“The Wayne House” intro on screen introducing Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian with short clips for each person similar to the intro of Brooklyn nine-nine.
Alfred's clip was him walking upstairs with a tray of biscuits before knocking on a door. The screen froze and a grey banner appeared below him saying, “Alfred Pennyworth: Everyone respects him.”
Bruce’s was him walking into his children being chaotic by setting up pranks and arguing/fighting. He turned around, hit his head on the wall and closed his eyes. A black banner appeared below him with white writing saying, “Bruce Wayne: Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, tired dad.”
Dick was swinging on a chandelier before it fell, pausing a few inches from the ground. A dark blue banner appeared below him saying, “Dick Grayson: The acrobat.”
Jason was repairing a car before losing a tool and flipping over the toolbox with the scene pausing while the box was mid air. A red banner appeared saying, “Jason Todd: The menace.”
Tim was eating a bowl of cereal and his head bobbed up and down for a few seconds before he eventually passed out, his head landing in the cereal. An orange banner appeared saying, “Tim Drake: The coffee addict”
Cass was dancing in a hall with headphones on before she eventually hit a vase and jumped back. The scene paused with smashed pieces everywhere and with her hand on her mouth. A purple banner appeared saying, “Cassandra: The quiet one”
Duke was sitting at a table writing what looked to be an essay when Damian appeared behind him with his hands behind his back, making Duke fall off the seat and spill his drink that was nearby, the scene pausing while he was mid fall and Damian looked like he wanted to ask him something. Two banners appeared this time. A green one saying, “Damian Wayne: The demon.” and a yellow one saying, “Duke Thomas: The newest kid.”
A family portrait with multiple single-person portraits surrounding it appeared on screen with the words “The Wayne House” at the very top and the episode began
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Damian, Steph, Cass and Jason were all in the main living room. Damian and Cass were arm wrestling at the coffee table in the centre of the room while Steph sat watching intensely as she shouted and cheered them on, constantly changing who she was cheering for depending on who was winning. Jason was reading a book on an armchair and looked like he had some sort of bandage on his shoulder. He was focused and hardly seemed to take Stephanie's shouting into notice. There was a kitchen next to the living room with a bar separating the room and Dick sat at the bar eating what looked to be a bowl of pasta while on his phone.
The door of the room opened and a woman who looked like she was in her early 20’s walked in. She had platinum blonde hair that she wore in a bun with a small spider lily pin, green eyes and wore a simple maroon dress with grey high heels and a small, grey bag. As soon as she walked in, Damian won against Cass and jumped up to greet her.
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“I'm just gonna say it, if it weren’t for Felicia most things in my life would be rubble and ash.” Bruce said while sitting on a sofa. He wore a black turtleneck and black trousers, “she’s my assistant at Wayne Enterprises and one day she had to drop a file off here. It was raining outside so she was invited to stay for dinner which surprisingly ended well. We’ve kinda been stuck with her ever since, that isn't a bad thing by the way! I'm genuinely happy that she spends time here and it’s been amazing being able to watch her come out of her shell within the past few months but she tends to forget that she doesn't always need to be so professional while here at the manor. She has always been Damians favourite of my employees and everyone else, particularly Steph, Cass, Alfred and Selena, likes her due to how polite, respectful and kind she is. Anyway, long story short, she is practically a goddess due to the amount of miracles she performs and is the backbone of WE and this manor excluding Al’.”
At some point, Tim Walked behind the sofa looking half dead and holding what looked like a half a jug of coffee. He stopped to search through a bookcase behind Bruce and nodded his head in agreement, “Amen to that.”
“See, even he agrees with me and he’s had like no sleep for days and 10ish cups of coffee in the past 5 hours- Timothy you're going to give yourself a heart attack, give me that!” Realisation seemed to hit Bruce because he stood up and walked quickly over to Tim, whose response was to look between Bruce and his coffee for a few seconds before sprinting away as fast as he could without spilling anything.
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“Hello, do you all know where Mr. Wayne-“
“Felicia!”
Damian had run up and trapped Felicia in a hug which she returned before Cass and Steph walked over and he quickly let go. Jason and Dick looked up from what they were doing briefly and each gave her a nod which she returned with a polite smile.
“Oh my goodness, Felicia! That's the first time I think I’ve seen you with your hair like that! It’s so pretty!” Steph said happily and Cass nodded in agreement.
“Oh thank you so much! You are just so sweet. If you want I could show you both how to do it? It’s actually quite simple to do and only takes a few minutes.”
Steph and Cass shared a smile and both nodded. Their smiles looked as if they had planned for Felicia to ask them that, but she didn’t mind if they did or not. As long as they were happy and smiling.
Even if their smiles did remind her of Peter.
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“Felicia is like a big sister to me. I enjoy her company and she makes me feel like an equal, not the pathetic child that this world makes me out to be.” Damian said while sitting next to Cass on the same sofa as Bruce. “But she’s been a bit sadder than normal lately. Today is a special day for her, I’m not going to specify what because she deserves her privacy, but she tries to act like she's fine and like she’s used to it, however for some reason this family is good at being able to read people, I imagine it’s because there is so many of us emotionally broken individuals here, so clearly she’s still been super upset about it and we all feel sorry for her. Us two, our brothers and whatever the h*** Brown is, I mean. We all decided to bake her cookies using Alfred’s recipe to try to cheer her up and so that she knows she has a home here.”
‘Ms Hardy would sometimes bring us a small batch of brownies, especially if one of us is hurt badly or sad. She says it's a family recipe so we decided to bake her our own kind of family recipe. Dick, Jason, Duke and Tim will all have the job of baking the actual cookies while Stephanie, Damian and me distract her. Stephanie wasn't lying when she said her hair looked pretty though. At first we were supposed to ask her to settle an argument once Damian did his part. But the bun looked nice and the pin is just the chef's kiss on top so obviously we have to learn how to do it.” Cass signed with subtitles appearing on screen.
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“Alright well I just have to speak with Mr Wayne quickly then I promised Damian that I would have a look at his science fair project despite not knowing a single thing about science.” Damian clearly stood a bit taller knowing he was a greater priority than Steph and Cass. “But I’ll be able to show you both after- Jason what on earth happened to your shoulder- apologies girls one second.”
Felicia's face filled with worry as she rushed over to Jason who put his book down after he heard her. Felicia bent down to examine him out of old habits, considering it was impossible for Peter to return from Patrol without any physical damage, even if it was a simple scratch .
“I’m-“ Jason started before being cut off.
“These bandages are atrocious Jason! Whatever doctor wrapped them clearly must work on their skills.” Felicia criticised, “That or you've been pulling at them which you should know you shouldn’t do considering the family you live with and their clumsy tendencies! Would I be able to fix them quickly?” Jason nodded slowly and Felicia began acting like she was fixing a post surgery scar.
“Hey I did those bandages!” Dick shouted.
“ You didn’t even go to the hospital?! Are you serious?! What did you even do? This looks like someone took a knife and sliced your shoulder open which, and forgive me for saying this, roughly has a 85% chance of being true considering this is-“
“Okay, listen to me Felicia. It wasn’t my fault. I was on a ladder in the library because for some reason Shakespeare is on the top shelf. I fell and hit my shoulder on the coffee table.”
“I- how do you- oh my goodness it's a miracle anybody in this family lived to see their sweet sixteens.” He was obviously lying but Felicia decided to go along with his story.
“Yeah we wonder that too. Question: how do you know how to fix those? It’s not like you grew up here and know how to fix massive slash wounds. If you grew up in Gotham it would make sense because it’s Gotham, but you're from queens.” Dick asked, looking up from his phone. Felicia didn’t know what he thought the reason for this was, but it definitely wasn't that she was a vigilante (mostly because black cat was a well known thief in Gotham).
“Oh, Peter was nearly getting himself killed on the daily.” It sounded more like a question than an answer, but Felicia just shrugged and finished fixing his bandage and then asked Jason where Bruce was. He said he was in his study so she left and walked upstairs again while hoping he was actually in his study this time.
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Felicia sat on the sofa with her head in her hands and let out a long and loud sigh. There was a white banner beneath her saying, “Felicia Hardy: family friend and goddess.”
“Hello, my name is Felicia Hardy. I'm Mr Wayne's assistant and a close friend of the Wayne family. It’s been really nice visiting here but a bit mental if I do say so myself. If I’m being completely honest the family is just strange in general because in reality nobody should have 106 rules on the fridge as weird as those, but they’re nice people once you get to know them and I’ve had a nice time getting to know each one of them individually. Getting my job was one of the best decisions of my life. I don’t know why I decided to get it but I think I’m alright at doing it. One thing not many people know about me is that it is easy for people to make me lose my patience. Sometimes people can be so irritating and at the current moment the Gotham Gazette is at the top of that list of people.”
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Bruce was sitting in his study looking over and finally finalising some ideas. He had finally gotten Tim to agree to sleep after 63 hours and had only returned to his study to sit down when Felicia knocked on the door. She walked in, closing the door behind her and walked over to stand in front of Bruce’s desk.
“Good afternoon Felicia. How can I help you today?”
“Afternoon sir, um, have you checked the news recently? Like in the past, say, 32 hours?”
“Can’t say I have, why?”
Felicia looked into her bag and pulled out a newspaper which she set down on the desk. “Congratulations, people think you’re a child molester and somehow I’ve gotten mixed up in it. They think they’ve got proof because apparently a girl isn’t allowed to ensure a charity gala goes murder-free.” Bruce looked at the front cover and he just stared at it with wide eyes and an open mouth.
FELICIA HARDY, BRUCE WAYNE'S ASSISTANT, MOTHER TO DAMIAN WAYNE?
Bruce took one look at the heading before sighing, “Looks like you're a mother, congratulations, you're glowing.” Bruce and Felicia exchanged a weak smile before he began reading.
LAST YEAR, THE OWNER OF WAYNE ENTERPRISES AND BILLIONAIRE, PLAYBOY, PHILANTHROPIST BRUCE WAYNE HIRED FELICIA HARDY AT WAYNE ENTERPRISES. WITHIN JUST SIX MONTHS HARDY ROSE UP THE RANKS EVENTUALLY GETTING TO WHERE SHE IS NOW AT WAYNE'S PERSONAL ASSISTANT. EVER SINCE SHE WAS EMPLOYED THERE HAS BEEN MULTIPLE RUMOURS GOING AROUND OF HER SLEEPING HER WAY INTO THIS POSITION BUT ALL OF THEM WERE PUT DOWN.
IN RECENT MONTHS HARDY HAS BEEN SPOTTED ENTERING AND EXITING WAYNE MANOR AND AT A GALA ON FRIDAY EVENING SHE SPENT THE ENTIRE NIGHT WITH DAMIAN WAYNE WHO WAS CONSTANTLY SEEN EITHER HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH HER OR STANDING OFF TO THE SIDE BEHIND HER. WAYNE'S CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE THE BEST REPUTATION FOR BEING GOLDEN CHILDREN AS SEEN IN RECENT SHOW “THE WAYNE HOUSE” SO IT CAME AS A SHOCK TO SEE THE SO CALLED “DEMON BOY” BEHAVING AT A GALA AND WILLINGLY LISTENING TO AND SPENDING TIME WITH AN ADULT WHO IS SIMPLY AN EMPLOYEE OF HIS FATHER.
More on page 12
[Picture of Felicia kneeling down with a hand on Damians shoulder at the gala and speaking with him.]
Felicia remembered that conversation. She had specifically told Damian to not do anything Bruce would do, don’t do anything he wouldn’t do, don't die, don't cause physical or mental harm to anyone and don’t act like he’s being forced to watch the most boring movie of all time. He agreed to those rules on the condition that he can stay beside her and speak with her all night unless absolutely necessary. Bruce stared at the cover, his eyes scanning over it before turning the page and reading on with the article.
THERE HAS BEEN SPECULATION THAT HARDY WAS THE NEWEST EDITION TO THE WAYNES VIA ADOPTION OR AS A NEW WARD, HOWEVER THIS WAS PUT TO REST BY BRUCE WAYNE HIMSELF AT A PRESS CONFERENCE. THIS HAS LEFT PEOPLE WONDERING “WHO IS FELICIA HARDY?”
WHEN SHE STARTED WORKING AT W.E. TIM DRAKE SAID IN A SHORT INTERVIEW “MS. HARDY IS REALLY NICE AND THE DEMON RESPECTS HER, WHICH, AS FAR AS I’M AWARE, IS IMPOSSIBLE. BRUCE HAS BEEN LESS STRESSED WITH MEETINGS AND STUFF SINCE SHE STARTED SO I THINK SHE WILL BE A GOOD NEW ADDITION TO WAYNE ENTERPRISES.”
DAMIAN WAYNE IS ONE OF THE MORE ANTI-SOCIAL AND MISTRUSTING WAYNE CHILDREN AS WELL AS THE ONLY CHILD BIOLOGICALLY CONNECTED TO BRUCE, SO NATURALLY GOTHAM WAS STUNNED WHEN IT TOOK THE BOY ONLY A FEW WEEKS TO TRUST HARDY AFTER MEETING HER. FELICIA HARDY WAS ONLY TEN YEARS OLD WHEN DAMIAN WAS BORN AND DUE TO THEIR SIMILAR FEATURES, ALMOST IMMEDIATE TRUST AND SEEMINGLY CLOSE AND TIGHT BOND IT IS SAFE TO SAY THAT THEY ARE RELATED, MOST LIKELY VIA MOTHER AND SON DUE TO HARDY LOOKING AND/OR ACTING NOTHING LIKE WAYNE.
[two front profile pictures of Felicia and Damian side by side]
UPON SPECULATION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS THIS LEADS PEOPLE TO WONDER, HOW WOULD THEY BE MOTHER AND SON DESPITE A TEN YEAR AGE GAP? THE ONLY LOGICAL EXPLANATION WOULD BE IF HARDY WAS A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. ALTHOUGH GOTHAM THINKS HIGHLY OF THEIR LOCAL BILLIONAIRE, HIS REPUTATION IS NOT IN HIS FAVOUR AS FAR AS ONE-NIGHT-STANDS GO. IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT HARDY’S HIGH RANKING JOB AT WAYNE ENTERPRISES IS A BRIBE OF SORTS IN RETURN FOR HER SILENCE. MANY CITIZENS OF GOTHAM AND NEIGHBOURING CITIES HAVE DID THEIR OWN INVESTIGATIONS AND THERE ARE NOW MORE THAN ONE-THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED ARTICLES AND POSTS SURROUNDING THE TOPIC ON VARIOUS SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, BRUCE WAYNE HAS FAILED TO GIVE A STATEMENT SO FAR.
More at thegothamgazette.net
Bruce immediately went online and saw thousands of comments and articles on the topic. The rumours were ridiculous but every news platform and citizen seems to be believing them. It was times like this that he absolutely hated his “Brucie Wayne” persona.
“Sorry about all this Felicia, since you’re involved and most of the rumours are surrounding your job, we should be able to have our PR team look into it and get it sorted. In the meantime I will prepare for the millions of emails that I’ll receive tomorrow. How come it’s always the most ridiculous rumours that go viral?”
“People are gullible. Anyway, Thank you so much. The rumours themselves aren’t that annoying since they’re just rumours, but you of all people should know that I’m not the type of girl to appreciate being interviewed whilst trying to do her grocery shopping- Is that the fire alarm?”
“Something is probably just on fire in the kitchen. Despite Damian being the only kid actually related to me, I think all of them inherited my not-so-good cooking skills." Bruce laughed.
“Now, speaking of Damian, I said I would go see him surrounding some sort of science fair thing, so if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make sure a 14 year old isn’t building atomic bombs.” Felicia looked half joking, half serious as she said that.
“Don’t be stupid Felicia. Of course we don’t have the materials for atomic bombs… I think. I haven’t actually seen this project so tell me what it is once you see it.”
“You- are you implying that your son might actually have made a bomb?!”
“…. Well, this has been just lovely. Thank you so much for bringing this to my concern and I will speak with you later. Goodbye!” Bruce got up and pushed a very confused felicia out of the room.
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“Are we doing this shit right?” Duke questioned. He, Dick and Jason were in the kitchen in front of a flour covered countertop, empty ingredient packages and a tray of what was supposed to be cookie dough.
“We’re following instructions. Not our fault Alfred isn’t here to make sure we don’t die, the man deserves a rest for once. So how about we stop judging books by their covers eh?” Dick said as he lifted up the tray to put in the oven.
“When this thing blows up, I’m gonna laugh.” Jason said.
“No you won’t Jay, this is for Felicia, even you’re happy to get to do this for her.” Jason scoffed at Dick and set a timer.
“That’s not true. I don’t trust her.”
Dick just rolled his eyes and there was a silence as they waited a few minutes for the cookies to bake.
So how long do these cook for?” Duke asked.
“I don’t know? I put the timer on for fifteen minutes.” Jason replied before the three continued standing in front of the oven in an awkward silence.
“So. How’s life?” Dick asked.
“Which-“
“Jason I swear if you make one more death joke, I’ll make sure you don’t make it till your third lifetime.”
“Rude.” Jason muttered, elbowing Dick…… Another silence.
“I think we forgot the chocolate chips.” Duke said.
“Well-“ Dick was cut off by the cookie dough in the oven exploding and lighting on fire. The smoke alarm went off and the three stood there in shock as they remembered why Alfred made the family's food.
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Duke sat infront of the camera on the couch, “Our family has a butler- Alfred who does all of our cooking. That being said, we are not the best chefs.”
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Damian was waiting outside Bruce's study for Felicia (and definitely not listening in to their conversation), when she came out he thought he was going to give her a heart attack due to how high she jumped when she saw him.
“I look forward to showing you my science project, Felicia. Follow me.” Damian took Felicia’s hand and led him to a lab door (it took everything in Felicia not to sigh because of course a billionaire has a science lab in his home). The most concerning part of this walk across the manor wasn’t the fact that a child had an abnormally strong grip on Felicia’s wrist, no, it was the fact that he kept talking about his annoyance due to not being able to demonstrate to Felicia how his project explodes.
“I suggest you be careful while looking at my project. I assume you are smart enough not to touch it.”
Felicia slowly nodded her head, almost fully convinced she is going inside here to see a bomb based on the mentions of wires, explosive chemicals and other bomb parts. She mentally prepared herself and walked into the room and it wasn’t a bomb or anything similar or life threatening…
It was a rocket.
A small (30cm tall with a circumference of 5cm max), aluminium rocket with a information board behind it showing that it mostly uses electrical work to make the rocket shoot into the sky.
“You seem confused. You are aware what a-“
“-a rocket is. Yeah, um Peter made something similar, not for school, just because he wanted to. It's just- You made a.. rocket? I wasn’t expecting that is all.” Felicia had a hard time disguising her confusion.
“Of course. Did you assume I would make a baking soda volcano like the rest of my pitiful classmates?”
“Uh- yup. A volcano. Right, that’s totally what I thought. Now if you excuse me, I promised Cass and Steph I would show them how to do their hair.”
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The camera flashed back to the Duke and Jason in the kitchen who were running about trying to clean up the place while Dick was on the phone with Bruce, ensuring him that there was no fire. There was a new tray of cookie dough in the oven and there was the old, burnt one sticking out of the waste bin.
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Cass, Steph and Felicia were all sitting on Steph’s bed. The room was nice and had photos pinned to a bulletin board on a lavender wall along with some other small decorations around the room. There were pins and hair elastics all over the bed surrounding them and Cass and Steph were intensively listening to Felicia and following her instructions while laughing and speaking with each other, making the tutorial much longer than it was originally.
“- so then you just wrap it around and put a pin in it to hold it in place. Simple.” Felicia said, finishing her hair.
Stephanie finished easily and Cass had a few more struggles due to the length of her hair. “Speaking of hair-pins, your spider lily looks nice,” Cass said.
“Oh thank you, it was Pete’s favourite flower.” Steph and Cass exchanged a look after that and there was a short silence before Stephs phone buzzed.
“Can we go and show everyone else?” Steph asked, “I think they’re in the living room.”
“Sure, why not.” Felicia replied, at this point, she had gotten used to the family’s strange behaviour.
Again, it wasn’t their fault that they were as bad at lying as Peter. At this point the feeling that they were hiding something was a regular feeling when you entered the Wayne house.
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Once they got down to the lower level, Steph and Cass had run ahead into the living room.
Felicia decided that once she went to the living room, she would say her goodbyes and head home. It felt like if she spent another minute surrounded by things that reminded her of Peter, she would start to cry (and she didn’t need that type of embarrassment around this family.) It had been a two years since she landed in Gotham (Though she had panicked and said that it was the two-year anniversary of her brothers death when Dick asked why she was more down than usual earlier that week) and she just wanted to relax either at her apartment or at a rooftop… yeah, probably a rooftop. Peter liked sitting on rooftops and he was the only person she was really close to back home back in her old universe. She thought of him like a brother, that was probably the reason she had told Dick that she had lost a brother. Losing access to her universe was like losing her brother, in a way, she did lose her brother.
Felicia made it to the living room and saw that steph and cass had closed the door that was usually held open by a door stopper on their way in. she opened the door and was immediately greeted by all (some? Most? Felicia didn’t know at this point) of the Wayne children crowded onto the couches with a fresh plate of cookies (so that’s why the smoke alarm went off earlier) on the coffee table.
Jason spoke up while he sat on the arm of one of the couches, “Hey, so, we decided that we aren’t leaving you alone today so sit down, we’re watching star wars because apparently you would like those movies? I couldn’t see it but I got overruled.”
“By overruled, Todd means to say that we all argued for approximately 27 minutes.” Damian piped up.
And that did it for felicia. Despite her earlier intentions of “not embarrassing herself” she put her hands over her mouth and collapsed onto her knees.
They all spent the rest of the night watching movies and eating the surprisingly good cookies.