#all of my dc knowledge comes from 1. fanfic 2. tumblr posts and 3. asking britta leading questions until she tells me cool stuff

[aethersea]

This isn’t going on ao3 until the whole fic is finished, but that’s going to take a thousand years and I’m pleased with this and want to show it to people. So here you all go! A very special first in Duke’s vigilante career <3

Duke is 15 here, Steph is 18, Cass is 19, and Tim is 17.

“DUKE!”

Steph pounded up the grand staircase before her voice had finished echoing through the entrance hall. “Duke!” she bellowed again as she reached the landing and paused, bouncing in place as she waited for her improvised Marco Polo to bear fruit. Bruce’s stupid mansion was too big to go tearing through the whole thing looking for Duke, but she was sorely tempted anyway. This couldn’t wait. It was just too good.

“Duke!” she yelled one more time, just to be sure. A door snapped open in the hall to her left. Steph darted over to the hallway entrance, but it was only Tim. He stuck his head out of a door halfway down the hall, just far enough to give Steph an exasperated glare.

“Where’s Duke?” she demanded before he had time to open his mouth. “Is he with you? Babs said he’d be here. I need to ambush him.”

Tim regarded her with suspicion. “Why?”

“Because!” Steph rocked on the balls of her feet, unable to contain her glee. “We’re doing creative writing in English class. And today we swapped pieces for peer review.”

Tim’s eyes widened. “He got a story?”

“He got a banger. Hall of Fame material.”

Tim lit up in delight. “Cass,” he called into the room, “Duke got his first story!”

“But where is he?” Steph insisted, even as Cass popped out from behind Tim so they stacked like cartoon characters.

“Training with B,” Tim answered, and Steph was gone.

She made it to the bottom of the grand staircase before Cass tackled her. She went down with a shriek, rolled to absorb the impact, and somehow ended up flat on her back with Cass straddling her.

“Thanks for not doing that on the stairs,” Steph wheezed.

Cass frowned at her, a little offended, which meant, Of course I wouldn’t do that on the stairs.

“I appreciate it,” Steph assured her. “I like having unbroken ribs.”

Tim slid down the banister and landed neatly beside them. “No starting without us,” he ordered.

Steph raised her hands in surrender. Cass booped her on the nose and pulled her to her feet.

“So how come you two are up here, anyway?” Steph asked as they set off at a frustratingly sedate pace. She turned to walk backwards in front of them so they’d all fit in the hallway that led to the study. 

Tim shrugged. “Everyone needs Batman Bonding Time when they start out. We don’t want to get in the way.” 

Cass snagged an arm around his waist to pull him close and smacked an aggressively wet kiss on his cheek, which meant, And I needed Timmy Bonding Time!

“Eww! Cass!” Tim shoved her away, but he was laughing, and Cass was smug as she let him go. Steph laughed too as she turned back around to swing into the study and bound over to the grandfather clock. 

Steph didn’t run down the stairs to the Batcave, because those things were a goddamn menace and, as previously mentioned, she liked her bones best when they were intact. But she did jump the last few steps and race to the training mats, yelling, “Duke! Duke! Duke! Duke!” the whole time.

Duke and Bruce were sparring with bo staffs. They’d been at it for a while, judging by the state of their shirts. Duke turned to stare at Steph’s approach in shock, and Bruce reached out to tap him with the staff for his inattention. Duke realized what he was doing and lunged around to block at the last second—sloppy, but effective, and Bruce gave a grudging nod.

Steph grabbed Duke by the shoulders. “Duke. Drop everything. This is a very special occasion.”

Duke started to smile, but he knew her well enough by now that the smile was wary. “What’s up?”

“You’ll see,” she promised, and explained to Bruce, “I had English class today. Creative Writing.”

Bruce looked abruptly pained. “This isn’t going to be like the bubblegum one, is it? Because Duke and I have three more sets to get through just with the staff, and I’m not stopping for that kind of drivel.”

“Absolutely not, this one is quality. And it’s Duke’s first!” She swung around behind Duke and squished her face up next to his. “A boy’s first time is a precious thing, B,” she said piously. “We have to make it good for him.”

Duke’s skin was too dark to show a blush, but Steph could feel his cheek heating next to hers. “Now I know you’re not saying what it sounds like you’re saying,” he said, trying to sound threatening. “So what the hell are you talking about?” This was sufficiently adorable that Steph kissed him on the cheek, which he met with a deeply sardonic look.

“Language,” Bruce said automatically. Steph snorted and stuck her tongue out at him. 

Bruce sighed deeply and looked to the stalactites in supplication, because he was a massive drama queen. By this point Cass and Tim had reached the mats and were watching the proceedings with matching smirks. Bruce shook his head in disgust. “Alright, alright, I know when I’m outnumbered.” He reached for Duke’s bo staff. “This better be good, though. Duke is doing well today, and you shouldn’t interrupt a good sparring session halfway through like this.”

Steph beamed at him. An honest compliment, unprompted, and no one was even bleeding out? He really was growing as a person! She glanced sidelong at Duke and found him trying very hard to look like he was too cool to be pleased at the praise. She giggled and kissed his cheek again.

Bruce shook his head and went to put away the staffs. Steph steered Duke toward the couches Bruce had finally installed down here after she’d mocked him one too many times for his sad man cave with its sad lack of real furniture. They were squashy, ugly things, hideously comfortable, and probably cost ten thousand dollars each. They’d only been bled on a little.

Steph pushed Duke down onto the center of one of the couches. Cass and Tim plopped down on either side of him, Tim with his legs on Duke’s lap, Cass with her head snuggled on his shoulder. Duke, as ever, tolerated this manhandling with equanimity, and only looked a little worried when Tim said solemnly, “We’re holding you down so you can’t escape.” If there were ever a prize for Most Chill Bat, Duke would win it hands down. Steph reflected, not for the first time, that she should really hurry up and start doing annual family award ceremonies. Damian would absolutely hate it. It would be worth it for that alone.

Bruce started to flee toward the stairs, but Steph intercepted him with an, “Absolutely not, Bruce, this is a solemn rite of passage for all Bats—all supers, even. You can’t skip out on this, what kind of a mentor would that make you?”

“One who would like to get some actual work done,” he grumbled, but it was perfunctory and they all knew it. Steph could and would badger him into staying. It was far more efficient to just give in now and save them all the time.

Brue sat on a squashy armchair next to the squashy couch and raised his eyebrows expectantly at Steph. She grinned at him, and turned that grin on the others as well with a theatrical sweep of her arm. “I have gathered you all here today,” she declared, “to celebrate a very special occasion. Now as we all know, there comes a time in every young crime-fighter’s life when they at last get the public recognition they deserve.”

“Whether they like it or not,” Tim muttered. 

“Shut up, you love it. Although,” Steph conceded, “your first was not as cool as mine.”

“Yours was a disgrace,” Tim protested. “I don’t know why you even like it, it was awful.” Cass wrinkled her nose in agreement.

“Mine was a masterpiece and I have it framed, so there.”

“She does,” Tim told Duke. “She won’t let us take it down.”

“In back tunnel,” Cass said, pointing. “Bruce said, too awful to look at daily, can’t have up in the Cave. Steph said, fine, and put in his locker. Compromise: put in Jason’s favorite entrance.”

“I did not agree to this compromise,” Bruce interjected. This was a blatant lie, because if he had such a big problem with it he’d have left the thing up in his locker and suffered in stoic silence. Duke knew it, too, judging by the look he shared with Tim. 

Steph giggled again. “Whatever you say, old man.” She slung her backpack off her shoulder and pulled out a yellow folder. “But today isn’t about you. And so, without further ado, I present to you—” Steph flipped open the folder and pulled out a stack of pages with a great rustling and flapping of paper—“A Guiding Light.”

“This is a long one, huh,” Bruce sighed. 

Tim kicked him in the ankle. “Shut up and cherish your newest kid.”

“I’m not his kid,” Duke said immediately. Steph held out a hand and Duke high-fived her. Bruce made no answer to this, just sat there and looked uncomfortable.

“Alright!” Steph cleared her throat dramatically and struck a pose. “It was not,” she declaimed, “a dark and stormy night.”

“Promising,” Bruce said drily. Tim kicked him in the ankle again.

“It was dark,” Steph continued, gesturing grandly with her free hand, “and storming, but the sun shone on behind the clouds. Not that the boy crouched between the crumbling gargoyles on Stevens Street would have guessed it, if he hadn’t known in his very core that it had not yet crossed the horizon.

“The Signal had never needed fair skies to find the sun.”

“The what?” Duke asked faintly.

Steph cackled, unable to keep a straight face. “You heard me!”

Tim and Cass jostled him, laughing as well. “It’s your first fanfiction!” Tim crowed.

Cass patted him on the head. “Congratulations.”

“Found organically, in the wild,” Tim said. “That’s the rule, actually—you can’t go looking for the stories, they have to just come to you.”

“Well you can,” Steph corrected, “Babs and I do it all the time, it just doesn’t count for the game. And you can’t go looking for someone’s first.”

Cass nodded. “First is special.”

“Huh,” Duke said weakly. The flummoxed shock on his face was morphing quickly into mortification. He eyed Tim’s legs over his lap as if he were seriously considering making a break for it.

“This one is very special,” Steph assured him. “You got a great one for your first, you’ll see.”

“Lucky me.”

Cass giggled and poked Duke in the ribs. Tim ruffled his hair. This had no actual effect, with how short Duke kept his hair, but it’s the thought that counts. Bruce watched them with that soft little smile he got around his kids when he thought no one was looking at him. It was Steph’s favorite thing about Bruce, that little smile, and most of the reason she would trust him with just about anything. But that was a fact that she would take to her grave, because unlike some people she was not an absolute sap.

“Alright.” Duke squared his shoulders, bracing himself. “I’m ready. Hit me, Steph.”

Steph snapped a salute. “You got it, chief.” 

“From the top,” Tim suggested. Cass nodded. 

Steph shot off another salute, struck a dramatic pose, waggled her eyebrows at Duke, and began again.