Sorry about the ending, but this chapter is over 3,000 words, so there's gonna be, like, a part 2 type-thing to this.

Dick: part 2?

Jason: what do you mean?

I mean, the next chapter will pick up immediately where this one ends. And it's a crappy ending. I do not like it. I feel like it's rushed and jumbled. Sorry about that in advance.


Jason frowned to himself.

Why in Farmer Bruce's name did he decide to engage in that conversation with Damian? Sure, he wasn't usually one for casual conversation with the kid, but beating up the Joker in a warehouse with a crowbar, then leaving him to bleed out slowly and painfully while they watched? Something about that was a little TOO familiar.

Damn you, Grayson, he thought to himself. If he hadn't brought it up (though, technically, it was the little Demon's fault for getting the idea into Grayson's head) then Jason would still be sitting pretty. Well, he always sat pretty, he was beautiful. But… know what? You get it.

He let out a huge breath. There was something suspicious about the way Dick had been breathing, and Barbara seemed to get that. While Jason had no idea what that was about, he decided to let it go.

And think about Tim instead.

That was unexpected. Tim killed the Joker? With a GUN? What had happened there? Was he trying to get revenge or something? Maybe Bruce had files on the incident… he could hack into the computer later and sneak a peek.

Meanwhile, Dick checked his phone. Bruce had messaged him back. Dick bit his lip and messaged Bruce again.

Dick: hey, Bruce, how's it going?

Bruce: boring. Is something wrong?

Dick: Jason and Damian just got into a lovely conversation about beating up the Joker with a crowbar in a warehouse…

Dick pocketed his phone. No doubt there was something big going on in space, but if Bruce said it was boring, then it was probably just a meeting with a bunch of different planets' rulers or grandmasters or whatever they called themselves. Poor Bruce thought it was going to be a big fight of some kind.

He felt his phone vibrate and looked to see the message.

Bruce: sounds interesting. Anyone else there?

Almost as if on cue, he got a message from Duke.

Duke: Dick, I'm here with Batwoman. We just finished up a mission and are on our way there. Want anything?

Dick bit his lip.

Dick: a happy meal. We need one, stat.

Duke: what's wrong?

Dick: bit personal. But we could use the happy meal. Make sure there's chicken nuggets and apple slices.

Duke: you aren't pranking someone, are you?

Dick: nah, that was part of the deal. Too bad, though. I know a good one.

Duke: we'll be there soon. Maybe meet up with Luke while we're coming.

Dick groaned slightly. Great… now there were going to be three more people come to torture him. Dick switched back to Bruce's contact, listening vaguely to the idle chatter that his siblings had devolved into.

Dick: apparently, Duke, Luke, and your cousin are coming up for a visit.

Bruce: lol, good luck.

Dick: I hate you.

Bruce: love you too, Dickie 3

Dick had to smile at that. Bruce could be so infuriating… and loving at the same time.

Bruce: btw, you gave me a good excuse to get out of here. I'll be there sometime this week. You know the traffic up here. It's brutal.

Dick rolled his eyes this time and pocketed his phone. He was going to keep the surprise visit… well, a surprise.

He clapped his hands together to get everyone's attention. The sudden loud noise made Steph shoot up like a rocket, perfectly aware of her surroundings and armed with a pillow.

"Alright, guys, here's- "

"But we already did Snow White," Damian interrupted him. Dick bit his lip again.

"You know, Snow White gets pretty confusing after a while," he said. "One moment, she's a girl in the woods with her sister, brushing her blonde hair. Next thing we know, she's got black hair and is a princess locked in her own palace."

Damian frowned and rubbed his head.

"I KNEW she didn't have a sister…" he grumbled to himself. Dick smirked at him.

Once upon a time, there was a very kind woman named Barbara. Don't get attached to her.

"Noted," Cass said, snuggling up to Barbara. Steph did the same thing on Barbara's other side, making the older woman blush slightly. Dick suppressed the urge to snicker and, judging by the looks on Tim and Damian's faces, they were trying their hardest not to laugh.

Jason looked lost in thought. Dick frowned to himself slightly. Maybe he was still curious about the 'Tim-killing-Joker-with-a-gun-thing?' He claimed that he was over his death, so… that had to be it.

Yeah. That was it.

Barbara sighed to herself one day while picking roses. She pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel-

And fell into a sleep-like death!

Dick and Barbara fist-bumped.

No, she poked herself on a rose thorn. She watched her blood spill into the freshly fallen snow.

"Shouldn't she get that washed or something?" Steph asked worriedly. Barbara shuddered.

"I once saw a girl sharpening a pencil with some scissors," she said. Everyone raised curious or confused eyebrows.

"Why was she doing that?" Dick asked her. Barbara shrugged.

"I don't know. I asked her and she said it was easier than using a pencil sharpener," she said. "Anyway, she got a long cut on her thumb, and it was fairly deep, too. She sat there staring at her blood for a good ten minutes before her friend finally convinced her to get a band-aid."

Tim blinked slowly at her.

"Did it hurt?" he asked. Barbara shrugged again.

"She claimed that it didn't, and she said she would get up to get a band-aid if it did," she said. "After that ten minutes, she said it was starting to sting and stood up, couldn't find any band-aids, found a paper towel, and wrapped that around her thumb with tape."

Dick's mouth dropped open.

"She didn't even TRY to look for a band-aid?" he asked. Barbara shook her head. "What a SAVAGE."

"Do you mean that in a good way?" Damian asked him. Dick shook his head.

"No… no, I mean, that's FERAL."

He decided to continue his story, filing away that useless information for later. It could be interesting.

Out of nowhere, Barbara thought, "Man… I want my daughter to be as white as snow, with hair black as… ebony? And lips as red as blood…

Barbara gave him a horrified look. Dick looked down in thought.

"I can't remember if that's how it goes…" he said.

"Lips as red as blood?" Barbara asked. Dick ignored her.

"Was it black as night or black as ebony?" he asked himself. Barbara glared at him.

"Lips as red as BLOOD?" she repeated.

"No, no… I think it WAS ebony…" he mumbled to himself. Barbara threw a pillow at him.

"I hate to interrupt your thought process, but… LIPS AS RED AS BLOOD?!" she iterated. Dick went "ugh" and rolled his eyes. Barbara glared at him.

"That's how it GOES, Babs," he said. Her glare hardened, but after working with Batman for… how long? 24 years? Any kind of glare is just weak.

You know how the story goes from there. She wished for it, it came true, she died, the baby was raised by her loving father and step-mother until the dad died, then Snow was locked in a tower because, plot twist, the stepmother was actually EVIL! Dun, dun, DUUUUNNNNNNNNN!

And that brings us to the 'magic mirror, on the wall. Who's the fairest one of all?"

He put on his best impression of an old lady voice with a British accent. Everyone laughed. Even Jason scoffed at it.

Now, the stepmother can be…

Dick froze, looking down in thought. He bit his lip, rubbed his head, and turned to Barbara.

"Who else worked for him?" he asked. Barbara frowned at him.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Joker," he said. "After Harley quit, who was working with him?"

Barbara hummed in thought.

"I… can't remember her name," she said. For the first time in a while, Jason moved closer to the conversation.

"Wait… Harley quit working with the Joker?" he asked. "I assume this was before he died?"

"She quit after you… well, you know," Dick said. "It didn't sit right with her, what Joker did."

Jason nodded thoughtfully.

"So… Joker got someone else to hang on his arm?" he asked. Dick nodded.

"Yeah… but we can't remember her name," he said.

"I feel like it was a card name…" Barbara said. "Ace?"

Dick flinched.

"No, definitely not Ace…" he said. He shook his head.

"Whatever," he said. "I guess I just need to think of someone else…"

The stepmother was… Ivy.

"Makes sense," Jason said. "She doesn't care about anybody."

"Not true," Damian told him. "She and Harley have been having a thing."

Jason's eyes widened in shock.

"How much did I miss?!" he asked. Dick cleared his throat.

Ivy was very upset about the answer the unnamed mirror gave her.

"Queenie queenie, on the floor. Whatever are you asking me for? It's obviously Stephanie Brown, you big cow."

This got a lot of laughter.

"I almost wish the mirror had said that in the original," Barbara said.

Ivy sent a henchman… Bane, I guess, to kill Steph in the woods.

In the original, he couldn't bring himself to do it, so he let her go. Since Bane is NOT that kind of person, let's just say that Steph beat him up and hightailed it out of there.

"I've never fought Bane before," Steph pointed out. Dick shrugged.

Steph ran and ran until she came across a little cottage in the woods. Big surprise, since we've never run into any of these things in the other stories.

Steph let out a snicker.

She knocked on the door. When she didn't get any response, she decided it would be a good idea to pick the lock and enter the cottage.

Thing about the lock… well, it wasn't locked. Steph frowned to herself.

"What's the point of having a lock on your door if you aren't going to use it?" she asked herself. She entered the house and looked around. There were seven beds and seven chairs at a tiny table. I can't think of a smooth segue into Steph deciding to start cooking food for whoever lived there, since 1) if you ask her to cook anything she will literally hiss at you and 2) I don't think she'd randomly burst into song and call upon the powers of the wild and woodland creatures to do her bidding.

Everyone burst into laughter when Dick finished that paragraph. Even Jason was laughing hard, which made Dick smile sadly. Hopefully, Jason would be alright.

He had to wait a solid twenty minutes for everyone to calm down enough for him to continue the story.

Steph just started randomly cooking, probably feeling bad because she just walked into these peoples' house without consent.

Steph opened her mouth.

And yes, that's trespassing. Yes, it is illegal.

Steph closed her mouth.

That's why she decided to cook something for them.

Now, let's assume these seven tiny men were on their way back from work. Since that song will get stuck in my head for 27 days and bash around in my skull relentlessly, I'm not gonna start singing or humming. Shocking, I know.

Damian did, in fact, look genuinely shocked about this revelation. Grayson wouldn't be singing, humming, or referencing a Disney song? Blasphemy!

"Who are the tiny men?" Tim asked. He casually leaned against Jason's arm and, to everyone's shock (especially Tim and Jason's) there was no reaction and no pulling away.

"Have fun naming seven tiny men," Dick said. "And don't say me… I've already been in so many stories, especially in a row. Give someone else the spotlight."

"Terry hasn't been in a story in a while," Tim said. Jason snickered.

"Duke and Luke haven't shown up at all," he said.

"What about Jake?" Tim asked. The two's eyes lit up as they named a bunch of different people.

"Bart!"

"Lian!"

"Jay!"

Tim counted something on his fingers, a crazy smile breaking out on his face.

"That's seven," he declared. He leaned back against Jason and gestured for Dick to continue.

Dick, in pure shock at how well the two of them had just gotten along, blinked a couple of times and cleared his throat.

Now, obviously, I'm not going to mention all of those names, but at least they're there and we have names for all seven of them.

So, they were coming home from doing whatever they were doing. I think they were miners in the original…

"How is it that you recited a tongue-twister from memory without breaking stride, but other times you can't even remember names?" Cass asked. Dick shrugged.

"Selective memory," he said. Steph frowned and leaned close to Barbara's ear.

"Is that a thing?" she whispered. She felt Barbara shrug.

When they came home, they were all in shock. There was this adorable blonde-haired beauty standing before them? Ghasp! And apparently, she hadn't even broken into their home.

But she did trespass.

They decided to let her stay without repercussions on one condition: she continues cooking for them.

Steph made a face but didn't say anything. The conditions seemed fair to her, at least.

They lived like that for a while. She was so nice and so good at cooking, that some of the dwarves offered to marry her.

Damian's eyes widened at this, his face turning a little red. Dick smirked to himself.

She giggled and said no, because she was supposed to marry a prince or a knight or something. I just realized that I didn't mention that earlier… sorry. It was kind of important to the plot.

Well, whatever. At least now you know.

Damian's face was still a little red. He turned a small glare on Dick, silently daring him to do anything he would regret.

Dick pretended not to notice. Instead, he avoided looking at Damian in favor of glancing up at the clock. Wow… was it really that late?

Well, he wanted to go to bed early… he could finish this story then head upstairs. What his siblings did while he was up there was beyond him.

Queen Ivy knows she's alive. Yes, the queen is still relevant to the story. She plotted how best to get her revenge on Steph for being so naturally amazing.

Something that most people overlook is that the queen actually tried more than once to kill Snow. The first time she tried it, she used a cord. You know how those medieval dresses had those laces on the back of them? Queen Ivy came up to her, disguised, and claimed that she needed some new ones.

She tightened the cords around Steph's waist, went up a little ways to her stomach, and conveniently had to be somewhere else. She tied them off and ran off, leaving the cords too tight for Steph to breathe.

"Smooth," Steph said, nodding to herself approvingly. She turned to Damian.

"On a scale of 1 to cereal killer, where does this attempted assassination stand?" she asked. Damian blinked at her before shrugging.

"Mediocre, at best," he said. Steph nodded.

Thankfully, the dwarves came home in time to see her gasping on the floor. They cut the cord and Steph was breathing fine again.

"Thanks, guys," she said nonchalantly, smiling at them as though she hadn't just been dying on the floor.

Steph giggled.

"I just imagined myself in a medieval princess dress flopping around on the floor like a fish," she said. Tim snorted.

"Maybe you should be more careful next time," said Terry. "Honestly, I don't want to see you dead."

"Ok," Steph said. And life continued as normal.

Meanwhile, with queen Ivy:

"Magic mirror on the wall, was I successful at all?"

"Mean queen, while you tried to kill, you suck at the job, and always will."

Ivy was confused for a second before the words registered in her brain.

"That is one SAVAGE mirror," Jason said. Tim snickered.

"She just got BURNED by a freaking mirror," he laughed. "She must be so embarrassed!"

Jason joined in the laughter with Tim.

Ivy got angry. She growled to herself and picked up a comb. She dipped it in poison, put on her disguise, and headed out again.

She came across the cottage again, while the dwarves weren't home. Steph was suspicious of the old lady with the comb, but the power of Farmer Bruce was just too great.

The dwarves came home and pulled the comb away from her, cause somehow, a poison comb was going to kill her.

She didn't die. Yay!

Queen Ivy went back to her mirror one last time.

"Magic mirror, on t- "

"Look, lady, she ain't dead. I told you you sucked at killing people," the mirror interrupted her. In a fit of rage, she flipped the mirror and poisoned an apple.

You know how the story goes from there. Steph, by the power of Farmer Bruce, eats the apple and 'dies'.

Remember how the prince was supposed to be important to the story? I'm not going to name names, but that prince had been wandering around. Queen Ivy had mysteriously died, not that the prince would know anything about it.

"Yeah…" Damian agreed.

He was wandering in the woods and saw Steph lying in a glass coffin. He approached her, saw how beautiful she was, and decided, "What the heck?!"

Damian made a disgusted face. Dick smiled wide at everybody.

Fairytales, everybody! Wonderful, magical ideas and stories to tell our children!

This got laughter out of everyone.

After kissing the corpse, nothing happened. Disney is a dirty liar! True love doesn't heal poisoned apples! Knocking over a glass coffin with the love of your life inside of it because you are a KLUTZ is how you get the girl!

"The End," he said. He glanced at the clock. 6:00 already? How did time pass so quickly?! He stood up, stretching his arms over his head. This was three nights in a row… and Bruce was going to be back sooner than anticipated. He may as well play it off until Bruce actually got back.

"I'm heading to bed early, alright guys?" he asked. Everyone was positive. He smiled, gave hugs (and kisses) and headed upstairs. Barbara, Steph, and Cass decided to head back to their house, leaving Damian, Tim, and Jason sitting together.

The three boys shared nervous glances at each other. They didn't usually get along the greatest… and, quite frankly, the only reason they had gotten along last time was because they had revenge on the mind and Alfred in the room.

Jason clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"So… you guys come here often?" he asked.


Jason: 'laughing annoyingly.'

Damian: Todd, I swear...

Jason: I love that final line!

Tim: who's the person who cut their finger?!

Dick: one guess.

Seriously though, I wasn't worried. And I still have my thumb. My friend got on my case about it, though.