For the TheOKWriter: "Can you do one with them talking about the adopted bat children?"
Selina knew she shouldn't have. But while Helena was still in the bathroom, she opened the wallet again. Were those all you saw? Helena had said. That meant there had to be more.
"Bruce," she said quietly. "There's another photo."
"Are you sure you should—"
Selina pulled it out.
He sighed. "Selina."
It was Christmas. She could tell by the tree in the background and the greenery on the bannisters. She recognized Helena, who was maybe a year or two older in this one than she was in the birthday photo. She was riding on the back of a tall, handsome boy of about eighteen or nineteen and had an empty wrapping paper tube she was trying to bring down on the head of another boy, who was turned away from her, distracted as he tried to hit yet another boy with his wrapping paper tube. Another boy was chasing a young girl down the hallway; the photo had caught her mid-jump as she leapt over a pile of discarded wrapping. It looked like absolute, delightful chaos.
Selina looked up from the photo when she heard a groan.
"I can't leave you alone for five minutes." Helena said, displeased. "Now you're going to want me to explain that."
"Who are all these people?"
Helena snatched the photo. "Well, most people keep pictures of their family in their wallet. I am no exception."
"I didn't look at it." Bruce said.
Helena glanced at both of them and then sank down into the couch between them. Both Bruce and Selina had to shift so there was enough room. Helena took out the photo. "That's me," she said, pointing. "But I guess you already figured that out," she glanced at Selina. She pointed to the teen she was riding. "That's Dick. He's the oldest. You adopt him first."
"Adopt?" Selina asked. "Wait," she said, disbelieving. "Are all of these kids ours?"
"It's not like we don't have enough room," Bruce said.
Selina didn't understand how Bruce continued to take these revelations so calmly. "There are six of them."
"Well, six in the picture," Helena corrected.
Selina closed her eyes and fell back on the couch.
"I don't think I should say anymore," Helena said. "This is too much for you guys."
"But we have six kids?" Bruce asked.
"Four of them are adopted, two aren't." She shrugged. "I'm one of the two. But that's all that's official. You have a habit of taking in stray kids they way Mom has of taking in stray cats."
Selina opened one eye. "How many cats do we have?"
"Uhhh…a lot. Also, we have a cow."
"We can't we just be a normal family and get a dog?" Bruce asked.
"Oh, we've got a dog, too."
"This is sounding more and more like a circus than a family."
Helena tried not smirk as she remembered Dick teaching her to do flips across the living room. "You'd be surprised at how accurate that is."
*Yeah, I really don't know how some of this would work in the Gotham universe, so I wasn't super specific. Especially Damian—I can't imagine Bruce and Talia ever getting together, however briefly, with Gotham's version of the characters. (Of course, as I am not a Talia fan—no offense to those who are—this may be me being biased.) I did contemplate the odd theory that Damian could have been Talia's son with Five (if, you know, he managed to live long enough) but ultimately I decided to imply that he's just Bruce and Selina's son. Normally, then, I would have made him Helena's younger brother (since I like the idea of her being their first biological child) but I'd already mentioned her being the youngest. Goodness, I am going to need a notebook to keep all this plot stuff straight. *massages forehead* But yeah, if any of that doesn't float your boat, I tried to keep it vague enough so that you can fill in the blanks yourself.
