi! Dickface! Oh hey Kori,” Jason greeted. 

“Little Wing! It’s-”

“Yes I know it’s happening. You haven’t listened with any of the bugs right?”

“No, no. I’ve refrained. I don’t think Alfred has though, he was smiling really hard earlier.”

“Just the first bit to make sure Bruce wasn’t actually injured and trying to save face for the public. We both know that’s bullshit though, he was barely even trying to fool me. He swears he turned it off right after.”

“In any case Jason, was there something you needed us for?”

“Oh yeah, Supes hasn’t left with Lex yet cause Ollie invited him to have a drink, Alfred insisted he stay for a bit, the others have got Lex in one of the backrooms, And I just had a fun thought.” He paused, sharing a shark-tooth grin with his brother, before they both turned towards her. 

“Kori, I mentioned we were having a little prank war the other day, right?’ 

“You did…” she trailed off in suspicion. Jason cut in with a smirk.  

“Wanna take a shot at Lex? We’ve all got our suits and domino masks, and just in case a dose of the original memory wiping substance, now in an aerosol form. Oh and we’ve got four colors.” 

“Yes Dick mentioned that last bit, although he didn’t say which ones did what.”

“That just means you have to try all four right?”

“Most splendid!” The two boys high fived at her response, glancing back to the ceiling once more, before leading her over. 

“I think I’ll try blue first, yes?” Dick nodded, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small blaster-

_______________________________________________

Bruce reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring box-

_______________________________________________

-Dick placed the blaster in her hands, smiling softly. 

_____________________________________________

-Bruce placed the ring over Selina’s finger, smiling softly.

_____________________________________________

“A perfect ending to a perfect week, hm?” Kori murmured. 

______________________________________________

“Maybe neither of us are perfect, but I can’t say I’m disappointed by how things turned out, wouldn’t you say Bat?”

“Honestly Cat, I think chaos suits us.”

He wasn’t quite so sure though, he couldn’t help thinking, as he held the hand of the woman across from him, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple as they overlooked the Gotham City skyline. 

Bruce and Selina. Catwoman and Batman. Everything about them was a mess of contradictions. Their relationship was unpredictable, it left them burning with as much love as it did frustration, a torrent of unbridled mayhem at times, as destructive as it was beautiful. The Cat and the Bat. The vigilante, and the burglar. Two beings of Gotham’s night. Two beings that’d seen the best and the worst of each other. Two beings with a long, and complicated history. Nothing about them was perfect, and they never would be, no matter how far they tried to leave their pasts behind them. That wasn’t how life worked out for them. No one was perfect. 

Especially not Bruce and Selina. Especially not Catwoman and Batman. 

But this?

This seemed pretty perfect to him.

____________________________________________

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson P.O.V

Cassandra Cain was the best of them, every member of the family would readily admit that without cause or incentive. 

Which meant that Cass, as the last of Bruce’s children to be introduced to the Justice League, deserved to end this sequence with a bang. (At least as long as Bruce didn’t acquire any more children, but what were the chances of that?)

Quite high, his future self would remark in hindsight. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. 

After the “incident,” so to speak, that had left the family temporarily separated- which was a subject none of them were emotionally ready to breach most of the time by the way, (he’d say sorry to Tim again later) circumstances had led to Cass paving her own path in Hong Kong. When Bruce was returned to them, it’d been difficult to convince everyone that uniting again would be worth it, Cass had been one of the easier ones to wrangle, but she was the last to transition back into working in Gotham full time, just visiting frequently up until now. 

Now from an official capacity, Cassandra Cain, or Cassandra Wayne now he supposed- as she’d finally gotten around to changing her name. Which was great obviously, because fuck David Cain. That man didn’t deserve shit. 

Anyway, she had officially moved back in to the manor shortly before the gala where Bruce proposed to Selina, which he was still really excited about, he’d had to deal with their pining the longest, and it was nice to see them genuinely smiling and laughing together instead of just flirting during rooftop confrontations. 

Some more disgusting than others, mind you. He was never going to let Bruce live those moments down. 

The others would never understand what it was like to be a nine year old boy waiting in the shadows to beat up a criminal only for your brand new father figure to start sweet talking the bad lady in the probably really impractical leather catsuit, and heels sharp enough to poke someone’s eye out. They would especially not understand the pain of hearing the doubly explicit responses she would give back before she started filtering her words for fear of traumatizing one of Batman’s random children. 

Again. 

But in any case, to save him from reliving his childhood trauma- the funny kind, not the sad kind thankfully, while Cassandra Wayne was delightfully accepted back into the Wayne Family circle, Black Bat had yet to make an appearance on the streets of Gotham since she’d moved back. Now, wouldn’t it be just swell to have her first appearance as a vigilante after her full transition back, also coincide with her first Justice League meeting? 

He could’ve bothered creating a better excuse for it to happen, but there weren’t many ways to make this meeting seem organic after all of the other things they’ve done. And Dick Grayson was a showman at heart, you can take the boy out of the circus, but you can’t quite take the circus out of the boy. 

His first thought had come to him during a conversation with Tim about how he’d just recently taken the Riddler back to Arkham Asylum after a slew of winter related riddles that alluded to his current alliance with Mr Freeze. He and Bruce had taken down their operations together, as they’d been forced into the usual song and dance of Nygma leaving clues to different locations they’d need to get to, where they would need to solve the subsequent riddle, and eventually figure out a machine in order to avoid the city being turned into a frozen wasteland. The usual Gotham political collabs, you know how it is. 

But Tim remembered a time Nygma had been going through a rough patch, his plans became even more unhinged, but his riddles had been significantly easier if he were being completely honest. Dick had gone on that particular patrol with Tim, he felt how palpably stressed Riddler was, even through the screens he monologued through. He’d almost asked Tim if he could slow down just to give the guy a little slack, before his common sense kicked in just a second after and broke through the pity. But that was when he realized that without the extreme pressure of the  looming danger of Gotham getting wiped off the map by a psychopath, solving Nygma’s riddles actually felt rather fun. 

So what was Dick going to do with that information? 

Obviously he was going to turn this into a scavenger hunt for the Justice League. I mean what else would you expect him to do? The opportunity was right there. It’s not like Bruce was in any position to stop him. 

He wanted them to end up in the Watchtower at the end of it, but it’d be ironic if they started in the Watchtower first, and back there last. He’d been thinking of little prizes and such that they could collect on the way, like little bat plushies or keychains. He’d prepped black and yellow decorations that he and his siblings could put up while the Justice League handled the riddles. 

His siblings all vetoed the prize ideas, saying that if he didn’t want to outright say the notes were from him, it was too childish and that there was a chance the Justice League would stop humoring it. Dick had wanted this to be a fun little excursion to welcome his sister into the fold, he wanted the Justice League to enjoy the hunt and be able to look back on the experience fondly. But family came first, and his siblings, Cass included- this was meant to be about her after all, would probably enjoy the hunt more if they could be more involved in it. So of course- Dick felt the need to live up to his name and reputation as an older brother, and take this in the complete opposite direction. 

He couldn’t let B ruin this for him of course. He would recognize his plan for exactly what it is immediately. It was time to ready the blackmail folder. 

Now, he was what set Bruce on his path of adopting a million chaotic children, some of his siblings made his escapades look tame , but it was time to remind Batman once again who exactly made him go gray before even hitting his thirties. His first order of business was to call a meeting between his siblings, and delegate the clues that needed to be dropped off. He had a voice modulator ready to obscure his voice in the video clue he planned to send to the Watchtower. 

Now one of the most important parts of performing, is keeping your audience engaged. A villain like this required motivation, no one liked a one-dimensional antagonist. And what better way to keep a crowd's attention than to bring in a volunteer , so to speak, for suspense. In other words, he’d get them most riled up if he pretended to threaten one of their members personally. You can probably see where he’s going with this. 

His internal planning was interrupted by the pitter-patter of footsteps along the rafters, he turned his head as the lady of hour dropped from her spot above him, catching her in a hugging position without any fanfare. 

“Cass?”

“Clues placed.”

“Perfect, great job to all three of you, do you want to be in the video now or no?”

Cass shook her head after a moment of hesitation, “No. Be a surprise.”

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

Life sucks and everything is terrible. 

Apologies to Alfred but he lacks the energy to form a single eloquent thought right now. 

At least Dick bothered to send the video from somewhere other than the Batcave. Could’ve chosen a better voice modulator though. Small victories. Tiny, miniscule victories. It wasn’t enough to make up for the fact the message was being sent at night, which meant he’d have to be dragging a bunch of sleep deprived superhumans into the morning. He needed coffee.

And maybe some alcohol.

“The mighty Justice League. So delighted to make your acquaintance. But I suppose one of you already knows me, huh? You know who you are. You know what you did. ” A loud slam followed his final growled word. Dramatic little shit. His colleagues turned to look at one another, upon none of them having any recognition, they all came to the correct conclusion that the message was directed at him. 

“I didn’t come here to play games with you, not just yet anyway. So I’ll cut to the chase. You took everything from me, Batman. And now I’m going to take everything from you.” The last time he took something from Dick was when he accidentally stole the granola bar he’d been saving for after patrol. He appreciated his colleagues readying their glares at the screen in his defense, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care for much at all at this point. 

“If I could, I’d have already reached through this screen, torn your tiny, little burnt charcoal heart out, and you’d be dying on your knees right now-” Out of exasperation, his mind supplied. “-But I hear that’s not how Gotham rogues typically work, no? So in respect for the status quo, you get one shot Batman. One shot at saving what’s most precious to you.” That’d be his children, one of which was the one presenting the monologue, so he was calling bullshit. 

“And remember Batman -” His name sent the screen crackling with static. “-I’m always watching.” Another voice, likely also Dick’s but with a different voice alteration cut in. With the most useless fucking nonsense ever if you’d asked the average person. 

“The tumbling turret tingles to topple. Temporary talkings tirade to tyrants True teal thief tartle tell-tale. Ta-ta you treacherous toad.” The video disappeared, and an 8 hour timer took its place. His friends broke out into theories, none of which were correct. 

“Turrets topple? Do you think there’s a building he’s going to attack?”

“It said tingles to topple so it hasn’t toppled yet. Reminds me of the leaning tower of Pisa.”

“What significance would that even have? When was the last time Batman was in Poland?” Why was Plastic Man here again?

“That’s the Leaning Tower of Toruń you dumbass. Pisa’s in Italy.” 

“Hey all those words started with T, maybe there’s like, a code within the words we have to translate.” 

He let out a sigh as he checked for any new messages from his children. He only had one, from Dick, just a string of emojis.

_______________________________

Dick: 💥💅☕🥹🌃😇🥰🥺🦇😺💙👍

P.S 🖕from Jason

_______________________________

Bruce left him on read. Turning to his colleagues, taking notice of which people were there. Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, Green Lantern (Hal), The Flash, and Martian Manhunter. Thankfully, Ollie and Dinah were still down in Star City for the time being. They’d all turned their attention on them the second they felt the holes being burned into their heads by his glare. 

“The letter T. The message was directed specifically at me. They’re talking about Titans Tower.”

“Ooohhh, that’s a good bit of detective work there Batman! Off we go then!” He held up a hand to stop the man from stretching across to the exit. It really wasn’t. There was no way his kids spent more than a few minutes on this clue. They probably spent more time just googling words that start with T than actually coming up with the premise itself. 

“I don’t need any of you to go. I can handle this myself.”

“I mean you no offense regarding your abilities Batman, but this doesn’t simply concern you now, the Titans are important members of the hero community, several League Members sidekicks have been on the team at one point or another. My own included. I believe it’d be best we all take action,” Wonder Woman put out. He opened his mouth to protest-

“I mean look at it this way, Nightwing is the leader of the Titans, isn’t he? We’re all aware of the connotation behind this. I understand this is a personal grudge, but for him to target your own son like this- I can’t imagine any of us would be content to sit idly by while a friend struggles to defend his loved ones,” Wonder Woman announced. He internally sighed, but nodded his head reluctantly. 

“That’s settled then. We must hurry, if this timer is to be of any concern. To Titans Tower!”

_______________________________

Jason Todd P.O.V

Oh this was the most fun he’d had in a long time. 

The second everyone in the Watchtower had gone on their way to Titans Tower, Tim had hacked into the Watchtower database, they’d boarded the station, and then they locked the Justice League out with a temporary command, making sure that no one but Batman would be alerted at the change. The second he noticed, Dick made sure to accompany the notification with another heart emoji. 

He and his siblings had gathered up as much Batman themed decorations as they could possibly find in black and gold, with Damian actually taking it upon himself to make some of his own when he deemed their store bought ones to be of inadequate quality for such a valued member of the Wayne name. 

“Hey should we invite Selina up here?” Tim considered the idea thoughtfully before shaking his head. 

“Nah, it’d take away from the Black Bat revelation. We gotta save the engagement reveal for its own attack.”

“Imbeciles, those streamers are incredibly haphazard.”

“Do it yourself then you little brat.”

“Nonsense. I am far too busy setting up this ice sculpture. I can’t imagine leaving such a delicate task up to someone as incompetent as you or Drake.”

“Listen here you-” Dick stepped in with his own remark. 

“God I still can’t believe Bruce is actually getting married. Like, to an actual person, and not like- a concept. Like crime fighting, or the night-”

“Or vengeance!” Steph and Jason crooned together. Black Bat began signing a message with her hands.

“You’re right, she is good for him.” The group settled into a comfortable silence as they righted their decorations, not even stopping to chastise Jason for purposefully setting a Batman action figure on fire. Y’know, for mood. 

“Hey, does anyone want to play a game while we wait for them to figure this out? Cass and I were going to go out and scare them, but-” Dick called out, “-It’ll probably take em a good while.”

“Yeah sure, where’d you decide to send them to after they find the clue at Titan’s Tower anyway?” Tim questioned. 

Jason and his older brother shared a glance, big Cheshire Cat grins emerging on their chiseled faces. 

_______________________________

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

It didn’t take long to spot the next clue considering it was taped to a crowbar dangling from the top of the tower. No, that was not a good sign. 

Not many of the Titans were present at the time, only Starfire and Beast Boy were left, both had come out to greet them briefly, but neither were particularly inclined to assist their hunt, so he figured Dick must’ve briefed them. 

He was prepared to leave immediately after, asking one of his flying companions to bring the crow bar down, Plastic Man was the one who volunteered. And the second he pulled the crow bar free- 

A trap was set off, and in a bright red substance came pouring down onto the man's head, if Bruce remembered correctly from his sons prank war, this one- 

“HA. HA HAHA- GUYS HELP IT TICKLES!”

Yep, that was expected. He sighed, reaching into his utility belt for the antidote while Wonder Woman promptly snatched the crowbar from Plastic Man’s grasp, turning the attached note over as Martian Manhunter distributed the antidote. 

“Of tales thy seek, and glories to offer”

“I bring thee a story, with haste most somber”

“Of iron’s smash, and thieves to flee”

“My hopes of dreams lie sorely with thee”

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”

Well he couldn’t deny that it was better than the hint Dick wrote out. It was certainly much more ominous, helped with the whole intimidation factor he supposed. Though no one else in the League would be able to discern it. Jason must’ve really been on a Mary Shelley kick recently, he would’ve more typically expected a Jane Austen quote. He rested his back against a tree as his coworkers began spouting out potential ideas. He already knew the answer, of course. 

The clue could’ve had a double meaning- ‘Of Iron’s Smash, and thieves to flee” but he assumed (or rather hoped) it was in reference to when he first met Jason, when the scrawny young boy had been attempting to steal the tires off of the Batmobile, not long after Dick had left for Jump City. The other meaning, well- would’ve been more in line with the crow bar he’d chosen, but he supposed adding a tire iron instead would’ve been a little on the nose. The rest, was unfortunately a reference to Jason’s fate upon moving in with Bruce and taking up the Robin mantle.

Jason joked about his death on plenty of occasions, Jason had eventually even managed to wear Dick down to the point that he knew for a fact that Dick had made his own crow bar jokes, which were largely well received all things considered. It was nice for Jason, he supposed- to be able to convert his rage and speak so openly about what happened. But in truth it rarely ever felt funny to Bruce, but he had to pick his battles. He knew this was meant to be one of those instances, but- 

The poem, the crow bar, the quotes he’d used near the end- well it was all a bit much truth be told. 

His heart ached, remembering the first toothy grin Jason had given him, after a long period of distrustful grimaces and cold shoulders. Jason had finally felt safe within the manor, realizing Bruce had no intentions of hurting him. He’d been long since hardened by his own circumstances, and shoved into a reality that no child should’ve had to handle on his own, similar to Dick and Bruce, and yet wholly different somehow. It was well within Jason’s right to believe that what Bruce offered was too good to be true. 

And wasn’t that the damn truth- 

Dual taps were felt on his head, shaking him from his thoughts. 

His hands clenched reflexively into fists as his head turned upward, his coworkers none-the-wiser. He relaxed though, as he spotted two figures clad in dark colors, respective blue and yellow accents sticking out in the shade the trees provided. Both figures held themselves upside down. His eldest son, and eldest daughter. Nightwing’s face was apprehensive. 

“B-”

“You’re going to give yourselves headaches like that. Was something missing from the clue?” 

“No. Different quote, but N vetoed. Came for friends. Want to scare them. But you are sad.” 

“Told him he was going too far with the villain aspect,” his son muttered regretfully, as Cass patted his head, both well aware of his turmoil. His son from long exposure, and his daughter from her brilliant ability to read body language. 

“Well someone had to. It’s not like you were doing very well with it. You need to workshop your monologue,” he responded lightly. 

“Everyone’s a critic.”

“Now, your plan?” Dick looked ready to speak on the previous topic further, but decided to shelve the conversation at the look on his fathers face, swinging upwards so he sat on the branches rather than hanging from them. 

“We’ll be right back.”

Barry Allen P.O.V

It was too bad Wally wasn’t at Titans Tower by the time they arrived. It would’ve been nice to have a familiar face in such a creepy situation. Something about the clue brought him horrid flashbacks of highschool english classes. He and Hal were off to the side as the others dealt with Plastic Man, turning over the crow bar absentmindedly. 

It was odd for Batman to have retreated from the conversation, if the world's greatest detective was struggling to figure out a clue that was meant to target him personally, how were they meant to figure anything out? 

Better yet, shouldn’t they be calling Nightwing by now? Surely the man would want a warning that some maniacal dude in a chair was basically stalking him, or at least he figured that was what was going on because why else would they pick Titans Tower? 

He was broken from his thoughts when Hal nudged him lightly, eyes darting back and forth. 

“Hey Barry, did you hear something?”

“Hear what?”

“There was a sound.”

“Yeah that’s how hearing works.”

“Shut up, it was like, something grating? But like kinda high pitched.”

“Nope, wish Supes was here, he’d be able to-”

But no, Barry heard it now. 

A sharp, ringing cackle, muffled by the wind (?) rustling the trees and bushes. Barry’s heart rate rose as the sound couldn’t be pinpointed, it felt like it was coming from all around him, and yet only he and Hal seemed able to hear it as their friends prattled on about the clue they’d found. 

The laugh reminded him a bit of a hyena, stopping and starting in short moments anytime either of them whipped their head around to try and spot someone amongst the trees. But all Barry could see was Batman, leaning his entire body against a large pine. The second he’d focused on Batman for just a little too long, Barry felt his legs swept under him with a yelp.

Maybe he could make a run for it- sweep through the forest and find the perpetrator, it’s exactly what he would’ve done if it weren’t for the fact a sticky blue goop had now connected his legs to Hal’s, and he wasn’t sure whether phasing out of it would hurt him or not. Hal cursed profusely when a splash of yellow goop hit him in the back, and his body began an awkward attempt at what Barry had to assume was dancing, the color yellow against a Green Lantern, how obviously targeted. 

Which, hey wasn’t this blue goop from-

The laugh crescendoed, and the rustling quickened, their other companions turned to look for the source, Plastic Man remained where he was on the ground, looking anxious but still unwilling to get up, which was fair, Barry had to admit. He could’ve sworn Martian Manhunter had fixated on an area in the shadows for a bit, but he soon turned away and Barry figured it must’ve been nothing. 

Not long after they’d drawn their weapon, the laughter slowly but surely died down, and soon the only sound around them was a light whoosh as a small device floated downwards from the top of Titans Tower. Martian Manhunter was quick to retrieve it, turning it over to display its contents. A timer. Over an hour had already passed, and they were still on the second clue. Barry scanned over it with his eyes for any visible wiring to disable it, when Batman came up, another canister of a familiar antidote in his hands. 

“It’s not a bomb. Just a reminder. We’d best get moving.” He was far too calm about this, and Barry said so, but was ignored, as expected.

“But where would-”

“Gotham. Crime Alley to be specific. It’s not necessary for you to accompany me. I know my city.”

“Batman, this hunt may take us out of Gotham once more after, and I’d be more comfortable with you having backup regardless. I must insist that you allow us to join you, just this once.” Wonder Woman stated. 

“Wait! If that thing just dropped, then maybe the perp is still here, let’s check the-” Hal’s voice was cut off by the infamous Batglare. For what, Barry honestly didn’t know. Hal got the glare from Bats all the time, but he honestly couldn’t see what warranted it this time. 

“We won’t find anything there. We’re wasting time.” Batman was able to free him from his glued state, and Hal offered him a hand to pull him up. 

As the group reluctantly prepared to leave, a loud cackle burst from the forest once more, and Barry let out an embarrassingly loud shriek when it was simultaneously followed by a knife slinging past his shoulder. While the rest of the group went into defensive stances, Batman remained unfazed, gesturing them to hurry once more, despite their protests that a threat was amongst them. His next sentence was heavily concerning to Barry personally. 

 “If they wanted that to hit you, then it would’ve hit you.” And then he swept away with a dramatic swerve of his cape, as Bats always does. And they had no choice but to follow him, throwing looks over their shoulders as they prepared to leave. 

_______________________________

Jason Todd P.O.V

He shifted awkwardly, as the comms fell silent and Dick and Cass’s escapade quieted down. 

Okay. So maybe he went a tad overboard with the crow bar. But like, his clue could’ve hit harder than that. 

‘Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change- how sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am,’ was the other quote he’d wanted to use. But Dickhead had said it was too sensitive of a subject for B or whatever. He hadn’t actively vetoed the crowbar though so that’s not entirely on Jason. He could feel the half sympathetic, half judgemental glares of his siblings. 

“Don’t look at me like that. I just wanted to be dramatic. Now we were playing a game, get on with your turn Replacement.”

“Fine. Kiss, marry, kill- Mr Darcy, Roy Harper, Legolas.”

“That’s literally the weirdest fucking combo I’ve ever heard, but okay. Kiss Roy cause he’s real and marry Mr Darcy because he’s classic.”

“Darcy isn’t real either, Todd. How does that logic apply whatsoever?”

“Sh. Go back to your arts and crafts Demon Brat, you’re not playing. Oi Steph, kiss, marry, kill, Cassie Sandsmark, Tam Fox, Darla Aquista.” Tim gave a snort in response, but turned to her anyway. 

“Oooohh, ex’s that aren’t me, huh? Wondergirl’s too cool for you anyway, Tim. Kiss Tam, don’t think Luke would appreciate it though, Marry Cassie, kill Darla. Simple enough.”

“Eh, I hear she and Luke don’t get along particularly well- oh hey, N’s calling again.” 

“Oh yeah, think that’s my cue. Dickhead and I were going to switch out, so I would go to Crime Alley with Cass.”

“Don’t traumatize them too badly. B included.”

“I make no promises.”

_______________________________

Cassandra Wayne P.O.V

Dad had decided to bring his friends, it was nice to see. She wished he brought Arrow though, it would have been funny, but Lantern would work too, her Dad would be happy about what was coming. 

Her second brother took the place of her first, and the two situated themselves calmly on the ledge of a building, awaiting the arrival of their victims. She swatted Jason’s hands away from his pockets when he seemed to contemplate changing out his rubber bullets for explosives. It was decidedly less funny when their dad could get caught in the crossfire. 

Tim had readied a one-way gate into the teams comms, with Jason using a voice modulator to give them an altered game of hot and cold in case they lost sight of the trail. 

The next clue they’d planted was an encrypted message she’d be whispering in the ears of the Justice League as she passed through the shadows, while Jason was in charge of other sound effects in the background, a trail of unusable bullets had been laid out like breadcrumbs to lead them to a specific part of Crime Alley that was perfect for her to stay hidden, and nowhere near any of the children or others in town. And from then on, she just had to make sure she wasn’t caught. 

Not a problem. 

Martian Manhunter P.O.V

The voice in their comms was breathing heavily, voice rasping as the person would occasionally congratulate them on finding the next bullet. Once in a while they would be accompanied with the sound of a gunshot, and then the sound of a small projectile clattering to the ground. 

Unlike what he assumed most humans would do, rather than running away from the sound of raining bullets, Batman appeared to be continuously leading them towards it. He couldn’t imagine the perpetrator would’ve been foolish enough to place himself in the same spot as the clue a second time around. He could tell that his companions were wary, but they were far too used to Batman taking the lead in his city that they seemed unwilling to contradict him, especially since most of them would be able to take any hits fairly well. 

As he mulled over the events of the day, he took notice of another presence. 

He was far too used to Batman utilizing the shadows to his advantage, so it was unsurprising that others in Gotham were able to do the same, the question however, was whether this new presence meant them any harm. To gauge Batman’s reaction was near impossible, near being the key word. A momentary twitch, though he would not dare to attempt reading any of his comrades minds without their permission, he had picked up enough cues by now to understand, Batman was aware of this new being, and actively choosing to ignore it. It was apparent that the others had grown similarly concerned, but he couldn’t be certain whether it was just because of Gotham in general, or because they’d actually sensed the change. 

It wasn’t long until Batman stopped abruptly, at a fork in the road that led to areas so dark that even the glow of Green Lantern’s suit seemed to be smothered by shadows. 

Suddenly, plumes of smoke erupted, obscuring their view of their surroundings, but leaving each other perfectly clear. Bullets whizzed above their heads, and a familiar red ooze spilled out onto the floor, luckily avoiding contact with any of the League members, who were quick to dodge. A slight whoosh of motion rustled his cape- 

“ 10-” A light, airy voice carried through his senses, just barely audible to him, and the wind changed directions, akin to what he’d felt at Titans Tower, “-19.” J’onn scanned the area, the smoke seemed to continue spouting no matter how much they waved away, but he could tell by the spooked expressions- 

“Demon! Demon! Help, help- Plastic Man stop clinging to my arm-”

“There’s a demon, we should be sticking together- AGH, something just stepped on my foot!”

“Apologies my friend, that was an accident,”

-or all the screeching evidently, that whatever presence had accosted him had also gotten to them as well. 

“Gotham fucking sucks man, you can keep your no meta rule Spooky!” Batman did not deign him with a response. Batman seemed to be adjusting to the smoke the easiest, which made sense considering how often he used smoke bombs himself. J’onn couldn’t help but wonder- 

Aha. There. 

The smoke had dissipated finally, though they were still kept in the darkness that came so easily to Gotham. But a flicker of light, just a split second of movement, and he was able to hone in on a barely discernible figure in the shadows, perched above them. It wasn’t much, but he knew a thing or two about illusions and invisibility. He couldn’t make many details out of their appearance, except for the fact that the being had a gold bat outline on their chest, the only bit of noticeable color on their suit. The figure seemed to consider him, and after a moment, they lifted their hand, another barely discernible part that blended seamlessly into their silhouette, lifting a single finger up to where he assumed their mouth must have been. 

A crunch sound on the ground had him turning away from the figure, he whipped his head back the second after, only to see that the figure had disappeared completely. He returned his head to the source of the sound, catching Batman’s gaze. And there, an almost imperceptible nod, and that was enough to convince J’onn to keep his mouth shut. 

This appeared to be a good opportunity for team bonding, and he had no interest in ruining what was to come. The people of Earth could be most amusing at times. 

“Gotham City PD. Let’s go.” Ah, of course Batman had already solved it. Diana turned to question him, though their companions seemed uninterested in what the clue meant and more so on just getting to leave the area. 

Hal had his own complaint however, “Finally, alright Plastic Man, you can let go of me now, we’re heading out. It’s starting to feel weird.”

But Plastic Man remained confused, “Buddy I’m not even close to you anymore.” And then the smokestorm restarted, and the voice from before, carried over the entire area instead of waiting on individuals, with a single word. 

“ Run.”

_______________________________

Dick Grayson P.O.V

He couldn’t help but scoff, “And B calls me over the top?”

“Three words. Discowing. Mullet. Chandelier.” Tim looked at him with a deadpan expression. 

“I stand by those decisions wholeheartedly.”

“ Not good.” Came Cass’s voice through the comms, and he pouted in faux offense. 

“Is anyone switching with Todd this time around? It’ll take them significantly less time to get to the Police Department from Crime Alley than it did Titans Tower to Gotham. Surely they should be leaving now.”

“No worries Little D, Oracle’s handling it from the cave. It’s her dads place after all,” he responded. 

“ Let Manhunter find out.”

“But he doesn’t look like he’ll say anything, you did good Cass, Jason too. Plastic Man looked ready to dissolve on the spot.”

“ Easy target. Can do better.”

“There is no need to push yourself Cain, they are all easy targets for your skills. Father included.”

“ Wonder Woman suspects. But has not said. ”

“Unsurprising. Still easily salvageable. Do as you must.”

“Hey, What’s with the obsession with bringing back the tickle slime?” Steph questioned. 

“ I did not get to use it last time.”

Tim grumbled in annoyance, “I’ve seen enough of that for a lifetime.”

“Oh yeah, you never did end up telling me what Jay did on your date with Bernard.” Tim’s scowl was immediate, and he spat out his next words- 

“Asshole held me down under tickle serum for forty fucking minutes while he and the Demon Brat gave Bernard the shovel talk about not hurting me. As if they’re very good at avoiding that themselves.” Damian winced at that, but was otherwise unapologetic for his actions, though Tim didn’t seem to have his heart in the latter half of his words. Tim groaned in frustrated remembrance. 

“Still not the worst date I’ve ever been on weirdly.”

“ Concerned, little brother, ” Cass replied solemnly. Dick nodded in agreement, raising an eyebrow. Steph seemed unsurprised, and decided to answer for him, as Tim wallowed in his misfortune.

“There was that one time Ra’s Al Ghul decided to crash our date.”

“HUH-” his exclamation was unfortunately interrupted.

“ They’ve arrived. ”

“We’re circling back to that later. Dami, how much time is left on the counter?”

“An hour and a half.”

“Alright Cass, you and Babs are gonna need to drag this one out to make things work, okay?”

“ Done.”

_______________________________

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

‘Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,’ was the message Jason sent him upon the end of his torment. He didn’t even know what that meant. It’d been followed by another Romeo and Juliet quote, ‘I fear too early, for my mind misgives, some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin.’ Now personally, he couldn’t see how he could face any worse consequences at this point. 

Oh. Oh, please don’t bring in Selina and the wedding. He was actually going to disown someone. 

The group arrived quickly at the GCPD, and he was greeted by the sight of Commissioner Jim Gordon on the roof of the building. He sighed internally. No time to question his life choices now, he really didn’t want to know what happened when this time limit ended, but he wasn’t rushing it much. If only because he knew it would only prolong his torment and not prevent it. 

As the group climbed upwards to join the man, they noticed the medium podium in front of him, a screen attached with a series of computer codes displayed. A large timer hung beneath it. Oracle and Black Bat’s doing. 

“Last I checked, we didn’t take outside heroes in Gotham.”

“An exception’s been made.”

“Hm. Well, hope you’re up for a coding battle then. We thought it was Riddler, but there hasn’t been a single green question mark in sight. Whoever this is seems to mean business. None of our programmers could even get a fourth of the way through the first firewall.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to.” Truthfully he didn’t think he was up to the task of getting through the first few in time either, but he figured he had to give it a shot. No one else was going to be much help. 

It appeared that Oracle had not only set him up with immensely difficult obstacles, but was also actively working against him in real time. He’d rather give up while he’s ahead but he doubted that would go over well with his teammates. He spotted Cassandra in the shade of a water tower, undoubtedly only because she felt no need to try and hide from him right now. 

He’d ask where we went wrong with his life, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer he got. 

His companions gazed at him in stunned silence, watching him fail miserably. As soon as he got just seconds away to getting past the first firewall, a small blue balloon filled with blue sludge was pelted at his hand, oh how he loves Cass, truly he does. But this was wholly unnecessary. And the second he was distracted, Barbara pushed him back once more. He didn’t have it in him to cry about this. He didn’t have it in him to cry about any of this. And forcing his face to remain neutral was getting significantly more difficult as he took out the antidote to counter the slime. Ooze, goop, whatever they were calling it, none of them had it figured out. That was the least of his problems. 

He couldn’t help it anymore. He slammed his hands on the keyboard, and then laid his head down on them. His companions reacted in concern, Wonder Woman grasping his shoulder to ensure that he was alright. Physically, he was. Emotionally, he was not. 

As his friends, Gordon included, attempted consoling him, because he was too tired to pretend they weren’t his friends, the timer ticked down considerably, until they were nearing the final minute. He lifted his head to take note of his daughter, who’d emerged from the shadows slightly and was happily swinging her legs back and forth as she sat at the edge of the water tower. 

Resigned, he stood up and stared at the timer, his friends in varying degrees of tension, though none could be wholly concerned considering how he had acted thus far. 10…9…8…

Plastic Man sucked in a breath, and Green Lantern clenched his fists. 

7…6…5…

Wonder Woman looked on in disdain, while Flash looked ready to run them all away at a moment's notice. 

4…3…2…

Martian Manhunter was completely unfazed. 

He was the Batman. He expected many things. And this, this was included. 

A compartment opened up in the podium, and out came a large cloud of black and yellow confetti, and the screen changed to display the picture of several trumpets, playing an audio akin to a royal decree in your average royalty based media. And a note appeared, following the graphics of music notes that came out of the trumpet. And accepting his fate, he took it upon himself to be the one to read it aloud. No matter how much it pained him. 

“To the members of the Justice League, we must offer our sincerest apologies for any of the problems we have given you thus far. We do not actually seek to harm any of you or your allies, as you’ve likely noted by now, but I’m afraid this game has yet to end thus far. If you please, return to the place where all of this started, and from there, all will be explained-” 

“-In other words. We cordially invite you to the welcome home party of our personal favorite Gotham vigilante, at 6 A.M sharp. We hope to see you there!”

He sighed unhappily, but pocketed the letter nonetheless. Cass had already left, so evidently, it was time to put an end to all of this. 

_______________________________

Dick Grayson P.O.V

“Tim, I really think we need to talk about this,” he sighed.

“We already knew Ra’s had a weird obsession with me. His attempts to clone me and have my children are enough of a testament to that.”

Damian cut in, wrinkling his nose disdainfully, “As is the fact that Timothy’s spleen currently resides on my Grandfather's desk.”

“Y’know, I don’t even want to touch that one with a ten foot pole,” Jason said, but he was also reaching for his gun, so that seemed untrue. 

“Why are we making this all about me? This is Cass’s party.”

“I am concerned also,” Cass remarked, reaching over to pat his head sympathetically. He smiled quickly, but waved them off in dismissal. 

“As if none of you have had supervillain stalkers. Remember Slade?”

“Slade was bad but he wasn’t trying to have my babies or steal my spleen.”

“In all fairness I needed that surgery pretty bad.”

“Still weird.”

“Yeah I know. Now everyone shut up and get in your positions, they’re bound to come in any minute now.” Who knew having siblings would give him this many headaches? 

It wasn’t long before he was proven correct, and Bruce, Diana, Hal, Barry, J’onn, and he was fairly certain Plastic Man’s name was Patrick(?) threw open the doors to the main meeting room, taking in all of the new additions to the decor in admiration. Or plain shock. Whichever came first. He grinned happily, waving them all forward, and lightly pushing Black Bat into the center. 

“Hey everybody!” He heard a distinct murmur of a ‘Damn you Nightwing’ from his father figure, and chose promptly to ignore it. Diana was the first to approach him warily, regarding Cass with open curiosity.

“Nightwing-” she greeted apprehensively, “-what exactly is all of this?”

“Hey B, would you like to explain, or shall I?” Likely hoping to minimize damage in any way possible, Bruce took the initiative. 

“My children evidently wanted you to meet someone rather important to us. This is Black Bat. My only official daughter, and my potentially second or third oldest.”

“Potentially?” Martian Manhunter questioned. 

“We’re not quite sure. We tend to default to saying she’s the third because Red Hood joined the team first,” Tim explained. Cass proceeded to sign, ‘I’m older.’ To which Jason responded with a vehement head shake. 

“Well, it is wonderful to get to meet you, Black Bat, I do quite enjoy seeing another shield sister amongst the ranks,” Wonder Woman smiled warmly and offered her a handshake, taking the surprise in stride, though the others looked quite dumbfounded. 

“But was it truly necessary to send us on such a wild goose chase?”

“Wing’s idea,” she supplied. 

“I thought it would be a good idea to see how you would adapt to her skills in the field,” he defended. 

“And it was funny,” Cass reminded him. 

“That too.” Wonder Woman laughed heartily, clapping Batman on the back, careful to control her strength. 

“You have raised many great warriors, my friend.” Batman’s mouth twitched, into a subtle expression, but one that could not be mistaken for anything but a smile. Hal, getting over his shock at coming across yet another Batkid, promptly went back into shock at seeing Mr Dark and Brooding do anything other than brood or smirk. Barry however, had a good question.

“Wait, when did we encounter you in the field?” Martian Manhunter was the one to respond this time. 

“You were the presence that swept past us each time, the one who whispered the clue, were you not?” He could see eyes widening on Plastic Man, Green Lantern, and the Flash’s faces. 

“I was. Also threw balloon. Spilled slime.”

“Holy shit, that was you?”

“Her stealth skills are far superior to Batman’s when she wants them to be, she was barely trying to fool the lot of you,” Damian boasted. 

“She’s B’s favorite,” Steph remarked gleefully. They all nodded in agreement, Cass included. B was quick to protest.

“I do not have a-”

“You do. It changes sometimes, but it’s definitely been Black Bat for the past few months,” he interrupted. Granted, he knew he hadn’t been doing himself any favors recently. 

“Don’t worry old man, she’s our favorite too most of the time,” Jason said. 

Bruce decided to change the subject, “Speaking of the clues, is there a reason none of them even remotely matched?” Some of the Leaguers nodded in assent. He shrugged, not really having an answer for them beyond that it was more fun that way. 

“How’d you all even come up with this?” Hal asked, failing to mask the remnants of his horror.

“Pure spite. Love you B!”

“Hm,” he grumbled in response, slumping slightly. Wonder Woman looked at him reproachfully, and so Cass reassured her. 

“Was his happy grunt.” 

“You can translate his grumbles? Can you teach me too?” Flash piped up excitedly. The others also appeared intrigued, and he grinned in delight as his father sank into his chair in grief. He bounced over, and sat against the armrest, leaning back onto his father’s shoulder. Who grunted in response. Another happy grunt. Slightly grumpy though, but what else was new?

Black Bat was left to revel in the attention of the Leaguers, with Damian and Tim joining the conversation to ensure that they wouldn’t overwhelm her. He reached over to a decorated end table, and as a peace offering, handed his father a plate of cookies, Alfred’s, as expected. The only price that could hope to sway a member of the family from their stubbornness. Cass directed the Leaguers to some more of the food, stopping to give Batman a quick hug, before bounding away to join the rest of their brothers. 

“Dude. Did she just hug Batman? Like all casually?”

“Don’t even talk to me about this anymore O’Brian. I’ve had enough today. I just want to have some of that food and relax.”

“Ooh, good idea. Better get to it before the Flash then.”

“Huh- hey! Dude! Save some of that for the rest of us!”

“Would you and Black Bat enjoy joining me for a training session at some point? I believe my protegees would enjoy meeting other female heroes closer to their ages.”

“Oh we’ve met them already, through Nightwing and Red Robin, but we’d love to! Sometimes we need a break from boring old B, y’know?”

“Oh? I was unaware they were so well acquainted.”

“Oh yeah, Wing and Donna go way back from their Titan days, I’m surprised she’s never mentioned it-”

Cass meanwhile, now sat in comfortable silence with Martian Manhunter, the two playing a game of cards with Damian, who looked about ready to throw the table, but was refraining for the sake of decorum. Tim and Jason were trading fun stories with the other Leaguers instead, some that would likely come back to bite them all later, but that was a problem for future Dick and Bruce. Speaking of which-

He turned towards his father, who looked out on the scene before him with barely masked pride, even through the waves of exasperation coming off of him. He leaned backwards more until his head rested upon Bruce’s, who chose not to push him away, and instead wrapped an arm around his shoulder with a fond sigh.

“Couldn’t resist, could you?”

“A chance to mess with you? Never.” 

This was good for them. All of them.

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

It took months and months of planning, but with Bruce’s money, and Selina’s meticulous eye for detail, it definitely took less time than expected considering the result. Bruce and Selina’s wedding was as extravagant of an event as possible, without the looming presence of the media. Unless you counted Lois Lane, who as an ex of Bruce’s, was offered an invitation as a guest, who had then extended the invitation to Clark Kent as her plus one. Were Bruce’s kids probably going to use that to fuck with Superman later? Probably, but that wasn’t really his problem right now. The day of, and the days leading to his wedding were as filled with mixed emotions as one would expect from a family as unpredictable as his own. 

_______________________________

“You know, I can almost see why people miss the fact that Clark’s Superman,” Tim remarked to his little brother as they got ready.

“How so?” 

“He’s all hunched over, and the guy looks like he’s about to burst into an anxious rant at every turn. He looks like the kind of guy who was bullied a lot as a kid.”

“His posture is horrendous. I’m unsurprised he feels so out of place in a room filled with Gothamites. We are far superior after all.”

“Honestly I think he’s just afraid to break something super expensive. Do you think we could scare him into actually screaming?”

“Only one way to test that theory Drake.” Their grins were so palpable that Bruce knew there was nothing he could do to stop them. 

_______________________________ 

The first part they’d began situating was the bridal party and the groomsmen, Bruce had considered a few candidates for his best man, one of which was making Ollie his best man considering they’d known each other since boarding school, but upon some unfortunate setbacks in their PR, (which we’ll be getting to later) that finally confirmed the notion in Bruce’s mind that Oliver was in fact a complete asshole, he crossed Oliver off the list and decided that it would only be right to make Dick his best man. In truth he didn’t actually have very many close male friends in his civilian life that weren’t villains, Dick was an asshole too but he was his son so he got a pass. His other groomsmen were Jason, and Lucius Fox, and reluctantly he’d allowed Ollie a place at his side as well, the furthest one from the alter, but still a groomsman. 

_______________________________

“Wait, are you serious? You want me to be your best man?”

“I don’t think there’s a single person that would deserve this any more than you do, you may have grown up but I’ll always want you by my side.”

“Dad-” One fierce hug and lengthy conversation about how far they’d come later, Dick could happily say he only cried a little. They both did in all fairness.

_______________________________ 

The bridal party was far larger, Selina had lamented the decision of whether to make Harley or Ivy her maid of honor because she figured Harley would find a way to complain regardless even if Ivy didn’t care, and thus she’d opted to just give them both the role. Kate Kane and Dinah Lance had also joined her at her side of the alter. A colorful bunch to say the very least.   

Tim and Damian had been delegated to the roles of ring bearer and flower boy respectively.

_______________________________

“I’m surprised the rose petals weren’t black,” Dick whispered to him, watching Damian scatter petals of various red shades with a stiffness that showcased how awkwardly, yet determinedly he sought to do a good job. Damian’s face was calculatingly stoic. Truly, only his son could make a flower boy job feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. 

“Selina vetoed the idea,” he answered quietly.

“Good, any aesthetic decision you make must be shit.”

“Look who’s talking Mr Mullet.”

“Love you Dad, even with your raccoon eyeliner.” He sighed in response, but smiled against his own efforts. 

_______________________________

Now, as Ollie had wondered, where exactly was Alfred in this if he wasn’t a groomsman? Obviously Bruce wasn’t going to leave him out of the wedding. His children had come to the correct assumption immediately of course. Because not only would Alfred be overseeing the food- 

He’d also walked Bruce down the aisle first, before Selina had her own moment. It felt like a completely natural decision truth be told. He still cried when he asked him, naturally. Alfred cried harder though. Just a smidge. A teeny bit. Okay no, who was he even kidding? 

_______________________________

“Your parents would’ve been proud.”

“I know.” 

“ I’m proud of you.”

“I know Alf. I’m just proud I managed to avoid driving you away after all this time. I doubt I would’ve gotten half as far without you.”

“I would never have given up so easily, Master Bruce. Although even as long as I watched you grow, I can’t say I ever thought you’d get to this point.”

“Gee thanks Alfred.”

“Oh you know what I meant, I may not have expected it my dear boy, but by god am I ecstatic to have lived long enough to see this.”

“You’re not allowed to die Alfred. That’s a Bat-rule. We all voted on it, unanimously.”

“Of course, Master Bruce. Of course.”

_______________________________

The wedding itself, went surprisingly smoothly. It was the biggest shock he’d ever had, in all honesty. All of his children present, and not a single mishap during the ceremony. 

The ceremony being the key part of that statement. But by then, the joys his childrens chaos was a welcome addition to an otherwise fairly standard tradition. Perhaps his favorite moment, was watching what they’d decided to do with the bouquet toss. He’d been terrified when Jason and Stephanie had approached Selina with suspicious whispers, had been even more terrified to see the mischievous glint that took over Selina’s expression. But once again, this wasn’t his problem unless someone made it his problem. He was taking this much needed reprieve. It seemed they’d dragged Dick in too, but they hadn’t given him the exact details of what was going to happen, just that they needed him to convince everyone else not to go for the bouquet. 

Stephanie had herded Tim over to a corner and seemed oddly unwilling to let him leave, pulling him into dances that didn’t even remotely match the music, or forcing him to take a multitude of pictures of her, only to reject them and make him take them again. 

Meanwhile Selina had turned her back and was winding up to throw her bouquet, there weren’t many women in the crowd who seemed genuinely interested, and Bruce figured they must have been in on the little plan. Dick worked fast, all the Bats, the Sirens, Leslie, etc- he’d gotten to all of them. Jason was stationed behind a pillar, not far from Tim, and then he let out a whistle, causing Tim to turn around-

-Selina snapped back, but instead of the usual blindfolded toss, her arm came up, and she launched her flowers with unnecessary force, right towards an unsuspecting Baby Bird. Who, trained with the reflexes of any member of the Batfamily, instinctively reached up to protect his face from impact, his fist enclosing roughly on the base of the bouquet, crushing several parts and sending petals littering the floor around him. 

And there was Jason once more, this time with his phone in hand- 

“Hey Timbo- say cheese! Damn, bet Bernard’ll want these-” He called gleefully, taking extra delight in the way Tim’s head whipped towards him, eyes turning murderous as his face reddened, flinging aside the table so he could tackle his much taller, much bulkier, much heavier brother to the ground, who went down with ease because Tim was feral . As expected of a Batbrother really. 

They would later find out that Jason hadn’t actually sent the pictures to Bernard, he didn’t need Tim to actually murder him. But they did have some wondrous footage to watch later, courtesy of Babs. 

After Tim got settled in once more, having typed up several new plots to enact next time he got the chance in revenge. All of his children, turned their attention to a common target, Clark. 

_______________________________

“I’m terribly sorry for any damage my children caused you tonight, Clark Kent is it? Daily Planet I’m assuming?”

“Yes sir, it- it’s no trouble, really.”

“Nonsense! At least let me buy you a drink, I’ll just feel guilty that they’ve been messing with you otherwise-” And for everything else they’d done to him as Superman, “-It’s probably the natural Metropolis vs Gotham mentality.” 

Pretending to be drunk to solidify his normal reputation, he and Selina pulled Clark and Lois onto the dancefloor, with the ladies being far more coordinated, while he purposefully tripped himself up and sent both him, and his partner, a very lost Man of Steel, crashing to the ground. 

_______________________________

In any case, it was an incredibly memorable day to say the least. But it was far from the end of his family’s chaos. And while the media hadn’t been present, it was sent into a frenzy at the market’s latest loss of Gotham’s most eligible bachelor. But soon, like the conversations that had occurred prior to his wedding, the attention on his relationship with Selina took a swerve towards talking instead, about his ‘feud’ with Oliver Queen. Who obviously couldn’t compare, but Ollie could certainly try. 

Bruce didn’t take too many interviews ever since having his children, trying to keep them out of the public eye as best as he could, but he didn’t have as much of an excuse now that his kids were adults. Knowing things were going to be a shitshow regardless, he decided to at least have a little fun with it. And so his first request when approached by the Daily Planet, was for a certain mild mannered farm boy. He would come to regret that decision just a little. 

“So Mr Wa-Brucie, sorry. Now that we’ve gotten past the wedding specifics, there were a few things we at the Daily Planet were curious about regarding some recent statements, nothing bad of course, if you wouldn’t mind shedding some light on them.”

“Well ask away Clark! I’m an open book.” The biggest lie he’d ever told. 

“So recently, a friend of yours, Star City billionaire, Oliver Queen-” Fuck. “-made a few interesting statements, presumably on Twitter- or X I guess-”

“No one calls it X.”

“True enough, on Twitter then, Mr Queen said, quote- “Brucie my friend you absolute ass, congrats you top bunk hog xxx,” and “Let it be known that adult Brucie has only marginal more game than preteen Bruce,” unquote.” Clark then proceeded to pull out the clip attached to that tweet, of him falling on his ass during his dance with Clark. Fun. Might as well go all in. 

“First off, you snooze you lose Ollie. Not my fault you got winded running up the steps. Secondly, well considering Ollie spent the better part of boarding school flirting with me, I’d say ‘my game’ was just fine.” Accompanied by a wink at the camera, when Ollie saw the clip, he took it as a declaration of war . 

Weeks later, Dick came back from patrol, and the first words out of his mouth were not regarding the report he was expected to offer- 

“You should watch Ollie’s new interview.” He did. It was weak. And he responded in kind. 

If Ollie was going to target his smaller presence at Wayne Enterprises in favor of Tim, he had a more interesting approach. He called up Jason first. 

Who called Roy Harper. 

And what do you know? Suddenly Oliver’s foster son was helping sponsor one of Wayne Enterprises projects alongside Dick and Jason. Tim meanwhile, graciously took a step back for this particular project, and let Bruce gloat as much as he’d liked. (Especially since it gave him time to sneak around and hit Jason with a few familiarly colored substances from time to time. And if anyone asks, no- Tim has no idea how a video of a grumpy Jason was dancing to Swan Lake in a stained three piece suit a Tim :) spraypainted on his back, ended up on the internet. If anyone outside the family asks, he lost a bet. No, this does not mean war, says Jason. This means massacre. Which is basically the same thing, but oh well. 

While he and Oliver continue trading publicly good natured jabs and more aggressive but still friendly private ones, Dinah and Selina take it upon themselves to balance out the PR with a series of selfies of them on vacation without their respective significant others. Dick takes it upon himself to make fun of his father live on social media whenever their feud gets particularly out of pocket, even roping Donna, Artemis, and Roy to help him recreate some of the funniest pictures from the four’s videos and joint interviews. 

Their feud gets progressively more unhinged in private, but dies down eventually in public. Leslie recommends they both get therapy. Both men agree wholeheartedly, neither actually does. 

But none of that was going to matter now, because none of that could ever compare to the sheer chaos afforded by what came along, many months later. 

Dick Grayson P.O.V

He and his siblings had kept the chaos on the downlow for a good while now, and for good reason, the League was convinced that Bruce wasn’t going to offer them any more information, and were content that they knew as much as they did considering how little they were used to Bruce sharing, so the incessant questioning had ceased, apart from an occasional joke that another would show up any minute. But Bruce’s hair was still graying. It just wasn’t their fault this time. One of his children certainly, but not any of the usual suspects. 

A child only recently born. So the League wasn’t actually very far off. Little Helena Wayne fit into the family seamlessly, Bruce’s genetics prevailed, once again. Dark hair, blue eyes, They’d all been thrilled at her presence. Even Damian, once he’d gotten over not being the youngest anymore. He’d grown by far the most protective of her actually, and announced with confidence that he would be Helena’s favorite brother, and if she wished it, she would be his Robin, when he inevitably took on the mantle of Batman. Better him than Dick, but they’d have to hold out on that for quite a few years, thankfully. She was just a few months old though, who knew- maybe Bruce would get lucky this time and she’d be the first of his children who would end up averse to becoming a vigilante? 

Knowing his luck, probably not. 

He had spent so much of his time trying to keep Selina comfortable and make sure Bruce didn’t spiral that he almost forgot to be a little shit once it was all over. It was when he saw Tim, Cass, Jason, and Duke crowded around a table, while he himself was a the head of the table with their new baby sister, that the idea struck him. 

Jason made grabby arms for the baby, who he handed over, the girl giggling as he swung her around. 

“Todd! If Helena is harmed with your recklessness I shall-”

“Relax Demon Brat, you know I of all people hate endangering kids-”

“Hey you guys-” he interrupted. Five heads swerved to look at him, with Helena attempting to follow suit, Jason quickly turning to give her a better view, “-Bruce has a JL meeting in a few hours or so right?” Tim, being the one who managed Bruce’s business schedule, was quick to affirm the notion.

“Wouldn’t now be a good time to introduce our latest addition to the family? It’d sure be a shame if we left Helena out of the tradition.” His idea was met with simultaneous grins, and Jason held Helena upwards like Simba, who proceeded to reach downward and take hold of his hair and refuse to let go. As Cass worked gently to remove her hand, Damian began rummaging through his bag, before finally plopping a thick black sketchbook into the middle of the table. 

When his brother flipped the book open, he stopped at two pages, two pages of sketches, sketches of little baby onesies, vigilante themed baby onesies. Dick didn’t bother questioning why he already had those. There were several options his brother had apparently planned in his free time, the first of the sketches oddly enough, featured paneling a lot more akin to Tim’s Robin suit rather than Damian’s. There was also a Nightwing themed onesie than Dick was going to have to ask for later, but not today, no. They didn’t have much time to make one of these, but they’d manage, and they needed to pick one for the strongest reaction. 

Dick scanned the page, landing on one of the simpler ones, which had sketches of each family member’s unique bat or bird symbol next to it, Jason’s far blockier bat had been crossed out for not having enough ‘flair’ apparently, a statement that warranted Jason’s annoyed retort. Dick selected Bruce’s symbol, and Damian quickly sketched it onto the front of the onesie, before reaching back into his bag and pulling out several swatch cards of various colors, holding them up for baby Helena to stare at. Dick was kind of hoping she’d pick the pastel blue or the neon pink swatch, but holding true to her dark and dreary Gothamite roots- Helena booped a set of black and purple with her tiny fist. 

“Steph will be pleased, they’ll get to match,” Tim remarked, helping Damian collect his stuff so they could all head down to the cave, Jason handing the baby to an exasperated but entirely on board Duke. 

It wasn’t long before they had situated Helena in her own little Batsuit, a matching purple mask over her eyes, as they debated what name to give her. A task he very much underestimated. 

“Batbaby is stupid-”

“Well we can’t use Robin again! Unless Damian already wants to move out and break away from the old man’s shadow, thought he’d at least make it to middle school before that but-”

“Absolutely not! I am Robin, as is my right, and-”

“Why can’t we just pick another bird for her?”

“Well what bird is purple?”

“Several actually. Though many of those considered purple aren’t actually purple. Violet-backed starlings? I believe there is a bird in the corvidae family as well, violaceous jays if I’m not mistaken. Or certain hummingbirds.”

“Like Starling. Cute,” Cass decided. 

Damian was not as content, “We don’t need her to be cute, we need her to be intimidating!”

“Dames, no one is going to intimidated by a baby only half a year old-”

“False! My tutors were plenty terrified of-”

“Guys. Focus please, any other name suggestions? What’s a baby bat called?”

“A pup. Not really feeling it. Microbat? That’s a type of bat.”

“That’s almost as bad as Batbaby.”

“Wait guys. Maybe we’re going in the wrong direction, what about a cat themed name instead?” Duke offered. 

“We’re not going with Catgirl.”

“I didn’t say Catgirl! I guess it wouldn’t match the uniform anymore though. Maybe just something dark.”

“Hm, what about something like Huntress?” Dick suggested. His siblings all stared blankly at him. Not a second later, all of the Batkids shrugged in dismissal, “Nah.”

“What if we called her Draculaura? Come on, you know it’d be funny.”

“No. We’re not feeding the vampire rumors any more than we have to. But we should keep that in mind for Halloween. Why don’t we just call her Shadow and call it a day?” Tim’s finishing thought was enough for them all. They all seemed to think it was a little boring, it’d been the first thing that popped into everybody’s head really, but none of them could find a genuine reason to veto it, so Shadow it is. 

They’d made it out of the Batcave before Bruce could show up to take the zeta beam, and soon they all went through, only having the patience to wait seven minutes before following after him. 

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

His children were getting sloppy. He supposed that’s what happens when you have to go over nine months without practice. Not on patrol of course, oh no. But they were losing their touch with their stealth skills during pranks. None of them had turned off the alerts when they’d gone through the zeta beam, and he’d spotted all of them up in the rafters. He knew something was coming. And all things considered, he figured there was nothing they could throw at him now that he couldn’t handle. 

Turns out he could always be proven wrong. You’d think he would’ve learned that lesson by now, but apparently not. Perhaps he never would. 

For ten whole minutes, the meeting went smoothly, he offered just the right amount of information to still be vague but useful, and grumbled in all the right places, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“And you see here, if we can figure out this issue with property damage-” Oh look, what a surprise, here comes his children, Nightwing at the front, marching through the door in uniform proto-

That…that wasn’t meant to be there. 

So, universe? Was there a good reason for the fact that his baby was sat above Red Hood’s shoulders? Could someone offer an explanation to why his baby was currently dressed in a custom cotton vigilante costume? Was there a particular reason that Damian seemed to be quietly trying to instruct her on how to bite one of his coworkers? No? Yeah. He figured. Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Black Canary, and Green Arrow, all present at the time, all looked immensely confused, and vaguely horrified. Before it clicks in Ollie and Dinah’s minds that is, Ollie cackling in delight, and Dinah looking towards him in pity. 

“Holy shit. There’s another one. How is there another one? Spooky.”

“Well, when a mommy anti-hero and a daddy vigilante love each other very much-” He was very thankful for the following interruption. 

“Batman, perhaps there’s something you’d like to share with us.” That wasn’t a question. 

“Nightwing. Do the honors if you will,” he sighed. 

“Hi everybody! It’s lucky for us to have caught you all in one place at the same time. I am proud to present, our newest family member, and honestly probably not going to be the last, the littlest sister, the princess of the colony, the daughter of the dark! The night’s heiress, the apple in the eye of vengeance’s melancholy streams-”

“Nightwing.”

“-almost done B. The duchess of dreariness! Gotham’s newest Bat! The girl of the hour-” and then his voice pitched higher into a slight baby voice in contrast to his dramatics, “-Shadow! Name patent pending.”

“Patent denied,” he responded, with a completely straight face somehow. 

“Batman…you’ve had another kid recently? Without telling us?” Oh god, Superman sounded genuinely hurt by that. 

Fuck it. He wasn’t doing this anymore. He wouldn’t give his children the satisfaction. He was doing this on his own terms, here and now. He might as well go all in. He turned to the rest of the Justice League members. And without hesitation-

He tore his own cowl off. And turned to his children with the full force of the Batglare. But his children were too shocked by his decision to even laugh at him properly. Good. He would treasure that mental image for a long time, he’d finally gotten one up over them. Except Helena, bless her heart, she giggled unabashedly, and waved wildly in his direction. But it was unfortunate that she was less than a year old and already immune to his glare. What he was less happy about, though unsurprised at- was the various shrieks that this revelation was accompanied with from the Justice League side, as Helena’s face scrunched up, looking ready to cry, forcing Nightwing out of his trance to comfort her while he turned his glare back on his friends. 

“You’re, holy fuck-”

“Oi! No swearing in front of Shadow! If I’m not allowed to curse, then neither are you!”

“That’s a baby! And you’re Bruce Wayne!”

“Both of those statements are true, yes.”

“But you’re- I went to your wedding! I danced with you-”

“Hold on Supes, why were you dancing with Batman at his own wedding?” 

“Oh yeah, that’d be our fault-” Tim remembers, “-we kinda spent the whole night trying to drive him crazy, so Bruce went up to apologize to him, but had to put on an act to make sure he didn’t seem too competent or reasonable.”

Hal turned to Ollie, entirely bewildered, “Wait, dude- does that mean you were telling me that in boarding school, you slept with Ba-” Ollie slammed his hand over Green Lantern’s mouth, and he turned his head with a deadpan expression towards the blonde. Really, Oliver? Really? Flash whipped his head to look at him. Clearly Oliver had nothing better to do than gossip like an old maid, he’d have to make the media storm him later, he had plenty of material to work with. 

“Okay, Bruce in my defense, I told them that before I found out your secret identity-”

“You told Oliver your secret identity before telling any of us?” Wonder Woman questioned, also slightly hurt. 

“I didn’t tell Oliver my secret identity. My family felt it prudent that they push him to his limits until there was no other possible conclusion he could come to unless he was even more foolish than I originally thought he was.”

“I damn well deserved to know after all the shit he put me through! I had conspiracy boards and everything! Dinah sat me down for a therapy session because she thought I was paranoid, but HA- guess who was-”

Dinah had her own question, raising an eyebrow at him, “Are you revealing this to the League now because you trust us, or because you’re angry?”

“Both. I’ve trusted you all for a good amount of time now, and my children have endlessly informed me that they are capable of managing themselves. I might’ve told you last year if it weren’t for the new baby.”

“Well I believe some rather late congratulations are in order. My friend, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that should you need assistance, we are all only one call away,” Aquaman spoke. He nodded in thanks. 

“In any case, I suppose I should introduce my children. My oldest and most insufferable-”

“Guilty.”

“-Dick Grayson. He was my first partner, he originated the mantle of Robin. My second and third, we’re not sure which, Red Hood and Black Bat, Jason Todd and Cassandra Cain.”

“I could’ve sworn there were a bunch of articles about Jason Todd dying a while back,” Clark pondered aloud. Jason grinned at him, but provided no explanation. 

“My fourth, Red Robin, this is Tim Drake. He’s taken over much of my work at Wayne Enterprises-”

“Sup.”

“And this is Signal, Duke Thomas, my foster son. We’re missing Spoiler, but I’m sure she’ll find a way to come up here at some point for a proper introduction at some point, whether I like it or not. This, is my youngest son, Damian Wayne-”

“The blood son,” Jason crooned, and Bruce crossed the room as Damian bristled, taking his youngest into his arms. 

“And this, as Dick so fervently introduced, is Helena Wayne. My youngest. Shadow , however is news to me.”

“Well we didn’t expect you to just outright tell them who you are after all this time.”

“Yeah we figured if revealing you had a shit ton of secret family members couldn’t break your resolve to be a secretive asshole, then nothing could.”

“Right. And does Selina know about this?” 

“Uh, not as far as I know. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. You and I both know she won’t mind as long as we show her your reaction.”

“Hm.”

“Oh so that’s not just an us thing then? He just grunts all the time?” Flash questions. 

“Yeah, he does that. Keep pushing him, he’ll give you something to work with eventually,” Jason advised. 

“Please don’t.”

“Hey-” Duke began, “-who do you think Helena’s favorite superhero’s gonna be?”

“Would it not be her own father?” Martian Manhunter asked. 

“He doesn’t count. If I had to realistically choose a favorite, then yeah it’d be him. But he’s our dad so he doesn’t count. We all have our favorites,” Dick explained. 

“Yeah, Dickhead here-”

“No cursing!”

“-it’s not cursing when it’s his name. A dumb name but still his name. Anyway, he likes Superman, none of that old man bs for me, Wonder Woman was my favorite before and after getting adopted-”

“Wait, you’re adopted?-” Hal wondered. “-But you’re all so similar.”

“Yeah, B has a problem. Like, genuinely, he has a problem. You just gotta fit two of the four boxes, dark haired, traumatized, orphan, and probably feral. I had one, two, and four at the time.” His friends looked increasingly concerned. 

“I set the bar, I had all four,” Dick volunteered. 

“Ooh, me too! Wasn’t actually an orphan at the time though, neither was Tim.” Jason added. 

“Come on guys, you’re making Bruce sad,” Duke frowned, Cass nodding in agreement. He put his head in his hands, and slumped back into his chair. Damage control failed. Miserably at that. 

“Bruce isn’t sad, he’s just grumpy. We’ll get him some of Agent A’s cookies later, he’ll be fine.” He wasn’t wrong. 

“Wasn’t Agent A meant to be your dad? I thought the Waynes were-” Dinah thumped Hal in his side warningly, but Bruce shook his head. 

“Agent A’s not my biological father, he’s my butler, Alfred Pennyworth, he raised me after my parents died.” Dick’s expression morphed from careful amusement into realization. 

“Hold on. I just figured it out. I didn’t set the adoption standard, Bruce set the adoption standard!” The rest of his children turned into similar states of surprise. 

“Oh my god he did-”

“Dark haired, check. Traumatized, ouch- but check. Orphan, check. Probably feral, well I can’t see why a sane person would get the idea of traveling the world to become a master fighter from a bunch of obscure martial artists and the occasional supervillain, and then come back to the worst city in the U.S just to dress up as a bat and fight for-”

“Vengeance! The night!” his children cried out in unison. Honestly, he had to wonder whether they planned moments like these in advance. They all burst into different, exaggerated impressions of his voice, throwing out stupid one liners that no one had any proof of him saying, thank you very much. 

“Yes father. I shall become a bat.”

“Good grammar is essential, Robin!”

“You wanna get nuts? Come on! Let’s get nuts!”

“I don’t blend in at a family picnic.”

“I’M THE GODDAMN BATMAN!” It was only when Damian spoke up, that things became genuinely interesting, when he committed his voice to a genuinely perfect replication of his voice-

“-I’m not saying I’m Batman. I’m just saying nobody has ever seen me and Batman in a room together.” Okay, that one they did in fact have video evidence of him saying.

 “Damn kid, you sure you weren’t using a voice modulator?” Robin puffed up proudly. 

“Unnecessary. I possess perfect mimicry skills, the voice my father uses for Batman is child’s play for me.”

When his children were finally finished playing around, there was one point he would willingly address.

“Clark.” The man in question turned towards him, head tilted in question. “Did neither Conner or Jon ever think to mention any of this?” His friend just blinked at him, before the realization dawned on him, before his eyebrows furrowed once more. 

“Wait, Jon? Why would he know anything about this?”

“He hasn’t made a mention of Robin?” 

“He might’ve, actually- he has referred to a friend of his as Dami. But I assumed that was a full name and not a nickname.”

“Kent is only an acquaintance,” Damian protested. 

“Most acquaintances don’t call each other everyday. Or go to petting zoos together. Or plot ways to best their older brothers together,” Tim reminded, receiving only a huff in return. 

“Dames, just yesterday you were blackmailing me into driving you out to Metropolis so you could take Ace and Titus on a puppy playdate with Krypto,” Jason added smugly. 

“Joint canine training session.”

“ Puppy playdate.”

“You infuriate me, Todd.”

“Boys. Please.” That of course only spurred them to argue harder, for no reason but to spite him. Oh to be young and childless and lacking in gray hair. Helena babbled in his ear, patting his head in what Bruce was going to pretend was sympathy. Before she yanked on his hair, and pulled. Little brats, all of them. (Not so secret secret: He loves them anyway.)

After this, they all settled into comfortable conversation. Mostly. He tried to avoid Hal and Barry like his life depended on it, but they were clearly getting enough material to gossip about later. All of his children had chosen a particular hero they admired to approach, Cass had actually taken to teaching Martian Manhunter and Aquaman some basic sign language, sometimes one of his children would forcibly drag him over so they could all coo at the baby together. 

“What age do you intend for her to reach before you begin her training?” Wonder Woman questioned, lightly tickling the child. 

“In self defense, as early as possible, living in Gotham is hardly anything to laugh at. To the skill extents required for vigilantism, hopefully there won’t ever be a need for it,” he answered truthfully. He hoped just putting her in a bunch of fun activities would help her find a different career path. Dick loved gymnastics. Jason loved literature. Tim loved photography. Damian loved art. If their circumstances had been better, maybe they would’ve pursued those practices in a professional manner. With luck, he could give this one a childhood that would encourage a healthy lifestyle. Or as healthy as one could get when they lived in a place as polluted as Gotham City anyway. 

Did he genuinely think there was any way that Helena wouldn’t at least dabble in the vigilante business when practically her entire family was involved? No, but a man, a father, could certainly dream. 

“Ba- Bruce. When exactly did you even start training your first kids? Last I checked, if Nightwing was an original member of the Teen Titans, the first Robin, whose training must have predated the teams formation, then he’s been active for quite a long time,” Barry asked. 

“You likely heard rumors of Robin’s presence at my side long before his decision to move to Jump City. Dick is less than two decades younger than I am, and considering his experience as a circus performer, his training was expedited considerably. To my chagrin.”

“So what, twelve maybe?”

“Nine, actually,” Dick responded from his place at Superman’s side. 

“Nine!? Jeez Batman that’s-”

“Whoa don’t pick on him too much. There wasn’t much he could do to stop me. I told you I checked all the boxes, I was plenty feral. I was trying to murder a mobster all on my own before he had to step in. I wouldn’t recommend it. But here we are.”

“In all fairness, we Amazons often tend to begin training just as young, if not younger.”

“The Amazons also don’t tend to age the same way the rest of us do.”

“A fair point, but I don’t think you realize how tough it would be to convince a guilty and traumatized nine year old to give up a revenge plot on a greedy mobster after watching his parents get murdered in front of a huge crowd.” That remark was met with silence, broken up seconds later by Dick laughing loudly. 

“Oh come on! You’ve all heard worse. My point is, there was no way B was going to keep me off the streets, he cut his losses and took the best possible step he could’ve made in his situation. All things considered, I would still prefer to keep Helena out of patrol for as long as possible.”

“I did what I could to avoid letting him take on anything by himself until he was older. And Alfred was able to patch us up at a moment’s notice. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve liked to keep him off the streets altogether too.”

“Speaking of which, we need to stop at a local pet store after this, Alfred requires a new scratching post. He has turned his attention to one of my easels and I’d like to prevent any further damage.”

“ Batman’s dad?” Hal asked incredulously. 

“Of course not. Pennyworth is far too refined for such needless mess. I refer of course to Alfred the Cat. The cat came second, the man came first.”

“Right. Of course.”

“Wait, you named a cat after your adoptive grandfather? That’s actually really cute.”

“Alf’s the only one who really deserves it anyway,” Duke agreed. 

“Is that all you need? I rather not need to make multiple trips. Nothing for Batcow? The other cats? The turkey?” Dick had something else to say though, eying Damian warily, the boy meeting his gaze defiantly.

“You should tell him. He’ll find out soon if he hasn’t found out yet.” It took a full minute, but he managed to wear the boy down, and reluctantly, Damian turned to him. 

“It has come to my attention, that there was a pet I have been woefully missing-” Oh no. “-Mother may or may not have dropped off a pet that I acquired a while ago-” God that was even worse. “-His name is Goliath, I believe he will fit in with the family quite well all things considered. He is a dragon bat after all.” Ollie looked towards him apprehensively, eyes shooting between the father and son.  Helena stopped babbling in his ear just to stare at him quizzically, it felt oddly judgemental truth be told. Gee, where could she have gotten that attitude from?

Ugh. Fine. 

“Can he share the stables with Bat Cow or do I have to justify building another enclosure to Alfred?”

“I wish to see how he is situated first. I shall analyze his behaviors and make the best possible decision. He has already been introduced to Ace and Titus. I am certain that the cats reactions will act similarly.”

“A worthy steed for a warrior indeed,” Wonder Woman agreed. 

Barry spoke incredulously, “How much land could you possibly have to be able to build a second set of stables?” 

“The Waynes are the richest family in Gotham. Philanthropist with a company that encompasses so many fields of occupation. They’re practically royalty, Wayne manor is massive in itself, let alone the actual area around it,” Dinah explained, having had firsthand experience getting lost in the manor on the occasions she’d visited under business and personal pretenses. Aquaman had to put in his own two cents next. 

“So you and Green Arrow work with various charity campaigns then?”

“That’s correct.”

“How involved are you in environmental campaigns?”

“Yeesh, sorry man but it’s Gotham. We do what we can, but there’s only so much you can do to counter how bad things get when so many of the local supervillains work with harsh chemicals and any progress goes down the drain really quickly,” Dick admitted, wincing. 

“Uh, well Queen Industries used to really emphasize weapons manufacturing, but I’m doing what I can to transition to more general tech.”

“What about your own personal endeavors?” Aquaman pressed, looking increasingly determined.

“I’ve worked with some environmental organizations before, yes.”

“I’m just saying, the water- in Gotham especially, could use a lot of rehandling. It’s frighteningly polluted, I can’t see how any kind of life could work with that.”

“Gotham fish different,” Cass answered, shrugging.

“That, no yes I suppose that does make sense. I hadn’t particularly wanted to bother you about it before considering I figured it must take a considerable amount to fund all of your equipment, and the Watchtower, but if the both of you are as rich as Black Canary’s mentioned-”

“Can we table this discussion for a different time? You know, when the rest of us aren’t stuck listening to it? I get that it’s important, but we only get so many breaks together,” Hal complained. 

“Technically this wasn’t meant to be a break. Our budget meeting should’ve ended several minutes ago,” he reminded. Helena was starting to yawn in exhaustion, and he rubbed soothing circles on her back as the girl rested her head in the crook of his neck, before raising it once more with a slightly familiar scowl in annoyance at the uncomfortable kevlar texture. His friends cooed softly at the sight, and Tim moved to adjust his collar so that Helena could lay her head back down. 

“I think I have a makeshift toddler bed if you want to try putting her down to nap for a bit,” Barry offered, much to the confusion of his companions. 

“There was a de-aging incident once with an associate of mine. Don’t ask. It was a rough night.”

“I can imagine,” Martian Manhunter assented. He nodded gratefully at the speedster. 

Tim Drake P.O.V

The second Bruce stepped out of the room with Barry, a call came in from Tim’s communicator. From his ex, dun dun dun. He was kidding obviously, he was surprised Steph hadn’t decided to just barge up to the Watchtower herself all things considered.

“Oh look, Steph’s calling. That’s Spoiler by the way, you probably remember her.”

“She’s that kid who trashed my room,” Hal grumbled. 

“Oh yeah, did you ever get all of that out?”

“Mostly. I had to do a bunch of manual cleaning because of how stupidly yellow everything was. That glitter is never coming out.” 

“I believe that was exactly the point,” Damian said. None of them decided to own up to the fact that they had all technically taken part in trashing the Watchtower that time. Green Lantern’s room was all Steph and Bruce though. 

 "She probably just saw the footage.”

“Footage?” Superman questioned. 

“Oh yeah, we’ll have to delete it at some point soon, for the sake of secret identities and all that, but we hadn’t actually been planning on an identity reveal today, we just wanted to be able to see everyones reactions to meeting Shadow, hey Steph- how’s it going?”

“Red! How could you not have told me you were going to reveal your identities to the Justice League?! I thought you were my best friend!” her dramatics were accompanied by an exaggerated wail. 

“I am, Steph- I am! You know I wouldn’t have kept you out of this!”

“Spoiler you know you can’t leave Bruce alone with his thoughts for too long before he decides to do something we wouldn’t approve of,” Dick said, sighing in faux disappointment as they all crowded around his comm. He wasn’t wrong. 

“Kids these days, I swear,” Jason shook his head. 

“Should I put myself on the screen?” 

“You can if you want to.”

“Great! Tim, if you want to make it up to me- just saying this would be a great place to start.”

“Is Oracle not with you?”

“Oh she is, but it’d mean more coming from you considering how you’ve slighted me.” As soon as Tim had gotten her up on the meeting room screen, and she loudly greeted the JL, Bruce decided now would be a good time to come back into the fold, prompting a loud gasp. 

“Brucie! How could you!? An identity reveal! Without me there? You’re not my dad anymore.”

“You wouldn’t let me adopt you in the first place.”

“I don’t know, I think the second you prank your coworkers with a kid, you’re basically obligated to be their dad emotionally,” Tim argued, not really following his own logic but deciding on it anyways. Green Lantern shot up from his seat, glowering furiously. 

“Wait! Is he talking about the stupid room prank? You helped them with that!?”

Bruce replied monotonously, “Next question.”

“Batman,” Superman chided, though he couldn’t hide his smile completely. Wonder Woman was similarly amused, while the other members of the Justice League openly gawked at him. 

Stephanie got excited as something appeared off screen, “Ooh! Ace! Come here! Come meet the JL!” An aging but still strong German Shepherd came onto the screen.

“Please don’t let Ace drool over the Batcomputer.”

“Ace you can behave however the fuck you want and don’t you forget it, Batman’s your sidekick now, you get to call the shots.” 

“Arf!”

“You owe Ace a new cape,” Steph falsely translated. Maybe. Tim supposed that might’ve been true, he couldn’t speak dog either, so who knows?

“What’s wrong with his old one?” 

“It’s ugly,” Steph said flatly.

“It’s just a smaller version of mine.”

“Exactly,” Tim confirmed solemnly. His siblings nodded in suit, while Bruce just rolled his eyes. The JL didn’t seem to know where to go now in addressing their dynamic. Honestly he kind of preferred it that way. Less thinking involved, he had enough problems without factoring the JL’s existential crises. 

“Considering how left out you felt about this little scheme, and how you all seemed so eager to design a costume for Shadow , I’m sure you can manage this yourselves.”

“You got it Bruce, we’ll have him looking way better than anything you could’ve ever picked out,” Tim said in the most serious tone he could muster. 

His father just sighed. 

Bruce Wayne P.O.V

Spoiler did eventually end up actually just coming up to the Watchtower, having gotten bored of her shtick in the Batcave. She’d actually worked twice as fast to finish her case just so she could catch the footage as it came in, and so they’d all settled into individual conversations once more. 

It was a nice image. And honestly he may just take the risk and try to doctor the footage as much as possible so that he wouldn’t have to delete it. Reflecting on all that had happened in the past two years was surprisingly pleasant. 

Luke and Kate dropped by less so than some of the others, but they’d always be ready to help when he needed them. The sirens were always wildcards, but they’d come farther than he thought would even be possible. The fact he’d gone from chasing Selina across rooftops over a stolen jewel, to presenting her with his family ring, was a perfect testament to that. Even Talia had her moments when she wasn’t working on the behalf of the League. Barbara was a constant now, never letting an obstacle stop her from helping someone, no matter how severe. Just as strong a presence in his life now, as Jim Gordon had once been in his early years, when he’d first lost everything. But he’d gained so much now. Alfred had been his defining parental figure after Thomas and Martha Wayne’s death, had done everything he could to serve a child that couldn’t see the world without shadow anymore, dealing with a long and difficult pathway to recovery, it probably wasn’t what Alfred had signed up for, but he was glad he stayed anyway. 

Damian was progressing immensely quickly, not only under his tutelage, but under the presence of every member of the family. Every moment was a moment that comforted Bruce, knowing that they would all work tirelessly to salvage Damian’s childhood after the League of Assassins. He spoke with Superman about Jon now, occasionally threatening him with kryptonite when the conversation steered somewhere he didn’t like, but without any real bite in his voice. 

Duke had been one of the newer members of the family, welcomed completely and wholeheartedly, it was hard not to like Duke. A perfect balance of calm and chaotic in his own right. But he admired how quickly the boy managed to adjust, especially considering the circumstances of his fostering, though he had the adoption papers ready if he wanted them. His parents had unfortunately completely succumbed to their issues from the Joker attack, but he was still going strong. 

Steph, well he and Steph had problems. Still did sometimes, that was an unfortunate fact for all of his children really, but they were working on it. Steph was strong, she was brave, she wasn’t going to let her problems weigh her down anymore. Her mother still liked to joke about him having joint custody, even after she became a legal adult. Her joking nature made her a good match in conversation for all the old gossipmongers of the tower, Hal, Barry, and Ollie. 

Tim was so, so many things. Resilient, intelligent, it was hard to articulate where to start with Tim Drake. It was like looking in a mirror sometimes, though he could proudly admit that Tim surpassed him on plenty of occasions. He was able to bring Bruce back from the edge after Jason, a massive feat in itself, and then he’d gotten him back from when he was lost in time, and now he basically ran his company. There were so many things that Bruce had to be proud of him for, but it was beyond all of his achievements that Bruce’s true affections lay. 

Cass had been born into such a unique form of tragedy that it was a wonder that she could’ve been pulled out, but oh how grateful he was for that. She was talented, and strong, and there was nothing in the world that would’ve ever convinced him to give up on her now. Cassandra was a Wayne now, and David Cain could go die in a ditch for all he cared. 

Jason. Oh Jason, how indescribably difficult things were with Jason. That was certainly a story, perhaps his most difficult journey of all. With Jason, it’d been like all of the joy had been sucked from his world the moment he died. The immense joy and conflict and everything else he felt after he came back, it was immeasurable. He so tirelessly missed what could have been, but he knew Jason had moved on, miraculously, admirably. He was just glad to be able to hold his son again without always thinking of the time he had held him in that destroyed warehouse. 

Dick. Mischievous little shit as he was. Dick slotted into conversations incredibly easily, going from person to person at a moments notice, it wouldn’t surprise him if Dick was a common nominee for the next recruitment meeting. It’s not like he had much reason to protest anymore. His son, the one who’d brought him into the first steps of truly living for someone else. To love someone as fiercely as he knew his parents, and Alfred, loved him. Their time together had been rocky, but to see him so comfortable in a setting like this was more than Bruce could’ve ever thought to ask for back then. 

He was the dependable one. The one he could always count on to step in for the family when they needed it. Even if he may have inherited some of his communication issues at times. He was just as messed up as the rest of them were, but he’d done something Bruce couldn’t. He took what he had and molded it constantly until it was truly and completely him , something better. He was the light, he’d been one for Gotham, he’d been one for Bruce. 

It wasn’t just his family that he’d gained though. He’d made a lot of connections as time waned on, and he couldn’t say he regretted it. Every member of the Justice League had their own issues, had come from their own form of tragedy. To think that all of these people, who could have so easily been closed off and alone in a world that had constantly beaten them down, could openly speak with one another so cheerfully and without care, finding it within themselves and in others to pick up the pieces, well who wouldn’t want to hold a memory like this forever?

A crash sounded. He snapped out of his thoughts towards the source of the noise- 

“Sorry! Leaned back too far!” Barry apologized, eying a decorative piece that one of the League members had brought in recently as decoration. He scanned the rest of the room, and it became evident that someones instincts had set in, because just before Barry’s call, the room filled with smoke. A splatter of blue slime came rushing towards him before he could react, and then he found himself stuck to a chair. 

Dick approached him “Whoops. Sorry my hand slipped-” his voice was sincere, but he was grinning rather terribly, “-come on I’ll get the antidote,” and then he took hold of the back of the chair and wheeled him out of the room as the smoke fully dissipated. He took back what he said about him. Dick was not the dependable one. Get the alcohol ready Alfred, he was gonna need it. Dick wheeled him back to his room in the Watchtower, closing the door behind them but making no move to actually get the antidote. He didn’t look particularly suspicious though, which was a good sign, he actually looked rather sympathetic. Helena slept soundly in the corner of the room, entirely unaware of the world around her.

“I really am sorry about that, you just looked like you needed a moment to yourself. You were kinda spacing out a lot.” Oh, that was a nicer reason to prank him. Damn you Nightwing. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, his oldest was always the best at reading him (except for Alfred obviously). He had been very lost in thought at the time.

“Thanks chum, but you don’t need to worry about it. I’m fine.”

“B-”

“No, really. I’m fine, more than fine really.”

“Oh. That- that’s good. Let me get you that antidote then, pretty sure the others caught on to what I was doing anyway, they’ll be knocking if we don’t get settled back in.”

“Did you set off the smoke bomb too, or just the slime gun?”

“I did both. I had a few other diversions in mind, but that was a better opportunity that wouldn’t risk overwhelming you any more than you already were.”

“I wasn’t overwhelmed , just- just contemplative.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t you ‘hm’ me, that’s my thing last I checked.” That got a laugh out of his son, the solemn silence breaking to let him shine through, before his expression clouded over once more as he freed his arm from the chair. Bruce brought his newly freed hand up to the back of his son’s head, lightly pulling his son into a hug that was instantly reciprocated.

“I said I wasn’t overwhelmed, what’s eating you?” His son pulled away to free his other arm before responding.

“I just want to be sure, I get that it’s really too late for me to be asking this, but are you really okay with all of this? With everything I’ve done?” He couldn’t tell if that was a general question regarding everything Nightwing had done, or in regards to the family fiasco they’d had with the Justice League, but either way, his answer was the same. 

“There was a point I was genuinely frustrated. But seeing all the good it’s done for all of you, how hard you clearly wanted to better open up to everyone after all this time, I get it, really Dick, I don’t mind-” His son continued their hug, squeezing tighter this time, “-but it would have been nice if you turned down some of your shenanigans.” His son laughed loudly, accidentally startling the baby in the corner awake, though she did not cry, just looked around in confusion before her eyes landed on her father and brother, which prompted a big grin that showcased the few baby teeth that had begun growing in, her mask flopping off of her face. 

His first, and his (hopefully) last child in one room, two of the many incredibly integral times in his life. His son waved a few fingers at the baby, before turning back once more.

“I’ll never make it easy for you old man, and if I had to guess, neither will she.”

“Yeah. I figured.”