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Cass Cain vs the Bat Family for the last slice of Alfred's pie. "Is that a challenge?"
A/N: This became a more Batfam entirety kind of story and then a commentary on the madness of quarantine in my own family using Uno as a proxy. Regardless it was a lot of fun to do.
Four Walls and Attitude
Oracle places her hand against the map behind her. What was once a black and white scaled model of Gotham is now glowing a radioactive green with shades of green depending on the island, the neighborhood, and even the street.
Everyone, including Batman, stares in awe of the projection.
“In other words,” Oracle says, looking sharply over her glasses, “there is absolutely no way we can operate like normal without causing things getting worse.”
Silence spreads quickly throughout the cave. Most of them don’t even know what to make of the information.
Finally, giving voice to the general shock, Nightwing finally says, “Wow. Corona killed Batman.”
“It did not, the rest of you are staying in the manor,” Batman concludes, leading to an eruption of disagreement.
“Did you not pay attention to what I just said?” Oracle demands. “It goes for you, too, Bruce. No one in this cave can leave without it causing a major public health challenge. We patrol too many areas, cross-contaminate with each other too often, and, worst of all, we have immunocompromised family members of our own to worry about.”
It was an intentionally vague statement, but it doesn’t stop the meaningful glances toward Alfred and Red Robin.
Red Robin crosses his arms angrily. “I resent that statement.”
“Maybe keep better track of your spleen,” Red Hood snorts.
Black Bat is uncertain, shifting on her heels. “What do we do?”
“Social distance and adapt,” Oracle answers easily, straightening her glasses. “It’s possible to fight crime without punching people, you realize. That’s my entire M.O.”
The other vigilantes look at each other warily.
***
The size of the manor was enough reason on its own for them to make it their main base of quarantine. There are obviously more than enough supplies, more rooms than any of them could use independently, and access to equipment and the cave should emergencies arise.
Not to mention, the vast majority of them live there already.
Stephanie calls her mom, Barbara messages the Birds of Prey, and they all find solo activities for the first day, only really intersecting at the library, the kitchen, and the entertainment room during chance encounters.
That seemed to be a good call. And when there is a need for some social interaction, it’s almost always in their usual social groups however they naturally lie.
No one sees Bruce but that seems pretty par for the course.
It isn’t until the third day that things get slightly more challenging.
Stephanie, Duke, and Cassandra enter the mini-theater room with a giant tub of popcorn. The lights are off, but the projector is running and the main couch is occupied by Dick and Damian.
“Oh, didn’t realize you guys were in here,” Duke says sheepishly.
“SHH!” Damian hisses at them.
Dick arches back enough to look at the trio over his shoulder. “No problem, we’re watching Planet Earth. Want to join?”
Stephanie and Duke look at each other with mirrored grimaces.
Cassandra squints at the screen. “No,” she answers for them. “How long?”
“We’re marathoning,” Dick shrugs. “Started about an hour ago—“
“SHH!” Damian snarls at them again.
“We were hoping to watch a movie,” Steph says. Her gaze falls more on Damian than Dick, since he is no doubt the one to appeal to. “The Breakfast Club, it’s a classic. You’d like it.”
Duke looks at them all skeptically. “He would? Really?”
“Cass, you know there’s a different television set,” Dick says, pointing to the floor below.
“Tim’s playing,” Cass says in response, her hands holding up an invisible controller as she mimes Tim’s thumb movements.
“There’s a million places you can set up a laptop,” Dick continues to plea.
That earns a crossed look from Stephanie. “So? What do we need to do? Start putting signup sheets in all the rooms? Just share the projector with us after Planet Earth switches episodes.”
“No,” Dick and Damian say in unison.
The trio leaves the room angrily and, within the hour, clipboards with signup sheets begin being mysteriously adhered to all of the main rooms.
***
Jason has made it a point, nearly every day, to remind everyone that he will be the easiest adjusted to quarantine because he is the only true introvert.
The number of times the words introvert and isolated have left his mouth climb so high that, in secret, everyone is beginning to doubt the truth to them. If he is an introvert to the exponential extremes that he professes, surely he would not need to keep finding where everyone else is hiding to let them know it.
He has an alternating list of Zoom calls he is on each day. Hangouts he makes himself, making a point to inform the others quarantined to the manor than they are not invited to it.
The list of who is invited to it seems to grow by the day.
Kyle Rayner, Donna Troy, Ryan Choi. Then Roy Harper, Koriand'r, and Jade Nguyen. Then Artemis, Bizarro, and Miguel Barragan. Out of nowhere Duela Dent, Rose Wilson, and Suzie Su.
It’s halfway into the second week and Jason has the audacity to come into Tim’s room, pull off his headphones, and ask him if he’s bored.
“You know what I think,” Tim says, more than a little irritated. “I think you’re actually not an introvert. I think you’re not an introvert and you’re taking out your need for social contact out on the rest of us.”
Jason considers his comment, then breaks the expensive Beats in half before walking out the door.
***
Alfred begins making many desserts.
It starts with requests. Of course he will make whatever meal or whatever treat is asked of him, because it is nice to have all his loved ones safe, secure, and in the same location for once. Many of the desserts aren’t even difficult.
Then, somehow, they morph into bribes.
Despite the fact that Alfred has remained tight-lipped about his exact age for all these years, the quote-unquote children insist that he is too old to venture out of quarantine. Thus he must stay in the manor and rely on them to stock the pantry.
This doesn’t seem altogether terrible until it becomes obvious to Alfred that whoever he sends out will only get the foodstuffs they desire and not any of the important staples Alfred puts on the list.
Thus, the trades begin.
He can’t make his famous flan without evaporated milk. He positively will not make ginger layer cake without wine poached pears. And how can they snack on peach and pistachio tarts without honey?
Before Alfred has realized it, he has created monsters. Sugar craved, bored little monsters.
He puts a limit on the sweets he will cook in hopes of focusing instead on cooking favorite meals, but it’s too late.
Even Bruce is checking in on the kitchen at odd hours, looking curiously under the cake plate.
And cutting back the number of sweets Alfred is producing through the week also leads to another unforeseen circumstance.
They begin competing for what sweets are left.
***
Bruce looks in disbelief at the screen. Then he looks at the others. Then back to the screen.
“I distinctly remember us being on episode four,” Bruce says in a voice that edges on Batman.
“Last night, yeah,” Duke agrees, helping Alfred with everyone’s drinks.
No one else seems to find fault with the statement and are waiting for Bruce to continue. They pick at their independent devices lazily, only half attentive to any one thing.
It’s very dissatisfying considering the huge inconsistency that Bruce is detecting on their streaming service.
“Why is it saying that we’ve watched all the episodes already?” Bruce demands, voice sounding more hurt than he meant to let on.
Dick and Barbara simultaneously look up from their phones, toward each other, then back down. The others don’t even bother breaking their concentrations.
“You finished the entire series without me?” Bruce presses.
“Father,” Damian finally speaks up, sounding exasperated, “it is impossible to properly view things with you.”
Bruce squints at his youngest. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not just you, Bruce,” Stephanie says quickly, trying to smooth things over. “I can’t watch shows with my mom either.”
“Boomers just don’t know how to binge-watch,” Tim cuts with the final blow, not even looking up from his laptop.
Leaving the room in spite of protests, Bruce decides he is never going to watch the end of the show out of spite.
***
Cassandra has apparently made it a habit to not let others see her walk through doorways. As a result, she seemingly appears in rooms more than she enters them. Or, at the very least, she acts as though she just always has been and it is the other party who is intruding on her space.
As a result, it’s not altogether shocking when Duke looks up from his newly prepared plate and is met by his sister.
She is staring at his plate more than him.
“Oh, hey, Sis,” he offers her all the same. Then, instinctively, he shifts his shoulders to somewhat create a barrier between his plate and her. “What’s up?”
“Apple pie,” Cass announces as if it answers everything.
“Mmhmm,” Duke replies cautiously.
“Last piece?” she asks, her eyes gleaming.
“I’m sure Alfred will make another,” Duke says, then, slowly adding, “eventually.”
“Mine,” she snaps.
“No, you don’t even eat yours with vanilla ice cream!” Duke argues back, almost turning his back on her completely. “Just eat some of the cookies.”
“No!” Cass says, quickly shifting to be more aligned with the treat. “You eat them.”
“Cass, I got here first!” Duke snaps back, hooking afoot around the leg of the nearest chair. “Fair and square.”
“It was my pie,” Cass hisses. “I’ll take it back!”
“Is that a challenge?” Duke asks.
He sees her lunging and immediately kicks out the leg of the chair as he flips over it.
Cassandra is quick as ever and easily somersaults off of the falling chair to land over Duke’s shoulders. Her force is enough to send Duke’s body tumbling forward, but his body has proper instincts. He holds up the plate of pie above all else while using his free hand to find new ground, twirl his body out, and roll his head forward. Cass tumbles off his shoulders.
She hits the counters, but not before kicking off her shoe and sending it flying for Duke’s face.
He twists enough to lighten some of the impact, but the well-aimed shoe sends Duke into a tailspin.
The pie hits the floor with a sickening thud.
The siblings look crestfallen toward the prize, then each other.
Then they get angry.
By the time Barbara and Alfred burst onto the scene to break things up, the fight has utterly devolved and grown to the size of five Wayne heirs, three of which had no idea what the initial fight was even over.
Jason filmed it and sent it to everyone in his extended Zoom call list.
***
They are at each other’s throats. It turns out the Manor doesn’t have enough rooms.
Even Alfred’s treats are not enough to soothe the tensions anymore. Any little thing can set them off. So they spend the rest of the week finding solitary activities, barely communicating with words anymore.
Finally, some wounds begin to heal when Stephanie speaks to a room of others on their Switches.
“Hey, does anybody have an island with cherries?”
They play in harmony again, comparing villagers in hushed tones and sharing patterns for clothes.
Momentarily, there is hope that the peace will last forever, to the rhythm of island music and Blathers’ gibberish words.
It gives them twenty-seven hours of peace and nothing more.
***
“This absolutely will not work,” Barbara sputters as she pulls up to the table.
The others look at her with mild surprise, but they’re already seated. Jason is shuffling in preparation to deal. The arrangement from his left on is Stephanie, Cassandra, Barbara herself, Dick, Duke, Tim, and then Damian.
Damian is flanked by Jason and Tim. And only Barbara sees what the problem with this is.
“I am looking at a public safety hazard,” Barbara presses. “Dick, seriously, you’re going to let them do this?”
He thinks about it. “It’s a learning experience,” he determines.
“You dealing in or nah, Red?” Jason pushes.
She glares at them all, certain this is purposeful on at least some of their behalves, but she crosses her arms. “Okay, fine,” she says.
Jason deals out seven to everyone. Once he puts the deck in the middle, he turns over the first Uno card — green three — and with his free hand reaches in his jacket pocket for cigarettes. The others are already playing while Jason looks slightly miffed if not panicked when he can’t find the pack.
Under the table, Barbara can feel the shuffle of a pack of cigarettes being passed between other members of the table.
Shockingly enough, Jason doesn’t say anything verbally, but his eyes are already glaring at Damian as the pickpocket.
“How can they plan Uno, Dami?” Steph asks. Blue one.
Blue seven.
Barbara looks over her glasses at the table. She’s lost track of the cigarettes. “Don’t underestimate these people, Stephanie,” she warns as the ends up drawing five cards before finally laying down green seven.
Green nine.
Wild Card. “Let’s go with,” Duke looks through his hand cautiously, “Yellow again.”
There is a suspicious twitch to Tim’s lips as he puts down a Draw Four. “Let’s go back to red.”
Damian releases an explosion of expletives and leaps to stand on his chair.
“Ah, it was a mistake, my bad,” Dick says, rubbing a hand down his face.
***
Bruce is stone-faced at dinner, strangely fixated on his plate.
It’s not overly concerning, Bruce tends to be in quiet contemplation on most days regardless.
He finally looks up, though, and glares at them all.
“I finished it on my own,” he informs them.
They all stare back.
“Tiger King,” he clarifies. “They’re all guilty. But also. What the hell.”
Everyone collectively loses their minds again.
Alfred sighs and begins drafting a rotation for getting them all out of the manor more.
