A World With Happily Ever Afters, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Part 2 (rough draft)

Breakfast was a chaotic affair. As soon as she could, Selina dumped the baby back on Bruce so she could get some food for herself. Bruce had to hold the baby in his lap because Alfred hadn't yet had time to see if any of the decades-old high chairs buried in the depths of the manor were still safe to use. Between keeping Terry in place with one hand and spooning bites of food paste into him with the other, Bruce wasn't easily able to feed himself.

It was Jason who noticed, and took it upon himself to push bites of food into his father's mouth.

"Jason," Bruce protested, "it's the baby we're spoon-feeding here, not me."

"But you're hungry, too!" Which was true, but beside the point.

Damian had finished his cereal. He went over to Alfred and started tugging on the man's pants leg. "Alfred, come eat with us!"

"You know that's not my place, Master Damian," Alfred said affectionately. "Besides, I'm still making-"

"Pleeeeeeaaaaase?"

"..."

After a moment, Cassandra came up and gently pushed Alfred toward the table, taking the spatula out of his hand and turning toward the stove so she could finish cooking.

"Why are we eating in here, anyway?" Dick asked in confusion. "And where's everyone else? Alfred's the only one I've seen all morning."

"Who were you expecting?" Bruce asked carefully.

"Gianna, for one. Is she taking a holiday or something?"

"...Yes," Bruce tried.

"Huh."

Bruce picked up a few things during breakfast, such as that all the children addressed Selina as their mother, attended Gotham Academy, and were used to being looked after by more than just one servant.

Also, 'Grandpa and Grandma' were on vacation, and were supposed to return tomorrow night. Bruce swallowed hard and filed that bit of information away to think about obsessively in private.

When more or less everyone had finished eating, Selina stood up and stretched. "Well, it's been fun, Bruce, but I'm going to head back to real life now. I'm taking one of your convertibles."

"Where are you going, Mommy?" Duke asked anxiously, and Selina paused guiltily.

"Yeah, you can't leave yet!" Dick exclaimed. "None of us are ready for school!"

"You're all staying home from school today," Bruce said, and was surprised by how many of his children were horrified by the prospect.

"But we're doing Reader's Theater today!" Jason cried, as Dick and Cassandra exclaimed variations of "But what about my friends?!" and Damian screeched that he couldn't ruin his perfect attendance record, he wanted another certificate to match the one he'd earned last quarter. Only Tim looked delighted at the idea of skipping.

Bruce was exasperated. He couldn't send the kids to school even if he wanted to because they had no current enrollment records. And he didn't want to, because tests and interrogations. "Don't you want to play downstairs in the cave?"

"What cave?"

"The...The Batcave." Did they seriously not know what he meant?

"YOU'RE MAKING US GO IN THE CAVES?!"

About half of them looked horrified; the others were yelling, "AWESOME!" Selina managed to slip away while the children were distracted.

Bruce led the way downstairs, carrying Terry as the rest of the kids shrieked continuously in excitement. "The WALL OPENED!"

"I didn't know there was anything cool back here!"

"Aaaahhh, it's dark!"

"It's okay, just stick close to me," Dick said, pulling his little brother against his side.

"It's like a spy movie! DADDY ARE YOU A SECRET SPY?"

"WHAT WAS THAT?!"

"A BAT! A BAT! A BAT JUST FLEW OVER MY HEAD!"

Six of the seven were recognizably Bruce's kids, and he was used to loud arguments, but he'd never had to deal with such extended, high-pitched screaminess before. He actually sort of missed Damian's death threats and the others' snark. "Children, quiet down...you're giving me a headache..."

"EVERYONE BE QUIET, YOU'RE MAKING DAD'S HEAD HURT!"

"Thanks, Jason," Bruce sighed, rubbing at his ear.

They couldn't get straight down to business, because of course the children had to look at everything first, especially the dinosaur. Alfred gave them a tour as Bruce started a round of tests on Terry as gently as he could. Then he had to entertain the kids with his best idea of a game while Alfred went to fetch a playpen to safely contain the baby, and then he tried to put on a movie to keep the kids occupied so he could work on them one at a time.

Of course they couldn't decide on a movie everyone would tolerate. "I want Madagascar!"

"Noooo, I hate that movie!"

"Wreck-It Ralph, Wreck-It Ralph!"

"We've seen it a million times already!"

"I want Robin Hood!"

"WRECK-IT RALPH! WRECK-IT RALPH!"

'Dear God, no wonder I always adopt teenagers,' Bruce thought. He was starting to think that people who started with children from the beginning were crazy. "If you can't decide, then I'm going to pick the movie."

"OH NO HE'S GOING TO MAKE US WATCH SOMETHING IN BLACK AND WHITE!"

"Oooohh, I hope it's Duck Soup. Can we watch Duck Soup, Dad?"

"I want It's a Wonderful Life!"

"That's a Christmas movie, dummy! It's not Christmas!"

Bruce rubbed at his face and reminded himself that he was not allowed to consume alcohol in front of young children.

When the kids were finally settled with a majority-vote movie and coloring pages or handheld video games for those who refused to watch it, Bruce was at last able to start drawing blood and asking questions. The younger versions of his children seemed to be much more squeamish about needles than their older counterparts were, but he bribed them with candy and distracted them with terrible jokes he remembered from Dick's early days (some of the puns earned laughs, particularly from Dick himself; Tim and Damian were emphatically unimpressed).

"Why are you giving us shots, Daddy?" Damian asked. "Are we playing Doctor?"

"He's not giving us shots, he's taking our blood," Tim said, watching over Bruce's shoulder. "He's gonna make clones of us to trick his superspy enemies!"

"I'm not a spy, Tim," Bruce sighed.

"He's stockpiling it to drink later because he's secretly a vampire!" Dick called, overhearing.

He was clearly joking, but Jason leaped to his feet and shouted, "I knew it! That's why you live in a cave!"

"I have a Batcave because I need a safe place for my crimefighting headquarters. Now all of you be quiet for half an hour until I figure out-!"

Duke started to cry, and Dick rushed to comfort him. "It's okay, Duke, it's okay, Dad's not mad at you! He's just being a jerk because his secret spy base isn't a secret anymore." Dick glared at his father over Duke's head.

'How was I being a jerk?!' Bruce put down his work in a safe place and spent the next several minutes convincing his foster son that he wasn't angry. Then the baby started crying, and Alfred made Bruce help change his diaper. Then it was discovered that Tim and Damian were missing, and since Bruce hadn't gotten around to putting trackers on these versions of his children yet, it took half an hour before the boys were finally located upstairs. They had gotten bored and wandered off, but were now throwing fits because all their toys were missing from their rooms. Bruce was not a religious man, but found himself muttering, "Give me strength."

"Bet you're wishing you'd packed us off to school, huh," Jason said.

o.o.o.o.o

Maybe it hadn't been the best idea to gather everyone for breakfast after all.

"I'm a vegetarian," Damian announced when Gianna tried to set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him.

She stared blankly.

"Oh? Why is that?" Bruce asked curiously, wondering if his own Dami would someday develop an aversion to meat.

"The meat processing industry is barbaric, and I could never look Batcow in the eye if I continued to feed on her bovine sisters or more distant cousins."

Now Bruce was staring, along with all the nosy servants eavesdropping in the doorways.

"Batcow is Damian's pet cow," Dick explained.

"Except Damian's barely ever home to take care of her, so she's really just extra work for Alfred," Tim put in.

Damian slammed the butt of his fork on the tablecloth with wholly unwarranted violence. "Watch your tone with me, Drake!"

"Or what?" Tim said coolly. "You'll eviscerate me or cut out my tongue or whatever your empty threat of the week is?"

"I'LL SHOW YOU EMPTY THREATS-"

Damian had started to launch himself at his brother, but Dick caught him with a wearily practiced movement. "No fighting at the table."

"No, go on, this is the first time I get to see a Replacement vs. Demon Spawn fight in person," Jason said, leaning back in his chair with his arms comfortably crossed.

Cassandra and Duke were eating as if all of this was totally normal.

"Stop," Bruce finally managed to say. They all looked at him, and seemed confused by his stricken expression. "Why are you all so mean to each other?"

There was an awkward pause. "I think they're really just going through the motions at this point?" Dick offered diffidently.

"He means why the death threats and sparring matches, instead of fart insults and noogies like normal brothers," Duke said, and took a sip of juice.

"That would be the 'raised by immortal ninja assassins and mentally ill bat fanatic' thing," Jason said matter-of-factly.

"Raised by what?! What?!"

Cassandra pointed her fork at her brothers. "Be good."

"Yeah, we're scaring Bruce," Jason snorted.

"What do you mean 'raised by'?!"

"Don't tell him!" Damian exclaimed, looking mortified.

Gianna, eavesdropping at the stove, gasped and yanked a pan off the heat when she realized that whatever was inside was burning.

"Who raised Dami in this world?" Dick asked interestedly.

"Selina and I did, obviously! We're his parents- We're your parents, all of you."

He'd definitely caught their interest, though only a few of them looked pleased about it.

"We're your bio kids in this world?"

"Of course! We adopted Cassie and Duke, but the rest of you... In your world, are you...not?" He looked so lost.

"Damian's yours, but you didn't know he existed until he was ten," Dick said quietly. "The rest of us are adopted. Duke's being fostered here while his parents are in the hospital."

Bruce wanted to hug them all, but Selina strode in at that moment, followed by a pair of police officers. "...and according to them, my baby's in an alternate dimension."

"Universe," Tim corrected mildly.

The officers looked at the alternate Wayne children, who looked back. "You got a license for that, son?" one of them finally said, nodding mildly at the gun tucked at Jason's side.

"Yes," he said. He sounded perfectly natural, but even Bruce could somehow still tell he was lying.

"Speaking of which," Dick said, "you slept with it close enough for it to get transported here with you?"

"Why are you surprised, Dickie?" Jason scoffed. "Why aren't you getting on Tim's case for falling asleep with his tablet?"

Everyone looked at Tim, who did indeed have his personal tablet lying on the table beside him. At the sudden scrutiny, he laid his hand over it protectively.

"Your father did a terrible job raising you all," Bruce grumbled. It wasn't a joke, so he didn't quite appreciate the chorus of laughter he got in response.

The police officers, after some questioning, seemed surprisingly willing to believe the kids' claims, and concluded that this was a matter for the Justice League. "Who are the League members in this world?" Dick asked curiously as the call was made.

"Well, there's Kal-El, Lex Luthor-" Bruce paused at the collective groan. "What?"

"Luthor's a villain in our world."

"Might be in this one, too."

"Whatever; go on, Bruce."

"Uh...Luthor, Olivia Queen-"

"Olivia?"

"Think she still sports the handlebar mustache here?"

Tim, looking a little troubled, interrupted his siblings' snickers to say, "I haven't heard any code names so far, unless 'Kal-El' and 'Queen' and such are the pseudonyms."

"Why would the Justice League need pseudonyms?" Bruce asked in surprise.

The looks they were all giving him now were even more surprised. "Uh, so their enemies don't hunt down their loved ones to hold hostage or murder?"

"What?! Who would do that?! That's terrible, why would you even think that? And don't say such things in front of children," Bruce added, gesturing to Damian. "Dami, don't listen to them. Only really depraved people would ever do anything like that, and we've gotten much better in the past few decades at identifying those people and getting them hospitalized before it can get to that point."

"Yes, Father," the boy said in a small voice. Bruce, his heart aching for him, moved to sit beside him so he could put a comforting arm around the child's shoulders.

"What the hell," Jason said incredulously. "Is this-"

"Jason! Watch your language!" Selina scolded in genuine outrage.

"What the HECK, is this a flipping world of happily ever afters or something?"

"Then what's the Justice League for?" Duke asked.

"Natural disaster relief, mostly," one of the policemen spoke up.

"They also protect us from extraterrestrial or extradimensional threats, and deal with problems like this in between," Bruce said, gesturing at the alternate versions of his children.

The doorbell rang, and a few minutes later, the Dynamic Duo were escorted into the main living room, where the family was gathering as well. "Hi, kids!" Janie Lee said enthusiastically, waving. "Wow, you're all bigger than I expected!"

"Nice to meet you all," her twin brother said amiably. "We can do autographs and photos later; for now, let's see if we can sort out the problem, eh?"

The Bats gazed back at him, markedly unimpressed.

"This is the Dynamic Duo of this world?" Damian sneered. "A couple of incompetent teenage metas?"

"We're not incompetent," Janie Lee said, looking hurt.

"We'll see, once you get all seven of my kids back," Selina snapped.

Dick spoke up in his peacekeeping tone. "You guys are metas, though, right? What are your powers?"

"Dimension warping!" Marty Ben said proudly. "We can teleport, play with time in small areas, look into other universes, and even sometimes travel to one!"

"It's pretty tiring, though," his sister said cheerfully. "Why, just the other day, we were looking up all sorts of Dynamic Duos in other worlds, testing different-"

"I'm half of my world's original Dynamic Duo," Dick interrupted grimly. "Me and my adoptive father, Bruce Wayne. And now, shortly after you say you were experimenting, two Wayne families have displaced members."

The smiles began to fade from Janie Lee's and Marty Ben's faces, which then turned pale.

"You two effed up," Jason confirmed.

"Oh," Janie Lee whispered.

To be continued...

A/N: I made some mistakes in chapter 1. Might be a long time before I can fix them. Also, I'm making up most of this as I go, so there's still a possibility I'll write myself into a corner and get stuck. D: And Selina is not having the role in this fic I thought she would (canon-Selina just wants to get out of there, and alternate-Selina hasn't calmed down or warmed up to the Bat kids yet), so apologies if Selina fans are disappointed with how she turns out. I don't know what I'm doing, blargh...

Janie Lee & Marty Ben are my own characters, ftr. (Throwaway ones, but still.)

For those of you following my other fics, I had a really terrible week or two and still haven't made any progress on my TBWS notes. The prequel is more depressing to write than I expected, so it's not really doing its job of scratching the writing itch; this fic wasn't for a while, either, since I had such a hard time with it (had to start chapter 2 from scratch a few times before I finally stopped hitting dead ends). So I started writing a very future TBWS scene out of order, and that is doing its job of making me feel better when I'm stressed, because I love to write abuse recovery and children. Won't be able to post it for a long time, though.