Chapter Text
December 24th: Last Day Before Christmas
Ashley’s life had gone kinda… weird, lately. Not bad weird, but honestly weirder than the average Gothamite amount of weird one would expect. The weird was also good weird, although Gotham weirdness tended to come in all shapes and forms, most of them bad.
So when good weird came along, you just had to seize the day, roll with it.
Or more like: roll in it.
Case in point, Ashley slowly blinked slowly as she woke up, and rolled to her back in fifty-thousand thread count sheets or something equally deliriously rich, she didn’t remember, sighing when she saw her girlfriend’s silhouette cut against the greyish white of December morning light.
She was naked, and leaning on a desk or a chest of drawers, something something chiffonier? — frankly, Ashley hadn’t known there were so many types of furniture until she’d come to her girlfriend’s house (which was as close to a little château one could get). She was on the phone, her elbow propped up on her arm, which did all kinds of good things, pushing her chest forward a little, showing the arch of her strong muscular waist.
With the way light came from the windows, Ashley couldn’t see any details, but after three months of dating, she was starting to know her body, the valleys, mountains and plains, scars like so many rivers on the map of Kate’s skin.
Ashley moved in the bed again, basking in the late morning decadence of her day off from her barista job. She must have made some noise because Kate turned a little and uncrossed her arm, looked at Ashley with her usual intensity, phone still glued to her ear.
Like several other things, Ashley had learnt to ignore the phone calls. Kate had put a metaphorical no-entry sign on the subjects of her late night calls, the strange people coming and going and her nighttime activities, only saying that she was busy but “not banging any other girl than you, baby.”
The scars were a no-entry zone too.
The night terrors too.
The sister she had pictures of but never spoke of.
Ashley had so many questions. But she could respect boundaries: Kate did respect hers, after all, and she’d been as honest as could be, didn’t try to hide anything, she just very clearly drew her hard limits.
“That’s fascinating, Bruce,” Kate said, deadpan, her first words in a long while of listening to her cousin’s monologue.
Ashley smiled and sat up in bed, and beckoned Kate with a quirk of her finger. Kate answered with half a smile, approached and bent down to kiss her, with a little bite, just how they liked it. It would have been hot, even with Kate’s weird cousin speaking in a rush on the other side, if a sudden screech and crashing sounds hadn’t interrupted everyone.
So close to the phone, Ashley was in a prime position to hear both the yelling and Bruce say “hold on a second, DAMIAN, for the last time, no jumping from upstairs balcony!” A chorus of protests echoed down the line.
Kate closed her eyes and winced, and put the phone back on her ear when the commotion abated, going back to leaning against the chiffonier-thing.
“I’m not coming if your whole menagerie is having its usual psychotic break,” she groused. Some words from her cousin and she rolled her eyes. “I can’t be psychophobic if we are all insane, Bruce— no.”
Ashley wondered what Kate’s cousin must be doing. Or saying. Aside from running after this Damian with a dad-voice. Conversations with Bruce always went one of two ways: either extremely serious, short and to the point calls that felt like they were planning an airstrike, or extremely long back and forths with lots of eyes rolled heavenward, eyebrows being raised, and sick burns being exchanged.
“The Manor is a no-go zone, haven’t you heard? — what? — Yes this is about my sex life.” Kate frowned hard, and Ashley tilted her head, because sex life meant her.
She was aware that her thing with Kate Kane, heiress extraordinaire, was a bit peculiar. She knew she was more than just a booty call, but wouldn’t delude herself at thinking they were star crossed lovers either.
Last status update for their relationship had been Ashley getting a diamond necklace and revealing but tasteful silk and lace underwear as well as specific instructions on “only wearing that when I get home”, which had led to Ashley asking, right as they were getting down to the action sequence part of the night, if she was Kate’s sugar baby.
To which Kate had answered “shhh don’t talk, baby girl” and then she had shoved Ashley’s new silky underwear in her mouth.
So yeah.
Sugar Baby Ashley.
“What do you mean, I’m ‘practically a grandmother’?” Kate sounded indignant. “Great aunt? No—” Ashley rose from the bed, wrapped in the bedsheets like one of these elven princesses in romance books. “Well now that you’ve said that, of course I will come running for sure. — That was sarcasm, Bruce.”
Ashley plastered herself to Kate, hooking her chin over her shoulder.
There was another screech coming from the phone, so Kate kissed Ashley’s cheek. “Sorry, doll, my cousin’s in distress for children reasons.”
“His children?” Kate had hinted at her cousin’s sprawling family many times.
“And his boyfriend’s. And his kid’s children. And whichever sad new orphan he found under a rock while driving through Gotham I suppose— Yes.” Bruce had come back online. Ashley put her lips on Kate’s skin and just stayed there, no thoughts, brain empty, just girlfriend-slash-sugar-mommy radiating heat against her.
“Presents. I’m thirty-six, you’re trying to entice me with presents. — No. No, Bruce. Your words hold no power in this place.” She made a little circle with her finger, a rare sign of dorkiness coming from Kate. “Also I’d like Ashley to keep her head on her shoulders. — Ashley. Yes, Ashley? My girlfriend? No!”
Kate put her hand on the phone and tilted her head a little, visibly ticked off.
“Leeley, ever thought of having children?”
Well that came out of left field… “Uhm, maybe?”
Kate’s nostrils flared. “Good, I’m going to get you vaccinated.”
What? “Vaccinated?”
“We’re coming,” Kate said to Bruce and then she cut the call. “Vaccinated against children.”
What?
Ashley was still getting used to being driven around. She’d been pretty independent before encountering “Kane, Kate, nice to meet you, can I buy you a drink?”
Now it was all drivers in swanky cars or Kate picking her up in a red sports car every Friday after her CompSci 402 lesson.
Right now, they were zooming across the well maintained but winding roads of Bristol, with Gotham City proper shrouded in a blanket of clouds and haze of smog on their left. Ashley smiled and let herself enjoy the speed, the little thrill of going fast fast fast in a car smelling of leather.
“So anything I should know before we get there?”
Kate grunted, and swerved on a smaller lane. “Don’t stray too far from me,” Kate’s voice was dark and low, it sent another thrill through Ashley.
“Why are we going, for real?”
“Bruce has been whingeing nonstop about me not coming for his stupid Christmas, so we’re making an appearance, for show, at a tactically sound time, since there will be some people, but not all of them, and it will be before the revelries, and thus, before whoever’s up there decides that this was all a mistake and send a meteor careening into Wayne Manor.”
“Wow, Kate.” Ashley snorted. “You sure are feeling a lot of emotions about this.”
“Doll, please, do not sass me.”
“Make me, Mommy.”
Kate took her eyes off the road for a second, just to raise an eyebrow at Ashley. “Lee-ley, I’m going to face real life brats in a few minutes.” She looked at the road again, but she was smirking now and looked less pinched too. “Reign it in, babydoll.”
Ashley laughed, delighted, and carefree, that was the whole point of their dynamic it seemed, Kate providing so she could be carefree. And she was.
Well. She was until they parked in front of Wayne Manor.
Ashley felt clearly underdressed in her quickly slapped together outfit of skinny blue jeans, oversized pink hoodie — it was the size of a tent and extra fluffy, like carrying a blanket around — and cute but well-loved well-worn black boots.
“Uhm…”
Kate didn’t wait, and just rocked up to the Manor’s door, and she wasn’t wearing any kind of slinky dress or killer dress pants, but the way she held herself in her black wool coat, turtleneck sweater and chino-like trousers felt like she was ready to cut a bitch.
A butler, kind of like Kate’s own butler — it was difficult to pinpoint his age, like all butlers, he wasn’t young, but he looked like he would use sick backflip moves just to catch a drop of sauce before it hit a waxed floor — anyway, a butler opened the door, so Ashley jogged to catch up to Kate.
“Ah, Miss Kane.”
“Hello, Alfred,” she said pleasantly, and gave him her coat.
He smiled just as pleasantly, looked at Ashley, “hello Miss Dawson, may I take your bag?”
“Uhhhh…” She looked down at her little handbag, which contained her phone, a pack of kleenex and the keys to the penthouse Kate had offered Ashley after her first visit to Ashley’s flat which had resulted in a mild I see I can genuinely call you my doll since you seem to inhabit a dollhouse.
She relinquished her hold on the bag.
“Master Wayne is in the game room, Miss Kane. Shall I fetch you coffee? Tea?”
“Tea, if you please. We’ll only be here a moment anyway, long enough for me to regret my life choices and then we’ll skedaddle.”
“Of course.”
There was the distinct sound of people running upstairs, stomping around. Someone yelled “Chris”, another yelled “Lian” and then a bellow coming from a much closer room “Damian!” followed by “You can’t tell me what to do!”
Kate kissed the side of Ashley’s head.
“Hear that sound? That’s the sound of me never having children, ever.”
Dick knocked on Wally’s old childhood room’s door, open wide to show the pristine bedroom, nearly untouched since Wally had moved out for college. Dick had no idea why Barry kept it that way — in the Manor, bedrooms stayed untouched when someone was dead, so it felt weird that Barry and Iris would keep it all in place.
Wally was on the floor, surrounded by wrapping paper of all colours and patterns, tape, scissors, shiny gift ribbons halfway unravelled.
“Hey, babe,” Dick smiled and leant in the door opening, not sure why he was hesitant around the house today in particular.
Wally wrapped two presents, a little blurry as he moved, paper crinkling and his speed voice indecipherable. Dick had years of knowing how to navigate a superspeeding Wally, so he skirted around the disaster zone and crouched, a soft smile on his face.
“You’re too fast, Walls.”
“SSssssssssorry sorry sorry,” Wally said, as he slowed down, speedforce still crackling lightly, the sounds in his words a little wonky a little weird a little elongated. “Hey, sweets!” Wally grinned, and grabbed Dick by the neck, kissing him all dirty.
Dick laughed a little in the kiss, smiling and happy, forgetting the undercurrent of nervousness he was feeling for no reason.
“I know I’m wrapping presents, but I could take a break,” Wally continued, growling against Dick’s lips “Unwrap you, maybe.” Then Wally bit Dick’s lip and Dick forgot what he had come in for, he licked into Wally’s mouth, sucked on his lower lip a little, feeling the scratch of his sparse stubble. Wally crawled over, and Dick sat down on the floor, in the middle of the colourful mess of papers. He grabbed Wally by the shoulders, and they both toppled to the floor in a mess of limbs and chuckles.
Dick held Wally close while he attacked Dick’s neck, sliding his hands under Wally’s shirt and open sweater vest. His palms flat against his boyfriend’s skin, Dick could feel the undercurrent of speedforce, the intermittent trembling and shaking and vibrating that Wally constantly did, without thinking. Dick sighed, warm and horny and very conscious that the speedsters weren’t as nosy as the bats, but they were just as susceptible of walking in and—
“Walls, baby,” Dick groaned and his fingers dug in the warm skin, grabbing at Wally’s tight muscles. Dick just didn’t want to let go.
Wally protested and licked a stripe up Dick’s neck to his earlobe, that he bit, which really wasn’t doing anything good to Dick’s general state of shouldn’t be horny right now.
“Walls, the door is open.”
“I could close it now and you wouldn’t even realise it,” Wally whispered in Dick’s ear, making him shiver as Wally’s hands slid down in his jeans’ back pockets to grab his ass. “I could—”
“Hey guys! Oh Lord Jesus—”
Wally stayed where he was, but Dick shoved him off and sommersaulted to the side on reflex, which was a bad idea in a kid's bedroom, landed wrong on a dresser, and bounced and fell like a ragdoll. Wally was still on all fours on the floor, boggling at the way Dick had so very much not elegantly jumped out of his reach. Barry had turned around and was hiding his face in his hands.
Wally sat on his heels and raised his arms to the ceiling, “God why have you forsaken me?”
“Wally, please.” Barry sounded in excruciating pain. Dick winced, rubbing the spot where he had hit the dresser. “I just came in here to ask for help with the snow in the driveway.”
Wally let his head roll back. “I can’t, Barry, I was otherwise occupied, didn’t you see?”
The pain didn’t leave Barry’s voice. “Oh boy I saw.”
“I’ll help!” Dick piped up, eager to escape the awkwardness of having been caught like he was a teenager making out under the bleachers and not a wholeass 25 years old man, with a hot boyfriend who had been vibrating out of his skin with —
Wally glared at Dick. “Seriously?”
Dick glared right back. They had one of these silent conversations with gestures that meant absolutely nothing understandable.
After two seconds of flailing, and Barry finally getting over the terrible ordeal of knowing his nephew had a healthy sex life, Dick trotted over to the door as Wally cried “but that makes no sense!”
Turned out the driveway needed to be desnowed, because all the other houses did it and the speedsters did have to maintain a modicum of pretence that this was a normal house with normal people who walked at a reasonable pace. And it was one of these tasks that had to be done at normal speeds because of the nosy neighbours who always peered out just to Keep Up With The Allens.
Dick was happy to have something to do though. Wally called this his eldest daughter syndrome, and Dick called it being a fucking decent guest, Walls, Jesus Christ. And there was basically next to nothing Dick could do in a house of speedsters to help. He had tried to suggest helping peel the potatoes with Iris but she had just yelled “potatoes” and in a flash of cracking lightning, Wallace had peeled all of the vegetables. When Jay Garrick had arrived and said Max was at the station and should come soon, Dick had offered entirely on reflex to go fetch Max from the station and then Thaddeus had laughed at him, pointed and laughed and clutched his belly, while Bart just said “or he could walk here, duh.”
Hence the hiding in shame in Wally’s room he had attempted to do.
Which had kind of gone sideways, but then again, the days of trying on boyfriendship for size were now long gone and it was hard to keep his hands to himself.
Speaking of which…
“Sorry about that, Barry.”
Barry grunted and shovelled a bunch of snow to the side. “You’re both adults, and that’s not the first I’ve walked in on Wally…” He sighed in visible despair. “Doing some biscuit dipping.”
Dick stopped shovelling at that. Biscuit… dipping?
“Anyway, it’s fine, you’re fine, I’m fine. Please lock the door, next time.”
Did all tired dads sound the same? Because Barry sounded strangely like Bruce, and that was a little bit uncanny right now.
Dick laughed awkwardly. “Sorry. I swear it won’t happen again.”
“Sure!”
And then they shovelled some more. For once, Dick had nothing to say. He had a lot to say, he could say a lot of things. But he didn’t. Words felt stuck on his tongue, dying in his throat.
So Barry and him shovelled snow in silence, scraping and grunting with the effort. He’d need to take a shower after that, which would be good: that way he won’t have to make a fool of himself in front of that little asshole Thaddeus, or Bart, who was less of a little asshole, but quite assholish anyway.
Maybe he could regroup that way?
They reached the end of the driveway and Barry leant on his shovel, smiling wide.
“Good job, Dick!” he said, sounding again like a dorky dad — did all dad sound the same, really, did they take dad lessons, when had Bruce managed to find the time to take the same dad lessons as Barry?
“Hey it was no problem.”
A blink and you miss it flash of blue light, signaled the arrival of Max Mercury. The door opened and closed and Dick still stood there, rooted to the spot.
This was Barry. Just Barry. He was at Wally’s. Why was he being so fucking awxkward, this wasn’t like him, holy shit.
“Why are you nervous, Dick?”
Dick choked on a chuckle and swung from side to side on his feet a little, balancing. “I don’t know.” He could be honest and admit it, at least. “I don’t know. Sorry. I—uhm…”
“You know I’m glad you and Wally got together, right?”
Dick looked up, and looked down. He nodded while looking at the ground scraped clear of snow.
“Looks like you didn’t.”
Fuck… But talking to fathers was always hard. He’d thought only Bruce was hard to talk to. Or Jim Gordon. Jim and Bruce. He’d been wrong. Even marshmallow dork Barry was hard to talk to.
Nervousness seemed to be the unavoidable consequence of banging someone’s offspring. Fuck.
Dick bit his lips and also: the bullet.
“We’re going to move in together,” he said, squaring up his shoulders and pasting on his showgirl smile.
Barry huffed, still smiling like all tired but happy dads did. “I’m glad. I’m happy for you both.”
Dick’s smile turned a little more genuine. “Yeah?”
“Yes, Dick. Now come on, I know you might be one of the rare bats who will indulge in a hug.” Dick only hesitated less than a millisecond and hugged Barry quickly. “Thank you for being there for Wally.”
Dick wasn’t choked up, he was fine. He smiled through the several emotions zipping through his head. “Thank you, Barry.”
“Welcome to the family, Dick.”
“Hi, my name is Lian, I’m human and brake a ball, but you can play with us.”
“And me I’m Chris and I’m an alien from a cold galaxy, but you can still play with me.”
Ashley stared down at the little girl, who was staring right back seriously, and at the boy next to her, who looked to be about seven-ish? They both shoved plastic dinosaurs at Ashley.
“We’re playing extinction event,” the boy — Chris — piped up.
“I’m the long neck dino, and Chris is the sit-gezo-rus. You’re an adult, you can be the meteor,” Lian ordered.
What the fuck?
They both took her hands while Ashley was still boggling.
“What’s your name?” Chris asked.
“Ashley?” She was led to a corner with a hell of a lot of toys. She was an engineering student, this looked like a job for… someone else.
“Okay, now Meteor Ashley, it’s time to wipe the dinosaurs off the face of the earth!”
And Chris shoved her onto the dinosaur-themed mat.
Kate poked all the bobbleheads on Bruce’s desk in the study. Bruce glowered, she grinned.
“I thought I would give you your present before Christmas,” he said, leaving the sentence hanging because the not-coming-for-Christmas had been officially declared a dead horse during their phone call.
“Thank you, Bruce.”
“No, don’t thank me yet.” He pulled an envelope from one of his desk drawers. “Here.”
Kate took the enveloppe, intrigued but not showing it, just like Bruce must be nervous, or tired, or something else, but wasn’t letting on anything because, well, yeah.
She opened it and only then looked at the contents.
“Dinner for two with Zatanna Zatara?” Her voice took an unusual trip into higher pitches by the end, because fuck that, oh my God?
“I know, I’m sorry, Clark had already nabbed a tête-à-tête dinner for Lois with Wonder Wom—”
“Are you shitting me, Bruce, this is awesome.” Kate shook the voucher in the air, and cackled.
Bruce’s mouth sketched the tiniest of satisfied smiles. “So I guess you like your present then?”
Kate scoffed, and tucked the letter and envelope in her trousers pocket.
“You exceeded all expectations, you stupid overachiever. Shit, I hope she eats me alive.”
Bruce frowned. “I don’t think that’s how dinners work, Kate.”
“Ugh, your sex life with Clark must be so boring,” she replied, and plopped her present for Bruce on his desk. “Open this on the 26th with Clark.
Bruce poked at the small package. “What is it?”
“Sorry, can’t explain, I’ve got a sugar baby to save from the clutches of your brood.”
“Kate, what is it?” Bruce called out.
“Ashley!” She called and waltzed out the study banging the door behind her.
“Hey.”
Ashley shushed Kate as she approached and they stood in the doorway to one of the smaller playrooms.
Inside, Lian and Chris were laying down bedsheets and cushions and putting several teddy bears as well as about a dozen of dinosaurs to sleep.
Kate remained unfazed by the cuteness: she knew what chaos and snot laid beyond the huge doe eyes of children. When she put her hand on Ashley’s waist, she winced a little but smiled.
“You hurt?” She tried to strike the delicate balance of worrying because of girlfriend reasons, worrying because of their play, and worrying because vigilantes saw mortal wounds at the barest paper cut.
Ashley leant a little to the side, and whispered in Kate’s ear. “I was sent on a collision course with a plastic stegosaurus.”
In the playroom, Lian and Chris were saying good night and I love you to each teddy bear and dinosaur. Chris hadn’t wanted to do so, until Lian had very seriously asked if he didn’t love dinosaurs, they’re dead, you can’t make them sad too.
“Has my vaccination plan backfired?” Kate asked worriedly. She seriously didn’t want to ditch Ashley and find a new girl. There was something about her and… yeah.
The two kids had finished putting the toys to bed now, and Lian hugged herself and declared “Good night myself. I love you.” Chris gaped at Lian. “I love you too.” Lian concluded to herself.
“What are you doing?”
“What? You don’t love yourself?”
Ashley murmured a very small, very hushed “oh my god” while Kate was trying not to laugh.
“It’s not night!” Chris complained, because he wasn’t four years old, but he wasn’t that much older either.
In the ensuing silence, Ashley whispered in Kate’s ear “they deadass wrestled me to the floor like John Cena. I’m vaccinated.”
Chris took a step closer to Lian. “How do you do that?” he mumbled. Kate was suddenly reminded that this little guy had gone through several aging and de-aging and had grown up in the cold dead world of the Phantom Zone.
She looked at Ashley’s face and her soft smile and kissed her cheek as Lian started teaching Chris how to hug himself properly.
“Ready to go back?”
Ashley hummed and nodded.
“Sure you are vaccinated against kids?”
“Oh yeah…” She turned to tuck herself under Kate’s arm and smiled up at her. “I think I’m more of a whine aunt than a den mother, anyway.”