For most of his life, he never thought he'd be able to have a good night's sleep, though that was mostly because sleep rarely ever came. Sometimes it was because his duties—both on and off the streets—kept him up so late that he didn't have time for it before the next job, other times it was because he knew the memories of that night in the alleyway had a chance of coming back at night, so he did what he could to ride things out into the day. Things were different now. Now, he had very little that kept him away from his bed, he even had a good reason to get into it, and he could fall asleep and never have to wonder if he'd wake up after a night of pleasant dreams.

Nowadays, it was getting out of bed that usually gave him trouble, as it was today. Sometimes it was just because he was too comfortable, but most of the time, as was the case that day, it was because his joints simply made it a chore. His arms and legs felt like they were wrapped in cement, a feeling he knew all too well from personal experience, and his neck felt like it would shatter the second he tried to move it; his back felt surprisingly fine, but it didn't do much to help him.

What did help him was a single hand against his arm. Gentle, warm, loving, it was more than enough to erase all of the tension in his bones. Decades had passed since the first time he felt it, but it still always felt as refreshing as it did the first time.

"You sleep well?" asked the woman with the magic touch.

"You made it easy enough," he said as he picked up his cane from against the dresser. As he got up and started rounding the bed, she leaned forward and brought him in for a kiss; as opposed to the hand, that always seemed to get better with every time it happened. "You're not exactly making a good case for why I should get out of bed."

"Do you plan on fighting me on it?" She gave him the face she always did, a face that had aged far more gracefully than his own, though he supposed that was a benefit of functional immortality. Either way, even if her face had twice the wrinkles that were already there, even if her hair wasn't as white as his own, she was the kind of woman you'd have to be stupid to say no to, and not just because she could break you apart with one fingernail.

So Bruce Wayne put down his cane and went back to bed with Diana Wayne née Prince, and the two indulged in the sort of things that people married for about a century often did. It was nice, to say the least.

After Bruce finally managed to tear himself away from Diana—a rather challenging feat—and freshen up for the morning, the only thing left to do was head to the kitchen for breakfast. Back in the old days, all he had to do was wait for Alfred to whip something up, but now he handled it all, himself, partly because he didn't need a butler anymore, partly because there was no way he could ask Julia or any of her kids to do it. More importantly, it was healthy to find little ways to stay active at his age, no matter how prolonged it had been made by outside means. As such, Bruce was ready to take his time with pouring himself a bowl of Batman Bites for breakfast; he didn't approve of their existence, but they were low in cholesterol and actually tasted good.

"Morning, Mr. Wayne!" To his surprise, someone was already in the kitchen, standing against the wall while eating his Batman Bites. It was a young girl he had gotten more than acquainted with over the years dressed in a Batgirl pajama top that just barely covered her waist. Her blonde hair looked tangled and messy, and she ate a spoonful of cereal without a care in the world, as shown by the smile etched across her purple—eggplant, he reminded himself—face.

"Did you study for your math test?" was all Bruce said as he went for the bowls.

"What, no good morning? There's still plenty of cereal, so no need to get mad about that."

"I'm not mad about anything. I'm mostly annoyed that this is how I found out about you spending the night. Your state of dress certainly doesn't help."

"What do you mean? I totally—Wait, what?" She looked over herself and quickly flushed with embarrassment. Most people wouldn't be able to walk around in their underwear and be completely oblivious to it, but most people weren't Stephanie Brown.

"I'll be right back."

"I'm sure you will." Stephanie put her bowl down on the counter and ran out of the kitchen. Bruce heard her quickly say "Hi, babe, bye, babe!", so he had a good idea of who was entering the kitchen now.

"Morning, Dad." Sure enough, it was his daughter, already dressed for school and looking at him attentively with her three eyes; wooden stakes were sticking out of her bag, but he was sure there was a good reason for it.

"Morning, Cassandra. Did you study for your theater test?" Cassandra nodded her head as she opened up the fridge and pulled out a breakfast burrito of some sort. While she managed to get it in the microwave before he could object, he still gave her a look that told her she needed to eat something healthy, so when the microwave finished, she grabbed a granola bar in addition to the burrito.

"What's with the stakes?" Bruce asked.

"Maps thinks there's a vampire in the school," Cassandra said.

"Did you talk to Barbara about it?"

"She said that if there is one, it's nothing we can't handle."

"I don't doubt that. Still, make sure Olive's ready to back you and Stephanie up in case you two need to change." Cassandra nodded her head as the two of them, their respective breakfasts in hand, left the kitchen, and sat down at the overly long dining table.

I really should get rid of this, Bruce thought. It's too impractical; it's nothing but a relic of the days where I had to put "playboy" between "genius, billionaire" and "philanthropist". The only time the entirety of this massive thing is ever used is when the entire family is over, and that only happens on…

"Wait, what day is it?" Bruce asked.

"Spaghetti Day in the cafeteria," Cassandra said as she bit into her breakfast burrito.

"That is not useful." Cassandra just shrugged her shoulders.

"Hi, Mom." A second later, Diana entered the dining room from the kitchen dressed in non-prescription glasses and a gray pantsuit that matched her hair. It looked like that would be her first costume for the day.

"Morning, sweeties," Diana said, kissing them both on their respective heads before sitting down next to Bruce with a bowl of Wonder O's.

"Big day in DC?" Bruce asked.

"Nothing too fancy. Just going over some propositions for increased leniency towards vigilantism that probably won't get passed. After that, I have to check over the summer catalog for D.W.—I think this is going to be a good summer for orange—and between all of that, I need to track down Doctor Psycho before he can unleash his newest hypno ray on the capital. Oh, but Heracles and Conan are helping me with that, so with any luck, I won't even have to get involved."

"So you're a little less busy than usual. Good. You're even older than I am, so there's no need to stress yourself too much."

"Especially when it keeps me away from you, right?" Bruce didn't comment on that. "Cass, tell your father to stop being grouchy."

"Be nice to Mom," Cassandra said.

"I'm not being mean to her, you know," Bruce said.

"But still—Fine, I'll let you win this one," Diana said. Odd. She never let him win with such little fight unless it was a special occasion.

"I have way more class than a Tasmanian devil! I do!"

"That's exactly what someone with little class would say, you know." Bruce wanted to think about it more, but his attention was required elsewhere. Stephanie had returned from Cassandra's room fully dressed for school, and as she often did, she was arguing with the only other person who lived in the mansion: a small child with a bob of purple hair and feathery wings sticking out of the back of her middle school variant of the Gotham Academy uniform.

"Oh, I didn't know Steph spent the night," Diana said. "Well, at least she gave Donna someone to talk to."

"I would have preferred anyone else, Mama," Donna said. Stephanie stuck her tongue out as she went back to eating her Batman Bites.

"Since we're on the subject of Stephanie, I might as well repeat myself for the hundredth time," Bruce said. "Diana and I are perfectly fine with you spending the night whenever you want, even with your relationship with Cassandra having grown physically intimate over the past couple of years." Donna made a gagging sound that was silenced by Cassandra pulling on her ear. "We're fine with it, but you need to inform us beforehand so I don't have to question why I'm waking up to you in your underwear."

"Like I was trying to tell you, I did give you a heads-up!" Stephanie said. "Cass and I just got done helping Damian stop Shriek and Penguin IX from stealing a shipment of bird statues made of pure Fifth Metal, and I knew you were still in the Batcave helping Mr. McGinnis take down Maxie Zeus VII's weather machine, so rather than bother you, I just left a note on the fridge because I know you always like to get some yogurt before you go to bed!" He did like his pre-bed yogurt.

"There was no note."

"I call shenanigans on that!" Stephanie ran into the kitchen; two seconds later, she returned holding a dirty piece of paper with a message in her handwriting printed on it. "Okay, I definitely wrote this, but it would seem that what I thought was a magnet was just a button that broke off of Penguin's skirt, so it just fell under the fridge. Sorry."

"Like he said, it's fine," Diana said.

"Still, you must feel pretty stupid, right? I bet you do," Donna said.

"Shut up, you vertically-challenged witch!" Stephanie said.

"I only have the memories of a witch, you know!"

"Also, Mom says she's average height for her age," Cassandra said. Donna stretched out as far as she could to pat her on the head.

"That's a good little sister." Donna was about four years younger than Cassandra, but since Bruce and Diana adopted her two years before they adopted Cassandra, she liked to jokingly call her little sister. Then again, it wasn't completely inaccurate, considering her circumstances.

"Don't be mean to Steph, though."

"Fine, I'll stop." Stephanie stuck her tongue out and went back to her cereal, only to stop short when her spoon suddenly turned into a piglet that, in a panic, made her fall out of her chair. "Starting now."

"That's not funny, anymore!" Stephanie said.

"I beg to differ." Cassandra then proceeded to pull on Donna's ear a bit.

"Donna, turn it back, right now," Bruce said. Donna sighed, snapped her fingers, and the piglet turned back into a spoon.

"I can't even eat this now, not with all the pig germs swimming around in it." Stephanie pushed her bowl off to the side. "Now I have to go to school without a full breakfast. Just another disappointment for the suffering sappho."

"Come on, Steph," Diana said.

"What?" Diana said nothing. "What?! That hasn't been your catchphrase for decades; it's definitely fallen into fair use at this point. You can't just hold copyright on something for all eternity, you know. You and Mr. Wayne don't own Disney yet! They still have time to back out before the sale is finalized!"

"Hera, give me strength."

"We need to get going," Cassandra said. In response to that, Stephanie grabbed the rest of Cassandra's breakfast burrito and swallowed it whole.

"Don't forget to drop off the rent check with Mr. Borgman after school," Bruce told Stephanie.

"I won't," Stephanie said.

"Make sure the vampire's evil before you stake him," Diana told Cassandra. She gave him a thumbs up while closing her third eye.

"And now for the most important part of the morning." Stephanie and Cassandra played a quick game of rock-paper-scissors that Stephanie won. "Yes! My turn for music! To the rooftops!" Stephanie and Cassandra then proceeded to jump out the window and head to school, Stephanie humming to the tune of Rainbow's "Catch the Rainbow" the entire time.

"Well, the bus will be here for me in about ten minutes, so I should get going, too. Obnoxiously long driveway, you know," Donna said, trying to stealthily exit the dining room and failing when Bruce whipped his cane in front of her.

"Donna," Bruce said.

"Yes, Papa?"

"What did we say about using your Quirk on other people's things?"

"Not to do it without their permission," she said with a drawn-out sigh.

"And why do you need their permission?" Diana asked.

"Because doing it without their permission could be seen as morally reprehensible," she said with a further drawn-out sigh. "Why do I need permission to mess with her, though? I shouldn't have to ask for that, not when that idiot is sleeping with my sister."

"Uh-huh," was all Bruce said in the middle of her ranting.

"I didn't reincarnate just to have to tiptoe around someone like her, you know. I used to be Circe, you know. I deserve more respect from people like her, and I also deserve it from people like you."

"Of course you do," Diana said.

"Yeah, you bet I do. You think I'm just gonna let this slide? No way in hell I'm gonna let this slide. I'm too good for that. Hell, you two wouldn't even be able to be a Mama and a Papa if I didn't turn you into a pig, that one time." Diana walked over to Donna and kissed her cheek.

"Go on to school now. Love you."

"Hah! You call that love? That's a pretty piss poor attempt at love, you know. I'll show you love. Yeah, when I get home, I'll show you both so much love you won't know what to do with it, just you wait." Donna kept going on and on in that manner as she left the dining room.

"She's so precious. Hard to believe she was trying to kill us about a century ago."

"And now she's our daughter. Go figure," Bruce said. "Weren't we supposed to be done with kids?"

"Were we?"

"Yes. After you gave birth to Maria, you called me over, pulled me down so close to your face that our noses were touching, told me that you were done having kids, and literally twisted my arm into getting a vasectomy the next day." Bruce shivered as he remembered too much of that. If anyone asked him who ever inflicted the most harm to him, physical or mental, he might say it was Joker or Bane or Simon Hurt or Shredder, but in reality, it was Dr. Schwartzweiss.

"Oh, now it's coming back to me. Morphine sure is something, right?"

"Right. Back to the main point, you're the one who didn't want anymore children, yet here we are, having raised four of them over the last twenty years."

"It's only been three, Bruce."

"Four if you count Terry."

"Oh, good point. Not like the red hair would stop him from being family." Diana looked down at her watch for a brief second. "I gotta fly, but I'll be back by six to take you out for dinner at seven."

"Don't we still have some roast beef in the fridge?"

"Not good enough for tonight."

"And why's that?"

"Sorry, but I don't think I need a reason to treat my darling husband to something nice." With that, he now understood what was going on and what day it was. Fair enough, he supposed.

"Six on the dot. I'm gonna hold you to it."

"I won't be late; I'm not a Flash, you know." Diana kissed him on his cheek, said goodbye one more time, and left Bruce alone in the dining room. It was hardly the first time Bruce was eating a meal by himself, but there was no longer a sense of loneliness to it. Now he ate alone by bad luck rather than choice; now he knew he could expect someone to join him at some point rather than be forced to accept that it would always be only him. Such was a blessing afforded to him by how his life had progressed in recent years.

"Well, I did that." Conversely, a curse it brought about was the boredom that entered his system when he was done with his meals. His days of putting on a costume were long gone, and with Barbara taking back the mantle of Oracle when she had the time, he wasn't needed in the Batcave that much anymore.

Six was a long way off, so he figured he'd might as well go about town.

In a lot of ways, Gotham City was the same degenerate cesspool he was born into over a century ago, but in a lot of ways, it was also different. For starters, the streets had been litter-free for over a decade now, a sign that one of Max Gibson's many mayoral measures for cleaning up Gotham was working wonderfully. There were also fewer police blimps constantly patrolling the skies, as well; granted, there were plenty of Heroes in Gotham to stamp out crime, but the number of times they had to do that got smaller every year. Gotham still had one of the highest crime rates in the country because of course it did, but it paled in comparison to what it once was to the point that an old man like him could take a walk downtown and not have to worry about getting mugged.

Such was the case today. There was no reason for Bruce to just spend the whole day inside, so he had his chauffeur take him downtown so he could stretch his legs a bit. Gotham always exuded such a different feeling when you weren't sitting in front of a monitor or perched on a rooftop; a more personal one, for lack of a better term. It was nice being amongst the people, to not keep himself so far removed from the ones he wanted to protect.

"'I, Bane, truly am the Bat's greatest foe!'" Bruce's stroll eventually brought him to Dini Park, and while sitting on a bench, he caught sight of some kids playing with Batman and Batman-associated action figures; there was no reason for him not to stay and watch how things would go. "'Thanks to my perfect understanding of Batman's psychology, I have been able to utilize both his friends and foes to enact my tried and true plan of breaking him both physically and mentally. Just now, I have completed phase one of the plan: ruining his wedding to Wonder Woman! Now it's time to continue forward with one perfectly logical plan after another until he is completely broken and Gotham is mine! Mwahahahaha!'"

"Boom! That's the wall to Bane's secret lair going down," a kid holding a Batman and a Wonder Woman action figure said to his friend holding the Bane action figure. "'It's me, Batman!' 'And me, Wonder Woman! Guess what, Bane? We didn't break up!'"

"'What? Impossible!'" the first kid said in a crude imitation of Bane's voice. "'My plan was foolproof with layers upon layers of sheer brilliance and ingenuity! How could you have seen through it?!'" The second kid picked up a Gotham Girl action figure. "'You?!'"

"'Yes, it's me, Gotham Girl. You thought that I was working for you while pretending to work for Batman, but the whole time, I was working for Batman while pretending to work for you while pretending to work for Batman, and I told them what you were up to so they could stop you. Triple agent, baby!'"

"'It's over, Bane. Your convoluted melodrama ends now,'" came a decent imitation of his own voice.

""It is you who ends now, Batman! I am darkness! I am Bane! I am the greatest challenge you could ever hope to face!' Okay, and then they all start fighting and it's epic. Bane pumps himself full of venom, and he's also got Joker and Riddler and Scarface and Hush and a bunch of other guys on his side."

"Yeah, but Batman's Batman. He's got the fourth Robin with him—he got to be the new Batman, so you know he's awesome—plus there's Red Hood, Red Robin, Agent 37, Signal, Gotham Girl, and Oracle's helping them all from her secret lair. Plus, Wonder Woman is super pissed, so she's all like, 'WHAM! POW! BOP!'" The two kids then started smashing their action figures against each other, all of them the correct ones for the time period, save for the Joker—he was using Joker Prime instead of Joker Pagliacci.

"Bane tries to stop her, but Batman punches him in the face like, 'BOOM! ZOWIE!' Then Riddler hits Robin with his cane like, 'QUIZZICAL!', but then Red Robin hits him with a Birdarang and Agent 37 hits him with a suplex all like, 'WUMBO! BINGO BONGO!'"

"What's next? Right, Joker. He pulls out one of those big, cartoony bombs and goes, 'I'm not saying this party blows, but—', but then Red Hood shoots it out of his hands before he can light it, and he doesn't make a joke because he doesn't make jokes with the Joker, he just punches him in the face. Hush is shooting people, too, so Signal blinds him like, 'SCHWING!', and then Gotham Girl knocks him flat on his butt like, 'BLAMMO BAMMO!', and then Signal smashed Scarface like, 'BAZINGA!'"

"So it's just Bane left, and he's super full of venom, but Batman's too good for him. He's been ready for this for forever, and he hits him with a can of Venom Neutralizing Bat Spray and all the venom goes out of his system. Bane keeps going on about how he's the greatest Villain Gotham will ever know, but Batman and Wonder Woman don't care, and they just start wailing on him like, 'ZAM! YAM! BAZONGLE', and Bane goes down!"

"Yeah, he does! All of his bad guy plans are over before they can even start, and then Batman and Wonder Woman make out a bunch before going to the real wedding. And they all lived happily ever after. The end!"

"Let's play 'Arkham City', next!" The kids kept playing, and while Bruce did keep watching, he also started reminiscing about those times. A lot of what the kids were acting out was wrong, but there were still a few slivers of truth woven in there. The truth of it all was fun to remember, and even with so many decades having gone by since then, it still felt as vivid as the day it happened, like if he concentrated hard enough, he could still feel Bane's face against his fist while Diana sent a knee into his stomach. It was a lot of fun to think about.

In the middle of his basking in the memory of halcyon days, something landed against Bruce's foot: the Batman action figure the kids were playing with.

"I think you dropped this," Bruce said, picking it up as the two ran over to him.

"Thanks, mister!" one of the kids said.

"I was watching you play for a bit. You sure love Batman, don't you?"

"Yeah, he's the best! The new one and Batman Beyond are cool, but no one beats the first one!" the second kid said. He pressed a button on the back of the action figure, and out from the action figure came the words, "I am vengeance. I am the night. I. Am. Batman!"

I'll never understand how that became my catchphrase when I only said it a few times, Bruce thought as the kids went back to their games. Still, it was just nice that children were fans of Batman, and even nicer still that he had long since stopped having a problem with that.

Speaking of kids, he might as well pay his a visit.

The secretary at Wayne-Powers—Charlotte Radcliffe, if he was remembering right—was certainly surprised to see him. While recent years had seen Bruce gradually return to an active role in the company, he still left most of everything to his son and usually stayed home to bask in semi-retirement—that's what they all thought he did, at least. He knew that he usually at least had the courtesy of calling ahead, but at the same time, it was his company, so he was well within his right to do whatever he wanted when he was bored. As such, Charlotte the secretary gave him the go-ahead for the elevator, and he made his way to the top floor to find his son.

"You're out of your mind, Wayne!" By the sound of things, his son was clearly in his office, and it appeared that he was doing what he did best: sticking it to Paxton Powers.

"I could say the same thing to you, Paxton, but it'd be rather redundant at this point." That was his son, all right, as headstrong and confident as ever.

"If we take this deal, we'll be able to wipe away all the debt we incurred from when Cluemaster and Owlman bankrupted us five years ago. You'd have to be a true fool not to do it," Paxton said.

"That 'deal' you keep trying to sell me on would have us turning a blind eye to companies that want to poison skies and pollute rivers all over the country. You may not care about it, even though you should, considering that that's what got you run out of South America a decade and a half ago, but I try to run a business that makes money while maintaining its morals, just like my father and his father before him."

"Please. That kind of sentimental drivel didn't help your father with the recession that forced the merger to begin with. As for Thomas Wayne, well, hell of a lot of good being Mr. Nice Guy does for a gunman in a back alley."

It was at that point that Bruce opened the door and slammed the doorknob into Paxton's stomach.

"Oh, sorry about that. Didn't know you were standing there," Bruce said as Paxton gasped for air.

"What are you even doing here, Bruce? Considering what day it is, shouldn't you be relaxing at home with the missus?" Paxton asked. Bruce didn't know if he liked that even someone like Paxton knew what today was.

"Diana had to go to work in the capital, and with the kids at school, I figured I might as well check up on things here. I only caught the tail end of your conversation, but I'll be damned if I let you have another crack at doing what you did in South America, and I think the board will be of the same mind."

"Is that right? Do I need to remind you that there are two names on this building?"

"No, I don't think so. Do we need to remind you which name comes first?" Bruce's son asked. His smile looked sweet, but there was a clear sense of wry emotion emanating from it; he really did take after the both of them.

"This isn't over," Paxton said as he exited the office.

"Of course it's not," Bruce said. "By the way, if we can go back to the topic of fathers, is yours doing all right? I haven't been to Arkham in quite some time, so I wouldn't know." Bruce slammed the door shut before Paxton could say anything.

"You've still got it. My old man's still got it," Bruce's son said.

"You're not so young yourself, you know." It was technically true, but as his son stood up from his desk to hug him, he was reminded of how hard a statement that was to swallow. Between his massive height that barely missed seven feet, his naturally muscular physique, and his face that showed only the slightest hints of aging, the average person would put him in his fifties at best, not a little over a hundred. There was a lot to be envious of in that, yet the trait Bruce admired the most was the genuine smile he always had on his face.

That was one of the things he loved most about Steven Thomas Wayne.

"It's great to see you, Dad, and you couldn't have picked a better moment for a pop-in," Steven said. "Sticking it to stuck-up jerks like Paxton always gives you such a rush; it's one of the best parts of the job. I'll never understand how Maria and I are the only ones who see the appeal of following after that side of you."

"The business side of Bruce Wayne has never been as popular as the crime-fighting side, you know that." Once upon a time, he would have said that Bruce Wayne was never as popular as Batman, as if the two were supposed to be different people. He didn't miss that train of thought.

"So we have niche taste, then? Linda does have a habit of rolling her eyes at all the 'stupid crap' I buy that no one understands." As Steven said that, he gestured to the sequin Unknown Soldier bobblehead on his desk. Linda certainly knew what she was talking about.

"So if Mom's on the clock and Cassandra and Donna are at school, I guess you got the whole day to yourself until—well, you got the day to yourself."

"Right, right. Care to grab lunch, if you're not too busy?"

"Come on, I'm never too busy for my old man!" Steven patted him on the back as he walked him out of the office. Bruce would never stop being happy to hear that from his kids.

Deep within the catacombs of the Indian burial ground Gotham Academy was built atop of, unbeknownst to the innocent citizens of the city, a nefarious being exhibiting unlife, a being exhibiting a vampiric nature, took rest. It was unclear when the vampire had first arrived or how often he laid to rest there, but it was clear that he only had the illest of intentions for the esteemed academy. He would bide his time, perfectly integrate himself into the community, and strike at all when the time was right.

Or at least those things would have happened if he hadn't been unceremoniously killed. Another flawless victory for the Detective Club, Stephanie surmised.

"I still can't believe the new head of the health department, Dr. Acula, was a vampire the entire time. You think you know a guy," Stephanie said.

"The name probably should have been a giveaway, but it did seem a little too on the nose for that," Maps said.

"Still, pretty schway that he was one of those classical vampires we could just kill in his sleep. Last thing I'd need is to be late for my chem test," Pomeline said while making her sword vanish into thin air.

It should be clarified that Stephanie and her friends have nothing against vampires in general—Barbara Gordon could attest to that—and they only fought with Dr. Acula because he was specifically an evil vampire.

"Still had to deal with his familiars, though, and what a pain in the ass they were," Olive said as the flames around her started to die down.

"Would have been less of a pain if some people didn't disappear on us." Pomeline's comment was directed right at Stephanie and Cassandra, because of course, it was.

"Sorry, Pom Pom," Cassandra said.

"It's fine, we got out of it and you guys managed to come in clutch at the end when you came back right when that ogre showed up out of nowhere, but it would have been a lot easier if you had just been there the whole time."

"And you would have gotten to see Batgirl and Spoiler, too!" Maps said.

Yeah, that might not have worked the way you think, Maps, Stephanie thought.

"That, too! As much as I hate admitting it, you guys are the best students in our entire class. If you two could fight with Batgirl and Spoiler, who seem to have a good habit of bailing us out of trouble, none of the weirdos we go up against would stand a chance, but you always have to run off right before they show up. What was it this time, again?"

"It was—Yeah, the good reason we had to leave for a bit—"

"One of Dr. Acula's familiars was trying to escape the catacombs, so they ran after it. That's what you told us, Steph, remember?" Olive asked.

"Yes, that's exactly right, Olly! That's what we were doing, and if it wasn't for that, we totally would have been able to see Batgirl and Spoiler, because there's no reason why the four of us couldn't be in the same place at the same time!" Stephanie hoped she wasn't overselling it with the fake laugh, but it was too late to go back on it.

"Yeah, we know that. Why are you stating the obvious?" Maps asked.

"Because our friend has a bad habit of saying things that just don't need to be said," Olive said while patting Maps on the top of her head.

"I still love her," Cassandra said. Stephanie loved her, too.

"Then again, maybe it's better that you didn't stick around," Maps said while Olive kept patting her head. "Batgirl kept trying to make quips for some reason, and they just never landed. Spolier's the funny one, and Batgirl usually only makes jokes in a dry, super serious style, so I don't get why she was acting so different."

"Maybe she wanted a change of pace and decided to try out a new style."

"Maybe, but sometimes it's better to just play to your strengths, and that was definitely one of those times," Pomeline said. "Seriously, I've seen Murray Franklin victims who could tell a better joke. It was so bad that it honestly became a little sad to watch, so if that was the kind of humor she was going for, she hit the mark—Cass, are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Cassandra lied as naturally as she breathed. Her upper lip was quivering and her three eyes were watering; she felt embarrassed to the point that she wanted to die.

"You know, I think we really are going to be late for class if we stick around here too long," Olive said.

"Oh my crap, you're right!" Maps said. Maps pulled out her phone as a map-like pattern appeared over her skin that quickly ran up her arm and into her phone. "Thataway, gal pals!"

"I don't approve of that." Pomeline said that, but she followed after Maps, regardless. Stephanie, Cassandra, and Olive trailed behind them, Stephanie doing so to console Cassandra while she was still in the middle of feeling embarrassed, Olive doing so because she was Olive.

"For the record, Cass, your material did mostly suck, but there were a few good things here and there," Olive whispered. "Play more to your strengths. Don't try to force out puns or something trying too hard to be witty. Just try and observe what's happening around you and find something clever to say about that."

"Okay," Cassandra said. She sounded like she was feeling better, which meant that Stephanie could feel better.

"You're always so quick with the save, Olly," Stephanie said.

"I wish I didn't have to be. If you're not going to tell our friends, you should at least try and get better at lying," Olive said.

"But you're so good at doing it for us, and it'd waste not to take full advantage of your talents." The look on Olive's face said that she wasn't particularly fond of the joke, so Stephanie made sure to take three steps back from her.

"I can't believe that twelve-year-old me thought being possessed by my ancestor was the worst thing about being an Arkham. What a fool I was."

"Hey, there's no reason to get mad at Cass' niece for the crime of finding love in all the right places."

"I'll stay mad at you, then."

"Please don't," Cassandra said. Always quick to defend her, even when she was doing something stupid; as if Stephanie needed more reasons to love Cassandra. "Also, it's happening at seven, tonight."

"Oh, it's a little earlier this year. Might be able to talk with Maps before she goes to sleep." Speaking of Maps, at that moment, she interrupted their whispering to tell the three of them to pick up the pace if they didn't want to be late for theater with Mr. Karlo. At the mention of that, Cassandra separated from Stephanie and Olive and ran up to Maps to get a better look at where they were going.

Just another day in the life of the Detective Club.

After Themiscyra officially aligned with "man's world" and became a fully recognized nation, many aspects of its culture were fed into society through a combination of Amazon scholars, Amazons leaving Themiscyra—permanently or otherwise—to spread their knowledge, and random people learning random things through random means. The end result of that was major cities around the world developing their own districts and areas dedicated to Amazonian culture. Gotham City was no exception, and the place where Bruce and Steven decided to go for lunch was Gotham's own Little Themiscyra.

Little Themiscyra looked the same as it always did. It was a bright and bustling area that sat at odds with the darker parts of the rest of the city; one could view it as an inverse to Metropolis' relationship to the Suicide Slums. Lots of people—mostly women—were milling about the streets, going about their day without a care in the world. The air was being constantly bombarded with the sounds and scents of music and food that would seem Greek to the untrained ear or nostril, but Bruce had enough experience with Diana drilling the finer bits of it all into his head to know that the music and smells were the angelic melodies and hearty meats that defined Amazonian culture.

Everyone greeted Bruce and Steven with a smile as they walked through the streets. Part of that was just the friendly atmosphere of Little Themiscyra, another part was undoubtedly because of how Bruce more or less single-handedly built Gotham's Little Themiscyra; it was his and Diana's first anniversary, so he needed to do something nice for her, especially after all the work she put into getting The Mark of Zorro banned in Gotham. He would have loved to stick around to talk to everyone, and Steven surely wouldn't have had a problem with it, but lunch was a bigger priority, and although their walk was slow, they had already made their way to the best place to get lunch in Little Themiscyra.

"Welcome to the Scarlet Pumpernickel. Please take a seat anywhere that's available." The woman who greeted them was a short, muscular woman whose face and forearms were covered in scars and cascading hair was white as snow, save for the natural pink stripe running down the middle. Bruce had come to the Scarlet Pumpernickel enough times to know that this wasn't one of their usual employees, and that was further emphasized by her lifting him up with a hug while shouting, "Pop Pop!"

"Happy to see you too, Penny, but please put me down," Bruce said.

"Oh, sorry," Penny said as she did just that. "I was just feeling excited because I thought I wouldn't see you and Gangie until—I didn't hurt you, did I, Pop Pop?"

"I'm fine. When you raise fifteen half-Amazon children, you naturally build up a resistance to bone-crushing hugs. A small one, but it's there."

"What are you even doing here?" Steven asked.

"Today's my day off from Hero work, and since one of the waitresses called out sick, it seemed like a good way to spend the day. A businessman like you should know the value in protecting your investments, you know," Penny asked.

"I don't recall asking you for a lecture on business, Penthesilea." Penny growled at the usage of her full name. It almost reminded Bruce of how Lyta would always get upset whenever someone called her "Martha". "What's with the outfit, though?"

"What, this?" Penny spun around and gave the cliche maid uniform she was wearing a full flourish. "You know this is the uniform here. If I'm going to help out, no reason not to go all in, especially when I do a damn good job of pulling it off."

"I beg to differ, but to each their own." Penny growled at him again and the Fifth Metal floor cracked beneath her left foot. "There it is. There's the Goddess of War's famous temper. Always a treat to behold."

"If I can't lecture you on business, then you can't lecture me on anger, Crazy Steve." Steven paled at the sudden reminder of his past to the point that he looked like he was ready to vomit.

"Touche, little niece. Touche, indeed," Steven said before sitting down at one of the rustic wooden tables.

"Splendid. I'll go tell the chef to whip out two of the Wayne Family specials for you and Pop Pop." Penny spun around twice: once to show off her outfit again, once to simply turn around as she headed for the kitchen.

"I do appreciate her business acumen, though. More of the family should take stock in that," Steven said.

"I think we're all fine as we are," Bruce said. He took a sip of water from a glass on the table as he looked around the Scarlet Pumpernickel. The wooden tables and chairs, the scarlet paint on the walls that shimmered when it came in contact with the sun, it all radiated its own unique charm. Jason and Artemis certainly knew what they were doing when they built it all those years ago.

"Okay, I managed to get enough of the chili out of my pants for it to not be noticeable, so now it's time for the latest update on the vigilante activities of the Batman." The statement came from the television hanging on the wall—not the second Bruce started looking at it, as it took a while for the commercials to end—and the one who made it was the yellow-skinned, slightly psychotic local news anchor Jack Ryder.

"Batman's latest endeavor pitted him against the Calculator #6, who had just invented the Divisobeam, a giant laser that could divide objects on a subatomic level. The Calculator was going to use the Divisobeam to hold Gotham at ransom under threat of molecular disassembly, but Batman, with some help from Goliath, Bat Dragon, and Bat Emu, was able to destroy the Divisobeam and cart the Calculator off to jail before he could crunch a single number. People of Gotham, I won't mince words with you: that all sounds pretty damn cool. It'd be nice if that were the end of it, but I've got a time slot to fill, so here to discuss it more than I can be bothered with are police commissioner Barbara Gordon," Jack gestured to a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair on his right, "and Arkham psychiatrist and author of 'Hey, I'm Okay', Dr. Bartholomew Wolper," Jack gestured to a man on his left with a small afro wearing a lab coat decorated with a button that had a red "X" over the standard Batman insignia. "So. Batman. Yay or nay?"

"Well, Jack, I believe that I speak for everyone when I say that this city would be better off without Batman; that's the case now, and that was the case over a century ago when all of this Hero business first got started," Wolper said.

"I think you have a very unique definition of the word, 'everyone'," Barbara said. "Last I checked, Batman—every single one of them—was doing a great service to this city."

"If you call perpetuating a cycle of violence a great service, then I agree."

"You can't be—"

"Everyone who has called themselves Batman has been a violent thug who beats down on the mentally ill and expects that to be the end of the issue. Granted, even professional Heroes are guilty of this sort of serial malfeasance," Barbara rolled her eyes, "but at the very least, they have the kind of training that allows them to at least try and cause as little damage as possible. Batman doesn't have that. He just swings wild like a brute and reinforces their negative behavior. Why do you think the months-long plot of Cluemaster and Owlman from five years ago—a plot we still haven't fully recovered from, I might add—involved so many Villains teaming up to destroy the city? Because of Batman. Batman's brutal treatment of them leaves them feeling they can never be better than how they are now, and as a result, they feel forced to lash out against society because they're not strong enough to stand up against the one they truly hate. It's your textbook abusive relationship, really."

"Don't pull that card, Wolper. It's not Batman's fault that these people turned to a life of crime. These people were deranged well before Batman came into their lives, and even if he didn't exist, they'd have all snapped for one reason or another." Bruce couldn't argue with that.

"Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that these people need better help than a concussion."

"And isn't that your job as the psychiatrist? I know Arkham has a reputation for having a revolving door, but did you ever stop to think that they wouldn't bother using it if you were better at helping them sort out their issues?" Steven let out a small laugh.

"You know, I'm honestly surprised that you're singing the Batman's praises, commissioner, when it was only a few years ago when you were leading the charge against Batman and Batman Beyond."

"Fifteen years is hardly a few, though I suppose I don't look like someone who's been commissioner for that long; one of the few benefits to being a vampire, I suppose. More to the point, yes, I had personal reasons for feeling sour towards the Batfamily, but through my dealings with Batman Beyond, I came to realize—no, I came to remember that no one in that group was the menace people liked to make them out to be. Their methods are far from perfect, but that doesn't make them any different from any other Hero, if you ask me."

"I beg to differ. Everything I've said about why Batman is dangerous is made even worse when you remember that they have never acted within the name of the law. As flawed as the Hero system is, it's still one that makes people accountable for their mistakes, but as a Vigilante, no one can hold Batman accountable for the trouble he causes unless he's arrested, something that, for some reason, no one wishes to do."

"Of course no one wants to do it. After everything they've done for Gotham, the world, and even the universe, if you believe some of the stories," The stories were correct, Bruce mused, "what idiot would want to go down in history as the person who told Batman he couldn't be Batman anymore?"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about: it's dangerous and problematic that so many people are willing to deify someone like Batman and turn a blind eye to all of his wrongdoings because he did a few good things that didn't even last. Is this who we should be supporting? Is this who we should be imitating? No, of course not. When we get to thinking like that, that's how we get incidents like the ones with Azrael when Batman had his back broken by the first Bane. Or, and I know you don't want me to say this—"

"My father?" And with that, the whole thing started to be less fun to watch.

"Yes, your father. When the first Batman disappeared and the seventh Joker died in the Endgame incident, your father, the first commissioner Gordon, became the third Batman as part of that failed government program that only got passed because the Heroes Association still wasn't completely established. The stress of being Batman affected him so badly that, when he fought against the eighth Joker, he outright strangled him to death, did he not?"

"There were specific circumstances involved in that." The wheels on Barbara's wheelchair shifted a little. "Furthermore, my father was never trying to emulate Batman; the only reason he was called Batman was that the city was trying to ride on his coattails to try and stave off crime, but nothing about the way they operated was remotely similar."

"Fair enough, so let's talk about someone who fits a little better. The Hero Killer, for example." Now it was even less fun.

"We're not discussing some nutjob who lives thousands of miles away from us," Barbara said.

"I believe we should, given his relationship to the nutjob who lives right down the street," Wolper said. "Over the last few years, Japan has been plagued by a Villain who goes by the name of Stain. No one's been able to catch him—I'll save that discussion for another day—and he's freely hospitalized and murdered dozens of Heroes, and that's just the ones we know of. All of this is terrible, of course, but you know what's the worst part about it? He idolizes the Batman. The bandages he uses as a mask are cut to look like a bat, he has the Batman logo with the yellow circle for a belt buckle, and many of the Heroes who have survived encounters with him have stated that he quoted Batman as he cut them down."

"Your point?"

"My point is that we have yet another individual who has been swayed by the Batman's violent and counterproductive ways to the point of harmful imitation—harmful not just for the people he attacks, but for himself, as his psyche is clearly one that requires delicate attention that no one wants to give him."

"He's certainly not making it easy for anyone to try."

"Now listen—"

"No, you listen. People like Azrael and Stain, it's easy to use them as examples of why idolizing Batman and trying to imitate him is bad, and I'm not going to argue with that line of thought in its most basic form, but using those two to make your case is the wrong move."

"Those two idolized the Batman to the point of wanting to be like him—"

"And yet they thought that that meant becoming someone who's willing to maim people, even kill them. If that's what they got out of watching Batman, then they weren't watching Batman. As far as I'm concerned, they're just like the people Batman and Batman Beyond fight on a daily basis in that even if there never was a Batman, then they would have just been pushed into this by something else."

"How convenient that you subscribe to a theory that takes all the responsibility away from Batman. Well, I suppose someone needs to make an attempt to do that. After all, for all you talk about how these people don't represent what Batman is about, he's never once made a statement denouncing Stain, nor has he ever given his opinion on how he feels about him."

"That is weird, now that you mention it. It's almost like he has better things to do than point out the obvious." At this point, Barbara and Wolper were right in each other's faces, pieces of spittle flying through the air between them. Bruce felt like things might escalate to a fistfight, but as entertaining as that might have been to watch, it never came about thanks to Jack pushing them apart.

"You know, all this talk about Batman has me thinking about something: how come Batman doesn't dance anymore?"

Before a response could be given, one that would have likely just been yelling from the both of them, the channel abruptly changed to a commercial featuring Endeavor promoting O'Shaughnessy's.

"Why did you dance, Pop Pop?" Penny asked, remote in one hand and two plates of food placed across her opposite arm that were quickly placed in front of them. Each one had a sandwich with layers of meat greasier than the one that came before it, which meant that if Diana asked, he had a salad for lunch.

"I want to say it was just to impress your grandmother, but honestly? It was just a different time," Bruce said.

"You all right, Dad? Your face is looking even more tense than usual," Steven said.

"I'm fine. That guy was just annoying, is all," Bruce said, underplaying it a little. Wolper was nothing but a pompous windbag, and Bruce got annoyed every time he heard him talk, but this was the first time he had heard him talk about Stain, a particularly sore subject of the past few years. He never had the displeasure of meeting him, but from what he had heard, Stain was everything that was wrong with Azrael dialed up to eleven. A psychotic, self-proclaimed Hero who thought it necessary to kill people to enact his warped sense of justice; the man went about things the exact opposite way he did, yet he still had the gall to bear his symbol.

Wolper asked for a statement about him from Batman, so here was his statement: he made him feel sick.

"Hey, don't let that stuff get to you. We all know what Batman really is, and he doesn't let people like them get to him because he knows he's better than them. Bruce Wayne isn't so bad, either," Steven said.

"Yeah, so don't let Wolper or Stain or whoever make you feel bad, or else Dad's gonna rise up from the grave just to knock some sense into you," Penny said.

"We probably shouldn't let that happen," Bruce said. Penny let out a small laugh while Steven patted him on the back. This was good. It was good to have people who could help him get out of his own head just because they were worried about him.

Family truly was a blessed gift.

Six o'clock on the dot, when Bruce had long since said goodbye to Steven and returned to his home at the end of Snyder Street, Diana returned home without him even realizing it—he didn't remember teaching her how to do that, but he was always happy to see her take an interest in his hobbies. They milled about for a while, simply basking in each other's company as Bruce, among other things, failed to convince her that he had a healthy lunch, and when it drew close to seven, she kept to her word and started to take him out to dinner.

"You know, it's one thing for Cassandra to not come home, but it's odd that Donna's still out of the house," Bruce said as they were being driven into downtown Gotham.

"She's probably at a friend's house, or something. Nothing unusual about that," Diana said. Bruce just mumbled in response.

"Tynion Tower. Pretty fancy for just a spontaneous dinner," Bruce said as he and Diana left the limo and headed towards the massive skyscraper in front of them.

"Just because it's spontaneous doesn't mean I can't go all out, especially when you more than deserve the best," Diana said. Bruce just mumbled in response.

"I couldn't help but notice that we're heading for the rooftop," Bruce said as the two of them stood idly by in the elevator.

"You're even going to comment on this? Don't you like the dark more than anything?" Diana asked.

"I used to. Then I met you."

"Still so smooth in your old age," Diana said while rubbing the back of his head. The elevator stopped, and the doors started to move unnaturally slowly, almost as if someone—likely his wife—had arranged for them to open slowly to invoke a dramatic reveal of whatever was on the other side.

"In five, four, three, two," Bruce whispered as the doors opened.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" What felt like pounds of confetti flew into his face as over a hundred people came together to applaud his arrival.

Bruce hadn't gone senile. Today really was his birthday. That was just great, and he really meant it. It was the only reason why he was thanking everyone instead of just walking away.

"I got you again, Bruce. What does this make, twelve years in a row?" Diana asked.

"Thirteen. I guess I'm not the only slipping," Bruce said as the two of them went around greeting the family they spent over a century cultivating; even though he couldn't talk to most of the people there, he could still feel their love flowing through the air around the rooftop of Tynion Tower. Truth be told, he honestly couldn't remember when they started playing their little game of him pretending to be surprised by Diana and her pretending to believe him. Either way, it was too nice a tradition to give up.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Wayne!" He heard Stephanie's voice, but he couldn't see her anywhere. "Don't go anywhere, I'm coming to hug you, just trying to work my way through the crowd. Just—Why are there always so many people here? I love these guys, but—Okay, just give me a hand, already." All of a sudden, Bruce saw Cassandra leap into the air with Stephanie on her back and land in front of him and Diana.

"Happy birthday, Dad," Cassandra said as Stephanie climbed off of her and motioned for a high-five that he never would have reciprocated as a younger man.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have a gigantic family? Like, to a ridiculous degree?" Stephanie asked.

"I never told anyone to have kids," Bruce said.

"But we love them anyway, now don't we?" Diana asked. Bruce shrugged his shoulders, and she just laughed it off.

"Still, you and Diana had what, fifteen kids before Cass and Donna showed up at your doorstep?" Stephanie asked. Technically, only Cassandra showed up on their doorstep; they were the ones who showed up on Donna's doorstep. "Sure, it's super sweet that you wanted such a big family—my one week of Intro to Psychology tells me that it's overcompensation for being an only child—" Bruce preferred not to comment on that, "but it's a little overboard, right?"

"Knowing Bruce, he probably wanted to make sure he had as many chances to be a better father than he was to the three of us." The one who said that was an elderly man who approached them through the crowd. His white hair and weathered face were testaments to his advanced age of over a hundred, yet his physique was still impressively healthy thanks to years of physical training, and both his dragon wing and his duck wing looked as vibrant as ever. "For the record, you did a pretty good job with me. You're the one who talked me out of naming myself after a duck, remember?"

"To be fair, Tim, anyone with a brain would have thought that was stupid." Bruce then let Tim give him a hug. There was no reason to object to it.

"Good to see you could get away from work, Tim," Diana said.

"Yes, but it still feels like I'm at school, what with some of my top students in the mix here. Oh, Stephanie's here, too," Tim said.

"Yeah, and I'm standing right here, Principal Drake!" Stephanie said with a pout.

"And so's Cassandra! How's our little wunderkind doing?" Cassandra simply shrugged her shoulders.

"I know we're just having fun, but still, I'm the one who taught her how to read, you know!"

"Which makes it all the more astounding that her English grades are so much better than yours."

"How much is so much?" Bruce asked.

"I just remembered that Olly wanted Cass and me to get her some of those little weenies, so we're gonna go do that while you all put a pin in this! Okay, bye!" Stephanie grabbed Cassandra and maneuvered through the crowd to the snack bar. She had always been quick on her feet, but it especially showed when she was trying to get out of trouble.

"Underneath it all, she's a great kid," Tim said.

"It's on the surface, too," Bruce said.

"Hey, there's the man of the hour!" Bruce felt the familiar hands of Steven pressed against his shoulders.

"As if I'd let him be anywhere else," Diana said.

"Not like he'd want to be anywhere else, right?" Tim asked.

"Probably not," Bruce said.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Steven said while patting Bruce on the back. The patting was interrupted when Steven had his ear pulled on by a woman who seemed to match him in height, musculature, and inaccurate physical age.

"You already got to hang out with Dad today, so don't hog him!" the woman yelled into his ear.

"Hello, Lyta," Bruce said.

"Hi, Dad!" His second child, Lyta, said with a smile.

"Was Daniel able to make it?" Diana asked.

"Hi, Mom! No, Danny couldn't make it. He wanted to, but being the lord of sleep doesn't give you a lot of vacation time."

"That's real unfortunate, but let go of me, already!" Steven said. Lyta complied with noticeable reluctance. "Sheesh. Would it kill you to show your big brother some respect?"

"I already said hi to Tim and Damian isn't here yet."

"Hello again," Tim said.

"Such disrespect for your elders. I thought you were better than this, Martha," Steven said.

"Why did you say that name?" Lyta shook Steven around with such intensity that it looked like his body was going to be torn apart. Bruce never understood why she thought Martha was such an embarrassing name.

"Stop shaking me! I'm very delicate!" Eventually, Lyta did stop shaking him. "Thought I saw Silver for a second there. Don't know how she would have felt about Linda, so I'm happy I don't need to try and find out just yet."

"I am so happy for you."

"Even if you don't look it, don't you think you're too old to get upset about something like this?" Tim asked.

"Hey, I'm perfectly secure."

"Is that why you dye your hair?" Steven asked.

"Don't start with me." Despite her tone, she did give him a quick hug, so it was more genuine than she led on.

From there, Bruce and Diana's children kept arriving one after another to wish him a happy birthday. The elder twins, Joel and Akiva, didn't waste time to join in on teasing Steven, and they did it while finishing each other's sentences without skipping a beat.

Kevin was still in his Gray Ghost costume, so he must have come from either his Hero work or a movie shoot, but Bruce didn't have a problem with that; let people wear what they want.

Christine made herself look as debonair as always, always trying to make herself stand out the most out of everyone in the room—or rooftop, in this case. She seemed to be making an exception for him though, which he more than appreciated.

Benjamin stepped around the masses of people to get to Bruce with such grace and fluidity that you'd never suspect he was blind. He certainly didn't have any difficulty saying hello to him.

Despite only being the eighth born child, Clark managed to lift him up off the ground with a level of ease that didn't come to his older siblings. The care with which he did it was worthy of attention, as well.

In the midst of that, a small explosion sounded off down below. Bruce was concerned for a second, but after he and everyone else looked at Terry's message on BatWave, the festivities resumed.

Bruce was soon greeted by the younger twins, Brenna and James. Brenna was acting as broody as she always did while James brightened up the scene with his positive attitude; looking at the two of them reminded him of him and Diana back in their youth. Always a pleasure to behold.

Justin rambled on something fierce about the arcane forces of the universe bringing them together, but he managed to make himself sound coherent while wishing Bruce a happy birthday; he did find it funny when he told them that Zatanna—who was still on a mission in Italy—had a birthday message for him and perfectly relayed it backward.

Then came the triplets: Alfred, Bea, and Peni. Of the three of them, Alfred was the one who most took after his namesake, both in personality and—oddly enough—physical appearance, though he was pretty sure the accent was fake. Bea took a while to get to Bruce as she kept stopping to converse with other members of the family and catch up with them, even the ones he knew she had been with just the other day; his children were hardly antisocial, but no one liked to talk to people more than her. Peni had him nearly tackled to the ground by her grandchildren while she talked about her newest inventions, the apparent fabulous life she was living as the self-proclaimed Empress of Kasnia, and how the newest cybernetics she installed in herself would allow her to move with eight percent more efficiency without sacrificing the use of her cupholders; Bruce never recalled being so eccentric back when he was seen as the smartest person in the world.

Finally, Maria, the last of his and Diana's children and the spitting image of his mother, approached him to wish him well. Maria greeted them warmly while her husband, Franco Bertinelli, was too engaged in a one-sided conversation with a teenage girl with dark skin that matched his own to properly greet them. It took Franco pulling her phone out of her hands for her to look up at him, which was then followed by her looking around the party for a few seconds.

"Wait, when did we get here?" the girl asked.

"You're not getting this back, Helena. I hope you know that," Franco said.

"I'm sorry," Helena said with purposefully wide eyes.

"Oh, what the hell? Here you go, sweetie!" Franco quickly handed her phone back to her with a smile on his face.

"Helena, say hi to your grandparents before you get back to that," Maria said.

"Fine," Helena said. She rolled her eyes before stepping over to Bruce and Diana and hugging them both. "Hi Pop Pop, happy birthday. Hi Gangie."

"Hello, Helena. Always a pleasure," Bruce said.

"I think Stephanie, Cassandra, and Olive are at a table in the back," Diana said.

"Cool. Cool cool cool," Helena said. She gave them both another hug before heading off to join the other teenage guests, her eyes and hands glued to her phone the entire time.

"She's so precious, don't you think?" Franco asked. Before any sort of answer could be given, Franco had walked off to talk with random members of the family, the topic of discussion usually being about Helena. The more time Bruce spent around Franco, the harder he found it to believe that he was ever an infamous crime lord who gave it, and all the other crime families, up in the pursuit of love.

"I think you've outdone yourself this time, Mom. The celebration's even bigger than last year, but it doesn't even feel like it. Quite impressive," Maria said.

"You have no idea how long I was waiting for your review," Diana said.

"Speaking of celebration, I think someone here deserves their own bit of applause for their promotion," Bruce said.

"Come on Dad, this is your day, not mine. Besides, it doesn't go into effect until Monday, and I don't know if it's really cause for celebration," Maria said.

"If nothing else, I guess we can say that the new chairman of the Heroes Association is humble," Tim said.

"I do what I can. Speaking of which, I have an update on that little matter of ours."

"Is that right?" A bit of weight found its way inside the overall levity of the party.

"We should wait for Damian and Terry to get here. They need to hear this, too," Diana said.

"I agree." Everyone around Bruce turned to see the familiar sight of Damian, the man having appeared out of nowhere as he often liked to do. Most people in the family had magic to thank for why they looked as young as they did, including Bruce, but Damian, despite having passed one hundred some time ago, managed to look over half of that without any such benefits; he was bald, but Bruce was pretty sure that was a stylistic choice.

"Fashionably late, as always."

"Wasn't the plan, Dia—Mom." Bruce and Diana's birthday were the only two days in the year he asked Damian to address Diana like that; going by the way Diana patted his head, the gesture hadn't lost its effect on her, and going by the way Tim laughed at it all, the gesture hadn't lost its effect on him, either.

"You can't be saying it was Terry's fault. Not our dear Terry," Tim said. "Speaking of which, where is he?"

"I'm here, just give me a second! I swear, there's a dozen new people added every year." The all too true statement came from Terry McGinnis, his cascading red hair blowing in the wind as he made his way over to Bruce with a plate of food. "Food's great, though. Melanie's outdone herself, this year."

"Of course that's the first thing on your mind," Damian said.

"Hey, I had a long day, not helped by how we had to fight a bunch of guys who were trying to break in. Can't believe I took a punch from the Spook, of all people," Terry said as he stuffed some of the little weenies Bruce had heard about into his mouth. Bruce already knew all of that from the message Terry left on BatWave, but it was still worth a listen. The failed attempt by the Spook to attack the party was most likely something Paxton Powers put together to get back at him for earlier and force Steven to go along with his unethical propositions. Why a fourth-rate Villain like the Spook thought it would be a good idea to attack a location that would be filled with dozens upon dozens of Heroes was beyond him, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say that it was more of a reflection of Paxton's continual downward slide into an ineffectual cartoon nemesis.

"Now that we're all together, I need to give you an update," Maria said. "That Noumu thing All Might killed at the USJ? The autopsy is almost finished, but we've already managed to confirm the presence of multiple Quirks inside of it." The weight increased further still.

"So All for One's back, and those League of Villains punks are his latest cohorts. I should have known," Bruce said.

"So he really didn't shiv when All Might fought him six years ago," Terry said.

"Of course not," Damian said. "Someone like All Might, who only knows how to kill as a last result, would never be able to finish off a conniving snake like All for One, no matter how better off we'd be for it." Damian rubbed a jagged scar that ran across the side of his head. That was not a good day to remember for anyone who was involved in it, and he always hated that Damian was one of those people.

"All we know right now is that All for One is alive and has improved on his old tricks," Maria said. "We're still trying to figure out the best way to tell the Heroes in Japan about this that won't cause a panic or a loss in morale, but even after that, there's no telling how long it will take anyone to make any headway in tracking them down. As such, they probably wouldn't object to having some help with the investigation, even if it wasn't exactly by the books."

"Is this really something the new chairman should be saying?" Damian asked.

"Maybe not, but as the new chairman, I'm willing to turn a blind eye to it." That's his girl, Bruce told himself.

"I can lend a hand, but not a big one," Tim said. "Even if I was still a spring chicken, or spring duck-dragon-man-thing, as it were, I'm going to have my hands full with the U.A. Sports Festival. Boy, the things I got in store for those kids."

"I can't wait to see it," Diana said. "Back to the matter at hand, I don't think I'll be able to do a lot, either. I can really only afford to be there a couple of days, and Wonder Woman can't exactly interrogate people in back alleys without drawing attention to herself."

"Looks like it's up to you, McGinnis," Damian said.

"It is? Why?" Terry asked.

"I can't leave Gotham now. The Joker's been acting wild ever since Punchline left him, and I refuse to leave while he's running about." Bruce knew that Damian wouldn't budge on that; he knew it all too well.

"I can't go, either. Dana's due to give birth any day now, and I can't be there for it if I'm six thousand miles away from the hospital."

"This is important, Terry. I'm sure Dana will understand," Maria said.

"No, she won't; she'll go billy berserk! Dana was fine—no, she begrudgingly accepted—that being Batman Beyond made me miss the ultrasound and all the parenting classes, but she looked me dead in the eye and told me that if I wasn't there while she was giving birth to our first child, then I wouldn't get to try again with a second one. I don't know if that means she'll divorce me or, you know, castrate me, but I am not rolling the dice on that one."

"Fine, stay; I could use the extra help dealing with Joker, anyway," Damian said. "More importantly, a parent should be there when their child is born, no matter what, so good on you for understanding that."

With that, the atmosphere regained some of its levity, and it was thanks to Damian, of all people. When Bruce first met him all those decades ago, he never would have imagined that he could grow into someone even capable of compassion and understanding, yet here he was. In a lot of ways, that growth was the best symbol of how Damian could be his son.

"Okay, so no one here can do anything, and we can't drag any of the family who live in Japan into this. Are we just dropping the whole thing, then?" Maria asked.

"Why would we do that?" Bruce asked. "If All for One really is back, then we need to learn whatever we can about him as soon as possible."

"It doesn't sound like we'll be able to help, though," Diana said. Bruce smiled at what was going through his head.

"Of course we will, and the people who will get that going should be rather obvious."

"Come on, Olly, you gotta do it," Stephanie told her friend as the overly crowded party went on around the two of them, Cassandra, and Donna—she wasn't sure how or why Donna ended up at their table.

"Okay, okay. Um, Hot Spot?" The look on Olive's face made it clear that the look on Stephanie's face portrayed just the amount of disappointment she was going for.

"That's uninspired," Cassandra said while eating from a plate of cream puffs.

"He was just the first one to come to mind, okay?" Cassandra simply shrugged her shoulders. Stephanie shared the sentiment.

"Hey." The one who addressed them—without ever once looking up from her phone, even as she sat down at their table—was none other than Helena Bertinelli, Cassandra's adoptive niece and their fellow classmate at Gotham Academy. They didn't exactly run in the same circles, but they got along well enough, so a simple "Hey, yourself" from Stephanie and a small wave of the hand from Cassandra more than sufficed.

"What are you guys doing?" Helena asked.

"They're discussing celebrity crushes. It's painfully dull," Donna said while picking at a plate of macaroni and cheese with a spork. "Or maybe it's just that there are so few worthwhile options."

"He was just the first one I could think of. I'm no good when I'm out on the spot," Olive said.

"Whatever you say, girl," Stephanie said. "More to the point, Donna, maybe this is just something that only mature folks can appreciate."

"No, that can't be it. You're having a good time with it, after all," Donna said. It was Bruce Wayne's birthday, so she would do what she could to contain herself. "Plenty of good choices back in the old days, though. Wildcat, Constantine, Drakul Karfang, Johnny Sorrow, Eclipso, Ares—oh, definitely Ares. The stories those and could tell—"

"Gross! You are a gross child!" Stephanie said while covering Cassandra's ears to protect her innocence. "That doesn't even count. Most of those people are Villains, and Circe was the one who saw them in action, not you."

"I still have vivid memories of it all, though."

"Why is this, of all things, something that makes you want to draw on Circe?" Olive asked.

"The things one might do to stay involved in a conversation."

"What did she say?" Cassandra asked. Stephanie forgot that she was still covering Cassandra's ears and promptly removed her hands from her.

"Your guys aren't even that great. I mean, where was All Might on that list? Where was he?" Stephanie asked.

"Meh. Overrated," Donna said.

"Agreed. Don't ride the bandwagon," Helena said, still typing away on her phone.

"Just because he's the Number One Hero doesn't mean I'm a bandwagoner!" Stephanie said. "I mean, who couldn't find something to like about him? That big smile he's always wearing, the way his hair sticks up like antennae, not to mention his body. Biceps, calves, deltoids, abs, he's got it all, you know?"

"Aren't you gay?" Olive asked.

"No one's that gay. Especially with that ass on him. I know he's Japanese, but he spent his first few years here with Iron Munro, so as far as I'm concerned, that's America's ass."

"Is my thing gross just because I'm a child, unlike yourself?" Donna asked.

"Now you're getting it." At the same time that Stephanie said that, a Spoiler Alert went off in her head, and she dodged a cream puff that Cassandra lobbed at her head; she thought it hit Black Spider when he wasn't paying attention, but she wasn't sure. "What?"

"Nothing." Cassandra pouted and glared at Stephanie with all three of her eyes. That was bad. An angry Cassandra Cain was never a cute Cassandra Cain, and an angry Cassandra Cain created a sad Stephanie Brown.

"Please don't be mad. None of that stuff means anything; it's just me goofing around, honest! I mean, if All Might's a ten on my list, then you know you're a, um, a seventeen!" Cassandra was still glaring at her. "And a half?" Cassandra's eyes softened as her head fell into the croon of Stephanie's neck. Great. A happy Cassandra Cain was a cute Cassandra Cain, and a happy Cassandra Cain created a happy Stephanie Brown.

"Looks like you've managed to win my sister over once again. Great," Donna said.

"She probably wouldn't have gotten mad if you chose someone better to simp," Helena said, her eyes and hands still glued to her phone.

"I don't want to hear that from someone whose celebrity crush is on the Question," Stephanie said.

For what she assumed to be the first time that night, probably the whole day, if she had to guess, Helena put her phone down.

"I do not have a celebrity crush on the Question. What I feel for him is nothing but pure, unadulterated love." Stephanie must have still been exhausted from when she and the Detective Club fought the vampires in the catacombs; she could have sworn she saw pink hearts appear in Helena's pupils.

"That's arguably what makes it worse," Olive said.

"You shut your mouth. The Question is one of the greatest Heroes to ever live, and through all of my many years of life," Helena was fifteen, "I've never seen anyone as magnificent and brilliant as him, and I know that I will never see anyone who could surpass him."

"No, you're wrong. The guy is the fruitiest of loops," Stephanie said. "The last time he was in Gotham to help Damian and Mr. McGinnis on a case, I caught him digging through Mr. Wayne's trash."

"Yeah, but he digs through everyone's trash. It's all in his book, Thirty-two Flavors of Corruption: All the World's a Stage, and We are All Sock Puppets Wrapped Around the Sweaty Hands of Deceit." Helena picked her phone back up and pulled up a picture of the aforementioned book. It showed the faceless detective known as the Question standing in front of a wall of sticky notes connected to each other with strings. Some of the things written on the sticky notes were "aglets", "Girl Scouts", "crop circles", "fluoride", "the common ancestor of man and Martian", and "boy bands of the 199Xs". It all made for an utterly ridiculous sight. "I have three copies: one to read, one to frame on my mantle, and one that stays in the box to be preserved for future generations. It's great, isn't it?"

"What are you on, and can I be on it, too?" Stephanie asked.

"Love. I am on love." The answer to the second question was most likely a "No", then.

"I am thoroughly disgusted by this. I don't know if I can even finish my meal." Donna said that, but she ate a sporkful of macaroni, regardless.

"I regret starting this. Let's just eat more food for the rest of the night," Stephanie said. Helena didn't respond, as she had started staring at the picture of the Question's book while muttering strange things under her breath that Stephanie didn't have it in her to decipher.

"My turn," Cassandra said.

"Wait, Cass, you have a celebrity crush? On who?" Cassandra reached up and took Stephanie by surprise with a kiss.

"Spoiler." She said it before and she'll say it again: a happy Cassandra Cain was a cute Cassandra Cain, and a happy Cassandra Cain created a happy Stephanie Brown.

In the middle of the impromptu romantic atmosphere created between them, Donna threw her spork at Stephanie and got some macaroni stuck in her hair. Business as usual.

The party kept going through the night, and Bruce never once felt exhausted. With how old he had gotten, he usually started to doze off a little at that time when he wasn't keeping himself occupied in the Batcave, but being around Diana and the rest of his family felt him with the kind of vigor and energy he hadn't felt since his golden age. They were all nice feelings, the sort of feelings that being around his family invoked.

"Can someone get everyone's attention? I want to make a speech," Bruce said. There wasn't a specific person being addressed, he was just leaving it up to whoever was in earshot. Justin ended up accepting the request as he projected a giant image of himself—a trademark technique of Oversoul—that told everyone that Bruce wanted to say something. Peni popped a microphone out of her forearm and tossed it to him so he could speak, and Diana lifted him into the air so he could get a good look at everyone.

"So. How are we all doing tonight?" Everyone cheered in response to Bruce's question. "You know, when I first crashed that dinner party over a hundred years ago, I never imagined that my life would go like this. Hell, I never imagined that I'd still be alive—not just because I thought I'd be killed already, but because most people don't live to be over a hundred and fifty." That's what happened when you had your youth artificially restored by Dionesium, followed by another artificial restoration via falling into a Lazarus Pit and absorbing the soul of Ra's al Ghul into his own. "But I'm not bitter about it, not in the slightest. How could I be, when it gave me the chance to be with all of you?" Everyone cheered once more. "You know, my father, when he was alive, had something he liked to tell me. It was—hold on, what did I say he liked to say, again?"

"Don't cry in front of the Mexicans?" Diana asked.

"No. Well, yes, he did like to say that, but that's not profound." Everyone started laughing. "Wait, I remember now." Bruce reached into his pocket and pulled out a subway token. "This token acts as equal fare between any two points in Gotham, a symbol of how Gotham was founded on the idea that everyone is equal. My father, he would put a token in my hand and tell me that the ring around the edge meant that we protect each other and that the light in the sky etched on the front meant that we all strive to be better. I was always awestruck by the idea that one tiny little piece of metal could symbolize so much, and it always stuck with me as a message for how one person could represent so much more than what they were. In recent years, though, I've come to realize that the same principle can be applied to groups like, well, like all of you. I look at you all and I don't just see my family, but a show of faith that anyone can find hope and happiness in life if they strive for it hard enough. So thank you. Even though this is supposed to be my day, I can't imagine how anyone here is less deserving of praise than I am."

Everyone cheered once more and Diana gave him a kiss. They probably didn't completely believe him, but it was true, nonetheless. As he kept gazing upon his family, he thought once more about how happy he was from all of it. The thought entered his mind every now and then, but it had been a long time since he seriously thought of himself as a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy.

As he thought about it, he suddenly heard the sound of a piano. Sure enough, Damian was playing the rooftop piano by the bar.

"I just figured, since you have the microphone and everything." Diana gave him a knowing look that, for all the years they had been together, he could never say no to. As such, he brought the microphone back to his face and began one of the few things people never expected out of Bruce Wayne.

"Am I blue? Am I blue? Ain't these tears in these eyes telling you?"

All in all, it was a good day to be Bruce Wayne.

Next time, it begins. The arc you've all been clamoring after for two years. The arc where bad stories go to die and fade away into nothing. The arc where the stations of canon are forced more than any other—that won't be the case here, because we're better than that.

It's.

The.

Fucking.

TOUUUUUUUUUUUUURNAMENT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARC!

Get hype.