Archive of Our Own ^beta

She looked over the small shop and there was no one there, so she took a moment to turn around and wipe down the counters, collecting up some of the odds and ends that had been misplaced throughout the night’s rush.

When she turned around, she nearly screamed.

He was more than six feet tall, had broad shoulders, and was garbed from head to toe in black.

He was Batman.

Her mouth dropped open and she stared, wide-eyed, not even sure what to say to him.

He stared back, his mouth in a grim line.

Someone- not the Bat- cleared his throat and she glanced away from the Bat only intending to look long enough to see who. But her attention was equally captivated by this person, a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten, dressed in a rather ridiculous costume of red and green with a yellow cape over his shoulders. He smiled up at her, showing teeth. “Hello,” he said.

Her mouth worked silently for a moment. She looked up at Batman, who hadn’t moved, then down at the boy again. “H-hello?”

“Could I get an ice-cream please?” the boy asked, ever so politely.

She gaped at him. She gaped at Batman. Batman’s mouth turned down slightly. She jolted to her senses. “Um, yes. Of course. Bowl or cone?”

“Waffle cone, please,” he said.

“How many scoops?”

“Three,” he said.

“One,” Batman said. His voice was deep, and about as dark as the night.

The boy looked disappointed, but not surprised. “One,” he agreed, but then smiled again, peering through the glass to look at the different flavors. “What’s that one?” he asked, pointing.

“Um, chunky chocolate,” she said.

“What about that one?”

“Fudge ripple.”

“Oooh. Umm… What’s your favorite?”

She blinked. She glanced at Batman again, then back at the boy. “I like butter pecan. My sons like this new one we just got in.” She pointed at the colorful dessert.

“What is it?” Robin asked.

“Superman.”

She was very sure that Batman’s scowl got darker.

Robin laughed, delighted. “Superman has ice cream!” he said. “You should make Batman ice cream,” he told her. “Special for Gotham only.”

She just stared at him.

He didn't seem bothered by her lack of enthusiasm, just returned to perusing the flavors. He finally seemed to spot what he wanted. “Um, okay, I’d like a scoop of cookie dough, please. With sprinkles, too, please.”

She dished up the cone, hitting her forehead on the outside of the freezer because she was so busy staring at them that she forgot to watch out.

She blinked away the pain and handed it over the counter.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked, sounding quite concerned for her.

She was not okay. She was still in shock because there were a pair of vigilantes in her store. One of them was a six-something grown man in a Bat costume, and the other was a child wearing his underwear and no pants. “Um,” she said. “One fifty-eight, please.”

Robin happily licked at his ice cream.

Batman reached into his belt and pulled out a five dollar bill.

She punched it into the register and fished out his change.

She looked up to hand it to him.

They were already gone.

*****

Business had been good. The crowd leaving the theater had left with an appetite, and he’d sold more dogs that night than he had all week.

Still, it was late enough now that he probably ought to close up shop. Two dogs left, he’d see if he could get rid of them, then-

“Holy hot dogs, Batman,” a young voice said.

He blinked in surprise. Batman and his sidekick, that Robin kid, were standing right in front of him. “Where’d you come from?” he blurted before he could help himself.

Batman looked like he’d sooner punch someone than answer.

Robin grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said. “We’ll take two dogs with everything,” he announced.

“One,” Batman said.

Robin snorted. “Two. I’m starving and these are the best dogs in Gotham. ‘Sides, he’s trying to close up, and you wouldn’t want him to have to throw out perfectly good food, right, Bats?”

The hot dog vendor stared in fascination as Batman gave Robin an undeniably annoyed look, but nodded once. “Fine.”

Robin grinned broadly. “Two dogs with everything,” he repeated confidently.

The vendor prepped the two dogs as requested. “You been here before?” he asked as he layered on the sauerkraut.

“Used to come by a lot,” Robin said. “You wouldn’t remember me, even without the mask.”

The vendor didn’t argue. He’d served a lot of dogs, and people came and went all the time. He added the mustard, then sprinkled on some onion.

Batman was pulling out money.

“Oh, no,” the vendor said. “On the house for you guys.”

He handed the two hot dogs to Robin, who grinned. “Thanks,” the boy said, looking for a moment much younger than his probable fourteen or fifteen.

“You guys are great, keep it up,” the vendor said. Something caught his gaze and he pointed up. “But it looks like you got someplace to be. Isn’t that the Bat-Signal?”

He turned to look at Batman again for confirmation.

The Bat and the boy were already gone.

There was a twenty dollar bill on the top of the tip jar that hadn’t been there a minute before.

*****

The barista sighed as another customer came in through the front door. Why did all of these people feel the need to get coffee at midnight on a Friday night? Didn’t they know that people didn’t want to work those hours? If it hadn’t been for the late night surge, her manager had been talking about closing early.

But nooooo, stupid people had to come in wanting coffee, and now they were stuck.

Someone pulled up to the drive through. The lights out back had been broken the week before and hadn’t been fixed yet, so she couldn’t see the car, just the vague shape of it. It looked kind of odd, but the barista really didn’t care. She just wished they’d all go away. “Welcome to the Gotham Drip. Would you like to try a chocolate biscotti?”

She drummed her finger impatiently on the side of the computer, waiting for a response.

“A large black coffee and a- what is it?” A short pause before the gruff voice continued, sounding angry and annoyed. “A medium mocha-latte.”

She rolled her eyes. Clearly the man didn’t look at the menu. It wasn’t that hard. “Was that a tall or grande mocha-latte?”

A short pause. “Grande,” was the response, and the voice sounded extremely perturbed.

The barista rolled her eyes. “Please pull up to the window for your total.”

It didn’t take long to fix the drinks. She carried them over to the window, not really paying attention, then looked up.

And she froze.

Batman was glaring at her from the driver’s seat. Robin sat next to him, picking at the material of his pants (it was the new Robin! He wore pants!) but occasionally glancing up.

Her hands started shaking. “Um.... that’ll be $6.57,” she said. “Batman. Sir.”

Robin smiled in the seat next to him.

Batman handed her a ten. “Keep the change,” he growled.

“Thank you, Batman, sir,” she said. He could have told her she was a moron, and she was pretty sure she’d have responded the same way. She almost spilled the coffee her hands were shaking so much as she handed it over. His gloved hand brushed against hers.

She was going to hyperventilate.

“Thank you!” Robin called from the far seat.

Batman put the coffee in a cup holder- the Batmobile had cup holders!- hit a button, and the windows were going up way faster than any normal car, hiding them from view.

She leaned forward, staring after the car as it whipped out of the parking lot, to the point that she got stuck in the window and had to explain to her manager what she’d been doing leaning out the window in the first place.

****

“They are totally the best tacos in Gotham,” a girl was saying.

He smothered a proud smile as he pulled a fresh pile of napkins out and straightened up, prepared to grin at his newest customer and take her order. The grin faltered as he took in the sight of the girl.

She was a skinny white girl with long blonde hair, but more important, she was wearing some kind of Robin costume, complete with the eye mask. “You sure you don’t want some? They’re really good,” she added in a singsong voice to whomever she was talking to. She shrugged. “Okay. I’ll be back in a few minutes then.”

Her hand dropped from her ear. “Dos tacos con pollo, por favor,” she said cheerfully.

Her accent was painfully awful, and oddly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “You on your way to a costume party, chica?” he asked, sincerely hoping she wouldn’t try to reply in Spanish.

She tilted her head and looked at him, but the mask covered up too much of her expression to really read it. “Something like that,” she said, sounding amused.

“That’ll be four bucks,” he told her as he wrapped both tacos in foil.

She handed over a five and slipped a few bills in the tip jar. He handed her back her change. She hesitated, then shrugged and added it to the tip jar too. “Not my money,” she explained cheerfully.

He was okay with that- as long as she didn’t mean she’d stolen it or something.

She touched her ear again. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said. “I already paid even,” she added. She dropped her hand again to take the two tacos. “Gracias, ese,” she said easily.

He winced again at the accent, but she was already jogging away.

He nearly fell over when, about ten feet from the wall, she pulled something out of her belt, shot a line up towards the top of a building, and then grappled upwards.

He hurried around the cart to look up at the night sky, but she’d already disappeared.

“I must be seeing things,” he said to himself.

Then he saw two shadows appear at the top of the building. “Thanks for the tacos, boss,” that same female voice said.

“You need to work on your accent,” a gruff male voice responded.

There were two strange whooshing sounds and two loud clanking sounds right after that. A split second later, the taco vendor was left staring into the sky as Batman and Robin- who was apparently a girl- swung off into the night.

*****

“I want the falafel special and he wants a lamb gyro.”

The vendor,who’d had a long day on the corner and had already been cleaning up to go, was about to tell the kid- who’d spoken in the most commanding and bossy tone he’d ever heard - to go fly a kite.

Then he looked up and saw the huge figure standing there, scowling and he thought twice about that. “E-excuse me?” he said.

“Tt,” someone said. It wasn’t the huge man that had to be Batman. The vendor stood up and realized that there was a boy with him, scowling. “I want the falafel special,” he repeated, the bossiness in his voice nearly being overtaken by annoyance. “And he wants a lamb gyro.”

“Robin,” Batman said, his voice almost a growl.

The boy scowled more. “Please.”

The vendor stared at them for a full ten seconds before he was jolted back to reality by Batman’s face twitching into a darker scowl. He moved quickly, grateful he hadn’t gotten far in the cleanup process. The fryers were still hot so he quickly dumped the falafel patties in. “It will take a few minutes,” he said, cringing because he realized his words had come out with his heavy accent, like anything he said when he was nervous.

Batman looked down the street at something the vendor couldn’t hear. “We’ll be back,” he said shortly, in Arabic.

The vendor gaped at him as the Dynamic Due took off towards the end of the street.

He stared after them for a moment, then shrugged, preparing their food. He wasn’t sure if they’d really be back, but he wasn’t about to disappear without feeding them.

He sliced the gyro meat off of the spit and prepared the pitas for both sandwiches.

As though they’d timed it, he’d just finished wrapping the two sandwiches when he looked up and Batman and Robin were back, looking like they’d never left.

Except that Robin had a slight smirk on his face, and the vendor could see red and blue flashing lights further down the block, in the direction they’d run off to. “Eleven fifty,” he said.

Batman handed over a bill.

The vendor handed over the sandwiches.

“Mut shakkrān,” Robin said after Batman glared at him again.

“‘Afwan,” the vendor said in reply to the thanks. He turned to fish out the change. “Where did you learn Arabic?” he asked.

There was no answer. He turned to look at them, the change in his hands.

The dynamic duo were gone, like they’d never been there in the first place.

*****

Everyone knew that Batman was a badass. Even if you weren’t a criminal, you’d heard stories about how one look from him could melt steel.

Most of the street vendors had met Batman or Robin or one of the others through the years- they were cash only operations who, at the end of a Saturday night, sometimes had a pretty hefty chunk of dough that made them targets for petty theft.

More than one made a point of offering free food to the vigilantes, especially the younger ones, as it seemed to draw them in, and anyone who served one of Batman’s vigilantes on a regular basis was a little bit safer from the street thugs.

After all, you never knew when Nightwing or Red Hood or Robin would pop down looking for a midnight snack.

Batman himself almost never deigned to eat with his proteges, but he was often seen nearby, watching over his flock.

The last night of Gotham’s anniversary celebration was winding down. Several vendors were in the area, all with their own twist on street food.

No one expected trouble- the police were out in force, the crowds were dying down, and it had been a remarkably good week on Gotham’s crime scale.

All of the vendors got alarmed when, in the middle of the rows of carts, all of the vigilantes suddenly dropped down from the sky.

There were five of them suddenly standing there - Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Spoiler, and Robin.

The area went silent as everyone waited to see what had drawn them out in force.

Nightwing glanced around the area, taking it in quickly. “All right,” he said in a commanding sort of way. “We have thirty minutes before Batman expects us back, so we need to do this quickly. Spoiler, you’re on waffles, and elephant ears,” he said, whipping out a small stack of bills and handing some to each of the others. “Red Robin, drinks. Red Hood, burgers and corn dogs. Robin, popcorn and cotton candy. I’ll get nachos and funnel cakes.”

“Make sure you put the peppers on the side,” Red Robin told Nightwing.

“And make sure you get an elephant ear with cinnamon,” Robin told Spoiler, his mouth in a pout. “I don’t want powdered sugar.”

“Fine, but you better get me the big bag of cotton candy,” she replied. “I want the blue kind.”

“I can’t believe I let you drag me into this,” Red Hood grumbled.

The group disbanded, heading to five different food trucks, where all of the vendors stared at them in shock.

“Um, can we get a picture of you guys?” one of the vendors asked uncertainty. “I mean, I don’t think anyone would ever believe us if we told them.

“No,” said Robin gruffly.

“Sorry, no,” said Red Robin.

“Yeah, right,” said Red Hood.

“Okay,” said Spoiler and Nightwing.

The only ones more shocked by the affirmative answer than the vendors were the other vigilantes.

“You can’t,” Red Robin hissed. “He’ll kill you.”

“I do not want a picture taken,” Robin protested.

“He will kill you,” Red Hood said thoughtfully. “So yeah, let’s do it.”

Nightwing smirked. “He’ll just be jealous we aren’t bringing him a funnel cake. And you know it’ll be worth it to see his face if the picture ends up in the paper.”

The vendor who’d requested the picture ended up getting several shots, the best of which included Red Hood (who was wearing a domino instead of the hood) downing a corn dog, Robin dumping one of the popcorns on Nightwing’s head, and Red Robin holding a hand to his face in an expression that screamed, I can’t believe I’m with these people.

An array of fireworks suddenly went off and everyone looked in that direction.

When they looked back for the vigilantes, they were gone.

*****

Several blocks away, the chattering group of five was brought to a sudden halt by a deep voice. “I hope,” it said. “That you at least brought me back a funnel cake.”

Nightwing looked down at the plate he was carrying with the last of the funnel cake they’d all split. He looked up at Batman, then back at the funnel cake and made a decision. “Nope,” he said, and shoved the last of it in his mouth.