A/N - I wrote this for JaySteph Weekend 2022. Day 3 prompt - Dancing
This fic takes place in my Batcowverse Series.
"Steph? Your package for Jay came to the manor," Bruce said to her into the phone, looking at the non-descript rectangular package, pleased that he would finally find out its contents.
Steph had been quite mysterious about the nature of her gifts when she'd asked him if she could ship Jason's birthday presents to Wayne Manor so that her surprise wouldn't be ruined.
"You all are a family of snoops," she'd complained.
Which might be fair, considering that if Steph didn't come clean about what it was in the next thirty seconds, Bruce would be trotting the package off to the Bat-x-ray Machine, after which, if it failed to reveal satisfactory results, he would be carefully opening the package and discovering for himself what Steph had so insistently begged him to promise to sneak over and set up during their private family birthday party for Jay, when his son would be fully occupied with Steph and their singing children and their bevy of homemade, lovingly constructed gifts.
"I'm so glad it came in time!" Steph was saying. "You're still on to install it for me on the sixteenth, right, B?" she said.
"Yes," said Bruce. "But it would help if I knew what I was installing."
"A stripper pole!" Steph enthusiastically announced. Bruce stared at the phone in his hand, aghast. "In our bedroom at the old apartment, B, geez. Not in the family room or something. Come on, what do you take me for?" Steph complained to his horrified silence. "I'm a good mom."
In the foyer of Wayne Manor, Bruce felt the beginnings of a headache starting, like they did so very often when speaking to his daughter-in-law, whom he loved dearly, yes. But Bruce could have gone happily to his grave without knowing this particular detail about his son and daughter-in-law's sex life.
"And you needed me to be the one to install it because why?" Bruce asked Steph wearily.
"Because I don't trust Cass to do it right," she said matter-of-factly.
"That's fair," Bruce mumbled under his breath.
"I don't want to fall on my head if it comes crashing down when I'm mid upside-down twirl," Steph continued.
"Ok, that is way too much information," Bruce interrupted her.
"Oh, come on, B," Steph teased. "Don't act like you've never been to a strip club before." Bruce growled at her in frustration.
"Is there not someone who is not in the family who could install your pole for you?" he complained. "Why we have to be involved in your sex life -"
"Ew!" Steph shrieked. "This is not you getting involved in our sex life, B. This is you using your superior mechanical know-how to protect your fragile daughter-in-law's well-being."
"Right, so fragile," Bruce said sarcastically. "Remind me again how much ass you kicked last night, Batgirl?"
"None of that was on a poorly installed stripper pole," Steph said cheerfully. "Besides, I'm not going to be wearing my Batsuit when I'm on the pole -"
"Stop," Bruce immediately said. "Stop right there. No more words out of your mouth."
"Are you gonna install my pole?" she pressed him. "Because otherwise you're getting the full run-down of what I'm not going to be wearing -"
"Fine!" Bruce snapped at her. "I'll do it. But only if you stop talking and only because it's Jason's fortieth birthday."
"What, so if it was only his thirty-ninth birthday and this was all I'd gotten him and I'd been working my butt off at pole dancing classes practicing my routine for months, then you'd be mean and say no? And ruin your son's birthday? Just because it wasn't a momentous enough age?" Bruce started to growl, low in his throat.
"I mean, I'd think every birthday of Jason's was special, B, when there was a time when you thought he'd never have any more -"
"Goodbye, Stephanie!" Bruce said loudly, about to hang up when he heard her say -
"Don't open the next package when it comes unless you want to see my sexy nipple covers!"
"Gahhh!" Bruce screamed into the phone before hanging up on her and hunting down some Advil. It was good she'd warned him, though. He totally would have snooped.
He was the former Batman, after all.
"Happy birthday, Daddy!" Jason and Steph's swarm of kids cheered as they finished singing to him while he waited patiently in front of the giant sheetcake that Steph had (of course) let the kids actually put forty birthday candles on.
("Number shaped candles are for wussies," she declared every year and Jason couldn't agree more, which was partly why he loved his wife so much.)
"Blow them out, blow them out!" Cath and Marigold demanded, while J.J. swiped some icing off the edge with his finger, prompting Sharnice to do the same, while little Petey bounced in Jason's lap, eager to help blow the candles out.
Eddie was recording on his phone's camera while Luis was snapping pics with his phone, all while Steph hung with her arms wrapped around Jason's shoulders from behind and her cheek pressed up to his.
"Ready, bud?" Jason asked Petey, who nodded with excitement.
"Count to three, J.J." Steph told their son, giving him a mom-look when she caught him attempting a second icing heist.
"One, two, three," he mumbled with a little sigh, and his dad and brother took huge breaths and blew mightily until all of the candles flickered out, filling their open floor plan home with enough smoke that the smoke detector would have certainly gone off, if the family had not learned their lesson at birthday thirty-two and pre-emptively removed the batteries each year thereafter.
"Yayyyyy!" everybody screamed.
"Cake, cake, cake!" Sharnice chanted, pounding her fork on the table.
"We have to take the candles out first and lick them off," Cath reminded her with a grin.
"Wait, wait, wait," Jason ordered. "How many do you each get this year?" There was some mild groaning around the table.
"How many candles?" Steph prompted them.
"Forty," Sharnice cheerfully answered for the older boys, who were rolling their eyes at both the basic question and the forced math-skills-practice when all they wanted to do was lick icing and eat cake.
"And how many kids?" Jason asked Petey while nuzzling the three-year-old's hair with his nose.
"Seben," Petey answered proudly.
"So far," Steph answered with equal pride and satisfaction, catching Jason's eye as they smiled at each other. Because it wasn't like they were trying to beat Bruce with the number of kids they had, or anything like that. Could they help it if they kept finding kids that needed homes? Or deliberately kept having more biological ones to fill in the gaps? Honestly.
Besides, somebody needed to fill the Wayne family up with heirs. It wasn't like Damian seemed likely to add any grandchildren to the family that weren't covered in fur or feathers or scales. Jason and Steph's explosion of children had, however, precipitated the need to move out of their original cozy apartment over the abandoned Narrows gas station that Jason had bought so many years ago, although they kept the property both as a safehouse and for romantically nostalgic Mommy and Daddy escape times.
To Grandma Crystal's great delight and Bruce's great concern, the family had ended up purchasing a strip of condemned rowhouses a few streets over from hers, which they'd renovated with Red Hood money to turn into one long home, knocking out all the walls in between the houses. Of course, Jason and Steph had installed the most upgraded, Bat-approved security systems on the planet to protect their ever growing brood.
They would have done it anyway for their own peace of mind, but Bruce had insisted on inventing even more advanced safety features when the billionaire realized that he was not going to be able to convince the Narrows born-and-bred couple to raise their children anywhere else - like in the safety of Wayne Manor.
"We're not going to be parents to a bunch of rich sissies, Pops," Jason had scornfully declared to that suggestion and Steph had forcefully backed him up.
Bruce had sighed and let it go, especially when they started railing at him about his privilege, but that hadn't stopped him from continually gifting the kids the cutest little t-shirts and sweaters and pants woven from Kevlar strands, and jackets lined with heavy duty armor, and adorable smartwatches filled with lifemeters linked to Oracle and the Batcave and his personal cellphone.
The old man probably would have secretly implanted trackers in the kids, too, when Jason and Steph weren't looking, except that they had come to him first and asked if he would put them in as soon as Steph had either birthed or they'd adopted each new kid. Fears of Cluemaster's old enemies still haunted Steph, although outwardly she acted pretty brave about it. But Jason knew that she secretly loved Pop-Pop's overprotectiveness and was grateful for each and every security measure he took for their kids' safety.
Jason smiled at his family who was standing and sitting around (and, in Sharnice's case, on) the massive dining table. The South Manor, as he and Steph jokingly referred to their home, had at the moment a private bedroom for every child, although once they added a few more kids to the family some of them might have to double up. But there were plenty of bathrooms, at least, and they had created an open floor plan on the main floor with a large kitchen and a table big enough for them all to sit at even when all the aunts and uncles and grandparents came over. The cozy lounge area of the great room was lined with couches and decked out with a giant tv, although every other inch of wall space was covered with shelves instead of art and crammed with books and board games for every age level.
"So how many candles each?" Jason asked the kids again, forcing the older ones to solve the math problem before anyone could lick the frosting off.
"Five," Luis said. "With five left over."
"Good job, bud," Jason said with a warm smile.
"Who gets the extras?" Marigold asked.
"The three little ones, plus Mommy and Daddy," Steph said firmly.
"Ok," the older four mumbled, knowing better than to pout when there wasn't really that much icing on the candles anyway, plus they were getting actual cake, too, and ice cream.
"Love you, birthday boy," Steph whispered in Jason's ear as she slipped his candle into his mouth with a wink, grinning as he met her eyes with a heated look while he sucked the icing off.
"Love you, too, baby," Jason said back to her, sliding her candle into her own mouth. And Steph wasn't going to do anything obvious in front of the kids, but she didn't need to, because Jason knew exactly what she was thinking about as she swirled her tongue around the candle shaft to lick the icing off. She giggled and gave him a kiss that tasted like buttercream when she was done, and as Jason kissed her back he thought of their toothpaste kiss from so long ago. He could not believe that they were married and had kids - a lot of kids - and that he was forty. Where did the time go?
Steph only looked more beautiful with every passing year, as laughter and love etched permanent smile lines on her face. She still happily Batgirled it up with Red Hood most nights of the week, too, now that she'd finished nursing their youngest and had gotten back into top fighting form again. Pop-Pop Bruce was more than happy to stay over to babysit as often as needed on patrol nights, now that he'd retired from officially being Batman (as far as patrols went, anyway, although he kept up with casework). During the school year he was a godsend, getting the kids up and fed and dropped off at school while Mommy and Daddy slept in from their "night jobs."
If the way the old man managed to be up in time to manage this mammoth task was by staying up all night through to the morning, working on cases long after Jason and Steph had come back from patrol and gone to bed, well, that was his schedule and he liked it. Bruce typically went back to Wayne Manor after the couple woke up around noon, where he slept until evening before coming back over to babysit.
Jason's heart felt fuller than his stomach as he and Steph and the kids gobbled their way through cake and ice cream, squealed their way through him unwrapping his family's adorable homemade presents, and chattered their way through cleaning up, but he couldn't help sneaking glances at the clock from time to time. Steph had promised him a special date night as her birthday present to him. As the time approached for Bruce to arrive to watch the kids, Jason felt Steph's excitement started to waft off of her, infecting him with eager anticipation.
"Do I get a hint about my surprise?" he whispered in her ear as the kids helped clear the table of cake plates and wrapping paper.
"Nope," Steph grinned. "Not in front of the kids. It's so not PG rated," she giggled.
"That's my favorite kind of surprise," Jason happily sighed.
"I know," she laughed. "Mine, too. I promise, you're gonna love it."
"Of course I will, baby," Jason smiled at her. "It's with you." God, he loved her. He couldn't believe he'd gotten so lucky - marrying the girl of his dreams, who was still his favorite person in the entire universe, not to mention the best damn cownapper on the planet. Did he and Steph and Damian still cownap or pignap or sheepnap or God help him, chickennap, once a year? .
Look, Damian was hard to buy birthday presents for, ok?
And fine, ok, so maybe Jason kind of loved re-enacting how he fell in love with his wife. It was a shame the tradition had to include stealing ("liberating, Todd!") farm animals, but what could he do? He loved Steph so much it hurt, and he never would've gotten together with her if he hadn't said yes to the first cowheist. Best damn mission of his entire life, if he said so himself.
"Pop-Pop!" the kids screamed in delight as if they didn't see him almost every night of the week, when Bruce let himself into the house. "We saved you a piece of cake!" Eddie announced.
"I can't wait!" Pop-Pop Bruce grinned. "Who helped make it?"
"Me, me!" "All of us!" "Not Petey, he's too small." "He did too help, he supervised." "Just like Pop-Pop likes to do," Luis winked at him.
"Excellent work, Petey," Pop-Pop rumbled. "You get the Pop-Pop seal of approval," he intoned before planting a big kiss on top of the toddler's head, who squealed and smiled up at his grandpa.
"Thanks for coming over, B," Steph smiled at him. "Do you get our little project finished?" she faux-whispered behind her hand, while sliding sly eyes over to Jason.
"Wait, Pops is involved in your surprise?" Jason gaped, feeling a little shook.
"I was not," Bruce promptly lied. "I did nothing, saw nothing, know nothing, and we shall never, ever speak of the psychological trauma your wife has inflicted on me ever again," he shuddered.
"Thanks, B, you're the best!" Steph sung.
"What the hell did you ask him to do?" Jason said nervously, looking from his father to his wife.
"You'll see," Steph hummed. He guessed he would.
A half hour later, Steph was leading him blindfolded into their old bedroom in their first apartment.
"Ok… ready!" she announced a moment later. Jason tugged his blindfold off. His mouth fell open.
"Oh, my God," he breathed out.
"Right?" a mostly naked Steph beamed from her dangling pose on the stripper pole. Her purple thong was heavily glittered and twinkled in the candlelight, and two tasseled purple bats covered her nips. To top it off, she was wearing the sluttiest pair of purple stilettos that Jason had ever seen. "I know you haven't been to a strip club since we got together, so like, almost twenty years now. Figured you deserved a treat for turning forty," she grinned at him.
"Why would I ever want to go to a strip club when I got you, babe?" Jason said with a raw honesty that put dimples in his girl's cheeks.
"Well, now you get me and the pole, Mister Todd," she smiled back as she spun around it in a lazy circle.
"Wait - you made B install it? That was his project?" Jason gasped before choking in laughter. "Oh my God," he wheezed. "How? That's an even better gift than the pole," he giggled. "No wonder he was traumatized. Way to go babe," he laughed.
"I'm a menace," Steph declared proudly.
"My menace," Jason sighed in contentment.
"You're my menace, too. I love you, Jason," Steph smiled at him as she flipped upside down, showing off her butt.
"I love you, too. So much," Jason said softly. He walked over to her and planted a kiss on her upside down lips. "Guess I can touch the dancer tonight, huh?" he grinned as he palmed her ass.
"After my routine. I've been practicing," Steph beamed up at him. "Can you start the music?"
"Sure, babe," Jason said, but he smooched her bare butt cheek and teased her thong strap before walking over to the stereo. "If I'm good, do I get a lap dance, too?"
"Duh," Steph grinned. "It's your birthday."
It was indeed, Jason thought to himself as he hit play on the queued up track. Maybe turning forty made him over the hill, but as he watched his wife start to work the pole, Jason couldn't help but think that forty had never looked so good. And knowing Steph, fifty would look even better.
The End
A/N - Thanks for reading! You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble
You can find all the JaySteph Weekend Event works on Tumblr at JayStephEvents