Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.
Tim wanders through the living room, deftly avoiding the furniture even in his half-asleep state. He’s mostly memorized where it all is, although several Batfamily members he won’t name make a habit of pushing it around as a form of petty revenge or incredibly weak entertainment.

“Hi, Tim!”

The voice startles him for a number of reasons. It’s a girl, and unreasonably perky, even for Steph. He swings around to see the source of the voice.

An older teenager with blonde curly hair smiles and waves at him. Seated across from her, Damian scowls down at the chessboard between them.

“Uh...who’re you?” Tim asks.

She laughs lightly and sticks out a hand, standing up. “Bette Kane. You’re one of Bruce’s kids, right?” She studies him for a moment, then adds, "Tim?"

Damian makes a disapproving noise from behind her, but Bette keeps smiling brightly.

Tim shakes the offered hand. “Yeah. I’m Tim. But you know that.”

“Educated guess, actually. I was told you were the one shorter than Dick but taller than Damian, and that I’d probably find you ‘orbiting the coffee machine and looking half-asleep,’” she says, pulling off a solid impression of Harper. “I’m your...first cousin once removed, I believe? Adopted,” she waves her hand vaguely, “something something cousins. We’re family!”

“Uh. Great,” Tim says. He is not awake enough to deal with this. He passed the “acting high” phase of sleep deprivation about six hours ago, the “acting drunk” phase a few hours ago as well, and is now entering a time of nearly complete shut-down.

“Your move, Bette,” Damian says.

Tim blinks. “Did he just call you—“

Bette’s already turned back to the board, eyes combing over it for new changes. “Oooh. Nice one, Dami.”

Forgotten and rather relieved about that fact, Tim slips out of the room.

ii.
“Damn. That’s really good,” Bette says, leaning dramatically onto the back of Damian’s chair to sneak a peek over his shoulder.

Damian shuts the sketchbook hurriedly and shoves it into his lap.

“Sorry,” Bette says quickly, pushing herself back upright and letting her hands keep rising in a gesture of innocence. “Bat-Cow, huh?”

“Yes,” Damian says, glaring suspiciously at his cousin, studying her for signs that she’s laughing.

She isn’t. “I like the detailing on the face to make the bat silhouette. How’d you come up with that?”

Damian blinks, then stands, the sketchbook at his side. “Follow me,” he says, heading for the stable. Bette obeys.

They arrive a few minutes later, and Bette is absolutely delighted.

“I never had any pets,” Bette says, running a hand along BatCow’s back. “I mean, I had a fish for a bit. But I moved around too much to have any permanent pets, let alone a cow.” She laughs, leaning her head on the cow’s warm neck. “I’d have killed for this when I was your age.”

Damian watches at a distance, a curious expression stealing over his face. A genuine smile, small and sharing some properties with a smirk, but undeniably a smile nonetheless.

*Click*. Damian frowns as he looks up to see Drake hanging from the ceiling with a camera in his hands. Damian lunges at him, Drake flips to land on the floor, and they take off running in an elaborate chase. Bette ignores the chaos, enthralled by the menagerie around her.

iii.
“You caught him smiling.”

Tim nods.

“At Bette.”

Tim nods again.

“Pics or it didn’t happen.”

Tim holds up the ruined camera. Steph whistles. “That’s evidence enough for me.”

“Of what, Fatgirl?” Damian asks, entering the kitchen.

“You smiled,” Steph smirks.

“You must be mistaken,” Damian says stiffly.

“Morning, all,” Bette says gaily, entering the kitchen. She’s wearing a red robe over pajama pants with hundreds of tiny bats on them. “What’s up?”

“Damian smiled,” Steph says conspiratorially.

Bette looks confused and moves over to the cabinet to grab a coffee mug. “He smiles all the time. Is that like a thing suddenly?”

Steph looks at Tim blankly while the clinking of mugs bumping together reverberates through the kitchen. Damian scowls down at the counter.

“Nice to see you again, Steph,” Bette says after a bit, her mug spinning in the gently humming microwave.

“You too,” Steph responds automatically.

The silence lingers until Damian gets up and storms off to the stable. Bette slips out of the room a little after him, sipping her tea and waving goodbye.

“So...they’re actually friends?”

Tim nods. “I see them together too frequently for it to be a hallucination.”

Steph grins. “Good for them.”

iv.
“Who’s that?” Bette asks, pointing to a picture in his sketchbook. It is of a girl, floating in the middle of the page so she can’t tell if she is jumping or running. The girl wears a school uniform, grinning at something, holding up a large book. Her dark hair is short and pinned back by a bow with a skull motif in the center of it.

Damian doesn’t answer immediately, adding more detail to the line of her jaw, the plaid pattern of her skirt.

Bette doesn’t press him.

“Her name’s Maps,” Damian finally says. “She’s a friend.”

Bette raises her eyebrows but doesn’t voice any skepticism. “She’s pretty.”

Damian makes a tutting noise in lieu of speaking, a blush creeping into his cheeks.

“Where do you know her from?”

“Gotham Academy.”

“I didn’t know you went there! I went there for a semester—I transferred.”

“I was expelled.”

“Huh.” Bette doesn’t know what to say to that. “What’d you do?”

“I said I stole something,” Damian says with determined casualness.

“Did you?” She asks, catching the shift in wording.

Damian doesn’t answer, returning to his sketching.

“Did she steal something?”

Damian slams down his sketchbook. “Time to feed Batcow.”

Bette smirks sideways at him. “Okay, Dami. Time to feed Batcow.”

v.
“It’s not a date, and we don’t need a chaperone!” Damian insists.

Bette smirks and adjusts his tie. “Of course not. I’m just coming along because I’m savvy enough to realize that superhero dates”—she holds up a hand as Damian begins to protest—“are a magnet for trouble, and it’s better if you don’t have to worry about the secret identity thing.” She ruffles his hair, then smooths it out again. “Besides, I want to meet Maps. She sounds fun.”

“Tt.”

She steers him to the mirror, allowing him to inspect her work before they head to her car.

“Just think of me as your chauffeur. Your moderately-less-embarrassing-than-your-dad chauffeur,” she says as she climbs into the driver’s seat of her car.

“I can drive,” Damian grumbles, reluctantly climbing into the passenger seat.

“Not legally,” Bette corrects. “And we don’t want an easily avoidable run in with the cops, do we?”

Damian sighs and rolls his eyes.

Bette smiles at him and starts the key in the ignition.

Chapter Text

i.
“Do you have to still be here?” Damian hisses out of the corner of his mouth as he walks towards the movie theater.

“Would you rather have your brothers show up with night vision goggles and fake mustaches?”

“I would spot them.”

“I don’t think they’d care,” Bette says. She ruffles his hair. “Look, Little Wing, I can get them out of your hair with only the minor condition of having your wonderful cousin a few rows back.”

“Tt.” Damian crosses his arms.

“Won’t even know I’m here,” Bette assures him. “Unless you try pulling some age-inappropriate moves.”

Damian gives one of his patented disgusted looks.

She giggles.

The next second, Damian is tackled from behind by a yellow and blue blur. Bette reaches down to help him up, but he’s already detangling himself, standing up, brushing off his pants.

His tackler—an Asian girl about his height with a spattering of freckles across her cheeks—stands up too, grinning.

Bette smiles at the newcomer. “You must be Maps.”

Maps looks at her and her eyes widen. “You didn’t tell me ‘Cousin Bette’ was Bette Kane!”

Damian actually looks startled. “I—“

“You know who I am?” Bette asks, only slightly less shocked.

Maps is by Bette in a moment, grabbing her hand in both of hers and pumping it up and down. “My brother, Kyle, he plays tennis! It’s the only sport he watches so I got used to it. I remember seeing you win, Kyle was really excited, he has a poster in his room!”

Bette blinks as she processes. “Wow, uh, thanks.”

“Selfie? Please? He’ll be sooo jealous.”

“Honestly, it’s hard finding tennis fans around here. Maybe Dami could bring me along on a visit around Wimbledon.”

“Kyle’ll freak!” Maps grins, holding up her phone.

“Here, my arm’s longer,” Bette says, taking it and holding it up at range. She reaches out and snags Damian’s collar. “Get in the frame, cuz.”

“I am not—“

“Nope, not up for debate.” Bette smiles brightly and presses the side button, dragging Damian into the frame through a combination of creative angling and sheer stubborn strength.

Maps takes the phone and smiles.

“Might want to keep that safe,” Bette says. “Pictures of him are rumored to be cursed, the way devices with them often get ‘lost’.”

“They do not,” Damian insists.

Bette rolls her eyes and imitates the heavier accent Helena occasionally adopts for disguises. “That’s a mighty nice phone there, Miss Mizoguchi. It would be a shame if something... happened to it.”

Maps laughs, tucks her phone into her shirt, and loops her arm through Bette’s and Damian’s. To Bette’s slight surprise, Damian doesn’t resist in the least, and actually looks...happy?

Maps sticks her arm out as much as she can, finger pointed. “To the theater!”

She takes off in leaps and hops and occasionally sprinting, Bette and Damian keeping up. Bette catches Damian’s eye and grins. Damian’s face is that of one who is reconsidering every life decision that led them to this point. It’s a face she knows well from Kate.

ii.
About 30 minutes into the movie, Bette looks up after a tap on her arm to see Damian’s shadow looming over her.

“What?” She asks.

“Trade seats,” Damian orders.

“What? Why? It’s your date!”

“It’s not a date!” Damian snaps, his voice almost rising above a whisper. He leans close as if sharing some shameful secret. “She’s a talker.”

“Oh.” Bette says. Then, “wait, you’re not?”

“Of course not!” Damian says, shocked. “Just switch.”

“Talking’s the point of going to movies with people if you’re not just gonna make out the whole time!”

Damian sighs.

Bette throws up her hands. “Fine.” She stands up and maneuvers a few rows down to the empty seat by Maps, who glances at her, smiles, and whispers a meme relevant to this particular scene. Bette snickers.

iii.
After the movie they meander to the other end of the mall to get froyo. Bette blends a bunch of flavors and toppings with a logic which Damian side-eyes but she assures him makes total sense and has been honed over time. Maps piles her full bowl with Oreos, whipped cream, and every type of chocolate sauce available. Damian carefully sets some specifically chosen fruit atop his dark chocolate.

They sit at one of the tables, contentedly eating, Maps and Bette chatting about tennis and Gotham Academy. Damian gave up sulking about ten bites in, and Bette could swear he almost looks happy. She’s tempted to take a picture, but she’s not ready to invoke his wrath yet, when it’s going so well.

“The headless statue’s still there?” Bette says.

“Of course!” Maps exclaims. “Damian fought it!”

“It came to life?”

Damian sighs. “Shockingly, no.”

“Everything else comes to life,” Maps adds helpfully. “I think he was just training. But then we got our hands stuck together by a magic quill pen!”

Bette looks over at Damian, who stares her in the eye. “Everybody attacked us. We had to fight holding hands. It was…”

“Awesome?” Maps supplies.

Damian frowns, his brow furrowing slightly. “Fun.”

iv.
“You know, little wing, you’ve got good taste in friends if I do say so myself.”

“Tt.”

Bette laughs and reaches over to ruffle his hair. He half-heartedly leans away, but not enough to actually avoid her.

“So? Did you have fun?” She asks as she takes a left turn.

“The movie was filled with plot holes.”

“They always are. How ‘bout the company?”

“You and Maps cannot hit the high notes in Burn.”

“Pot calling the kettle much, Dames?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve established that Dick is the only person we know who can actually get through Guns and Ships.”

“Tt.”

She smiles and resists the urge to ruffle his hair again. “Singing along is half the fun of musicals.”

“Not for the people forced to listen to you.”

“Come on, some things you just physically can’t hit unless you’re some Black Canary style meta. The last note in the Gray Ghost theme song? Bloody impossible, but watching people try is so much fun.”

Damian stays silent, and Bette glances over at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Wait. You’ve never seen the Gray Ghost?”

“No,” Damian admits, chin up as if daring her to question it, voice defensive.

“Oh man, Bruce was apparently obsessed with it when he was your age! I wonder if he’s still got his collection—probably, your old man’s a bit of hoarder—not that he doesn’t have the room or means or reason for it.”

“Never use the phrase ‘old man’ in that context again.”

“Say please.”

Damian sighs. “Please never use the phrase ‘old man’ in that context again.”

Bette nods, the verbal contract sealed and the conversation ready to move on. “We’re gonna have to ask Alfred or your dad or somebody about the old Gray Ghost show, I’m sure it’s on some streaming service if it’s not free by now. I’ll ask Tim about it tonight, okay?”

“Tt.” But it was affirmative.