A/N: I forgot to upload this one here! This is the last fic in my Batfam Halloween challenge. Sorry it's a little late for Halloween, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. I hope you enjoy it, and follow me on Tumblr for updates about future Batfam projects!
It was the first Halloween that everyone was together and alive and not actively trying to kill each other, and Alfred meant to make it a memorable one for all the right reasons. However, the first step of his master plan involved tricking every family member into being at the Manor that day, for one reason or another. For some of them, this was easier said than done.
Damian was easy, as all Alfred had to do was let him know that Batcow was off her feed (a tiny white lie). Damian instantly declared that he would stay close to home to keep an eye on her for the night.
Dick needed no tricks or white lies. He probably would have come on his own regardless, but Alfred called him anyway, and they had a lovely chat about nothing in particular until Alfred mentioned the possibility of a movie night with Damian. Dick practically cheered over the phone. "I'll be there! Do you think Dames would like Nightmare Before Christmas? Or is that a Christmas movie? Never mind, I'll bring a few options and we can decide later."
Cass seemed to know what Alfred was up to, and before he could even ask she stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek and promised that she'd take care of getting Stephanie there as well.
Tim had caught a cold from an all-night stakeout in the rain the night before, so he was strictly banned from leaving the Manor anyway, which he complained about to anyone who was close enough to hear. It was made slightly less annoying by the amusing fact that his scratchy voice cracked every time he said anything.
Barbara expressed delight when Alfred invited her to join him for tea and spiced cider. He carefully left out that it would already be a full house.
Jason was a bit more challenging. Alfred finally realized that he would need to recruit help. Cass agreed to be his secret weapon. "Bruce is your problem," she said firmly. "Jason is mine."
Bruce. Yes. Master Bruce could be a problem. Alfred considered his options as he cleaned the sink in the kitchen. He needed an emergency of some kind. Tim's health? Damian acting up? Or perhaps an attack on the manor itself?
In the end, he send a simple text message: "Master Bruce, a word." That was vague enough that Bruce might actually be concerned that he'd missed some important appointment.
Satisfied that his trap was set, Alfred went about to make the rest of his preparations.
When Dick arrived at the Manor early that evening with an armload of animated movies, he found the main entrance bedecked in cobwebs that sparkled with tiny lights. He grinned at Alfred as soon as the butler greeted him in the hall. "Wow, you've stepped up your decoration game this year, haven't you, Alf? I love it! Where's the Damester?"
"He's concerned about the cow, Master Dick. You'll find him downstairs. But first, would you help me with something?"
Dick cocked his head to one side. "Of course! What's up?"
Alfred handed him a bowl. "It appears that no one in this house likes candy corn. I seem to remember that you appreciate it. Is that still the case?"
Dick awkwardly took the bowl. "Uh, sure, it's tradition… Thanks, Alf." He did enjoy candy corn. But…
While Alfred went upstairs to check on Tim, Dick snuck into the kitchen. He opened the cereal cupboard and found to his delight that every one of his favorites had been restocked since his last visit. He pulled out the box of Honey Nut Chex and laughed out loud. Alfred had left a note that wished him a "Happy Halloween." That crafty old rascal had known Dick would do this! He chuckled as he dumped Chex into the bowl of candy corn and mixed it up. Presto. Instant Halloween movie snack mix! He took the bowl and went to go find Damian.
One cryptic message from his sister and he lost all self-control. That's all it took. Jason grumbled inwardly as he sped his bike into the driveway of Wayne Manor. He'd been so determined to have a good quiet Halloween all to himself, and then Cass sent him that.
The message was all emojis, in typical Cassandra fashion: emergency light, praying hands, house, wristwatch. He took that to mean, "I need your help, please come to the manor right now." He'd texted her a dozen times after that, trying to convey his frustration and telling her to bother someone else for help, but she'd gone silent. He worried. So he got off his butt and raced over to the manor.
When he arrived, he burst in through the front door, a little perplexed by the decorations. "Cass? Helloooo?"
The lights flickered off suddenly, and Jason fell into a ready stance, his hand over the concealed gun in his jacket.
A flashlight beam suddenly lit up a face in front of him. He lurched back, but it was only Cass, holding the light under her face. She grinned, revealing fake vampire teeth, and waggled her eyebrows at him.
"Cass," he sighed. "Please tell me you didn't text me just so I'd come for Halloween."
She swept the flashlight beam in his eyes, blinding him.
"Ow! Hey, cut that out!"
She grabbed his hand and pulled him along, her cheap vampire cape fluttering behind her and tickling his arm. She pulled him into the kitchen, where some furious baking had been abandoned. She pointed at some bat-shaped sugar cookies and red licorice. "Help," she said, then settled herself onto a stool at the counter and began piping black icing faces onto the bats.
Against his better judgement, he sat next to her. "What do you need me to do?"
She gestured at the red licorice. "Vampire bats need blood."
He snorted. She wanted him to put red licorice pieces on the cookies? Fine. He could do that. Then maybe he could get out of here before Bruce or Dick or the Replacement showed up.
Either Cass didn't notice, or chose not to comment on the way he kept sneaking pieces of licorice. After all, it was his favorite candy, and tonight was Halloween.
Steph loved Halloween. And not just because of the candy. She loved being spooked, she loved the decorations, and she loved dressing up. She'd had the most difficult time picking a costume this year, but then Tim had sarcastically suggested she just go as her favorite food. That had amused her so much that she actually made herself a waffle costume to spite him.
When Cass texted her that she'd made cookies at the manor, Steph needed no encouragement. She arrived in costume, rang the doorbell until Alfred arrived, and shouted, "Trick or treat!"
To her surprise, Alfred was ready for this, and dumped a heaping handful of candy in her purse.
To her even greater surprise, it was all Skittles. Regular, tropical, and several other special limited edition versions. "Alfred, how did you KNOW?" she gaped.
"Miss Brown, I make it my business to know exactly what each of you enjoy. My methods shall remain my own."
Then it was her turn to surprise him when she flung her arms around him and gave him a legendary Stephanie Brown glomp. He patted her head gently in return.
"-Tt-" came a scornful noise from further back in the hall. Steph peeked around Alfred to see Damian regarding her with his lip curled. "It does not surprise me that you would engage in such a childish behavior as dressing as a breakfast food," he said in that stupid smirking tone.
Steph immediately ripped open a bag of Skittles and flung them all at Damian, catching him off guard. They smacked into his face and scattered into all corners of the hall.
"Miss Brown!" came Alfred's mild rebuke. "I expect you will find and dispose of every last piece of candy in this hall!"
"Worth it!" she called over her shoulder as she chased Damian into the house.
Tim woke to the sounds of shrieks and yells elsewhere in the house. It didn't help his headache much, that was for certain.
He sat up groggily in bed, noticing how the covers had been tucked in around him securely. Alfred had been here. Another sign of Alfred's handiwork: the tray on the bedside table, laden with some still-hot soup and a bottle of pills. Tim grimaced. The soup smelled amazing, and his stomach grumbled. Maybe he was actually on the mend now.
After drinking half the soup, he realized that the pill bottle was unlabeled. Huh. That was very unlike Alfred. In fact, it seemed exceedingly strange, now that he thought about it. He picked up the bottle and shook it. It rattled with the sound of tiny pills. He twisted the cap and peeked inside. Whatever the pills were, they smelled fruity. Vitamins?
He dumped some into his hand and immediately laughed out loud when he recognized what they were.
"What are you doing, Drake?"
Tim nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice near his elbow. His sudden jerk in surprise sent the little colorful pellets onto the bedspread. "Damian! Now look at what you made me do!"
Damian leaned over to inspect the colorful pieces. "What are they?" He picked one up between his thumb and forefinger and sniffed.
Tim dumped some more into his hand and smiled. "They're Nerds!" He popped the small handful into his mouth. The tangy sweetness woke up him a bit more. He glanced at his little brother and nearly choked at the disgusted expression he wore. "Damian, it's okay. It's candy."
Damian frowned. "Oh. You would enjoy a candy that could have been named after you."
Tim blinked. "What."
Damian's lips twitched, threatening to undermine his carefully prepared frown. "You know what they say: you are what you eat!"
Cass didn't mind the chaos in the kitchen. It was a friendly kind of chaos, she could tell by the relaxed way her brothers were fighting. Dick had shown up before she and Jason had finished decorating the cookies, and insisted on joining them, since he'd somehow lost Damian.
Cass was content to stick little candy red-hots on the bats for eyes while Jason fought Dick for the icing bag.
"Give it back, Dickface! I was using that!"
"No, I'm not going to let you write 'Batman sucks' on all the cookies! You go back to eating licorice. Someone with taste should do this part!"
"Well, that rules you out!"
"I'm not the one with helmet hair."
Cass smiled. Her brothers used so many words, but despite their occasionally rough banter, she knew deep down they cared. And that made her feel all warm and fuzzy. But, if she didn't intervene soon, the cookies were in danger.
So, she climbed on the counter and reached into the baking cupboard for another icing bag. She found a bin of candy and sprinkles instead. She pulled it down and opened it curiously.
"Hey, whatcha got there, Cass?" Dick asked, still holding the icing bag out of Jason's reach. "Did you find Alfie's hidden stash of candy decorations?"
She opened the bin and let out a small gasp of delight. Her brothers crowded close to see what she'd found.
The bin was completely full of sour candy, including her absolute favorite: Warheads.
Jason made a face. "You like those things? They're just coated with that awful artificial sour salt. They'll kill your taste buds."
She ignored him and carefully unwrapped each one, setting it on the counter in a row. Jason and Dick watched, their earlier argument forgotten for the moment. When she'd finished unwrapping a dozen Warheads, she picked the first one up and walked over to the sink to rinse off the sour salt and get to the sweet interior.
Jason smirked. "Wow, Cass, maybe you don't realize, but that is what we call cheating."
Instantly, Cass was on him. Before Jason even realized what was happening, she'd stuffed a fistful of sour Warheads in his mouth.
As Jason gagged and coughed into the sink, Cass nodded at Dick, who couldn't stop laughing at the whole thing. "Not cheating," she said matter-of-factly. "Life hack."
When Barbara arrived at the manor, she probably should have expected the chaos, but she was still taken aback when Jason rushed outside in his socks and hopped in her car's passenger seat.
Before she could demand what was going on, Damian followed, snarling like a wild animal, with a piece of caramel stuck in his hair.
Jason locked the car doors. "Since Alf banned us from helping with the caramel apples, I'm just gonna take a nap in here," he said. "Don't mind me." He laid the seat back and closed his eyes as Damian pounded the window.
Babs was sorely tempted to hit the "eject" button, but instead she simply unlocked the doors and let Damian try to yank his much larger brother out of the car by his feet. "Come on, Todd, don't be a Drake!"
Tim poked his head out the front door, wrapped in a blanket and looking a little healthier now that he'd actually gotten some sleep. "Did you seriously just use my name as an insult?"
By the time Babs made it to the kitchen, all three younger boys were yelling at each other in the hall. She glared at Alfred as she rolled up to the table, which was covered with sticky caramel pieces and bruised apples. "Thanks for inviting me into this disaster zone," she said. She took the cup of steaming hot cider from Alfred and breathed in the scent of cinnamon and cloves and the secret mulling spices Alfred always used. Ah. That alone made it worth coming out here.
"You're very welcome," Alfred said with an incline of his head. "Would you care for a caramel apple?"
The chaos had settled some by the time they actually started the movie. Damian wasn't sure how Grayson had done it, but somehow he'd managed to convince Jason to stick around for "Hotel Transylvania." Damian let Dick snuggle him a bit, though he refused to try any of the ridiculous "snack mix" that Dick shoved under his nose.
"I will not put that in my mouth," he said. "I must draw the line somewhere."
Dick looked hurt, but then he shrugged. "More for the rest of us, I guess."
"You can have all of it," Jason chimed in from his place on the floor. "I don't think any of the rest of us would stoop to such unhealthy eating habits. Except maybe the Replacement."
"Hey!" Tim said. "I'm sick!"
"Exactly my point."
Damian barely focused on the zany animated film, especially once he noticed that his father had entered, and was silently watching them from the door to the den. Apparently Alfred had already spoken to him, because he wore that "I've been scolded by someone older than me and I refuse to admit I was wrong," face. Damian could read it because, well, it took one to know one.
Nobody else seemed to notice Bruce, so Damian settled in closer to Dick on the couch and frowned every time his brother munched on that hideous mix of cereal and candy corn.
Then he noticed something on the armrest next to him. He blinked at it. It was a dark chocolate truffle. A real homemade truffle.
He glanced around and noticed Alfred exiting the room. Bruce raised an eyebrow at the man, but then he was gone. Bruce nodded to Damian as if to say, "He'll spoil you rotten, but go ahead, it's all yours."
Damian took the truffle and savored every last moment as it melted in his mouth.
Somehow the kids lasted through the entire movie. Bruce had tried to leave at least twice, but Alfred's glare was enough to make even the Batman compliant. As far as he could tell, only Damian and Cass had noticed him, but then again, Jason had fallen asleep on the rug, and Tim was probably still a bit feverish, so he didn't fault them for not being alert.
When the movie ended, however, Dick said without turning around, "Hey B, why don't you take a seat and join us!" So he'd noticed as well.
Bruce approached the group and rested his hands on the back of the couch where Dick and Damian sat. Jason stirred and gave him a sleepy one-eyed glare which Bruce took to mean, "I still hate you but I'm too tired to do anything about it, so you're off the hook for now." He could live with that.
"What do you wanna watch next?" Dick asked. "Coraline? Paranorman? The Skeleton Dance?"
Bruce let them argue for a bit before he said, "How about Casper?"
They all froze in mid-argument. "What. The. Heck." Jason said. "Of all our options, you want to watch that campy movie about a ghost who died tragically as a child? Why the hula-hoop would you even suggest that?!"
Before Bruce could react, Alfred approached with a silver platter. He held it out, revealing a single candy bar that he pushed in front of Bruce's nose. "Please, sir, eat a Snickers. You're not you when you're hungry."
The entire room erupted with hoots of laughter that lasted long into the night.
Alfred carefully closed Tim's bedroom door behind him, satisfied that the teen had actually gone to bed and was not on his laptop or some other device. All the others had turned in as well. Even Jason had not put up a fight when Alfred suggested that they all stay in the Manor for the night, since it was so late already. Alfred returned to the den to clean up the mess of popcorn and candy and blankets from the family movie night. To his surprise, he found that Master Bruce was there, seated near the fireplace.
"Happy Halloween, Alfred," Bruce said quietly, and held out a small bowl.
Alfred took it and was instantly transported to another place and time. The bowl contained traditional British candies, from Jelly Babies and Allsorts to Winegums and a Sherbet Fountain.
"Sir," Alfred said, astonished. "When did you..?"
"On my last business trip. I'm glad I did. I had no idea that you were going to go to all this trouble to make the day special for the kids."
Alfred smiled. "My pleasure, Master Bruce. Happy Halloween, sir."