Kevin Curry
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A young devil's consultancy 3
🕑 Added 2024-02-01 15:00:09 +0000 UTCTanya had thought that taking Richard in was a poor idea, given the risks afforded by Batman’s double life, and more relevantly to her, by giving her less time when not acting.
Fortunately, Richard wasn’t quite old enough to properly comprehend what it meant when he sees a five year old girl and is told that she was less than one year old. So he was still a source of endless amusement, and all Tanya had to do is give him that heavily practiced vacant stare, smiling as she pretended to not understand what was going on. It drove him up the wall.
He was, however, getting suspicious. The boy was bright, and Tanya didn’t really do a perfect job of keeping her pretend level of intelligence consistent.
“I think Tanya’s playing dumb.” He said to Bruce one day. It was Saturday morning, and as Bruce has been magically invigorated, blocked out the time to spend time with the traumatized boy, giving Alfred the day off. Currently, they were at a restaurant, having breakfast.
Bruce looked at Tanya. She took the fork in her fist and stabbed the biggest piece of French toast. Bruce had cut them up for her, but he left one that was twice the size of the others. Knowing him, he likely did it on purpose specifically so she could blunder.
She stuffed the too-big piece of egg-toast in her mouth, half hanging out of it as she chewed. After a moment, she let the remainder fall out on her bib and bounce onto the table. She then licked the syrup on her lips.
Bruce turned back to Richard. “What makes you say that?”
“I think she can read.” He accused, pointing at Tanya. “Her eyes keep tracking writing.”
Bruce chuckled. “Well, her brain’s developing as fast as her body is. She's learning to read now.” This was true. The “education” farce was just Alfred giving her materials detailing what she was supposed to do that day. She completed them in a few minutes and then played more videogames. Which was why Richard was insulated from witnessing her schoolwork by dint of doing it while he was at school himself. “She's not very good at it yet, but she tries.”
“Then why is she still… like that?” Richard asked, frustrated.
“Emotionally, she's still a baby.” Bruce explained, patiently. It was not the first time he's told Richard that. “That means she doesn't care how messy she gets. You have to learn to care about staying clean, and that's the kind of thing that even adults can struggle with. Intelligence doesn't enter into it.” This was largely the rule of thumb she kept to on what constituted acting like a baby, for the most part. Children were filthy little mess-makers, and she had to follow suit.
“I'm smart.” Tanya announced, before stuffing her face with another piece of toast. Delicious. She was a great actor.
“You're gross.” Richard retorted.
“You're gross.” Tanya parroted, forcefully pointing her fork, still laden with the last piece of strawberry syrup-coated French toast, at him. The food flung off the utensil, and Richard leapt out of the booth to avoid the sticky projectile. She looked at the fork, then at her now empty plate, then started up some crocodile tears. She had gotten very good at crying at will. “Daddy…” she whined. She was still hungry.
Bruce chuckled. “Okay Princess, how about some scrambled eggs?” Tanya nodded enthusiastically, as she would have to most things he offered. “Here, you can have mine.” he gave her the small side dish of eggs he had ordered, moving her old plate aside and replacing her fork with a spoon.
Richard growled as he sat back down. “When’s the baseball game start, again?”
Bruce checked his watch. “Two o’clock, which means we have plenty of time.” Richard groaned. “I know you're looking forward to it. How about we go get some mitts and a ball and play catch to pass the time? I bet I could convince the stadium-”see: bribe them. “-to let us borrow the field for it. Maybe they'll even let you toss the first pitch.”
Richard’s eyes widened. “Really? They will?” Despite living in a mansion, Richard hasn't quite adapted to what it meant to be adopted by a billionaire. His eyes flickered to Tanya. “What about her?”
“She can watch.” Bruce said easily. “Then again, she does have quite the throwing arm… she can pick up the dropped balls.” Yeah, Tanya was not going to let herself get hit by failing to catch things. Best if they didn't risk her cover like that.
Still, it was important that Bruce show some favoritism towards Richard for once, and semi-excluding Tanya from the family activity was just the thing to accomplish that goal. Just as it was important for Tanya to act jealous, in a reverse psychology ploy to further integrate the boy into the family unit. She’ll have to fit that in some time today.
Bruce was a very manipulative person, she noticed. But was that such a bad thing, in this case? Hm.
-----------------------
Tanya awoke from her nap. Ah, nighttime. Her sleeping schedule was garbage, but she made do.
As he frequently does, Bruce fabricated an excuse to go to bed at four in the afternoon so he would be well rested for being Batman in the evening. In this case, he pretended to have exhausted himself keeping up with Tanya during playtime, passing out on her bed with the bars down. The man’s torso was surprisingly comfortable.
Tanya poked Bruce. Then she did it again. And again. “Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.”
Bruce yawned as he sat up, sending Tanya sprawling backwards. He caught her legs reflexively, and raised his eyebrow. “You know, Alfred would throw a fit if he knew that you stopped me from sleeping in.” he stood up and started walking towards the changing table.
Tanya scoffed as she hung upside down, waiting for the billionaire to clean her up. “Some things are more important than ensuring you get a few minutes more rest. Besides, you were already waking up.”
“Like you? ” Bruce asked, amused.
“Like me.” Tanya said haughtily. “I’m hungry, by the way.”
Instead of preparing her proper food, Bruce just took out a bottle of that high density nutrient drink that the scientists who continue to be baffled as to how hanyou bodies work came up with to nod at the theoretical requirements of growing up six times faster than normal. This was fine by her, the stuff tasted like milkshakes, and this way she could eat while being carried down to the Batcave, much more convenient and comfortable than setting her up at a too-big table.
From what she had been studying, magic in this world was essentially imposing one’s will on reality. Logical consequences, when considering physics, were simply ignored. Meaning, even if she didn’t eat more, she’d magically get the necessary material to grow faster, but if she did eat more, she wouldn’t magically get matter to compensate for starvation that isn’t there. The mechanism didn’t matter nearly as much as the desired end result. It was literally backwards in comparison to the scientific method…
That wasn’t to say that the mechanism didn’t matter. The random infernal mutations that she had suffered, requiring her to direct her biology with a spell to remain human, drastically decreased in frequency after the increase in food intake. Before, she had to cast the spell every four days or so, but now? About once every three weeks. Further, her spells increased in strength and decreased in side-effects as she gave them more structure, narrative logic in their functioning. Using a spell to magically clean frequently missed things, and did a poor job. However, enchanting objects that proceeded to manually clean as if wielded by an invisible phantom worked much better, which came in handy when she was left alone for whatever reason.
Tanya spun in the Bat Computer’s chair as Bruce suited up as The Batman. It was a very nice chair, comfortable even when sat on by a small child. “I think I’ve got a good one tonight.” Tanya said, taking a break from drinking out of the bottle.
“Oh? I thought the last one was fairly effective.” Batman said, his voice growling even when speaking gently, the soprano tones of Bruce’s voice nowhere to be heard.
“We’ll see.” Tanya said, before calling up her magic. “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou.” It was more effective if she built up power before a big spell, instead of just belting out a rhyme spontaneously. “Ride forth with grace and purpose, Dark Knight. Your strength will give even monsters fright.”
Batman grunted as the magic infused itself within him. By focusing the magic on his own legend as the Dark Knight, it minimized the infernal contamination of the spell. While yes, anyone who had magic senses could tell that Batman’s been magically augmented by a devil, the actual side-effects of using an infernal catalyst for the magic was basically nil, as she was casting more like a human than a devil. The ratio of power she expended dredging up geomantic power from Gotham wasn’t great, maybe three units of power for every two she expended as a generous estimate, but there were few more efficient ways to augment someone seeking to protect Gotham than using the power of Gotham itself. With it, he should have superhuman agility and strength, enough to allow him to take his normal feats to the next level of effectiveness. He frequently insisted on going without, so as to not grow too dependent on her assistance, but it was too useful for him to completely ignore. “Good work. It feels less strange.”
“You should be exuding an aura of fear.” Tanya warned, “Keep that in mind if you have to interact with civilians.” She had made an attempt to shape it to merely make him scarier to his enemies, but you never really knew until you tested it.
“Noted.” Batman said before entering the Batmobile and driving off.
Tanya spent a few moments continuing to spin on the Bat computer’s chair, polishing off the bottle of liquid science. Hm. Study more magic, or do something else?
“I knew it!” Richard shouted. “I knew you were faking!”
Tanya chuckled. “That really depends on what you thought I was faking.” She continued to spin on Batman’s chair.
“You were playing dumb! But I could see the laughter in your eyes, you were mocking me!”
Sighing, Tanya gestured for Richard to come closer. Once he approached, he put his hand on the chair, stopping its rotation. “Please don’t take it personally. I mock everyone when I’m acting. I have to entertain myself somehow.”
“But why?” Richard asked.
“Several reasons.” Tanya replied, “First, how long have you been here?”
“Long enough to know that Bruce is Batman.” He replied.
“Then you can infer that he likes method acting.” Tanya lectured, “Even I’m never really sure when he’s playing a role and when he’s being sincere.” Wait. “He does care for you, though. He sees himself reflected in you.”
That caught Richard off guard. “He does?”
Tanya nodded. “He lost his parents at about your age, by a criminal. He sees your anger at the world and it reminds him of why he started on the path to become the Dark Knight.”
“I want to help.” Richard said immediately.
Tanya shrugged. “That’s not up to me. The only reason he lets me lend support is because I can cast magic and he can’t. I never go out into the field.” Not strictly true, she sometimes gets to do stuff while staying inside the Batmobile. But does that really count as in the field? Questionable.
His brow furrowed. “So you’re not going to wipe my memory or anything?”
Wait, can she do that? …She doesn’t see why she couldn’t, given how magic works. “I told him that letting you around the mansion was playing with fire.” She said instead. “But no, he just had to adopt the orphan with all of those secrets around, it’s not like he didn’t have other, more sensible options.” Like setting up a minor trust fund before dropping the boy off at an orphanage. “You finding this place was always going to happen eventually.” She did, admittedly, expect it to take a little longer than two months. She’ll just have to blame herself and whatever flaws in her acting he’s noticed on rousing his suspicion, keeping him curious.
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense.” Richard said immediately. “You didn’t want to have to keep acting like a baby, so you didn’t try that hard to stop me from learning.”
“Something like that.” Tanya said. “It’s not nearly as much of an imposition as you might think.” Specifically, she’s gotten a lot of the habits down to reflex by now. She was more worried about how annoying it would be to break the oral fixation at this point. Maybe she could start chewing gum?
“So what’s the real story, if you’re not a baby?” Richard asked, looking very interested in the answer.
“I’m a mortal turned devil that was forcibly bound into the body of a fetus, which was then born.” Tanya summarized. “I’ve been in this world for less than a year, and the rapid aging is real, but I have little reason to believe that my lifespan would be similarly reduced.”
“So you’re not Bruce’s kid…” He said, grinning.
“Actually, the fetus in question was created using his DNA, so biologically, I am.” Tanya corrected, “The cult who created me wanted an assassin empowered by infernal magic and guided by the blood of The Batman.” Tanya shrugged. “Batman took out the cult and adopted me. So the whole thing’s pretty… weird.”
“...Yeah, that’s pretty weird.” Richard agreed. “So what’s hell like?”
“Hellish.” Tanya immediately replied. “I wouldn’t know much, I didn’t have much time to explore after escaping that fiery pit before getting summoned and bound.”
“Jeez, what’d you do to get sent there?” He asked, a little ill at the thought.
“That’s a long story, but the short version is: pissed off a self-proclaimed god.” Tanya summarized. “I’m not worried about him finding out about my escape. He claimed to be unable to see into the place, and he hasn’t caught me yet, so I think he was telling the truth, for once.” Even she wouldn’t call Being X stupid enough to have said that just to mess with her. If he was lying, it would have been apparent by now.
“So he just threw you into hell like garbage?” Richard asked, horrified.
“Yep.” Tanya said flatly. “I have absolutely no idea how long I was chained to that metal cross, but it really sets the standard for suffering.” She gestured to the bottle. “By playing along with this, I get a billion dollar trust fund. It’s an easy decision.” Tanya, like she imagines most people, isn’t entirely sure how far she’d go for a billion dollars. Demonstratively, at least this far. Besides, once she manages to grow up a bit, she can take his job as CEO of Waynetech, and he can spend more time being Batman. Assuming his health lasts that long. With her magic, it hopefully will.
“And Bruce is aware of all of this?” Richard asked incredulously.
“While pretending to act my age was my suggestion, the details are all him.” Tanya said, deflecting the main thrust of the question. Bruce didn't need to know why she died.“It’s even fun, more often than not.” The actually embarrassing part was how much she enjoyed the parts where Bruce acted like he was actually her Dad. This is something she firmly blamed on her new biology, as she vaguely recalled going through something similar with the nuns and definitely experienced reciprocal affection for this life’s mother. “I was surprised at how entertaining a mud pit can be.” especially when you have a particularly nimble eight year old to toss globs of it at. Richard scowled as he recalled that morning.
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” Alfred said, startling the both of them. “C.S. Lewis.” He added, attributing the quote.
“Yes, that's a good way to put it.” Tanya said, smiling. “There's no point in trying to maintain some kind of respectable persona when I have to act like I do in public.”
“But you literally-” Richard began, before Tanya held up a hand to forestall his no doubt extensive list.
“If you want to go down the list of infantile things I've done on camera, much less in public without being recorded, we’ll be here all night.” Tanya deadpanned. “Yes, I've done those things. One can get used to anything. If something is unpleasant, I just use it as an excuse to throw a tantrum.” Which Bruce has said she should probably do more of. “I will answer one stupid question.”
The boy paused, clearly trying to decide from a whole list of questions. “...I'll get back to you on that.” Richard said firmly.
“Master Dick, Miss Tanya, now that you've worked out your differences at last, it's long past your bedtime.” Alfred interjected.
Well, there goes her magic studies. “Okay, Alfred.” Tanya said, stretching as she got out of the chair. “Away to bed, safe at home, I need one more thing: My next tome.” The glass case containing her magical library swung open, and out came the book that still had her bookmark in it, about two chapters in. Tanya caught it and put it under her arm, the old book much thicker than a modern novel for the same wordcount. It also had plenty of pictures.
“What’s that?” Richard asked as they were escorted to their rooms.
“The cult that created me had an extensive magical library.” Tanya explained. “They’re not well-organized, at all, so I have to just read them one by one.” Oh no, reading, what a horrible fate… Heh. “This one’s actually about alchemy.”
Richard scrunched his nose as he thought about that. It was rather cute on the small, albeit bigger than her, boy. “Isn’t that the lead into gold thing?”
“Transmuting materials magically is in here, yes.” Tanya explained. “Problem is, the metaphysical value of the substance matters a lot when it comes to magic, so while turning gold into lead is easy, the reverse… not so much.” Near as she could tell, the value judgment operated on a sort of ‘collective agreement’ free market ideal rather than actual utility. At least, if she was interpreting the explanation on why such a thing was variable correctly. “I could still make some money if I tried, but given that Bruce is a billionaire, it doesn’t seem economically practical.” Tanya sighed. “The more important part of this book is the creation of magical medicine, potions.” Also a few other things, like magically purified water that acted as one would expect from the phrase ‘universal solvent’. Batman could certainly use a fast way to melt things.
Richard stared at her. “That’s cool…” He said, visibly making the decision to not ask further. Heh. Not really the studious sort, is he? He’ll need to change that, if he wants to walk in Batman’s footsteps.
-----------------------
This world made Tanya regret only dabbling in comic books in her youth. Batman was not the only costumed hero out there. Some of them even had superpowers.
Take Superman, for example. According to his interviews, he was an alien named Kal El from a place called Krypton, which has now exploded, and while he didn’t rule out other survivors, he wasn’t hopeful about it. He had come across Earth, with people so much like his own, and decided to make it his home. His heroics were just him helping out, like a friendly neighbor. At least, that was what he wanted people to think of him as.
Batman knew better. There were some old newspapers from Kansas showing that, at the very least, Kal came to the planet as a child and grew up here. His human name was Clark Kent, who was a reporter who had recently won a Pulitzer prize for an expose on Lexcorp’s unethical experimentation standards. The good news was that his boy scout persona didn’t seem to be faked; his intentions were genuine. Whether he’ll stay that way… well, no one can really know the future. Her divinations helped the investigations, but she wasn’t very good at it. They were a useful tool for Bruce’s expert criminology skills at best.
Batman had files on all known costumed heroes and villains, and most of them were villainous. The few that were heroic, though, generally trended on the powerful, although there were exceptions (Green Arrow). That was probably some kind of selective pressure… Batman theorized that there was an untapped resource of ethical superhumans who held back with fear. If they could be supported, trained… It was not a surprising opinion for him to have. He commonly made efforts to rehabilitate the genuinely mentally ill of Gotham’s villains, who frequently had advanced degrees. It rarely worked, but hope springs eternal.
In fact… Here comes one of the success stories now. “Harold, how are you?” Tanya asked politely.
Harold Allnut was a mute hunchback that had been working for one of the local criminal bosses, alias ‘The Penguin’. After leaving the Penguin’s employ, he was retained as a maintenance technician for the Batcave, and as she understood things Harold was quite happy with the arrangement. “I’m fine, thank you for asking.” He signed… sort of. One of the perks of her infernal magic is a form of universal translator. She can frequently understand the intent of communication in languages she didn’t know, although it wasn’t perfect. “Going through Batman’s files, are you? Naughty.” He signed, ending with a frown and disappointed finger waggle.
“I helped Daddy write a lot of these.” Tanya said defensively. That was a bit of an exaggeration, he occasionally asks her to give him leads he could investigate further when he runs into a brick wall. She went back to the Batmobile tracking program. “He’ll be on his way back after he finishes with the crime scene for the Police. Ten minutes or so.”
“Good. The Batmobile sent me an crash report a while ago. I will need to perform maintenance on his return.” Harold signed, before wringing his hands. After a moment, he signed again: “You wouldn’t happen to have anything that needs fixing, do you?”
This was why she liked Harold, he was a man who liked working. She used to be like that too, before she became an heiress. “Well, I was just going to get a new one,” she lied, “-but my Gameboy fell in the mud and stopped working.” Specifically, she threw it into the mud yesterday as part of her plan to skew the results of the latest cognitive test. Unfortunately, the more advanced model that was current was less durable than the Gameboy of her original youth. She already had a new one, but she saved the old one for Harold to fix the next time he asked.
“Oh, that should be easy.” Harold signed, and Tanya got up and fetched it. In seconds, he had its case opened up and he spent the minutes waiting for Bruce by gently cleaning all of the contacts, locating and replacing the damaged component with the tiny tools he had. By the time the Batmobile was slowing to a stop fifteen minutes later, Tanya was already booting up the game she had been playing, an adventure game that had an interesting plot involving magic powers that couldn’t be detected by normal people and elemental spirits.
“Hm. Harold, did you hear the noise the Batmobile was making?” Batman said, walking at a deliberate pace.
“I did, sounds like a small stone rattling around inside, nothing serious.” Harold signed, “Are you alright, Batman? I can’t fix people like I can machines.”
“But I can.” Tanya declared, setting her game aside. “Do you think you broke anything? Should I focus on your bones?” At Batman’s nod, she started gathering strength. “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou.” Okay, so the bone-fixing spell was… “Your fight has taken quite a toll, but your skeleton, at least, is whole.” Instantly, Batman sighed in relief. From the feedback, it felt like he had one broken rib, four cracked ones, and his spine couldn’t have been comfortable, either. “What did you crash into?”
“Solomon Grundy.” He said, a little frustrated. “It was strange, he seemed to have been trying to tell me something.” While trying to kill him, presumably. The insane zombie was like that.
“Oh? What?” Tanya asked.
“Some kind of warning, a large threat or something.” Bruce said. He brought out the medical supplies, as Alfred came into the Batcave to use them. “But I couldn’t get any details out of him.”
“Unfortunate.” Tanya said.
Suddenly, the Bat Computer blared an alarm. As Bruce was indisposed, Tanya ran to the computer and, standing on his chair, started investigating. “Some kind of signal has hijacked most television and radio frequencies, all broadcasting a message.” Tanya said, reading off the program’s output. Using a few keyboard shortcuts, she brought up the program that picked up on television broadcasts and set it to the local news.
A powerfully built man with red hair in a long braid was on a metal throne. Both his chair and outfit looked more like something you’d see on an episode of a sci-fi show than anything that was ever made for humanity. “I am Ultraa, Earthlings. I am here to conquer your planet in the name of Almerac, and for Queen Maxima. Please, resist as much as you can.”
Well, shit.
Comments
Kevin Curry
Thanks! I don't want to be a coward and ignore the baby thing, I'm committed to the idea, the cute father/daughter moments are one of the things this story is supposed to stand on, but at the same time spending too many words on the dirty details isn't going to be productive. I'm not being paid to write fetish content, after all. Glad to see someone thinks I struck the right balance.
Devon
I read a lot of snippets, it is fun to see all the fresh energy but you often see signs that the writer has no idea how or no intention to keep going. And I don't see any of those signs here, which is great because I love this story. The cast has good characterization, the baby thing hasn't gone too far, and the plot manges a good blance of slice of life and moving forward.
Dragonin
Justice League, time to be assembled! I have a feeling Bruce’s first meeting with John won’t go as well, but slightly better in a couple of ways.
