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Stephanie gave her best growl when the Siren Sionis hired started to try to charm customers over. She couldn’t even see if any of the people at the festival came over or not.
She was fucking blindfolded, hard lines of rope wrapped around her head and cutting off her eyesight. Her snakes, her snakelets, were tied back in a black sack that they couldn’t get out of. It was too thick for them to bite through, and they were also bound together tightly by the same coarse rope that was around her eyes. Her snakelets were suffocating, slowly but surely.
Stephanie hated when they got a customer, but at least then they uncovered her eyes and took off the bag - which let her others get some air sometimes. They weren’t untied so that they could breathe properly, but it was better than nothing.
She herself could barely breathe, rope wrapped around her mouth to mute her cries. It put pressure on her snakelets as well.
Stephanie hated the fact that information on Medusa shifters was so easy to find. It let the Black Mask overpower both her and her mother.
Steph whimpered unintentionally, muffled as she was. She didn’t, couldn’t, tell herself that the tears in her eyes were anything but from grief as she remembered being torn away from her mothers dead arms before she had even hit the ground.
“Oh look! You’d think that it knows that I’m immune to it!”
Steph jerked back into reality as footsteps approached her. She held still as they roughly jerked her blindfold off, though she winced as they roughly yanked off the bag that was on her head.
Stephanie took as deep a breath as she was able to, as did her snakelets. Just the fact that they were able to breath again helped a great deal.
She couldn’t help but look at the customer that was holding some weird ass glass object in their hands nervously. Steph was torn between being relieved that a customer had bought time from her, and hating the fact that they had bought time from her.
Not many chose to take Sionis up on his offer for her. Even with ‘witch enchanted weapons to negate the gaze of a fearsome medusa’, not many would risk their lives to try it out. And that meant that there wasn’t many chances for her snakelets to breathe.
All because he refused to tell anyone that she was a shifter - because everyone would then know that she was too young to turn them to stone.
“Wow! It’s glaring at me and I really am still alive! I’m not stone!” The man said loudly. That alone attracted more people, outlined figures Stephanie could see moving around the outside of the enclosure she was in.
Sionis knew that she wasn’t a real danger to others, but to keep up the facade he had her in a narrow hall type thing. It was enclosed, and you couldn’t really see out, so when a customer chose to pay they would close the front after giving them one of the glass bulbs to hold.
But now with all of the customers out front, she would be left without her hood for a while.
Her snakelets would get to breathe.
She would get ogled.
But if it meant that all of her could breathe, then it was worth it.
Right?
Stephanie had gone past the point of being hungry and thirsty. She’d been in the hot box of a hallway since the sun had first risen, and she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since. Steph also knew that she wouldn’t get anything until she was back to the Bunker that Sionis owned.
Why Soinis had a place underground where he lived and kept her hostage Steph had no idea, but he was also an adult that had a made-up name so she guessed he wasn’t supposed to make any sense.
“What the ever lovin’ mother fuckingness are you mcfuckin’ up to now you greasy ass fuck?”
Stephanie liked whoever that was based on their creative swearing. Her brain was sluggish and sloopy and melty, and it wasn’t until the door smashed open that she put together that the boy snarling was from around here. He was a local.
Maybe Steph knew him from when she lived not in the underground and he would recognize her and yell at Sionis and take her away and out of this heat and that would be nice it was so hot maybe she could convince him to let her drink something too she was so thirsty -
Oh but why was everything sideway?
Steph blinked slowly; and figured she must have been hallucinating because there was no other reason why a spotty kitty was hissing at the charmy while both were sideways and everything was sideways and oh was she laying down?
Steph decided that wasn’t important and closed her eyes.
“He hasn’t adopted a girl yet and this is going to surprise him or I’m going to be angry.”
Steph slowly slithered back to consciousness, fighting against how fucking awful she felt. Her head hurt and her eyes hurt and her mouth hurt and her throat hurt, and her poor snakelets were radiating pain. They were limp, and they were hurting even more than she was. Her poor darlings had been tied up and in pain for so long.
“What would Alfred do what would Alfred do… Probably not sneak a child in to give it to Bruce, but whatever. He was the one that helped us sneak out, so now he’s the one that’s going to get a new grandchild too.”
Stephanie was working at figuring out if she could open her eyes without pain. She didn’t want to try to open her eyes when there might be that nasty, hard rope over her eyes. She couldn’t tell, since it still felt like the rope was there even though it wasn’t. She’d been fooled before and she wouldn’t be fooled again.
She refused to let the ass make fun of her for that again.
“Alfred would have water. And food. Because none of us take care of ourselves properly apparently. But Tim is just a baby like you are and babies don’t know how to take care of themselves. The only one of us that doesn’t have an excuse is our dad, but he’s weird and sometimes he’ll work all day and forget to eat and then Alfred will have to go and drag him out of his office and - oh hey, are you awake? I saw ya hand move.”
Steph had lost the game - but she also didn’t think that the one talking worked for Sionis.
At least, she didn’t know the names Alfred, Tim, and Bruce.
“Are you awake? Can you sit up? Or - or even just open your eyes? I took off all of your - those nasty ropes. Even got all of your snakes free - one licked me before they all went to sleep too. I think they like me.”
Stephanie opened her eyes, squinting up at the blurry boy sitting beside her head. She croaked, trying to speak.
“Oh yeah, you have to be thirsty. Here, got some water.” He helped her sit up, and then he helped her drink her glass of water. She drank it as quickly as she could, pouting when it emptied.
“You can have more once Alfred says it’s okay. He might want to try some magic on you, and sometimes water and magic don’t like each other.” The boy moved her so she was leaning against the wall behind them. “But like, only certain kinds of magic don’t like water. Others need water. Magic is weird; like Dick.”
“Who?” Steph asked, since it was easy.
Well, kinda easy. Because who named someone dick? That just seemed mean…
“Our brother. He’s older than me and he sucks, but he’s not so bad. He’s also learned that he can find wind currents and ride them because he’s also a showoff.”
“Our?”
“Yeah, you’re a surprise for Dad when he gets back. He doesn’t have a daughter yet.” The boy nodded. “Oh, yeah; I’m Jason. What’s your name kid?”
“Stephanie.”
“Nice ta meetcha. You’re in our room right now; Dick, Tim, and I share it for now. Alfred’s working on separate rooms because Dick is apparently starting to grow so he’s gonna start taking up all the space.”
“What is he?” Stephanie wondered. They didn’t get a lot of shifters in Gotham.
“He’s a dragon; Alfred is still trying to figure out which kind. He’s not a normal one.” Jason explained. “I’m a Nemean, and Tim is a Hydra. There ain’t no other Medusa’s here besides ya.”
“Mama was one.” Steph sniffed. Jason looked away and went quiet.
“Threatened Mask with Tim’s bad venom and he said what happened when he took ya. I’m sorry kid, losin’ a ma is hard.”
Stephanie sniffled again, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“Jay? You sad?” Steph looked up as the door opened and a boy her age stuck his head in the room. “I felt it… Oh. You stole a new friend?”
“Bought her, actually. She’s Dad’s present.”
“Oh…”
“No we aren’t getting rid of you, baby bird. This one will just get added.” Jason patted her head. Stephanie hissed, as did her snakes, but they didn’t try to bite him.
Stupid things had decided they liked him. Normally they hated everyone; they didn’t even like her dad .
But they apparently liked this kid.
Maybe it was because he was a cat.
“You were the cat right? That attacked Charmy?”
“Yeah, that was me. Can’t believe that idiot is still with that asshole.”
“Jason, you know you’re not supposed to swear.”
Stephanie went tense as Tim scampered into the room, only of a scary grown up to push the door open.
“Dick does it too!” Jason glared. Stephanie shrunk back a little, and so did Tim, so Steph decided that he was her twin now and that meant that they would be together forever and he wouldn’t ever get rid of her.
They would be two halves of a whole idiot like her mom used to say to her dad on their good days.
“Just because your brother does it, doesn’t mean that either of you should Jason who is that?” The man looked over at her. Steph hissed at him and pressed into her twin's side, who squeaked.
He’d get used to her hugs soon since they were twins now. She just had to tell him that so he knew.
“I bought her from Sionis. Congrats; it’s a girl.” Jason smiled up at the man. He pinched his nose.
“Jason… We’ll talk about this later.” The man gave Jason, who was still smiling at the scary man, a look that said he wasn’t mad but he wasn’t happy. Steph’s mom used to give her dad that look a lot. Then they usually yelled at each other a lot.
When he looked at her, he didn’t look like that at all. Steph thought it was weird how fast he could change what he looked like. “Hi, little hatchling. My name’s Bruce, what’s yours?”
“Not supposed to talk to strangers.” Steph glared at him, only just refraining from sticking out her tongue. The man, Bruce, looked amused, and Jason snorted beside her.
“He’s your dad now, he needs to know or he’ll just keep calling you “little one” and “sweet baby” or some shi - uff.”
“NOT a baby!” Stephanie stuck her tongue out at Jason. “I’m five!”
“And I’m nine; you’re a baby.” He looked down at her from where he had sat straight to be tall.
Like a jerk of a cat.
“Nine is only four more than five so you aren’t older than us by lots!” Her twin stuck up for them.
“Yeah, jerky kitty.” Steph agreed. “Twin Tim is right!”
“Twin?” Tim looked as confused as the others.
“Uh, yeah. We’re both five and both have to put up with jerky kitty so we’re twins now.” She nodded.
“Cool.” Tim smiled up at her.
“Now that that’s settled, can I ask your name child?” Bruce asked again. “If you’re going to be twins with my son, I think I should know my other child's name.”
Steph pouted when she couldn’t think of a reason to say no.
“Stephanie.” She said reluctantly.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Stephanie.” Bruce slowly sat down in the doorway. Steph wasn’t sure why he sat down like that. Maybe he was hurt.
Maybe Jason was right and he was weird too. He’d said it before, she was pretty sure.
“She was kept like me, Dad. She needs grandfather to look her over.” Jason told him.
“I’m fine!” Steph denied.
She was only a little hungry, a lot thirsty, and a lotter dizzy!
“I’m sure you are sweet Stephanie, but we need to have you looked over anyway.” Bruce told her softly. “To make sure you don’t have anything mean and bad left over from the man who held you.”
“Don’t want too.” Steph pouted and crossed her arms.
“I know, Jason hates when he has to get looked over too.”
“Because Gramps always makes me drink that icky stuff.” Jason slumped down the wall. “It’s gross .”
“I know it’s gross, but it’s going to help you grow up and be as big as you should be.”
“Fine, alright; I guess I don’t want to be as short as Tim.”
“I’m not short I’m five!” Tim yelled.
“Yeah, you were short when you were young!” Steph joined her twin.
“I’m only nine I’m still apparently young!”
“That’s not young that’s almost old!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Is not!”
“Is -” Steph tried to stand up so she could be bigger than Jason, but then the dizziness came back and she fell into Tim.
“Woah, short stuff!”
Steph thought it was Jason coming to sit her up again, but It was Bruce and Steph didn’t know if she liked Bruce her dad was a villain and what if Bruce was one too and then he would hurt her since she might be his son's twin but she wasn’t his daughter and ~
Her snakelets bit him.
Stephanie yelped and scrambled away, her snakelet letting go.
She thought Bruce was going to be so super mad, but he only looked concerned as she scrambled away from him.
“Dad! Dad Medusa snakes are venomous!” Tim screeched, before he shifted into a red Hydra.
Before anyone else could react, Tim shot forward and bit Bruce just above where she had bitten him.
There was a long minute of silence, Tim hanging onto his arm - not even able to get his mouth over the entire arm. Just a little part, and he was dangling there as though he didn’t know what to do next.
Jason laughed. He laughed so hard he snorted and fell over. And then when Tim finally fell off of Bruce’s arm, Jason laughed so hard he started crying and stopped making noise.
Steph wasn’t sure what was so funny, but it didn’t stop her from joining Jason and giggling too.
Tim cheeped, walking in a little circle before looking up at Bruce with huge eyes.
Bruce sighed. Really heavy.
Steph giggled more.
“I’ll send Alfred in to check on you, Stephanie. Tim, thank you for using your healing venom on me.” Bruce seemed to listen as Tim trilled and cheeped, though it was clear he didn’t understand what her twin was saying. “Yes, I’m sure that you care about me enough that you produced healing venom. The sting went away, now I’m going to ask Zatanna to make sure that the bites are going to heal without a scar.”
Bruce left while they were all still giggling, and when a kind looking old man entered the room with a blue dragon draped across his shoulders; Stephanie decided that her new family wasn’t so bad.
She just wished her mom was there too.