Work Text:
Bruce was re-reading a police report, he moved from the cave when Alfred insisted he stayed downstairs long enough for today. Batman got the permission to bring his homeworks to the living room, and to finish working while drinking a soda plus eating homebaked pumpkin cookies and listening to Edward who read a fairytale to their daughter.
Compared to the Batcave, the climate was much more agreeable in the main room indeed. Bruce sat on a pillow on the ground to study his papers while his... acolyte / second father of his ten months old, talked animatedly about Cinderella from the leather couch. Steph giggled plus produced her usual bird noises, alongside syllables in '-dee' that could be isolated in her babbling.
"-ddie!" She chanted happily from her position on Ed's lap.
"Sure," the once rogue commented. "You certainly wish the prince would..."
"E-ddie!" She repeated at last, looking at him with luminous blue eyes and a smile so large it seemed to cover the entire lower part of her face.
She raised her little arms in front of her, joy radiating from her every moves and laughing vividly, then said again, the name coming out more asserted than before:
"Diddie! Eddie!"
The rest must have appeared very confusing for the girl, between Bruce who dropped out of surprise the can of soda he held previously, spreading carbonated liquid on the floor, and Edward who stared with an expression of pure shock, eyes wide open and speechless for the longest time of his life.
An instant it seemed like everything was blank, the space around them froze to crystallize the moment, turning it into something... eternal, a magical slice of time they felt deep inside.
Then Stephanie giggled forcefully at the face Edward was still making, looking like a fish out of water that discovers the surface world for the first time when jumping out of the waves before diving back into the ocean. Her high-pitched laugh brought them back to reality, and over the following second, Edward was hugging tightly his beautiful baby, actually crying while she kept laughing. Bruce jumped to the couch to join the hug, wrapping both arms around Ed and kissing Steph on the back of her head.
"She said my name..." Eddie finally underlined the obvious, looking at his wriggling toddler with wonder.
"Diddie!" Stephie repeated, understanding that was the reason of her parents' emotional distress sequence of the day.
Regardless, Bruce managed to get a hint bratty after he parted from the embrace:
"That properly sounded like 'Eddie' only once, though."
"... Admit it Bats, you are just jealous our daughter said my name before yours."
The owner of the place crossed his arms on his chest, pouting like a moody teenager.
"She isn't supposed to call us by our names. We are intended to be 'Daddy' and 'Dad', not... Eddie and Bruce. Maybe she was rather referring to..."
"Diddie-Eddie!"
Edward laughed whilst Bruce grumbled, until they both smiled and congratulated their baby again, for this great improvement in her until then chuckle and chirping-centered language.