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Duke grunted as he hit the mat, then rolled with the movement, and got back up on his feet again to face Tim.
“Not bad, you almost got me that time,” Tim said as they stopped for a water break.
“I need to do better,” Duke muttered. Yeah, he was good, but next to the batboys, who had trained from a young age, he was still a little slow. Most people probably didn’t compare themselves the child assassins when they evaluated their fighting skills, so he was definitely better than most, but to work with Batman, Duke needed to be even better.
“Hey, once you figure out how to control your meta powers, you’ll probably mop the floor with all of us,” Dick called out from the sidelines, where he was playing on his phone instead of officiating. “Then you can get your revenge.” Dick gave them both a small smirk. “Better watch out, Tim.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “Dick, are you still playing games on your phone? You’re halfway to an addict.”
Duke snorted, since that was kind of rich coming from Tim, who was known to not sleep or eat for three days straight while on the computer.
“It’s not a game, it’s educational language-practicing,” Dick said. “You know, languages are an important part of bat-training too, especially if you want to do undercover work. If Duke doesn’t have an OwLingo account, we should get him started.”
“You’re just trying to get out of sparring practice today,” Tim grumbled.
It was then Dick introduced Duke to OwLingo. It was kind of cool actually, and mostly involved practicing language skills for points.
“They have a special this month, for 15,000 points, you can get a batman costume for the little owl,” Dick said, scrolling down through the game.
Tim peered over Dick’s shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to learn a language you don’t know yet? I think that’s cheating if you practice Romani on OwLingo, Dick,” he pointed out.
Dick just cackled evilly. “Aww, Tim, you’re just jealous because I have more points than you. And besides, it’s perfectly legit to use OwLingo to review a language you already learned. They totally let me practice the eight languages I already know, the five languages that I need to practice more, and the four I’m currently learning. Plus, it’s a nice refresher for all of them.”
Tim huffed. “Yeah, well at least I don’t CHEAT, and am taking my lessons in chronological order in the ONE language I’m learning.”
Dick leaned over to peer at Tim’s screen. “You’re only taking one language course? How do you not get bored?”
“I don’t know, Dick,” Tim said. “Maybe since it’s a language I don’t know yet, and I focus more on learning than getting points.”
Dick shrugged. “Your loss. If you don’t have enough points, you’ll totally miss the opportunity to get the limited-edition superhero outfits for your owl.”
“You guys are taking this way too seriously,” Duke muttered as he finished his Spanish lesson for the day and was awarded fifteen points.
Dick laughed. “Aw, Duke, just wait, you’ll get drawn in too, once you see how fun it is.”
Duke just raised an eyebrow. He honestly didn’t see how the game could get addicting, it was nice to learn something rather than play a mindless game, but still, it was kind of like having extra homework.
Tim jolted. “Wait, there’s going to be a whole superhero series?”
“Yeah,” Dick gushed. “Every week they are going to feature a different superhero. This week is Batman.”
“Are they going to have Red Robin?”
“I don’t know. Ooh, what if they have Nightwing! I’ll have to make sure little D logs in that week.”
“Do you think they might have Signal?” Duke asked, starting to see how he might possibly get caught up in the game.
Dick shrugged. “Depends how long they want their hero outfit promotion to last.”
--
Later that night, Duke was shaken awake by Tim. “Duke, Duke, do you want to help me prank Dick?”
Duke yawned and glanced at his alarm clock. “It’s 3 a.m., Tim, I want my sleep.”
“It’ll be tomorrow. I’ll write the code for it tonight, while everyone else sleeps,” Tim said.
“You should probably sleep too,” Duke said, noticing that Tim had enough bags under his eyes to rival the check-in line at an airport.
Tim just laughed, then he slunk back out of the room, probably to return to his computer screen, coffee, and donuts.
Duke grumbled and rolled over. This family was absolutely nuts.
--
“Let’s see what this week’s superhero is,” Dick said happily as he opened his OwLingo app during breakfast. Then he frowned. “Huh, that’s weird. I thought they were doing superheroes, but maybe they’re doing villains too. Ooh, maybe they made an exception for the Owl theme. That’s kind of cute, he comes with little knives and stuff.”
Duke held his phone steady and streamed video of Dick as Tim grumbled in his ear. “He’s not freaking out yet? Damn, wait a minute, distract him while I change the code out for option two.”
Duke turned off the camera in his phone and cleared his throat. “Hey, Dick, could you help me with my OwLingo account? I’m not sure I understand everything yet.”
Dick looked up and beamed. “Sure!” Then he spent a few minutes showing Duke how to compare his progress with Tim and Damian’s.
Duke felt marginally guilty about pranking Dick. Pranks were harmless though, weren’t they? Dick might even find the prank funny, at least Duke hoped he would.
Dick returned to his phone. “Huh, it’s frozen. And there’s little warrior owls marching along the bottom of the screen.”
*Welcome back, Gray Son, prepare to be assimilated into the Court of Owls* flashed across the frozen phone screen. *Loading, part 1 of 52* appeared next, with a tiny status bar.
Dick paled, then shrieked and threw his phone across the room.
“Duke,” he said, and he was actually shaking. “The Court, they’ve taken over my phone, they’ve-“
“I, uh, I’m sorry!” Duke blurted out, because he didn’t want the prank to go this far, to actually upset Dick.
Dick’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a communicator in your ear? Who set you up to this, was it Tim?”
Duke just nodded. “I, I thought it would be a funny prank, I didn’t think it’d upset you.” Yeah, he was aware he was dooming Tim to weeks of retaliation, but honestly, Tim probably deserved it.
Dick folded his arms. “You mean, you and Tim were in cahoots?”
Duke nodded. If Dick was making puns, maybe he wasn’t that mad.
--
Fortunately for Duke, Dick decided that since Tim was the instigator, he was fully to blame, and Duke didn’t yet know any better. It was kind of insulting, but on the other hand, Duke didn’t have to find plastic spiders in his bed.