Chapter Text
It was four am on a Friday morning, a week after Duke had decided he’d had enough of Bruce’s - and the other’s - incorrect opinion of him.
It was so early in the morning, that the main group of bats had been trickling back from patrol over the past hour or so. Stephanie and Cassandra had arrived first, followed by Jason ten minutes later. Then Tim had gotten back from his route with Harper, and Kate and Bette had stopped by for a bit (but eventually left for their own homes). Dick came home next, and Bruce had returned last with Damian.
Everyone was in varying states of winding down, with Stephanie at one end of the spectrum wearing silk pajamas, a fluffy robe which Duke was sixty-seven percent sure was Bruce’s, and bright pink bunny slippers Duke was positive were Dick’s. On the other side, Bruce hadn’t even pulled off his cowl, and was sitting down in front of the Batcomputer to work on a case.
Though Duke thought that Tim deserved his own category, dressed in a strange combination of disco track suit and kevlar body armor, and was hunched over three cans of energy drinks and a quart jug filled with espresso shots.
Duke leaned down to double check that his boots were laced up - one time he hadn’t, and had then proceeded to trip and fall into a garbage pile. Not. Fun.
He looked up, however, when Bruce clicked open a case file. So did everyone else, as if drawn by some invisible force.
They all clearly saw as Bruce hovered his mouse over a link which had been typed in sometime while the big bat had been away. The only hint to what it could be was the note reading “New Evidence.”
Bruce grunted in what for anyone else would be an exclamation of curiosity and went to click the link.
Which clearly went to YouTube.
In unison, all the bats’ eyes widened in realization. You see, in a family such as this one, pranks abounded. So they all had painstakingly memorized that series of letters and numbers.
They all knew what it meant.
Suddenly, the Batcave lit up with the dancing form of one Rick Astley. It was everywhere. On the several large monitors that made up the Batcomputer. The various screens spread across the caves. Everyone’s phones somehow were affected. As well as the X-Ray machine in the med bay, which was showing a skeleton dancing.
Bruce jumped up, rage full on his face. “Who did this? Make it stop!”
No one answered, all too frozen in shock at what had happened.
“Who…” Dick whispered from beside Jason, “Who would be that brave?”
“Yeah,” Jason whispered back, “Rick Rolls were banned at the 2015 family reunion after you played it two hundred and thirteen times in a row.”
Dick grinned, “those were good times.”
The two eldest boys began to bicker, Jason complaining that Rick Rolls were a part of the war crimes banned by the Geneva Convention, and Dick saying he “liked it: so there.”
Meanwhile, the song was reaching the chorus, and the other bats finally began to react. The three girls were dancing on top of exercise equipment, popping bottles of sparkling cider - or was that champagne? For their own sakes, they should hope it’s the former - they had pulled out of what seemed to be thin air.
Damian was in the corner, trying to get Titus to dance to the music - though he glanced around every so often to make sure that no one was noticing his moment of fun.
Tim was still nursing his collection of drinks like an alcoholic nursed a bottle.
Bruce was practically foaming at the mouth by that point.
“This is NOT FUNNY!”
That, of course, made everyone just start laughing harder. In the corner, Steph started to do the macarena completely off-tempo from the music. Cass seemed to be chugging the cider that Harper was pouring into her mouth.
Just then the holographic training simulations lit up, and Rick Astly began making his way across the cave, dancing all the way.
Bruce glared up at the semi transparent form of the singer, as if trying to force him into submission.
“T-pose to assert dominance!” Jason called, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Yeah, that’ll totally work, B! Trust us!” Dick called as well.
Bruce took a moment to turn his head and glare at the two former Robins, who only smiled like the angels they clearly thought they were.
The image was not aided by the two giant stuffed swordfish just pulled from Jason’s utility belt.
“En guarde!” He cried, and tossed the one in his left hand at Damian, who had been trying to reassure his dog that the giant man wasn’t real.
The thirteen year old screeched, but caught the four foot long fish by its fin.
“This is animal abuse!” He cried.
“It’s not abuse if it’s dead!” Jason countered, and attacked the youngest bat with a passion.
As the duel progressed, Cassandra tried to raise her hand and gurgle out a bet on who would win, but began to choke on the liquid.
Harper cursed as she tossed away the sixth bottle of cider and tried to give Cass the heimlich maneuver.
Dick, meanwhile, pressed a button on one of the many consoles spread around the cave, and several stripper poles came out of hidden storage via hydraulics. He grabbed the nearest one, and began to dance.
“I THOUGHT I DISABLED THOSE?!” Bruce bellowed, as Dick began a twirl.
Stephanie, however, didn’t seem nearly as dismayed at the sight of the poles. She herself smacked a button next to her, and several disco balls dropped down from among the stalactites to join the fun. She then began to morph her macarena into an epic macarena. A few flips here, and a few pantomiming choking your enemies there. And a whole lot of randomly throwing glitter bombs at, well, everywhere.
But especially at the nearest authority figure.
Damian tripped over a bucket during his fight - apparently left over from Alfred’s earlier cleaning spree - and the soapy liquid spilled across the floor.
But, of course, them being the bats, Alfred didn’t use normal soap.
Huge bubbles began to farm from the liquid, the longest almost three feet in diameter, and rise up to the cave’s ceiling. The suds spread around, eagerly began to mingle with Stephanie’s glitter.
A solitary bubble, relatively small, floated over to Bruce’s head, and popped on one of his cowl’s ears. He was not amused.
*****
Five minutes later, everyone was lined up next to the Batcomputer with heads bowed in either shame or disappointment.
Bruce walked up and down the row, the perfect imitation of a drill sergeant. His glare matched as well.
“This is an outrageous breach of protocol,” he was saying, “the Batcomputer is not a toy, nor something to use for your own amusement. It is a serious tool-”
“Then why’s it called the Batcomputer?”
Bruce froze and whirled on Dick, who had chosen that inopportune moment to speak up.
“Because you were nine years old and saying no to you would have gotten me a meltdown.”
“It seems to me, Bossman,” Stephanie began, tenting her fingers in an attempt to act serious (the effect was strange combined with her bathrobe and slippers) “That you are perfectly happy to let Dick get away with things. But in this situation, with women present, you are strangely cold. This shows blatant sexism on your part and in this essay I will-”
“That’s enough, Stephanie.” Bruce cut off as a round of snorts and giggle erupted from the group of bats.
“You do realise that no one here is going to speak, right?” Jason asked, “You did teach us to resist torture. And - pardon my french, Alfred - but you are no fucking way close to the level of torture I’ve gone through. Namely waking up to Batcow sitting on top of me.”
“Are you commenting on her weight?” Damian demanded, glaring daggers at Jason.
“I said no such thing.”
“ Boys .” Bruce demanded, rubbing his temples. “Jason is right - not about Batcow’s weight - but I’m not going to get any of you to talk willingly.” He paused and made eye contact with every single bat present, trying to reach into their souls.
“Therefore,” he continued slowly, “I’m giving you one last chance. Otherwise: No one gets cookies from Alfred for two months. ”
The shock was immediate. Alfred’s cookies, of all kinds, were worth more than gold in the Manor. The ability to not have them? And for two months? Bruce truly was a cruel hearted tyrant if he was willing to go to such lengths.
Duke gulped.
“Fine, then.” Bruce said simply when no one answered. “I guess we’ll just have to check the security footage of the Cave.”
Why didn’t Bruce think of that earlier? He clearly wasn’t trying to give the kids an easy way out.
Bruce stalked over to the computer and began to furiously type at the keys, pulling up the footage for the past few days. The group watched in a tense silence as Bruce rifled through the multiple recordings, searching for the culprit.
“AHA!” Bruce grunted, upon finding a specific time stamp. There was a figure emerging from the shadows. He paused and then slowed down the video so they could all see who it was.
There were several gasps as the figure came into the light, looked around, and made his way to the computer. They had shown their face, not even bothering to hide.
Everyone whirled to Duke, then back to the screen.
“No way,” Harper whispered under her breath.
Because the person on the footage, who was now adding the link to the case file and hooking up bluetooth speakers, was Duke Thomas himself.
Bruce’s eye twitched.
There was a general consensus among the resident vigilantes in the cave at that time: Duke wasn’t going to live to tell the tale.
Duke felt uneasy under their scrutiny, unsure of what to do. This was his plan, after all. To be seen differently. But so far the lack of accusations or uproarious debate was disconcerting.
He looked up at Bruce, awaiting his reaction. Bruce didn’t meet Duke’s eyes.
“Hrn,” he grumbled angrily instead and whirled on Tim. Said teenager was barely standing up straight - well, he was leaning on Steph heavily - and blinked wearily around the cave. He didn’t seem to understand what was going on.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed for a long moment before he whipped around and furiously began to mess with the playback settings on the footage. Everyone stood still, not daring to move while Bruce grumbled under his breath.
Finally Bruce straightened and pointed dramatically toward the screen.
“There,” he grunted out, and everyone subconsciously leaned a little bit forward.
They didn’t see anything different from before, though Bruce’s finger did bring their attention to one of the bats that flew across the upper left hand corner. A few seconds of footage later, and yet another bat flew across in a similar pattern. Not exactly the same, so it wasn’t really out of the ordinary. Lord knows the bats would randomly fly out and into their hair much more than necessary.
“Note how the figure is disturbed when each bat flies across the screen,” Bruce said in the same voice he used when talking about a case - cold, impersonal, and yet like he was giving a college lecture.
No one spoke, not really sure what to say. I mean, what was the correct course of action when your father figure suddenly refuses to accept reality, and is grasping at the most unlikely of straws?
“I know this technique anywhere,” Bruce said more to himself than the line of vigilantes. He turned, completely passing over Duke, and set his sights on Tim.
“Timothy Jackson Drake,” Bruce growled, stalking forward, “What possessed you to doctor this footage?”
Tim didn’t respond, only mumbled incoherently and leaned onto Steph some more.
Bruce was furious, bearing his teeth as he spat out his response: “Now is not the time to use the anti-torture training I’ve given you.”
Tim nodded slowly and draped his arm on top of Stephanie’s head.
“You should know better than this,” Bruce began, “pranks are strictly forbidden in the cave, as you very well know. And in addition, I taught you better at framing than this. You choose a victim that could actually be considered as a suspect. Trying to pin the blame on Duke was your undoing - he would never do something like this.”
Duke cringed slightly, as the rest of the bats glanced Duke’s way. All were a mix of confusion and awe.
This … was not how this was supposed to go. No, screw that. That was an outrageous understatement. Things ‘not going according to plan’ would have been Jason randomly blaming Harper for the mess on no grounds - or maybe Bruce not bothering to check the cameras, opting instead to just ground everyone.
But blatantly ignoring evidence and then lecturing someone completely unrelated? No, this was too much. It couldn’t be real. This was some kind of scare-tactic wasn’t it? Duke was too much of an adrenaline junkie to be bothered by the usual ‘hanging upside down over a busy road’ schtick.
But then Bruce moves on to possible culprits Tim could have chosen instead - did he seriously think that Ra’s Al Ghul would Rick Roll them?! - and Duke lost hope.
“Uhh, Bruce?” Duke asked after the ten minute mark.
The Dark Knight turned and faced Duke.
Duke scratched the back of his neck. “Do you think I could head out for patrol now? It’s getting light out, and since you’ve clearly got this covered… I thought I could scoot out?”
Bruce was nodding before the end of Duke’s request. “Yes, go. I’ll deal with Tim. You don’t need to worry - you won’t be blamed. It clearly wasn’t your fault.”
Duke nodded slowly, and covered his disappointment with a small smirk. “Thanks, B.”
He jogged over to the edge of the platform and dropped down beside his Signal-Cycle. A routine mounting, a quick putting on of his helmet, and he was off.
Duke was scowling as he left, wondering what on earth had gone wrong.
*****
“Did you see that smirk?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Did he blame Tim on purpose?”
“How, though? To make such a tactical move -”
“It would have taken a shit ton of planning.”
“Can we get back on the fact that Bruce was fooled?”
“Or who fooled him?!”