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storm-leviosa-fanfics · 4 years

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Batfam Week Day 3

Day 3: Civilian/No Capes AU

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@official-batfam-week

I’m Having Such a Good Time

It was summer and far too hot to move. They sprawled themselves across sofas and armchairs in the library with the windows swung open but it’d done little to cool them down. Steph blew her fringe out of her eyes and groaned. Six similar groans replied. She got it. Tim chucked his laptop on the floor half an hour before when the heat of the processor got too much and Jay gave up on reading in favour of napping with his book resting on his stomach. Damian had even pushed Alfred the cat away. They were bored. They were too hot. They needed someone, an ice-themed villain perhaps, to freeze the city for a week or two until they were ready for the heatwave to continue. That wouldn’t happen, obviously. Who ever heard of an ice-themed super villain? Steph snorted. The heat must be making her delirious.

“We should do something.” Steph loved Dick Grayson but man did she want to punch him right now. Or she would if she could be bothered to move to do it. Everyone else shared her sentiment.

“Dick if you talk again, I swear to god.” Jason just wanted to sleep. Steph could relate. College had kicked her ass so hard last semester and she was still sleeping off the effects of weeks of stress, assignments and crazy amounts of energy drinks. But Dick was on the move. He’d actually got up from his chair and bounced, because Dick Grayson was a goddamn golden retriever, to the window. He leaned out into the non-existent breeze, because Dick Grayson had no fear, and gasped.

“Guys, Alfred got the hose out!” He sounded so excited. Why did he sound so excited? Couldn’t Steph and the others just suffer in peace? He got Cass’s attention though and when something has Cass’s attention you do the thing. Perk of being Bruce’s favourite kid. Steph sighed. Tim, on the sofa next to her, sighed too. He knew what was up.

“Come on! It’ll cool you down a little at least.” He had a point but Steph still really didn’t want to move. Cass slid to the window and looked out, too. When she turned back to them she was beaming and they all knew they would have to go along with whatever she was planning.

“Swimming,” she signed. “Water fight. Please?” Well, since she asked so nicely…

They had a water fight and their posts about it went viral of course (Steph still wasn’t quite used to being associated with famous people, though she should be after all this time). Bruce gets asked about their shenanigans when he’s interviewed by the Gazette even though it’s meant to be strictly business related. He tells them everything because Bruce can’t resist talking about his kids. He talked about her exactly once, back when she was still dating Tim and it had just been leaked to the press and she went back to school after the holidays to everyone knowing her name. It sucked. Steph never thought it would suck to be famous but it did. It especially sucks when she gets invites to fancy parties she can’t afford the dresses and jewels or but has to go to anyway because she’s associated with Bruce Wayne now and can’t miss out on this kind of thing. At least he pays for her clothes. Mostly she hung out with Cass, sticking to the sidelines and ignoring the stuck up, pretentious old racist-white-men(™). Tim often joined them when he needed a break from networking and sometimes Damian got relegated to them because he’d offended someone. Jason was never forced to go because side from the drama around how he was alive (which Steph still didn’t fully get because like seriously, what?) he had some kind of trauma thing that meant being surrounded by sleazy old men was a Bad Idea. Which was fair enough, in Steph’s opinion. Didn’t stop people asking about it, though.

“So, where’s your other brother? I haven’t seen him since he was younger than you are.” Tim was doing an admirable job of smiling politely as the lady they had been accosted by continued to shove her foot down her throat.

“He’s staying at home tonight, Mrs Carstairs. The heat got to him a little yesterday and he wanted to rest.” Everyone was just ignoring the stifling heat in the ballroom. Steph felt sticky and gross and she was in a sleeveless summer dress; she couldn’t imagine how sweltering it must be to wear a suit to these things, even if Tim had taken off his jacket within half an hour. He couldn’t even roll up his sleeves without it being considered improper, or take off his waistcoat. Mrs Carstairs had lines in her thick layer of makeup from sweat rolling down her face.

“Oh poor thing! Well you tell him that Judith says hello and to get well soon. You know, I remember, oh decades ago now, we had a summer just like this. It was absolutely scorching but we didn’t have electric fans to keep us cool back then; we used to swim in the lake on our estate when it got too much. You young folks these days…” Steph tuned it out. She caught sight of Cass, leaning against the wall near the fan. She had the right idea. She nudged Tim and nodded at Cass before slipping away, just so he knew she wouldn’t be there when he escaped Mrs Carstairs’ clutches.

It was blissfully cool by the fan and Steph melted slightly in relief. Cass laughed at her in that strange silent way of hers and Steph grinned. She and Cass were good friends, the only two girls in a gaggle of rowdy boys, even if Steph wasn’t always around and had been dragged into the Wayne family craziness by Tim. Cass was just cool, far cooler than Steph could ever hope to be. If Steph could be any member of the family she would be Cass probably. Cass had issues, sure, but all of them had issues. Jason had literally died, Dick had terrible, terrible nightmares and sometimes forgot how to speak English, Tim couldn’t stand being alone in the house sometimes and didn’t know when to stop working, Damian was the grumpiest, most violent ten year old Steph had ever met. Steph had her own problems which were, of course, nothing in comparison to Cass’s but still nothing to sneeze at. But besides Cass being just the coolest person in the world, she was super fun to be around. Steph liked her and Steph didn’t actually like all that many people. She could see why Cass was Bruce’s favourite. Tim appeared from nowhere with a plate full of snacks and a tray of water glasses.

“Marry me,” Steph moaned, gulping down the water and epically failing at not spilling it. Cass tossed her head back and laughed but Steph didn’t even care. “So good,” she said, putting the glass down. Tim nibbled at a mini quiche and didn’t respond but she saw the quirk of his mouth that meant he was smiling. He looked at his watch and grimaced. They still had a while to go then. Maybe they could sneak off for a bit and no one would notice?

On the other side of the room, Bruce felt his ‘sibling shenanigan senses’ tingling. He turned away and pretended not to notice Tim, Steph and Cass slipping away.

Tim and Jason were doing a video interview for some magazine Steph didn’t remember the name of. Jason didn’t often do interviews but when he did it was always with Tim. People often assumed it was because Tim could keep Jason in line but really it was because Tim had a tendency to not know when to shut up and Jason was reasonably good at stopping him from saying stupid stuff while rambling (various failures of the others included: the time Damian stabbed Tim with a fondue skewer because he’d said something “unacceptable” about his pets, the time Tim had sworn on live TV because Dick reminded him of something he was meant to do that day he’d forgotten about, and the time he literally fell off a chair trying to catch something Cass tossed to him. Tim was a disaster). The interview wasn’t anything serious, mostly just typical celeb gossip with a couple of questions about their latest charity exploits in the Narrows. Somehow Steph got brought up. Steph, watching the video from the comfort of her own bed, knew exactly how well it was going to go. The interviewer had called Steph ‘the normal one’ and both of them had cracked up laughing.

“It’s not possible to be part of the family and be ‘normal’, I’m pretty sure.” Well wasn’t that the truth.

“Yeah, Steph’s just as crazy as the rest of us, she just hides it better.” Tim sure knew how to make a girl feel special. He elbowed Jason as he continued.

“Hey, Jay, you remember last week? Steph came downstairs at like what? 10? 11am? Whatever, it was later than normal and later than the rest of us except Bruce and just goes ‘Yo, I just had the craziest dream. You wanna hear it?’” Steph knew where this was going and she didn’t like it one bit.

“So, we all said yeah because Steph’s dreams are wacky on a normal day but this one really was just straight up wild.” Jason was sniggering now and took over the story between trying to stifle laughter.

“In her dream Bruce became a superhero after his parents died which, if you know Bruce at all, you know is just not possible. The man’s a walking dumpster fire. But just, the way she described it was… what was it again? Oh, yeah, ‘he dresses up in a bat-themed fursuit to punch up criminals because he’s an emotionally constipated dork.’ The interviewer snorted and Steph momentarily felt validated. Maybe she should become a comedian? Then she remembered that they were deliberately embarrassing her and huffed.

“The last part is true, at least,” said Tim. “But it gets better. After that she went on to describe how Bruce still took in each of us except we became superheroes too and teamed up with other superheroes who are also all people we’ve met or are friends with. She said Babs was, and I quote 'the most badass Batgirl ever.' Lex Luther was a super villain. It was hilarious.”

“Yeah, it was amazing. And Damian got offended because she described him as ‘a little murder kitten’ and tried to jump her with a spoon before Bruce stepped in and asked what the hell was going on because we’d woken him up.” The conversation moved on, but Steph knew she would never live that dream down.

Bruce decided to take the family on vacation for the holidays and asked if Steph wanted to join them. She actually considered saying no: her mom got out of rehab a few days before, and she wanted to spend time with her without the stress of finals breathing down her neck. But she talked to mom on the phone and she told her to go, that they’d catch up after Christmas and to have fun. They went to some tiny little tropical island because they hate heat in summer, but Gotham gets damn cold in winter and it’s nice to warm up a bit sometimes. She’d been doing Christmas with the Waynes on and off for about four years and she still wasn’t used to it. Tim had been doing it for only a year or so longer and she was sure he felt the same. The Waynes tried to do a secular holiday without religion getting involved but Alfred was Anglican and liked to do Christmas that way and the Kanes were Jewish so when Kate was around they did Hanukkah as well but if it was just Bruce he tended to forget and Dick just wanted to do everything. Sometimes they had a tree but forgot to decorate it until Christmas Eve. Sometimes they loaded it with so many it looked like it would topple over from the weight. Sometimes they had a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, sometimes fish, sometimes ham. One time they didn’t have a Christmas dinner and ate nothing but snack food. Either way, there was always a food fight and they always had to clean up afterwards to help Alfred out. They’d never left the country for the holidays before.

They got spotted at the airport and had to run and hide before they were swarmed. Then Damian got pulled out by the security guys because he set off the metal detector. Then Jason got pulled up by passport control because of the whole ‘I was dead but I got better’ thing. Then Tim spilt soda on himself. It was a disaster. Steph loved it. Travelling with the Waynes was always entertaining.

No one gave gifts on Christmas Day. Instead, they had fun on the beach, ate so much ice cream they felt sick, and tumbled back home after a week in the sun, tanned and freckled. They gave gifts after. It was always small things for them, things made, inside jokes, little knick-knacks that reminded them of each other. It was small and sweet and Steph loved every second of it, loved every gift (even the fluffy bat key-chain Jason chucked at her while laughing his head off). She wouldn’t change this family for the world.

#batfamily #batfamweek2020 #au #stephanie brown #civilian au #fun #the batfam get up to shenanigans #but is that surprising #my-writing

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