Preface

The Witching Hour
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/46814938.

Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Batman - All Media Types
Relationship:
Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake
Character:
Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake, Original Characters
Additional Tags:
Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake Friendship, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler, Tim Drake is Red Robin, BAMF Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake is a Menace, Stephanie Brown Being a Little Shit, Teenagers, Humor, Tim and Steph bully a random grunt, For Fun and Profit, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Trolling
Language:
English
Series:
Part 3 of Family, Bat. Associates, Wayne.
Stats:
Published: 2023-05-01 Words: 1,049 Chapters: 1/1

The Witching Hour

Summary

Some nights, Gotham sings with violence and destruction.

Some nights, Gotham hums with a strange, unexplainable peace.

Some nights, Gotham dances with mischief.

Or, teenagers are just the worst, especially the masked ones.

Notes

The Witching Hour

Gotham nights have always been unpredictable. It is one of the city's many charms. One night may find the Penguin and Black Mask mistakenly scheduling two unrelated arms smuggling meet ups on the same neutral dock at the same time. The next may see an Arkham breakout that has every resident vigilante out and fighting. The next may be silent, so peaceful a person hardly dares to breathe so as not to break it. Other nights have an energy, a spark, nothing dangerous but...

It was one of these nights that found two teenagers on a roof swinging their legs carelessly and chatting aimlessly, as those in that dreaded demographic are wont to do.

They had a to-go box open between them, french fries snatched up between words.

The streets remained mostly empty, a woman locked up the last shop on the street and gave the colorful teens a friendly wave before heading home for the night.

The boy waved back with a grin and pulled out a phone, the girl leaning in to get a better look and snatch a sip from his milkshake while he wasn’t prepared to guard it.

He squawked in mock offense and pulled it back before resuming the video on his phone and giggling along with her.

“What’re you bats doing up there? Fight me!”

Two sets of eyes behind blank masks settled on the new presence, an angry and slightly stumbling man glaring up from the street below. The teen in purple turned slowly to her companion, a slight questioning tilt to her head before turning back.

“Bats? Oh My God! Where!?” She made a dramatic show of frantically looking around. “I’ve always wanted to see a bat in person…” She sighed wistfully, the other masked teen gave her an awkward commiserating pat on the back.

“I’m sure Batman will respond to your fanmail any day now.” He comforted.

The man tilted his head, anger fading into an air of slight confusion.

The girl threatened to shove her companion off the roof.

“You’re bats.” He pointed.

They turned back from their playful threats and the boy let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Us? Bats? I’m flattered but this is obviously a costume.” He gestured dismissively at his clearly professional grade armor.

“Yeah, idiot, it’s a Halloween costume!” The girl chimed in.

“It’s April?” He was starting to look slightly unsure.

“Oh my god Red, it’s April.” She mocked. “As if that has anything to do with it.”

“Halloween is in October?”

“What? Is that a question? Of course Halloween is in October!” She shouted.

“Then why are you wearing Halloween costumes?”

The girl in purple turned, somehow managing to project complete and utter bafflement to her companion in spite of the mask covering most of her face, and finally turned back to the street.

“Why not?”

He faltered, frowning and thinking hard.

“You called him Red!” He accused, ignoring the issue of Halloween completely.

“Uh, no I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did!”

“I called him Reg, you know, like Reginald?”

“Reginald?”

“Yeah, poor guy, I’m his only friend in the entire world as I’m sure you can imagine with a name like that.”

“Reginald is a perfectly respectable name!” He protested.

“Reginald is a perfectly respectable name!” She imitated, nasally and with a terrible posh accent.

“Oh fuck you.”

“You wish!”

The man was starting to look slightly uncomfortable.

“So what’s her name then? Spiffany? I’m not stupid!”

Definitely not Spoiler cackled with glee.

“Spiffany! Oh man, that’s great! Red? Red, you hearing this?” She nudged her companion with an elbow.

“Of course Spiffany wouldn't miss it for the world.” Red was on his phone again, sipping at his milkshake and completely ignoring both of them.

“Teenagers!” She threw up her hands. “Always on their damn phones!”

“Yeah!” That was something the confused and probably drunk man could get behind.

“No wonder you tripped and almost fell off that roof last week.”

“Who told you about that?” His head jerked up.

“I have my ways.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“You can’t hide from me, Spiffany.”

She snorted, struggling to maintain a straight face.

“Shut up!” The man picked up an empty can and threw it at them, missing the roof by a good ten feet. “Fight me!”

“Reginald, the drunk man is bullying me!” Spiffany whined. “It’s your turn to defend my honor.”

The teen rolled his eyes and stirred his milkshake. He took a long, obnoxious slurp and stuffed a handful of cold fries into his mouth before sighing and starting to stretch.

“Alright fine, let’s-”

They both froze, tilting their heads as if listening to something before the girl slumped in defeat and the boy pumped a fist in triumph.

“How do you always know!?” She complained.

“That would be because I!” He bragged. “Sweet, innocent Spoiler, paid attention to Batman’s droning lectures on trends and habits.”

“Whatever, someday it’s gonna be Riddler robbing that bank and then you’ll be sorry!” She shook her fist at him.

“Promises, promises.” He smirked back.

“HEY!” Another thrown can, this one even further off the mark.

“Oh right,” Red Robin sighed. “Go home Steve, sleep it off and if you remember anything at all in the morning remember Black Mask’s bonus system is a fucking scam. He cheats all his grunts, consider unionizing.”

“FUCK YOU!”

“Yeah, yeah. See ya at Mask’s next stupid arms deal Steve, or not, whatever.”

Spoiler paused her stretching to punch his shoulder.

“You’ll get ‘em someday. Maybe you should try sneaking in some flyers next time you infiltrate headquarters.”

“The day I get Hood’s idiots to file a petition is the day he finally pays for his crimes.” He sighed dreamily.

“Good luck buddy, I think I’ll stick with my strategy of barely contained violence.”

With that Spoiler took off running for the edge of the roof, grappling away with a whoop. Red Robin took a few moments to shove the containers of food off the roof, successfully tossing them into an open dumpster before taking off after her with a grin.

Steve blankly stared at the place on the roof the vigilantes had been sitting for a few minutes before wandering off, grumbling the whole way home.

And thus, the night continued, as unpredictable and strange as any other.

Afterword

End Notes

Tim, getting shot: just for that I'm going to make sure the pension negotiations are a special kind of hell for you.

Look me in the eye and tell me teenage vigilantes aren't absolutely insufferable on purpose sometimes.

Thanks for reading!

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!