“Take a sparkler.” Jason handed one to Damian without waiting for a response.
The youngest regarded it with disdain. “Sparklers are for children,” he sneered.
“And you’re a child. Knock yourself out, brat.”
Jason lit the end with a Bic and watched with unveiled satisfaction as his brother’s expression changed. The awe surfaced in Damian’s eyes as the sparks jumped from the stick in showers of green. Close by, Cass unabashedly weaved giant letters into the twilight sky and danced to music only she could hear. Further on down the gravel driveway, Dick and Tim lunged at each other with swords or wizards’ wands. The narrative changed second by second depending on their whims. The play was intense and short-lived as the sparkers burned down and died. Then they rushed back to the stash of unlit fireworks almost all at once.
Dick tossed the used sparkler into the metal bucket. “Smoke bombs?” he asked excitedly.
“Yeah, before it gets too dark,” Tim added.
“I do not see the appeal. Smoke bombs are a tool, not a toy.” Damian jumped the leftover stick, its end still glowing a slight red.
Cass smiled and put one in his palm. It was yellow and chalky, the texture definitely different from the smoke bombs loaded each night in his utility belt. “Punk?”
Damian’s body language stiffened. His brothers called him names all the time, affectionately but openly rude. It was unlike Cass to join the fray. He opened his mouth to return fire, but Dick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He passed Cass the slowly burning stick Jason had lit at the beginning of the evening, used to ignite the remainder of the fireworks. “It’s called a punk,” he explained.
“You’re a punk,” Jason directed at Dick.
Tim groaned. “I’m back in middle school.”
“You never graduated middle school, replacement,” Jason lobbed.
“Nobody graduates from middle school,” he returned straight-faced.
Cass followed Damain out a short distance. A second later, they backed away as the ball spewed forth a cloud of yellow smoke. It seemed to turn a darker color as more emanated. Then the smell hit them.
Tim nearly gaged, the wind wafting the sulfur right under his nose.
Dick chimed in with a grin. “‘He who smelt it, dealt it!'”
“That is revolting,” Damian declared.
“Blue balls. That sounds like a personal problem. You should see a doctor about that.” Jason handed him the cheap plastic lighter.
Jason flipped him off without hesitation.
“I have more balls,” Cass added, triumphantly beaming. She held up a cannister with a bright label of purple and gold. It read Fu King ~ Purple Dragon.
“I can attest to that statement. She does in fact have more balls,” Jason replied, deadpan. Nobody among them was willing to disagree.
“Wait,” Tim reached for the package in genuine disbelief. “Fu King?”
“That’s Fu King unbelievable,” Dick threw in, his thoughts mirroring Tim’s.
“No, that’s Fu King amazing,” Jason countered.
Tim pointed to the label, then his inspecting gaze shifted to the other fireworks that were laid out ready to use. Several of them were sported the same manufacturer’s name. “That’s-“
A moment of silence followed as all eyes turned to Jason, who’d purchased 95% of the fireworks they planned to set off. It was Dick, who witnessed his brother keep a carefully constructed neutral expression, who spoke first. “You’re full of shit.”
Jason cracked, enjoying the fruits of the long con. “Custom made. Took you dipsticks long enough.”
Damian chose his next canister after some deliberation. “My balls are ‘Screamin'”, he informed them, never one to be outdone.
Cass snorted. Tim made a similarly strangled noise. Dick looked eminently proud.
Jason was the only one who commented. “I’m not touching that.”
“Yet you have touched all the other balls.”
“I’m gunna kick your balls, twerp.”
Cass gestured to the small patch of gravel where a variety of other spent carcasses lay abandoned. Damian took the invitation and stepped out before her. He scrambled backwards as the fuse burned and the first ball left the tube with a distinctive thump. A scream split the air, followed by another thump thump and still more ear deafening screams. Cass put her hands over her ears and tracked each as it rose, twirled, and exploded horizontally in galaxy shapes. Alive with beauty for just a second, then gone in the blink of an eye.
A piece of debris fell and bounced off of Damian’s head. Cass reached over and ruffled his hair. “Light fireworks. Not head.”
“That is indeed the plan.”
Cass took her turn. The rest cycled through with their own choices. Spinning ground blossoms, tanks, expanding black snakes. Bruce sat silently on the sidelines, watching his kids and listening to the banter. He’d been treated to the first round of hot chocolate while the others occupied themselves. At Alfred’s insistence, he’d wrapped himself in a few extra layers. The temperature outside was dropping rapidly, heat and daylight bleeding away by the minute. After a long regiment of antibiotics and inactivity, they’d finally gotten the pneumonia under control. The lingering smoke irritated his still healing lungs, but it was a price he was willing to pay to be present. Jason dropped into the extra chair beside him. “Holding up, old man?”
Bruce lifted his mug a little, warm and comfortable in his hands.
Jason craned his head to view the interior. It was almost empty. “You want a refill?”
“Later.” He didn’t want to deprive Jason of time with his siblings. He also knew that Alfred was making regular trips outside to check on him. To check on all of them. To check that the house and grounds weren’t burning down in a feat of pyrotechnic disaster. He watched as Tim retrieved the Roman Candles, the kids forming a firing line.
Bruce stalled his departure with a hand on Jason’s forearm. “Watch the trees,” he begged, his voice little more than a raspy whisper.
“Check your angles, assholes!” He rushed out to grab his own, lit each going down the line, then joined them at the end. Shot after shot ascended in fiery streaks, a barrage of greens and reds. Christmas colors cascading in July. Only one came too close to the trees. They had the hose close by just in case, along with a first aid kit for accidental burns. Hopefully they’d need neither. They made it to the cakes without incident, flat bricks with multiple fireworks lit from a single fuse that went off in sequence. These were the finale pieces, the longest and most elaborate.
“We should do this every year,” Tim proposed as they paused for snacks, gathering around Bruce. They stuffed their mouths with cucumber sandwiches, potato chips, and popcorn. A smattering of glass soda bottles surrounded them. Each of the kids had staked a location claim, making it easier to identify their own drinks. Once they were done, hot chocolate, cake, and ‘Independence Day’ awaited them inside.
“Father has responsibilities elsewhere.” It was always Damian who pointed out the facts, whether anybody wanted to hear them or not. In this case, he referred to the Wayne Foundation’s Fourth of July Gala held yearly. Had he not been sick, Bruce and a majority of the kids would have been downtown, watching the professionally stagged fireworks go off over the city.
“I like this better.” Dick’s honest statement seemed to resonate. Cass nodded in agreement. They waited expectantly for Bruce to weigh in.
“We’ll see.” It wasn’t a no. That in itself was worth celebrating.
“Sweet,” Tim muttered as Cass drummed out a happy dance with her feet.
They rounded up the night with the most massive brick, saving the best for last. The Dragon Rising measured two feet by four feet and contained over 300 shots. From the base shot out rapid fire columns of red, sweeping in a moving arch from left to right, followed immediately by overlapping peonies of gold and white. An onslaught of purple fountains sprayed in a dome in all directions and from the heart exploded a dazzling array of white waterfalls. The interval abruptly sped up to an overwhelming number of ignitions, some simultaneous. It was grander, closer, and more wonderous than anything they could have witnessed from behind skyscraper glass. Then there was silence and the stars.
Cass started to laugh. Tim let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Dick wrapped an arm around Damian’s shoulders and dropped his gaze from skyward to his younger brother’s face. That expression of awe had returned.
“Fuck yeah,” Jason exclaimed. “And thus concludes the night’s entertainment. I bought ‘um, you clean ‘um, losers.”
There was a collective groan before the hunt began but no words of objection. Jason, with the better end of the bargain, wandered back over to his father and sank back down. Two of his siblings produced cell phones for flashlights and the gathering of the trash began. With nothing left to accidently ignite, he pulled out a cigarette. Then stopped. Put it away. A thick haze hung in the air, but it was drifting away from the chairs. Away from Bruce.
His father wordlessly offered him a lighter.
Jason froze, not knowing what to do or think. Then he took his first real look at it in the dim light. It was silver. Or silver plated. The metal pocking created a uniform pattern on the body’s exterior. A tiny dent in the flip lip betrayed its previous use. It was a hefty weight in Bruce’s outstretched palm. “Take it,” Bruce prompted.
Jason eyed him suspiciously but did as he was told. The weight surprised him. Definitely solid. “Heavy motherfucker,” he commented, flipping it open and lighting it. “Smooth action.”
“It was my father’s.” It’s yours now.
Again, he froze. “Bruce-“
“Please.” I’d like you to have it. Bruce sat his mug aside and pulled the blanket around his shoulders tighter across his chest, his now free hand disappearing under the wool like it did under his cape on other cold nights.
Jason couldn’t say no. He didn’t want to say no. Instead, he rolled it over in his palm a few times, got used to the feel of it. To the idea that it was now his. Then he rose, turned, and repositioned his chair a few feet farther away from his dad so the wind was his ally. Still close enough to converse and share a space with the man who mattered most in his life. Then he pulled out the cigarette he’d previously stowed and lit up.
(a/n: Happy belated 4th, y'all.)
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