Chapter Text
Mark smiled as he sat down on the crate next to Sam as they waited for their guard shift to start. They were slotted to guard the west door starting on the half hour meaning they needed to go out twenty after so the shift change wouldn’t be a weak time in guarding the facility and had a good five minutes before that happened, “Thank all that Gotham gives us.”
Sam blinked at him, “Mark?”
“Hey Sam, I was just thanking Gotham for Boss. It is such a relief, and a gift, to be working for a decent father like our boss.”
“Huh?”
“I mean he heard me worrying about needing to pick up my sick kid from school but being about to go on a guard shift and instead of yelling at me to get to work he gave me that day, and the next off, paid, to care for my kid. He even said if she was really sick to contact Maggie about taking more time off to care for my kid.”
Frowning, Sam's voice was full of concern as he asked, “Is she okay?”
“Oh yeah, she just has strep throat. She just needs rest and meds. That’s another thing that’s great about working for a good dad. The fact that he pays for medical problems of not only us goons but our family. We went to Leslie’s to find out what was wrong and I didn’t have to pay a dime to get my girl seen, tested and given the medication needed for her treatment. No other boss I’ve worked for has covered my kids' medical issues. I mean getting a boss to even not get pissed at you for having to take time off to care for my kid? I didn’t even think that was possible before Boss.”
“Well yeah boss is great for that but why do you think he’s a father himself? I mean he can’t be that old.”
“Henry saw him holding some white hair and cursing out his new helmet for tearing out some of his hair when he put it on after taking a broken one off.”
“Boss’s hair is white?”
“At least partially, Henry said he might have also seen a black hair but with boss’s gloves he couldn’t tell.”
“Wow, never thought Boss was old enough to be going white. I mean an older guy being able to pull all the stunts he does is really impressive. Unless you think he’s going white young?”
“Henry insisted the hair was white not gray.”
“Well he could have that condition Zach’s wife has with all the white spots on her skin from that disease that attacks the like color cells in the skin. It would explain covering all his skin one hundred percent of time. It’s what Zach’s bet is.”
Sam hummed thinking, “Maybe. I mean I could see it. Boss stays more covered up than the Bat even.”
“And even if that is why he’s got the white, we’ve all seen how he acts with his kids.”
Sam blinked at Mark, “With the street kids? You do know those aren’t his… right?”
“I meant the Bat Brats. He cares about all kids, which is pretty impressive for a crime lord, but we’ve all seen how he acts around the Bats.”
“You think the Bat is his kid?”
“Nah. The Bat is too old and Boss never treats him like the Bat Brats. He does a lot of stuff for the Bat Brats.”
“He’s one of the good ones in the city at least but I could see it, although a lot of people are going for bitter exes with them like sharing custody of the other Bats.”
“Hm,” Sam thought for a moment, “I think the bitter ex theory makes more sense. They sure do have that weird get along great whenever the kids are around, most of the time, and then being more hit than miss when the kids are absent.”
“That’s my thought and I think the Big Bat got primary custody so that’s got to rank for the Boss.”
“Why?”
“Bats got money to do his thing and he isn’t a crime lord like Boss is so he’s either sponsored or is someone in the elite to pay for all the shit he throws around. Batarangs can’t be cheap.”
“So what Boss came back to Gotham after a bad breakup or divorce to find all of his kids being superheroes so he set himself up as a crime boss to look after them or something?”
Mark nodded, “And to help the alley and homeless kids, at least that’s my bet.”
“Bet?”
“Bunch of us got bets on what Boss’s relationship with the Bats actually is. The bet is six dollars, two dollars a bet, want in?”
Pausing for a moment Sam nodded, “Yeah, what are the bets?”
“Why his hair is white, relation to the Big Bat and relation to the Bat Brats.”
“Hm, I think I’ll go with age, bitter ex-boyfriends as we would have heard if a gay rich couple broke up, and the Bat Brats are his kids emotionally since he helped raise them but not legally.”
“I’ll let Blink know.”
“Blink is the bookkeep?”
“He said betting on facts about the boss was stupid so he wouldn’t bet.”
“Making him the perfect bookkeeper. Pay now or when there’s a winner?”
“Winner, no need to have a pool of money like that sitting around and who knows if we will even ever find out.”
“A pile like that?”
“A lot of people are in on the bet.”
“What’s your bet?”
“Like yours on age, and shared custody but I put in ex-husbands since I could see some rich guy hiding a marriage and then a divorce to someone like the boss, and boss then could have used any hush money to outfit himself to start as a crime lord.”
“Definitely sounds plausible.”
“Want to hear some of the other ones? I know a couple of the weird ones.”
“We’ve got time before our guard ship so, dish, as my daughter would say.”