Don't Fear the Reaper

62) A Gothamite By Any Other Name Would *Not* Be As Sweet

A/N: a fun fact, I had written a different chapter that was supposed to come out tonight, but then I decided to write a whole new one in half an hour because I was like... I should add another filler chapter before I add some more plot... but the next chapter isn't even that 'plot'y... Idk why I do this to myself ahahhahhah

Tim sat in the living room with his siblings, something they had rarely done before Nico came into their lives. It wasn't like they never hung out as a group, it was just that most of their 'hang outs' involved domino masks and nearly dying. To sit in a room together was both really nice and completely foreign.

"I win!" Tim said, fist pumping as he showed off the secret cards for clue. "It was Nightwing, in the Narrows, with Joker Venom."

"I still think it's weird that you guys got the Batman version of Clue," Duke said, tossing his cards onto the board. "Like, you just said that Dick murdered someone in the Gotham Slums with Joker Venom... that doesn't feel weird to you?"

Jason just scoffed. "Firstly, don't call it the Slums, and secondly, you're just mad you aren't one of the characters."

Duke rolled his eye. "Firstly," he said in a mocking tone. "I drew up in the Narrows, so I'll call it the Slums if I want to-"

"You please, you grew up in Tracy Towers. That's barely the Narrows," Jason said, looking offended. "You might as well have grown up in the Fashion District."

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you saying that since I didn't grow up in the part of the Narrows that was literally sinking into the fucking river that I can't be from there?" Duke challenged.

Dick tried to butt in, but was quickly silence by the Gothamite duo.

"I'm just saying that being from Tracy Towers and saying you're from the Narrows is like growing up in Bowery and saying you lived on Crime Alley—yeah, you went to the same shitty school, but it's not the same." Jason looked like he was ready to die on this hill, but Duke looked ready to kill so...

"That is so not the fucking same!" Duke yelled, the others just watching at this point. "Steph, back me up here."

"You want Steph to fucking help you out with this? At that point, just ask Tim!"

"Hey, I'm from Gotham too," Tim and Steph said at the same time.

"Oh please, I'm more from Gotham than you," Steph said, looking at Tim like he had just called her ugly, before she turned back to Jason. "I may have been raised in the Suburbs, but I'm still way more Gotham than Princess Timbolina over there."

Jason cackled. "Okay, yeah, you're more Gotham than Tim, but you still aren't qualified to rule on if Tracy Towers is actually part of the Narrows."

"Hold up," Time said, cutting in. "How am I not from Gotham? I was literally born at Mercy Hospital."

Duke rolled his eyes. "Woooow, richy rich Tim was born on the Upper East Side and thinks he's the shit," he said in a mocking tone. "How do you survive?"

"He probably grew up with a wet-nurse they flew in from Paris," Steph said with a laugh.

Jason snorted. "Yeah, how do you cope with being born at such a lowly place? Did your parents wash you off with champagne once you got back to Drake Manor to make sure they got all the poor of you?"

Tim just flipped them up. "Yeah, yeah, get is all out of your system. Call me a trust fund baby all you want, but remember: Damian grew up way richer."

Immediately Duke, Steph, and Jason shifted their attacks to Damian who just scoffed, calling them jealous, which then sparked a whole thing about their 'Gotham Pride'.

"You're not a true Gothamite until you've been jumped on your way home in broad daylight," Duke said, crossing his arms after Dick had tried to say that they were all Gothamites so it 'didn't matter'.

"You aren't from Gotham until you've been thrown into Finger River after being robbed," Steph amended.

Jason just shrugged. "You can't call yourself a true Gothamite unless you've survived a night on the streets in Crime Alley and/or Cape Carmine."

Nico, who was sitting in the window seat reading some Italian book that Damian had ordered for him, closed the book and looked at them. "But by that logic, I'm a Gothamite, and I've only lived here for like a total of like 6 months, and 4 of those have been against my will."

All of them froze at that.

"Wait... what?" Dick said, all of them staring at Nico in confusion.

The kid, for once, didn't fully shut down when he saw that everyone was looking at him. "I mean, I ended up in Gotham once when I was like 11, when I still was bad at shadow travel, and I had to stay for a few days since I was too tired for another trip."

"You were thrown in finger river?" Cass signed, looking at him in concern.

Nico just shrugged. "I ended up in Chinatown and just started walking, and then I was passing an opera house when these dude grabbed me. They tried to rob me, but I was living in the Labyrinth at the time, so I had literally nothing. They got pissed and threw me in."

Damian just stared at him in shock. "You... I thought you couldn't swim."

"I can't. I started drowning," Nico said, as if it were obvious. "But someone apparently saw me get thrown in and jumped in after me. The guy pulled me out and tried to ask if I was okay, but I just ran for it. I ended up sleeping in... I think it was called like Roberson Park?"

"Robinson Park," Duke supplied, still looking shocked.

Nico nodded, smiling lightly, as if it were somehow a fond memory. "Yeah, I slept in Robinson Park for like two days before some cops ended up chasing me out. I ended up twitching between alleys for the next few days before I slept in a box under a fire escape off of Park Row—which I later learned was called Crime Alley."

"And you were how old?" Steph asked.

"Probably 11ish?" Nico said, reopening his book, seemingly done with the conversation. "Honestly, I'm not really sure. It was like... 9 months after my sister died so... We'll just call me 11."

The others remained silent, still kinda in shock from the lore drop they just got. Tim looked at Jason, thinking to himself that maybe he was just over reacting and that those were all normal things for an 11 year old to face on the streets of Gotham, but his older brother looked like he was mentally trying to plan out how he was gonna track those people down and make them pay.

"So..." Dick said, after a long, long while of just silence. "I guess... should we play another round?"

The others who were still sitting around the clue board just nodded numbly, brainlessly moving all the pieces back into place.

"Does that actually make him a Gothamite?" Dick whispered, most likely just accidentally vocalizing his thoughts, but the others around the table still heard.

"I vote yes," Steph said, nodding a bit in a haze.

"Seconded," Duke muttered.

Jason nodded in agreement. "Unanimous."

"Damnit," Tim muttered, lowkey kinda pissed that the Italian demigod they were forcing into their family was not more Gotham than him. 

A/N: Okay, you be the judge, was this chapter worth it? It's just some batfam shit and a reason for me to talk about the different places in Gotham since I know why too much about the geography of it ahhahah

Vote. Comment. What is your favorite musical (I love Starry the musical [it's about Van Gogh and it's amazing] or Alice By Heart [a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, also amazing]).