Chapter Text
Harper bobs her head with the music being played over various speakers in the Batcave, elbow deep in soap suds and absolutely drenched in water.
“Rah! Rah! Rasputin,” there are, of course, in-sync claps from everyone in the Cave, “Lover of the Russian queen,” Dixie throws her hands in the air, fist pumping in time with the music and throwing water everywhere with her sponge.
“They didn’t quit,” Jay takes over, head flung back dramatically, her sponge held up like a microphone, “They wanted his head.”
“Ra-Ra-Rasputin,” Harper yells it out more so then she sings and Tim and Dutch do a weird jump thing so that one of them lands in time with each clap, “Russia’s greatest love machine.”
Everyone joins in on the last line, “And so they shot him ‘til he was dead.”
The song ends with Cass shooting Tim with a finger gun and she throws herself on the floor dramatically.
“And here I thought it was cleaning day,” Cullen snarks from the upper level of the Cave overlooking the parking bay.
“Cleaning day doubles as a talent show,” Dutch says snootily, “Obviously.”
“Ah,” Cullen says blandly, making his way down the stairs, “My mistake.”
Dutch laughs and waves him over to her and Tim’s current pet project, “We need some smaller hands, a part fell and we can’t get to it.”
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Batman was a fool of a man that never learned that no matter how hard he tried, if a kid decided that they’d help him, he couldn’t do shit about it. Because of this, he made his many proteges feel unwanted. Harper Row was no different.
Batman was a bad bitch of a woman who started seeing a pattern after the third kid and went ‘yeah, okay, I’ll roll with this and make sure they don’t die’ then proceeded to not only impart them with common sense, but also decent emotional control. Harper Row was no different.
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Harper meets Batman first.
Well, meet might be a bit of a stretch. More like she was kidnapped and he saved her. She remembers that night with a weird clarity that most of her older memories don’t have.
She’d been thrown into the back of a van, a Gotham classic kidnapping, and he’d attacked as soon as the kidnappers had started getting back out of it. They’d been outside of a warehouse that had been a trafficking ring up until that night. It was over in seconds, a thud, screams, gunshots, then silence.
She’d been shoved to the ground during the fight and when she looked up–
“Hello, little one,” his voice had been warm, kind, gentle. He knelt in front of her and held out a hand, “I’m Batman.”
“Harper.” She’d taken the hand, not knowing what to do, and he’d pulled her standing, “Harper Row.”
“Well, Harper Harper Row,” she’d giggled and he’d let a small smile slip, “Have you ever seen Gotham from the sky?”
She’d shaken her head and he’d taken her up with a gentleness she hadn’t known existed outside of her long-dead mother. She’d flown over Gotham for the first time that night and maybe she’d fallen in love with the wind or the lights or the beauty she could see in all of Gotham from above. Or maybe, she’d fallen in love with gentle words whispering secret memories, or kind hands setting her down through her window.
Either way. She was hooked.
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Harper tunes out the background noise of the Cave, focusing back on her bike. Cleaning day happened every couple months unless there was an Arkham breakout or something of similar size. It involved a total overhaul of gear, mending costumes, applying upgrades, and, of course, cleaning. They’ve learned to divy-up the jobs by what people enjoy and hate doing, so while scrubbing down the bikes isn’t her favorite thing to do, it’s also not terrible. Dixie’s in charge of cleaning the cars and since Jay finished her original task (reloading utility belts and restocking snacks in the vehicles that have space for it), she’s set to work on the Batplane that’s been dragged up to the parking bay as opposed to it’s normal place on the lowest level, down near the river where all of the heavy duty vehicles are stored.
Tim and Dutch are working on some repairs to the inside of a secondary Batmobile, trying to teach Cass along the way. Bryce and Damia have been stuck on one of the lower levels of the Cave, cataloging the equipment to figure out what needs to be restocked. Cullen was originally helping Jay but since she’s done, he’s been put on runner duty, grabbing snacks or drinks or tools.
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Harper didn’t believe she had a place so much as a roll.
‘Place’ sounded so set in stone, so unchangeable. A roll could be shifted. Reversed on occasion.
She was a daughter first, then a sister, then her mother was dead and she’d never truly see herself as that man's daughter. Then she was Batman’s helper, someone who helped him, she had a roll in something, and more than that, it was something she chose.
And she kept getting to choose when it came to Bryce.
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Batman had turned her away once.
She’d gotten in the middle of a confrontation with Riddle, but in her defense it really was an accident. A grid on Batman's security network had gone down, so she’d taken a look and gotten stuck as a hostage. Not her brightest moment.
Batman had figured out what she was doing there and told her to go home, explained why it wasn’t safe but she came right back the next time a section went down and after that Bryce had essentially kidnapped her. Then immediately went back for her brother and kidnapped them together.
They didn’t mind.
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Bryce comes up and makes everyone take a break around one for lunch.
“I’m almost done!”
“Harper,” Bryce’s hands are settled on her hips, a disapproving frown on her face, “If I leave you down here you’ll just keep working.”
She rolls out from under the car, looking up at her adoptive mother, “I promise I’ll be up after this.”
“Nuh uh,” Bryce leans down to get her hands on Harper's creeper.
“No!”
Bryce grins and starts tugging her across the Cave, much to the amusement of her siblings still downstairs, “Alfred’ll have my head if I leave you down here.”
She squeals, grabbing the plastic backing, “B stop!”
“Only if you agree to come upstairs,” Bryce sing-songs.
“Okay! Okay!” Harper laughs as Bryce slows the creeper. She stands when they come to a full stop, brushing off imaginary dirt and smearing not so imaginary oil. She sticks her tongue out at Bryce’s smirk and pretends to head for the stairs where the rest of the family has disappeared, before pulling a one-eighty and sprinting for one of the bikes.
“Oh no you don’t!” Bryce catches her around the waist like Harper knew she would, tugging her into her body and lifting her from the ground to throw her over her shoulder, “Just for that you’re stuck with me for the rest of the afternoon.”
Cataloging. One of the most tedious jobs on the planet.
“Noooooooooo!”
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The first three Robins were tightly knit. Concerningly so, in Harper's opinion.
The way they moved around each other spoke not just of years of training and personal knowledge, but of some intrinsic understanding. Harper could read her sister's body language in a fight, could predict where they were aiming, figure out whether they would be in the way of her next take down. That was a given, that was a hard-won skill from hours of training with them. That was normal for this family.
What wasn’t normal was the way they simply knew what the other two were doing at that very moment, knew what they would do next, could predict their actions days before they took them, and they never spoke about it. In fact, they hardly ever spoke at all unless necessary, not out of some sense of avoidance, just because they didn’t need to. One of them would walk into a room and the others would know what they wanted.
It was terrifying.
It was amazing.
It was like they were one person spread between three bodies.
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“Hey,” Tim strolls into the Den, tapping through her phone.
Jaycee doesn’t even look up from her sprawled position of the fainting couch, nose in a book, “Third shelf, fourth from the left.”
“Thanks,” her gum snaps and she walks over to the bookshelf containing the classical books they keep in here. Harper watched her pick up the book three shelves from the top and four books from the left. Flips through it.
There’s a note.
She takes it, stuffs it in her pocket and heads back out.
“Bring something back.” Jay calls after her.
“Cat?”
“No bitch, bird. Obviously.”
Tim grunts, eyes still locked on her phone, and shuts the door.
What the fuck is wrong with these people.
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Dutchess and Cassandra seemed like they stuck out, in a family of insane people.
Well mannered, as annoying as most teenagers are, and no terribly stupid acts of self-sacrificing.
Harper was incorrect.
They were fucking crazy.
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“I double-dog dare you.”
Thunderbird’s hips swivel before she settles with a fist notched into the crook of bone, her deep blue tail ribbons swirling around her legs. Her smirk is downright dangerous.
Black Bat makes a little mh sound, fingers rubbing her chin over her mask. She snaps a finger gun at Thunderbird, “Lollipop.”
One of the lucky charms they carry around that a little boy had given Bryce when she’d saved him.
Thunderbird tuts, reconsidering her dare, then nods, extending her hand, “Done.”
Black Bat shakes it.
“You cannot be serious.”
Black Bat shrugs helplessly at her, “Double-dog dare.”
Harper is fucking done with these people.
Black Bat sprints to the edge of the roof, jumping off and just barely catching the swinging hook of the construction crane. On the backswing, she slips off into a flip, twisting to pull a swan dive into the river below.
She surfaces a few moments later, her mask missing. She grins up at them and waves.
Thunderbird wolf whistles and grapples down. Harper follows her with a sigh.
They pull Black Bat out of the water together and limp off to the Batmobile an alley over.
Idiots. The lot of them.
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Harper liked Steph.
She was whip smart and knew how to handle herself. It didn’t hurt that when she first learned of her and Cullen’s living situation all she said was damn dude, that sucks and moved on with her life.
She’s fucking awesome.
She’s also the only Bat that can tell Bryce to go fuck herself and get away with it. Oh, the other Robins would do it too, but then they’d be trapped in a conversation about emotions because Bryce was just Like That when it came to their emotional control.
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There’s a click-latch and Harper chucks a knife at the window on instinct.
“Dude! What the fuck?” Steph hops on one foot to avoid the knife, “I brought you take out!”
She shakes the bags at her.
Cullen makes a single, solitary ha and Steph throws one of them at him. He catches it, of course, and pulls out a takeout box from Batburger.
Harper sighs, rubbing a hand over her face, “Sorry, long week.”
Steph makes a commiserating noise, “Tell me about it.” She flops onto the couch beside him and he makes an annoyed noise when she disturbs him. “My prof has been on my ass about the next term quiz.”
“The struggles of being a prodigy.” Harper slides into the armchair, dragging the coffee table with the togo bags over to her by the foot.
Steph groans, rubbing her eyes, “Don’t even joke. Half my classmates think I’m, like, a serial killer with all the body shit I know.”
“‘Body shit,’” Harper teases, “Yes, very scientific Doctor Brown.”
”Shuddup.”
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Damia is what Harper expected when she was told about her.
The daughter of an assassin; deadly, highly trained, incredible.
The daughter of Batman; stone-cold, smart, terrifying.
Bryce's daughter; kind, loved, calm, beautiful.
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Harper adjusts her hold on the kitten, paying close attention to her claws.
”Steady, Blue Bird.” Robin murmurs, passing a makeshift bandage around the cat’s torso.
Harper hums and the kitten meows in response. Damia’s lip ticks up and she pauses to pass a hand over the kittens head, scratching its ear before tying up the bandage. Harper passes the kitten over when Damia reaches for it and watches her cuddle it close to her chest with a hand, the other going for her belt.
”Come, Blue Bird, we must get him to a vet.”
Harper smiles, “‘Course Little Bird.”
Robin scoffs and turns, stepping off the roof.
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“How’d it go?” Bryce asks when Harper appears from her shower.
She comes up to sit on the desk beside the Batcomputer with a sigh, “It was fine, couple muggings, helped a guy with his groceries…” she glances at the computer screen then back at B with a smirk, “Found a kitten.”
“Uh oh,” Bryce sighs and saves her file before clicking off, “Am I going to have to ask Alfred to pick up another cat tree?”
“Nah,” Harper pulls her feet up and hugs her knees, “Don’t think so, we dropped the little guy off at the vet.”
Bruce huffs, “That doesn’t mean much,” she glances from Harper to the computer before heaving herself up with a grunt, “C’mon hon, it’s getting late.”
”I think you mean early,” Harper snarks, hopping off the desk.
”Oi,” Bryce swats at her and she laughs, dodging out of the way, “Don’t get smart with me, go on now.”
”Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Love you, B.”
Harper hears the smile in her voice even though she doesn’t turn back to look, “I love you too, sleep well.”