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It starts, like all things, with Tim and Steph breaking a rule.
It’s a stupid fucking rule, is the thing. If Bruce didn’t want them to look at memes on the Batcomputer, he shouldn’t have built it with the capacity to stream from their phones.
Besides, it’s not like it’s his fault that Steph set the screen up to display John Pork at full scale whenever Babs called, and it’s definitely not his fault that Bruce was the only one in the Cave when it finally happened and - as the socially inept middle-aged man he is - that Bruce immediately construed it as a direct threat to his life.
They had to sit through a day-long session on cybersecurity, after that. Jason was not pleased, but Jason also doesn’t know how to work the touch screen on the printer, so Tim privately thinks he cannot be throwing stones.
So, obviously, they’re in the Cave looking at memes on the Batcomputer. The whole process has paused for a minute, because Tim pulled up ‘My daughter is biting hair!’ again, and now Steph is on the floor, crying with laughter, muttering about stew.
Tim smiles down at her, open and affectionate, when he hears the familiar click of footsteps on the stone behind him, and then Damian’s voice says, “Is this… blinding stew a threat I should be prepared for?”
It’s like time freezes. Tim - stops for a second. Thinks about it. Really pauses and considers whether or not he’s going to torment this young child who was raised in a cult. He should be the bigger person.
Then he thinks about himself, age fifteen, and his former idol and role model Dick Grayson telling him that the decorative raw fettuccine in the high-class restaurant Bruce had taken them to was meant to be eaten, really, here, take some -
“Oh, you’ve never heard of the one-day blinding stew?” Tim says. He only has one younger brother, after all. He has to cash in where he can. “Must be an American thing.”
Damian’s face scrunches up in precisely the way Tim knew it would. He watches with eager measures of horror and barely concealed glee as his brother’s hand twitches, almost imperceptible - a sure tell that he’s about to start lying his ass off.
Damian scoffs derisively. “Of course I am familiar with my own lineage’s version of the one-day blinding stew,” he says with the vocal equivalent of an eye roll. “I was merely asking to ensure that the Gotham variants were equally as effective and similarly constructed.”
“Of course.” Tim nods along, cheeks hurting from reigning in his smile. “Well, I’m no cook myself. From what I hear, it takes years to perfect a one-day blinding stew. You know - taste, texture, blindness levels.”
Damian does his best to mirror Tim’s body language, bobbing his head up and down. “I see. This stew… seems like a valuable asset. Have we considered its uses and benefits for the team?”
Steph is silent and straining, face staggeringly red and eyes wide enough they look like they might just pop out of her head. She opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out is a strange mix between a squeak and a gargle that has Tim biting the inside of his cheek. She tries again, finally able to utter, “B-Batman banned one-day blinding stew.”
“I see. I will have a talk with Father.” Damian gives Steph and Tim each a polite nod and spins on his heel, setting off with a newfound mission.
“No, wait!” Tim calls after him. “It’s…sensitive. He, um - got blinded. Once. For one day. You can’t bring it up with him.”
Damian frowns, staring at Tim consideringly. “I see. Then I assure you, Timothy, I will not approach the subject with Father. This has been… quite informational.”
—
“Pennyworth,” Damian inquires. He’s wandered into Kitchen Delta, one of four stocked kitchens in the Manor and the one most often frequented by the butler. “I trust your knowledge of recipes is both plentiful and of the finest quality.”
“Ah, Master Damian,” Alfred greets with a cheery smile. “Is there a certain recipe you are looking for?”
“I have become… casually interested in learning to craft a one-day blinding stew, as is traditional in your American custom.”
There are not many things - after so many years of living in Wayne Manor - that can make Alfred Pennyworth freeze in his tracks. However, the mere mention of one-day blinding stew has him stiff as a board. Doubtless because of Father’s history with the substance.
Something Damian can’t quite pinpoint flashes across the older man’s face, but then it settles into something warm and fond. Damian feels himself relax.
“And who do you intend to use this stew upon? Your father would hardly approve of its use in the field.”
“Todd,” he answers matter-of-factly, smile curling his lips upward.
Alfred raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to use this on Master Jason? He may retaliate in kind.”
Damian nods. He has thought this through; Jason is the least likely to tell Father about what he’s done, instead preferring to settle it between them. “It is merely a tactical test. Cassandra already gives us monthly stealth testing.”
Alfred continues to stare at him. “He will not be expecting an attack so severe from one of his own siblings, surely.”
“He should,” Damian says gravely.
Slowly, Alfred puts the peppers he’s been cutting into a plastic container and pulls out a massive pot. “But of course, Master Damian. Now, you must keep quiet about this recipe. It is an ancestral secret, passed down in my family from one generation to the next.”
Damian nods, watching attentively as Alfred begin to pull out ingredients for this most secret and sacred of stews.
—
To: Jason
From: A :-)
Master Jason.
At some point today, your brother is going to approach you.
He is going to offer you a stew. Contrary to popular belief, it does not possess any harmful properties.
what
why
why would that be popular belief
It will not blind you.
WHAT
WHY WOULD IT BLIND ME
Calm yourself.
It is simply a form of pozole. However, your brother may have been led to believe that it will lead the consumer to temporary blindness.
It would be, I believe, beneficial to his development and family integration to let him engage in some harmless mischief.
BLINDING ME FOR ONE DAY IS NOT HARMLESS
WHO LED HIM TO BELIEVE THAT
You will not be blinded. Really, Master Jason.
We would like to reinforce his culinary skills, as well as teach him a long term lesson about why you do not attempt to blind your siblings, however briefly.
okay
i will eat the stew
Play along.
You would also greatly benefit from one day off patrol, if I may be so bold.
oh im not taking the day off.
im goign blind.
It is a mystery you cannot hear my sigh from all the way in Park Row, Master Jason.
oh i can
you cooked it into the blinding stew
—
“T-minus 60 seconds until my imminent blinding,” Jason says into the private comm channel. He’s crouched on top of an office building, rolling out his neck and wrists as he surveys the street below. “Let’s rock and roll.”
Tim giggles in his ear which is, frankly, terrifying. “We’re in position.”
Which means he’s herded Robin to somewhere he’ll have a direct line of sight for Jason’s performance. Damian has been shooting him suspicious glances for the past hour, as his eyesight continues to remain unimpeded, and he needs to act soon before the kid decides the stew was a bust.
Jason connects back to the main channel and continues to stretch dramatically. “Well, looks like a pretty quiet night on my end.” He secures his grapple, beginning to swing across to a cluster of lowrise apartments. “Red, what d’you say we head out, go grab burgers or - “
As planned, the line gives out as he reaches the peak of his swing, sending him toppling head over heels onto the roof. He crumples against the gravel with a blood-curdling scream. “My eyes! They’re - they’re gone!” He reaches up to tug off his helmet, writhing a little bit for good measure.
“What?!” Tim says. He’s the best actor of any of them; Jason thinks he could earn an Oscar before Cissie if he put his mind to it. “Does anyone have eyes on Hood?”
“I do,” Damian says quietly. “He has - landed poorly.”
“Stay clear,” Tim tells him. “You don’t know what he could have been hit with.”
“I’ve been blinded! Oh, the horror!” Jason yells in an inexplicable Transatlantic accent.
Dick - a born performer - dials it up to eleven as he lands on the roof, Cass close on his heels. “Oh my god!” he shrieks. “My baby brother!”
Dick falls to his knees and fucking tears his clothes, which he can do because he bought the cheapest Nightwing costume he could find at a Spirit Halloween specifically for this occasion. The cheap fabric is in shreds around his waist, muscled chest revealed in a dramatic display of agony.
Cass hovers over Jason for a moment, head tilted as she observes the crumpled pile of his limbs. “You are not blind,” she says, pointing a finger at him. She must be picturing last month when Jason got shot straight through the abdomen and left thigh with an armor piercing round, decided he would rather die than cause a scene, and functioned as normal until he collapsed in the Cave from blood loss.
“No,” Jason admits, switching off the comms in his ear. “It’s a prank. We told everyone else already. Damian tried to feed me something he thought was bad, so we’re going to make him think I’ve gone temporarily blind. Y’know, scare him a little bit, get real silly with it.”
Cass considers it. “Consequences,” she says with a nod.
Jason clicks his tongue and shoots finger guns at her. “Bingo. Never fuck with the Red Hood. And never try to feed him poisoned Mexican food.” Then he switches his comm back on and collapses again, screaming in agony.
“He’s been blinded,” Steph says in his ear, her voice pitched low. “Just like the apostle Paul - there are scales over his eyes to teach him of the hubris of his ways. We must find a true believer to lay hands on him and restore his sight. Dick, d’you think Azrael will set foot in Gotham city limits again after that time you got dosed with Ivy’s pollen and - “
“Hood, report,” comes Batman’s voice, ringing across the comms, and both Jason and Dick freeze.
“You missed one,” Cass says like the little shit she is.
“Uh,” Dick fumbles. “We, um - B, I think we’ve got this under - “
“Nightwing,” Batman snaps, in the way Bruce only ever gets when Red Hood is hurt. Jason resists the urge to put his head in his hands. “Do not argue with me. Return Hood to the Cave immediately. I will send the Batmobile to your location.”
“You must carry me,” Jason groans, still in the accent. Dick rolls his eyes, but he hoists Jason over his shoulder all the same.
—
Once they’ve gotten Jason onto a cot and Bruce has almost managed to calm the wild pounding in his chest and the beginnings of a slow-forming migraine, he steels himself to wrangle his third-oldest child into receiving medical care. It’s sort of like bathing a cat. Before he can, however, he finds himself tugged into an alcove off to the side.
Amongst the retired uniforms in the Batcloset - it’s not actually officially called the Batcloset, but it is a closet in the Bat Cave. And they already have a Batcomputer, so it only makes sense to refer to the only closet as the Batcloset - whatever - Dick grabs Bruce by both shoulders. It is perhaps their longest intimate moment in years.
“Listen,” Dick says. “Jason isn’t actually blind.”
A muscle clicks in Bruce’s jaw. “What?”
“He’s pretending to be blind, because Damian thinks he has made a special ‘one-day blinding stew’ and we’re all letting him believe it was a success.”
“Now, why would you do that to my clearly autistic son who was raised by assassins? And why would you let him do it to my other son who died?”
“Because it’s fucking hilarious.” Dick shrugs. “If you really think about it, it’s a teaching moment. Don’t fuck around with one-day blinding stews.” He nods sagely. “Not to mention pranks are an ancient form of family bonding, forged by older brother ancestors and passed down generation to generation. Sacred traditions.”
Bruce frowns, taking a moment to deliberate all possible outcomes of pulling this prank on Damian. Dick is right there, though, with a hand on his arm and those puppy dog eyes that haven’t changed at all since he was eight years old and still small enough for Bruce to carry in one arm. And - it does make him feel good, in a way, that his sons trust him, that he’s in on this joke with them instead of always on the outside.
“Okay,” he says finally.
“Now go out there, and act like your son is blind.” Dick gives Bruce two hearty pats.
Bruce makes his way back out to the medbay, Dick close at his heels, both with matching worried expressions.
“Master Jason,” Alfred says as he sees them approach, expression solemn. “It appears someone has given you… a one-day blinding stew.” He’s holding a clipboard in one hand with a toxicology report on it. Like this is official. Like it’s really possible to diagnose someone with stew. One day, Bruce is just going to explode, and no one will be able to blame him.
He tamps down a smile at the resulting reaction: Steph’s hand over her mouth, Dick’s mumbled oh my god…, Tim’s wide eyes and horrified expression.
Alfred winks at Damian, then; the rest of them politely pretend to have missed it. Damian stares at Jason with mounting horror.
“Surely… surely there is some sort of cure for such an - an awful malady?” Damian says, hesitant. Bruce sees Tim clutch at Steph’s arm with unrepentant laughter and disguise it as a sob.
Bruce shakes his head slowly. “No, son. There’s nothing to be done for him now.”
“The only thing he can do,” Dick says, his voice suspiciously strained, “is endure the epic highs and lows of one-day blinding stew.”
“It is only one day, dear Jason,” Damian comforts. (Something in his heart feels strangely… heavy. He shakes it off. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the stew would blind Jason for one day. It was in the name: one-day blinding stew. The stew that blinds you for one day.) “You mustn’t lose hope.”
Jason impressively manages actual tears running down his face. “The craziest thing is… I haven’t had any stew. The only thing I’ve eaten today was delicious pozole from…” He pauses, completely choked up by the sheer emotion that can only result from consuming beautiful pozole. “From my favorite brother, Damian.”
“I’m so sorry. We have no possible way of knowing who could have fed you that stew.” Bruce nods, a hand on Jason’s shoulder. As if there is any possible way on God’s earth that someone could have fed him an entire bowl of stew without his noticing. “We will get through this.”
“No!” Jason snaps, throwing Bruce off of him. “You don’t get to say that! You didn’t eat the one-day blinding stew. You will never understand what it’s like to be me, Bruce.”
Jason spits Bruce’s name like an insult. Damian watches the argument unfold earnestly. This is more or less how they talk to each other on the regular. His eyes flick between his brother and father, waiting on Bruce’s next move.
“Alfred, why don’t you make Jason comfortable?” Bruce turns on his heels a little more dramatically than normal, cape swishing behind him. With his back to Damian, he stops suppressing his smile. Family bonding.
—
Duke gets a text from Damian at 5:47 in the morning - which he doesn’t read until 9:30, because it’s Saturday and he’s normal - that reads,
Your assistance is requested.
Todd has undergone a terrible malady, and it’s sent the entire family into shambles.
He rubs sleep from his eyes, pulling the comforter higher over his head. Downstairs, he can hear his cousin puttering around, the smell of coffee and bacon floating heavy in the air. Duke is pretty sure he could float on the visible waves of the smell, that’s how hungry he is.
Duke doesn’t worry about it. Like - it’s Damian. He came out of the womb speaking like a child emperor, and everyone in the family he’s got to imprint on is also prone to exaggeration. Still, if something is going on, he’d like to know about it.
To: Dick Grayson
From: Duke Thomas
Hey just got a concerning text from Damian. Is Jason ok??
Tragic incident with a ‘1 day blinding stew’. Trust all is well.
Oh so ur pranking the shit out of him. Gotchu
Need to see this for myself
I’m On my way!
Shit
On my way!
On my way!
omw
Jesus
ROFL 😂
—
Duke slips out of his shoes as he enters the Manor, to the sound of sobs coming from one of the living rooms. As he turns the corner, he can see why.
There’s a chaise lounge procured from somewhere deep in the heart of the Manor that someone has definitely died on, the type used by movie therapists, and Jason is draped across it like a Roman emperor. He’s covered in rags - Duke is reminded of the bird lady from Home Alone 2 - and a blindfold is wrapped around his eyes. In one hand, he clutches a pair of scales, and in the other he holds a sword. He’s mumbling incoherently, and Steph is crouched next to him with a quill and scroll, nodding solemnly and transcribing his every word. When Duke peers over her shoulder, she’s doodling a row of anatomically improbable dicks.
“Oh,” Duke says to the room at large, “so Damian was not exaggerating literally at all.”
Jason reaches towards the sound with a clawed hand. “Duke…” he whispers hoarsely. “Is that… you? Come closer…” When Duke obliges, Jason curls a hand into the front of his shirt. “The pigeon… the red pigeon… you must look out for it…”
Duke pats the back of his hand twice as he collapses against the pile of pillows, winded. “I will keep this in mind, o wise Oracle.”
“Stealing my thunder,” Barbara says from across the room, where she’s tapping a tablet and two computers at the same time. “Hey, Duke. Glad you could make it.”
“For sure,” Duke says. “Couldn’t miss this.”
“Good morning, Duke. I’m wearing black to mourn Jason’s sight,” Bruce informs him as he enters, as though the suit he’s wearing isn’t more or less what he wears to work every single day.
“Congrats,” he tells Bruce. “I hear someone may have fallen victim to a certain dish?”
“We have some in the fridge,” Steph whispers, pausing in her drawing. “It’s in the big red bowl. Kitchen C. Can’t miss it.”
Duke shoots her a lazy salute. “Send Damian my way, please.”
As Duke steps into the kitchen, he channels his need to be a little shit sometimes. “Oh, hey, Damian!” he says, turning at the soft sound of footsteps and the clip-clop of dog nails on hardwood. Damian lurks in a soft green bathrobe, Titus at his side. “I was just about to indulge in a big ol’ bowl of this wonderful stew!” He rubs his stomach for good measure. He’s just - going balls to the wall, watching the entire two gallon container of stew rotate slowly in the microwave.
Damian goes rigid and, yeah, that’s definitely the face of someone who made a blinding stew and then proceeded to keep it in the communal kitchen. “Thomas. You cannot. It - it may be contaminated. We do not know what — “
“C’mon, Damian,” Duke says with a shit-eating grin. This was worth the forty-five minute bus ride. “Surely no one in this house would make one-day blinding stew!”
“No,” Damian says, putting his foot down. He physically removes the ladle from Duke’s hand, then takes the lukewarm stew out of the microwave, going so far as to dump the entire bowl in the trash. Whatever. It’s not like Bruce can’t afford another one. “...I require Chicken McNuggets. You will drive.”
Duke puts his hands on his hips. “Why don’t we go see if Jason needs anything while we’re out? I hear he’s gone mysteriously blind. Maybe we should buy him a Get Well Soon card. Get well in twenty-four hours, maybe.”
Damian scoffs. “Please, Thomas. Todd would be unable to read your silly greeting card in his sightless state. We will bring him a Happy Meal to convey our support in this difficult time.”
Duke raises an eyebrow. “Fine, but you’re paying. We taking the Ferrari?”
“I am always paying,” Damian corrects. “And we’re taking the Jaguar. And I’m driving.”
“Absolutely not,” Duke says, but he follows Damian to the garage anyway. Here’s hoping no one’s invented a one-day blinding Happy Meal yet.
—
Bruce knocks a couple times. It takes a few minutes for Damian to zone back in from his drawing to realize Father has already cracked the door. “Dinner.”
Father doesn’t normally announce dinner in person. To Damian, this means one of two things. One: Jason is staying for dinner, and Father is in high spirits. Or two: Bruce has had an overnight guest who caused a major mood adjustment, and he is now filled with a newfound energy and whimsical outlook on life. Both equally possible.
They make their way to the dining room together, casually conversing about Damian’s latest artwork and how his friends are. Damian makes a point to not mention Jason’s incident with the blinding stew yesterday, as his sight has just been restored, and now all is well.
It seems that Jason is in fact joining them for dinner, along with the rest of the family and - inexplicably - Superman and Superboy, each waiting with utensils already in hand. Damian frowns; if he’d known they were having visitors, he would have asked Jon to come back early from Smallville.
Tim plants a kiss on Superboy’s cheek, and Damian frowns harder, if such a thing is possible. Sickening. As he enters the room, Superman greets him with a slap on the back and what Jon has informed him is a Kansan saying. “Smells great, Alfred. I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse!”
Father takes a seat, motioning for Damian to sit at his right hand. Yes, Damian thinks, a seat of dominance. He sniffs the air - a mix of familiar spices that has his stomach rumbling, yearning for Alfred’s cooking. “What is for dinner?”
“That pozole you made was so good, I asked Alfred to make it again,” Jason explains with an excited smile.
Tim laughs. “The way Jason was talking about it, I just had to invite Kon and Superman over for dinner.” He pinches his boyfriend’s cheek like a sweet grandma.
“Alfred even offered to send leftovers home to the whole Justice League!” says Superman, beaming his all-American smile.
It’s as if time has slowed. Alfred smiles at Damian - sweet, loving, knowing, but most of all, bone chilling.
Pennyworth is going to serve one-day blinding stew to the whole family.
Is the butler mind-controlled? Has he finally lost his mind? What was Damian thinking, reminding him of such a dreadful recipe?
Damian finds himself experiencing a sensation akin to what Jason once described to him as ‘the poop sweats’.
It’s like when you really need to poop, and you get all clammy like a fever, and you’d do anything to have cool air and a clean toilet, but you can’t, so you’re just in pain and sweaty and somehow hot and cold all at the same time. And you can’t let anyone know that it’s the poop sweats because, well, that’s just rude, and —
“Is everything alright, Master Damian?” Alfred questions, eagerly ladling a portion of stew into Damian’s favorite bowl and placing it in front of him. Damn Alfred Pennyworth and the curse of knowing.
Damian swallows, the eyes of the entire family gazing upon him. “Poop sweats,” he blurts out.
Richard snickers under his breath, eyeing Jason. Damian hears a loud kick under the table, supposedly from Timothy, who then asks Alfred for an extra helping. Damian’s heart drops. How many days would Timothy be blind after two helpings? For that matter, what sort of effect will this stew have on Kryptonian biology?
He knows the right thing to do, can hear Father’s voice in the back of his mind alongside Jason and his poop sweats - Robin. Report. Report. Report. Report. But he just can’t make himself, feeling a certain buzzing energy in the room he can’t quite place. He tells himself he has to be imagining the pointed stares from each member of the family - that the simplest explanation is paranoia making him see things, when in reality, everyone is acting like their normal selves at this incredibly normal dinner.
He runs the calculations in his mind. If he speaks up, Father will know of his involvement, bringing down the righteous fist of justice on his - admittedly deserving - son. So much to lose, so little to gain.
However, Damian realizes, if he does not… there is a chance Alfred takes the fall for the crime with no consequence to himself. The inconvenience of being blinded for a day is not unaccounted for. However, while 24-hour blindness would be annoying, Damian has faced countless trials both harder and more worth it than facing Father’s disapproval. Not to mention the wrath of Jason when he realizes it was Damian that blinded him, not only once, but now - Damian watches as Jason savors a heaping bite of stew, his spoon seeming pointedly larger than normal - twice.
Blindness it is.
Best to get it over with. Damian forgoes traditional utensils in favor of gulping down the delicious stew in one go. He thinks back to something he overheard in a movie, or a song, or perhaps a late-night text he shouldn’t have seen on his father’s phone. How can something so wrong feel so right?
Superman lets out a few small sputters. He covers his mouth to hide his laughter, but Damian has already whipped his head to examine the strange man who, at this point, is laughing hard enough to shake the entire table.
“Superman, report,” Damian demands, not understanding what could be quite this funny. It’s entirely possible he missed a joke while he was deep in contemplation over his imminent temporary stew-sanctioned blinding.
Surprisingly, Father is the next to break, letting out a rare chuckle. Then Dick. Then Jason. Then Tim and Kon and Steph. Duke and Babs. And finally, Alfred. Everyone at the table is laughing except for Damian. They consumed one-day blinding stew and they’re laughing?
“Report,” Damian demands over the giggles. “Report!”
“You little fucker,” Jason says, wiping the corner of his eye. “You tried to blind me with stew.”
Damian’s heart prickles with dread. How has his ruse been discovered? Is that why their guests are here, to take him to Justice League prison for his stew crimes?
Damian crosses his arms with a frown. “And I succeeded.”
“No you didn’t, you asshole!” says Jason. “I’ve been pretending to be blind to teach you a lesson.”
Damian frowns at him. “You mean… you knew the whole time?”
“We all did,” Duke tells him, still giggling against Steph, who is slapping at Tim’s arm, inconsolable.
“Even Father?” Damian whips his head to Bruce, who is now finished laughing, sipping his soup with a subdued smile.
“I think someone needs to apologize to Jason,” Bruce replies with a stern look, though his eyes are still filled with amusement.
Damian sputters indignantly. “But - I have not — ”
“You tried to blind him!” Dick says incredulously, clutching his stomach.
“...Touche,” Damian says, turning to Jason. “Todd. I am… sorry for attempting such a severe test of your detective abilities. It was not right of me.” Jason nods at him, appeased.
“Now, we owe you an apology too, Damian,” Bruce says. “We all tend to get carried away.”
“The fuck we do,” Jason says, jabbing a finger at Damian. “He tried to blind me!”
“Temporarily,” Damian says sullenly.
“In all fairness,” says Tim through his laughter. “We did get Superman in on it. And then made him believe we were going to blind the whole Justice League.”
“And at that point — “ Jason’s getting worked up, talking with his hands and everything. “At that point, he still chose not to admit he tried to blind me and instead drank the goddamn stew!”
Steph is doubled over her bowl of stew, tears pouring out as she grasps onto Tim’s arm for dear life. Superman is laughing debilitatingly hard.
“Holy shit, Damian,” Kon laughs, hitting Tim’s other arm over and over again as the only way he can express his sheer unmitigated joy. Tim is ping-ponged between Kon and Steph as they whack him back and forth in their hysterics. “That’s so metal. You were going to let Alfred blind the entire Justice League.”
“Temporarily!” Damian growls, slamming his fists down on the table. “And I was going to be blind as well.”
“You really thought you would get away with blinding me. I ain’t apologizing to no one!” Jason announces.
“What - “ Steph wheezes. “What part of the stew would even make you go blind? It was a normal stew!”
“I may have had a part in the young master’s perception of the stew,” Alfred says with a wink.
Damian lets out a huff, glaring at the man halfheartedly. “You pranked me.”
“All’s fair in love and blinding stew,” says Tim with a shrug. “If it makes you feel better, one time I went to a Wayne Enterprises dinner, and Dick offered me a bite of special queso out of the table centerpiece. And that’s the story of how the Saudi Arabian Prime Minister watched me eat candle wax with a straight face for three hours.”
Dick giggles, unrepentant. “Oh my god, I completely forgot about that! You just - kept eating it!”
Jason groans. “Jesus, when I first moved here, hero of the entire world Nightwing told me that Bruce Wayne ate children. And he let me believe that shit! For a month!”
“I think we all learned a very important lesson here,” says Bruce. “And all that matters is no one was really blinded.”
Damian bites back a smile and grumbles, ”I suppose I do see the humorous nature of it. And the stew really is quite delectable…”
Jason hooks him in a chokehold and gives him a noogie as he struggles to escape. “Next time you want to blind someone, at least give a guy a heads up, punk.”
Damian shoots his older brother a seething look as he settles back in his chair. “Pennyworth?”
“Yes, Master Damian?”
“Now that we have established the stew is not of the one-day blinding variety, I would like another serving.”
Alfred’s smile is as warm as the soup sitting snug in his stomach. “Very well, Master Damian.”