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The Bats were having a family night out, in other words Alfred wanted some alone time and promptly kicked them out under the guise of a cleaning day. Despite the invitation extending to everyone only the boys showed up. They found out later the girls were having their own night out.
It was Tim who decided to invite Billy, not that anyone minded of course. Pretty much the entire Wayne clan had adopted him in spirit, they were still trying to convince him to move in and make it legal. The boy even managed to get on Damian's good side.
After a bit of discussion they ended up going bowling, the main reason for this was Billy's confession that he'd never been before. So as they drove the boys tried to explain the rules but they ended up yelling over each other and didn't really explain anything.
Soon though the had arrived at the alley and pulled into the parking lot. But before they could unload Bruce called for everyone's attention.
"Look, we're in public now. Please act like you have some grasp of civilization. Also if anyone tried to start a fight I'm going to send you home!"
With several eye rolls and scoffs the Wayne's, plus Billy, entered the bowling alley.
+ After a game and a half of Bowling+
Billy sat back down, he wasn't very good at this game, and started to look around the building. This place is really big, he couldn't help thinking, it seemed like everywhere he went with the Wayne's was really big and usually very loud. But he was usually surrounded by his friends so he tried not to be to distracted.
As he was looking around his eyes caught in one of the many claw machines. It had a big rubber duck on top and said Win Every Time! on the front. Could you really win every time? Or was that just a trick.
Evidently he'd been staring for to long as Jason had taken notice. The older man followed his gaze and got a smile on his face.
"Hey Dickface play for me this round. I want to show Billy something." Dick noded but was quickly distracted by Damian trying to lift a much too heavy bowling ball with only one hand.
Jason started towards the machine and when Billy didn't follow he doubled back and, gently, pulled the kid away from the game. "C'mon Billy! I know you want a duck!"
Billy could feel his face flush, he didn't mean to be that obvious. "I don't have any money." He wasn't lying what little money he did have, he'd left at his makeshift home.
Jason just rolled his eyes, "First of all it's a dollar, I can cover you and second of all don't you remember Brucie's occupation, cause he's a full time billionaire."
They had reached the machine and Billy couldn't help but get distracted. He had figured all the ducks would be the same but the weren't infact there was all kinds of them. The closer he looked the more recognizable they became.
When the dots finally clicked he couldn't hold back the amazed gasp, "They're us! I mean, superheroes! Look right there's Mr Wayne!"
This was amazing! The claw machine was full of little rubber ducks designed to look like the superhero personas. It was well stocked so if you looked close enough you could see everyone from Red Hood to Wonder Woman.
Jason tried to hide his snicker, the kid would clam up and refuse to play if he thought he was being laughed at. "Yeah, they really got everyone in here."
Since they were in Gotham there was significantly more of the Bats then the others but they were all there. He slipped Billy a dollar, thinking it would be interesting to see who he went for first.
Billy looked super excited as he started the game, it took him a few tries but he eventually managed to get the one he was aiming for. You would have thought it was Christmas with how excited Billy was. He looked much more like he'd just one the lottery then like he'd won a rubber duck from a machine that required you to win.
Jason hadn't seen which one he'd managed to grab but Billy had it in his hands in an instant. He looked at it like it was the coolest thing in the world, "It's you! He's got guns and everything!"
Wait really, how'd he miss that? But as he looked closer he could clearly see the resemblance between his costume and the duck.
Before Jason could look much closer the machine chimed again. 'So close, try again!' No way, was the machine broken?
Billy looked confused but, after Jason pushed him forward a little, he tried again and sure enough the machine gave him another try. Billy won again, this time he'd gotten a little Signal duck, and Jason couldn't help but grin when he realized that the machine truly wasn't working.
"Should we tell someone?" Billy looked concerned as the machine yet again told him to keep going.
"No way! Billy, you could get a full set of them!" It took a little more convincing but soon Billy went again, the idea of free ducks outweighing his dedication to doing the right thing.
Billy looked more and more excited as he got more ducks, and soon he was practically bouncing off the walls. He and Jason started taking turns and soon found themselves with an insane amount of ducks.
As much as Jason wanted to get the easy to grab ones he knew that Billy wanted to get everyone, even if he wouldn't admit it. However their luck eventually ran out and the machine stopped giving them free plays, not that either of them minded. They had nearly thirty ducks.
"I can't believe this! We got so many!" Billy's smile practically took over his face and Jason couldn't help but return the grin.
It was a team effort to get all the ducks back to the lane they were playing in but they managed, Tim was the first to notice their return. Well he noticed Jason's return.
"Aren't you a little old for-" He cut himself off as he caught sight of Billy, who would get really embarrassed if he thought he was acting childish.
"Tim look!" Billy dug through his pile of ducks to pull out one with a familiar mop of plastic black hair, "It's you! It's got your little bird symbol and everything!" He pushed the duck into Tim's hand.
Billy's enthusiasm was definitely contagious as he showed everyone their own duck before handing it to them.
"Here's you Duke! And that one's Cass but she's not here, can you give it to her when you get home? Same with Miss Gordan and Stephanie, I don't want them to feel left out!" The entire Wayne clan had fallen silent as they Billy rambled about how cool the ducks were.
"Mr Wayne! Yours has little eyebrows! So you look angry, how cool is that?" Bruce inspected his duck and, sure enough, he had two little lines over his eyes.
Billy suddenly seemed to notice how quiet everyone had gotten and almost immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Oh this is stupid isn't it? I'm sorry I can take the ducks back, I just thought they were neat."
All that excitement from earlier seemed to have disappeared as he reach out to take the duck back from Damian. But the current Robin disagreed with Billy's actions as he snatched his duck away from Billy's reach.
"No I like my duck, although I doubt he would be very useful in battle with his minature sword." Billy looked confused, was Damian making fun of him?
"My duck would beat yours, I got my guns. You'd be done in an instant." Jason's remark was punctuated by him making fake gun noises a shaking his duck in Damian's direction. This naturally started an argument.
"Well that depends, is duck me still a meta?"
"Untrue! I would use my amazing duck-acrobatics to defend him!"
"Oh so now you're picking sides, Dickie?"
"As if either of your ducks would beat mine, I got my Bo staff and Jay would be to distracted shooting at Dami to stop me!"
"Fools! I meant the sword would be useless against humans, I would crush any of you in a duck battle!"
"I don't know, Tim's pretty in touch with his duck side. He did go by Drake for a while." This caused several glares, no one likes to think about that brief phase where Tim had went by Drake.
"Actually none of you would win in a battle as I have angry eyebrows, and no one battles an angry Batman" Everyone rolled their eyes, as if they'd lose to Batman just because he was angry. "Plus the girls, I also have the girls on my side."
It was true somewhere in the arguments Bruce had picked up the Bat girl ducks. This obviously caused another round of arguments.
"That's not fair, B! You know Babs would side with me!"
"Angry eyebrows? You always have angry eyebrows!"
"I would do a lot of things to win but fight Cass? I'm good."
"Preposterous, I would never be beaten by the likes of Brown!"
"I didn't know we could team up!"
But during their playful fighting none of them had noticed Billy messing around with the other ducks. Halfway through the arguments Billy's enthusiasm had returned and his embarrassment forgotten.
"Actually I would win because while you were fighting I assembled the Duck-tice League." The new voice grabbed everyone's attention, putting them into silence as they digested the horrible pun. Billy looked extremely proud of his little play on words.
"Did you really just say Duck-tice League? Please tell me you didn't." Duke didn't think he could handle another sibling who enjoys those types of puns. Billy noded.
"YES! Finally someone with a good sense of humor!" Dick rushed forward, picking Billy up to give him a hug. Billy looked shocked as he found himself lifted of the ground, he was trapped in Dick's arms though so he couldn't protest.
"Nooo, Billy! How could you betray us like this? Now he'll never stop the puns!" Tim sat down dramatically, pretending Billy had just committed treason.
"I expected better from you, Batson."
"I can't believe you've done this." Jason's mock accent was enough to have everyone in stitches.
"I didn't think it was that bad of a pun."
"Of course not, Father. You have no standards."
"Uh, you can put me down now Mr Grayson." Billy didn't look like he wanted to be put down, though. In fact he looked happy that he was being hugged/held.
"How come I'm still Mr Grayson? Also no, you're stuck here now." Dick brought up a good point, Billy called most people by their first name but Dick and Bruce were still Mr's.
The answer was that Dick was an adult and Billy called all adults by their titles. He didn't bother explaining this though and just shrugged.
They went back to the game but it wasn't long till it was over and they were heading home. Bruce insisted that Billy stay the night and Billy couldn't find it in himself to protest.
Maybe moving in with the Wayne's wouldn't be too bad.