Bruce has a crush on a very pretty girl in school, so his doting fathers invite her and her uncle over for tea. It... goes as well as can be expected.
"Is the soup not to your liking, Master Nygma?" Alfred asked at dinner one night. His voice was carefully neutral, but Edward still looked chagrined. Alfred was the butler, cook, grave robber, and all around helper in the house. A cranky Alfred meant everyone else had to contend with take out and misery.
"It just lacks the usual… oomph, so to speak." he stirred it unhappily.
"Oh, I am so sorry, darling" Oswald hurriedly said as he withdrew a small green bottle from his pocket. He leaned over the table and poured the equally bright green liquid into the Riddler's bowl. Edward stirred, the tried the soup again. He lit up.
"Delicious!" He cried happily, the proceeded to devour it.
Oswald smiled fondly at him, then turned to his adopted son who had not said much during the entire meal.
"Bruce, dear, whatever is the matter?"
Bruce Cobblepot, born Wayne, looked up. He was pouting, but then he was always pouting. Having just turned fourteen, he was the epitome of teenage angst. His fathers could not have been prouder.
"There's this girl at school" he admitted reluctantly. "I'm not sure how to treat her."
Edward and Oswald exchanged looks. How precious, Bruce's first crush.
"Well, why don't you invite her over for dinner?" Edward asked in an encouraging voice, then started licking his soup bowl.
Bruce frowned. "I don't know if she'd like that."
"What is her name?" Oswald asked, "maybe I know her parents."
"Silver St Cloud."
"Never heard of her. Is she pretty?"
"Very pretty. Her hair looks like it is actually silver." Bruce seemed enraptured at the mere thought.
"As long as you don't try to cut it off" Oswald warned him. "Remember last time."
"Selina didn't mind!" Bruce replied hotly.
"Selina isn't like most girls, Bruce." Edward pointed out unnecessarily. "And she still screamed down the house."
"We can have her parents over." Oswald suggested, cheerily, wanting to prevent the argument before it got started. He loved watching them get into it, but not at dinner. "Silver's, that is."
"She lives with her uncle" Bruce muttered, but finally started eating his soup.
""Well, lets have him over for tea, then." Oswald shot a warning look at the butler who seemed very interested in the proposal. "As a guest, Alfred."
"Yes, sir." The man muttered, back to his usual mulish behaviour. He glared down at his soup. "But if either of them upsets master Bruce-"
"Then we will discuss Sunday menu choices after the fact, not before. We don't want the GCPD visiting again, it's only been a week since the last time."
"Very good, Master Edward."
"I hear you have a girl you like, Bruce" Edward's sister Barbara said as she brushed bits of plaster from her blond hair. Tabitha, her wife, ignored them both and instead focused on reloading the explosives. They were in the east wing, which was mostly Tabitha's and Barbara's domain and usually required major constructive work about once a month.
"Yeah, her name is Silver." Bruce replied as he watched his aunt work. "She's coming over for dinner tonight with her uncle."
"How wonderful." Barbara's smile was shark-like. It immediately put him at ease.
"Pass me the fuse?" Tabitha demanded without looking up at them. Bruce obeyed, wondering if he ought to change out of his school uniform before things proceeded any further. Alfred hated when he got it covered with gunpowder.
"You better go get ready" Barbara said, "you want to make a good impression."
"Aw, come on! Can't I watch as you detonate first?"
The women exchanged a look, hen turned indulgent smiles on the youth.
"Would you like to press the button?" Barbara offered him the detonator.
"Damn right I would!"
Silver St Cloud turned out to be a beautiful girl with golden hair and pale skin, wearing a clearly expensive dress as she and her uncle were welcomed into the mayoral residence that night. They seemed a bit disconcerted at the glassy way Alfred looked at them, and Oswald had to restrain himself from asking if they'd never seen a reanimated man before. Some people were such snobs. Besides, Alfred was the perfect servant - he never slept, didn't need to eat, and only required the occasional organ or limb replacement. The latter, uncle Hugo always took care of in the basement so they didn't even have to call anyone in.
"Welcome!" Oswald cried, excited to have guests. For some reason, people rarely visited their home and he was simply dying for them to enjoy themselves and want to stay. At least until he could figure out how to serve them.
"Mayor" Silver's uncle said with a smarmy smile, shaking Oswald's hand. "Theo Galavan. Pleasure is all mine."
"Yes, it is!" the penguin beamed. "Do come in and have tea! Silver, Bruce is just upstairs. Follow the screaming."
Silver looked momentarily unsettled, but composed herself quickly and vanished upstairs in a cloud of perfume.
"This way, Mr Galavant."
Oswald led their guest into the sitting room, sighing deeply as he saw the body hanging from the chandelier. Galavan flinched in shock at what appeared to be a dead man, but surprisingly said nothing.
"Edward, darling" Oswald chided, "get down from there - we have guests."
The man hanging in a noose from the chandelier sighed deeply.
"I'd just gotten the momentum right" he complained, but obeyed. He kept the noose around his neck, though.
"Silver's uncle, right?" he said as he shook the stunned Mr Galavan's hand, looking at him sharply through his glasses.
"That's right. I'm… Galavan. Theo Galavan."
"Galavan? Any relation to Tabitha?" Edward looked at him very intently.
"You… know my sister?" To be honest, he hadn't talked to Tabitha since she married some crazy woman five years ago.
"Of course! She lives here with my sister. But I'm afraid they're not in - there's an execution and they managed to get front row seats. They'll probably be home late."
"I… see." Galavan stammered as he sank down on one of the very comfy sofas.
Just then, the butler brought in the tea tray and Galavan immediately had to look away to keep from staring at the lines of stitching around the man's left hand. Edward saw where he was carefully not looking, and addressed the man.
"How's the hand, Alfred?"
"Bit unreliable still, sir. But it's getting there. Still getting used to the fingers."
"Oh, I am so glad. I was worried about the size." Galavan felt sick when he realised that none of the men were commenting on the fact that the hand clearly had belonged to a man with darker skin than the butler. Or the fact that it was stitched on. These people were mad. And they ruled Gotham.
His own hands shaking, Galavan accepted a cup of tea from the dark-skinned hand that Alfred held out towards him.
"T-Thank you" he managed and hated himself for showing how unrattled he was.
The two men in front of him smiled benevolently. It made his blood run cold.
He was just about to say some sort of generic thing about hospitality, when a gut wrenching scream echoed through the house. There was a thundering of footsteps down the stairs, and then he heard his niece screeching "uncle Theo!" from the hall. Galavan threw his teacup and sprinted towards the noise, Edward and Oswald hot on his heels.
Silver stood in the hall, her eyes wild. But it was her head that drew the attention of everyone else. Blood was pouring down the side of her face from a terrible head wound, and a part of her hair was missing.
"He tried to scalp me!" She screamed hysterically. "Said he wanted to know if my hair was really silver!"
Galavan turned on his heel, glaring daggers at his hosts.
"You people are fucking mad!" he snarled, "Silver we are leaving. NOW! You can expect to hear from our lawyers."
Edward adjusted his glasses. It was a highly unsettling sight.
"Are you sure you don't want any tea?" Oswald asked, clearly unhappy.
"We want nothing but a bloody ambulance!" Galavan yelled and ushered his hysterical niece out the door.
Once the door had slammed shut behind their guests, Oswald turned to Edward with trembling lips. "Bruce is going to be so upset" he lamented.
"We'll just have to comfort him." Edward said, pulling his husband into his arms and rocking him slowly.
"Fathers?" Bruce called from the landing, "where is Silver?"
"She had to go home, Bruce. I don't think you'll be seeing her anymore" Edward replied regretfully.
Bruce cocked his head to the side, mulling it over. Then he shrugged.
"Oh well. Her hair wasn't real silver anyway. Can I have Selina over tomorrow?"
"Of course you can, son. That's an excellent idea."