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The Batcave was melting.
Okay, not literally. But with Gotham in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave and the temperature inside the Wayne Manor pushing “Are We Sure This Isn’t Hell?” levels, even the most stoic members of the Batfamily were starting to wilt.
“I swear,” Jason groaned, sprawled dramatically across the Batcomputer chair in a tank top and gym shorts, “if I have to fight one more sweat-drenched mugger this week, I’m becoming a villain.”
“You’d just melt in your own leather jacket, Todd,” Damian replied from the floor, where he lay starfish-style next to Titus, a portable fan pointed directly at his face.
Tim, half-asleep on the Batcave couch, lifted his head slightly. “Don’t threaten me with a good time. Maybe if you’re a villain, you’ll stop sending me memes at 3 AM.”
“Don’t blame me for your lack of Do Not Disturb settings, Replacement.”
Dick Grayson entered, looking too chipper for someone who wasn’t visibly sweating. He wore a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and carried an armful of colorful pool noodles.
“Alright, gang! Emergency Batfamily Meeting, Operation Cool Down is a go!”
“Are those… noodles?” Tim squinted.
“Yes!” Dick beamed. “Because we’re having a pool day!”
There was a pause.
Then: “We have a pool?” Jason asked.
Barbara, rolling in on her wheelchair from the elevator, gave him a withering look. “Jason, we have three pools. One indoor, two outdoor. What did you think was behind the west garden?”
“Uh… rich-people shrubbery?”
Now it was nearly noon, and everyone was outside, half-sizzling under the August sun. Alfred had laid out umbrellas, snacks, and a giant cooler of iced drinks. Damian sulked under a canopy. Dick, in full sun god mode, was stretched out on a lounge chair in tiny blue swim trunks and sunglasses that had no right to make him look that good. His hair was artfully messy, as if styled by the beach itself.
Barbara sat a few feet away in a breezy cover-up, laptop open, surrounded by a fortress of bottled water, SPF 70, and quiet disapproval.
Tim had sunk into a floating recliner and hadn’t moved in 45 minutes, only occasionally mumbling, “I'm alive, I swear,” when someone poked him to check.
Cassandra lay on a towel at the edge of the pool, occasionally reaching out to flick water at people when she got bored. Her mischievous smirk suggested she was timing her attacks with surgical precision.
Stephanie? She was about to cause a problem.
Jason Todd, however, had arrived with chaos.
He’d rolled in an hour late wearing swim trunks patterned with red skulls and “borrowed” Bruce’s sunglasses. His entrance had been heralded by loud music and the shriek of inflatable plastic.
“Ladies and gentlemen, and Dick,” Jason had announced, dramatically tossing an arm around the inflatable duck. “Meet Quackson. He’s our new lord and savior. Respect him or perish.”
Everyone groaned, but Quackson had quickly become a centerpiece of the day.
“Please don’t name the duck,” Bruce muttered, watching from the shade with a large glass of iced tea and the kind of facial expression that screamed, I regret having children, adopted or otherwise.
Too late.
Hour One:
“Your duck is too loud,” Damian complained, side-eyeing Quackson, who floated serenely in the shallow end with two plastic sunglasses perched between his beady eyes.
“He’s vibing,” Jason replied, sprawled in the pool on a float shaped like a pizza slice. “Don’t judge Quackson for living his truth.”
“Quackson is an abomination.”
“Quackson is love. Quackson is life.”
Cassandra snorted.
Steph cannonballed into the pool, soaking Damian and Jason. “WOOOO! POOL FIGHT TIME!”
“No,” Barbara warned, not even looking up. “Don’t you dare.”
“You’re in the shade, Babs. You’re safe.”
“Still no.”
“Too late.” Steph ducked under water and emerged with a double-barrelled water gun. “Everyone gets wet or dies tryin’!”
Dick raised his sunglasses. “Language.”
“You’re not even moving.”
“I’m channeling the sun into my soul.”
“You’re sweating through your soul.”
“Glistening, thank you.”
“Okay, Greek statue.” Steph fired. The water hit Dick square in the chest.
He yelped. “You monster!”
The pool exploded into chaos. Cassandra joined Steph, and together they formed a splash-based alliance. Jason defected from neutrality and began launching pool noodles like javelins. Damian, after losing an argument with Alfred, reluctantly joined in with a Super Soaker.
Barbara looked up from her laptop, sighed, and calmly moved it two inches farther from the splash radius.
“Don’t worry, Quackson,” Jason whispered, shielding the inflatable duck behind him like a war hero. “I’ll protect you.”
Hour Two:
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Jason shouted from atop the diving board. “Prepare your souls! Witness my greatness!”
“Jason, no!” Bruce called.
“Jason, yes!”
“Jason, I’m trying to nap,” Tim mumbled from his floating recliner.
Jason jumped. “FOR QUACKSON!”
His belly flop echoed across the entire county.
SLAP-THWAAAACK
“OW- worth it,” Jason wheezed, surfacing with a grimace and red chest. “My spleen is now soup, but I regret nothing!”
Quackson bobbed nearby, looking judgmental.
Cassandra gave a sarcastic golf clap.
Damian, for reasons no one understood, chose that exact moment to stroll in carrying a large, covered bucket.
Everyone froze.
Steph blinked. “Damian. Why do you have a bucket.”
“It’s too hot for Batcow,” he said calmly, “and I wanted a friend to swim.”
“What did you do?” Tim asked.
Damian smiled. “Release… Batshark.”
He dumped the bucket.
A small, sleek shape plopped into the water, dark gray, maybe two feet long, with googly like eyes stuck to its head and fins that wiggled enthusiastically.
There was a beat of silence.
Dick sat up. “Is that a-”
“SHARK PUPPY!” Steph shrieked with unearned joy. “IT’S SO CUTE!”
“Damian,” Bruce groaned, rubbing his temples.
“It’s a freshwater bamboo shark. I tested the water. Also, I trained it.”
The shark did a tiny backflip.
“Okay,” Tim said, genuinely impressed, “that’s actually kind of awesome.”
Jason blinked. “I’m naming him Chompers.”
“No.”
“Too late. Chompers and Quackson shall be brothers in arms.”
Hour Three:
It happened too fast.
One moment, Chompers was zipping around the pool, Quackson was reigning supreme, and Bruce had almost fallen asleep with a drink in hand.
The next-
POP.
Everyone turned.
There, drifting slowly to the surface like a tragic hero in a Shakespearean play, was the deflated body of Quackson.
“NOOOOOOOOO!” Jason dropped to his knees in the shallow end. “QUACKSON! SPEAK TO ME!”
“He’s…he’s gone,” Tim whispered, genuinely stunned.
“I just bought him yesterday,” Jason sobbed. “We only had a few hours together.”
Chompers did a flip near the body, entirely unfazed.
“Do we have a suspect?” Dick asked solemnly.
“Probably Chompers,” Damian said flatly.
Jason gasped. “Betrayed!”
“Or it was the sun,” Barbara offered. “Too much pressure on the seams.”
“I WILL AVENGE YOU, QUACKSON!” Jason wailed. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten!”
Steph solemnly held up a pool noodle like a sword. “We’ll build a new inflatable kingdom…in your honor.”
Bruce opened one eye. “You guys are ridiculous.”
Hour Four:
With Quackson gone, tensions escalated.
Lines were drawn.
The factions were formed:
- Team Chaos (Jason, Steph, Cass)
- Team Lawful Chill (Dick, Tim, Barbara)
- Team Shark Handler (Damian, who had declared neutrality unless provoked)
The war began with a sneak attack. Steph, now armed with a second water gun taped to her back, unleashed watery vengeance on Dick mid-lounging.
“ET TU, BLONDE BRUTÉE?!” he shouted, flipping off his chair into the pool.
Cass flanked Tim’s float and capsized it with the grace of a ballet-dancing torpedo.
Jason cannonballed onto Bruce’s side of the pool.
Bruce stood up, soaked. “Jason.”
“…Hi, B.”
“Go inside.”
“Okay.”
He did not go inside.
Barbara finally set down her laptop, sighed deeply, and grabbed a squirt gun with perfect sniper accuracy.
“Tim, duck.”
Tim ducked.
Cass took a direct shot to the face.
“Target neutralized,” Babs muttered.
Hour Five:
By the time the sun began to set, the battle was over.
Everyone was damp, pruney, and exhausted. The pool was a disaster of floating snack wrappers, forgotten noodles, and one heroic little shark doing lazy circles.
A new inflatable had been summoned, this time, a flamingo.
Jason sat beside it, hand on its vinyl side. “You’ll never replace him. But maybe… maybe you can help us heal.”
“His name is Sir Squeaksalot,” Tim said.
“No,” Damian replied immediately.
“Yes,” Jason countered. “He squeaks. And is a lot.”
Bruce finally gave up pretending he hadn’t enjoyed the chaos.
He grilled.
Like, personally. In an apron that said “Grillmaster of Justice.”
Epilogue: Quackson’s Legacy
Later that night, a small memorial appeared near the garden. A tiny wooden cross. A photo of Quackson (printed via the Batcave printer). A single floating flower.
Jason stood in silence for a moment.
Then he whispered, “Rest easy, noble friend.”
Behind him, Bruce stared blankly.
“You used the Bat-printer…for a duck.”
“Hero.”
Bruce turned and walked away.
Jason saluted the night sky. “Goodnight, sweet prince.”
Operation: Cool Down Mission Report
Objective: Survive Gotham heatwave without homicide or villainy.
Status: Complete.
Casualties: One inflatable duck (RIP “Quackson”).
MVP: Alfred “Sunhat Sniper” Pennyworth.
Notes: Suggest repeating annually. Preferably with backup squirt guns.