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Barbara had waited a long time for this. It was impossible to plan when the opportunity would finally arise, to just take a break and have fun. Usually there was always crime somewhere in Gotham, but sometimes ... sometimes the night was quiet enough for her to speak the sacred words.
“Guys,” she addressed everyone in the general voice channel, “do you feel like playing a game?”
Immediately, there was an abrupt silence. She had remembered hearing Steph and Cass whispering to each other, but now they were listening.
“You betcha, Barbie,” Jason broke the silence, and she smirked as she saw his tracker move a little.
“You know the rules, Jay. Until I haven’t started the stopwatch, no one is allowed to move. Fair’s fair.”
He grumbled something unintelligible and immediately Barbara heard Dick start laughing.
“Don’t be so mean. Give the cue. We’re all ready to win this time.” Stephanie sounded very confident, and Barbara had to grin.
“Like you guys won the last ten times?” she inquired. Unfortunately, she couldn’t play many other games, but in hide and seek, no one had beaten her yet. It was her against everyone and ... well, it was Barbara’s job to find people and information. She was damn good at it.
“We won’t fail this time,” Damian promised, and Barbara knew he was only speaking from the team’s point of view in this one, because he would never admit to losing on his own.
“On we go,” was all Barbara replied, getting ready to turn off her screens. She was not allowed to see where her family disappeared to, but would still have access to it at any time in case of an emergency (Arkham breakout). Barbara did not hope that would be the case today.
Her fingers touched the button. The screen went black. She smiled.
“Go!”
Tim ... had a problem, and that was an understatement. He had woken up two minutes ago and had complained about his stiff neck at the first moment. Probably it wasn’t good to sleep in the armchair in front of the Batcomputer, but nobody had to know that. But unfortunately, shortly after, he had slowly but surely realized that he had missed something important.
His siblings had gone in search of a hiding place. They played hide and seek. And he was a part of it. Except his time for hiding was almost up.
“Jason?” he asked quietly over the comms. It was important that they all stay in touch during the game. Barbara had turned off her access to the line for the moment, but could always let them all know in an emergency. It also had the nice side effect of not getting bored while hiding.
“Hmm, normally I’d ignore you, Thimbo,” Jason answered him and Tim could hear his smile quite clearly, “But I haven’t heard you all evening and I’m sure this is going to be really good now.”
“Don’t be like that, Jay,” Dick objected and got a growl in return. Tim was on Jason’s side on this one. If it were up to him, he would have contacted only Jason’s, but Jason had only allowed a private line with Barbara and a group line. Apparently, Tim had contacted him too many times about nothing. As if it was a crime to inquire about how much acid it took to dispose of bodies or how many knife wounds it took to slowly but still agonizingly bleed someone to death. It wasn’t Tim’s fault that he needed this information for his cases!
“Shh, this is a conversation between me and Jason.”
Now Stephanie was laughing, too. “Oh, this is definitely going to be good.”
“Keep it down, Steph. Let the boy talk.”
It took a lot for Tim not to point out that he wasn’t a boy anymore. After all, he needed advice. “Now suppose I haven’t found a hiding place yet and I’m currently in the Batcave ... What would be the best place to hide so Barbara doesn’t find me?”
Tim could hear exactly how Stephanie was already starting to laugh and Jason was about to. “Timmbers... Why are you still in the Batcave and why haven’t you hidden yet?”
“Because I was asleep,” Tim mumbled.
“What was that?” inquired Jason, though Tim was sure he understood perfectly well. That son of a bitch.
“I’ve been asleep until now.”
And there it was. Jason’s laugh rang out as well, and Tim hated it.
“Now stop it and be helpful instead! What do you want me to do?”
“Tzz,” came it almost immediately from Damian, “Figures Drake would prove useless again. It’s probably best if we kick him off our team right now.”
“Damian,” came an admonishing voice from Dick, “there are only two teams in Hide and Seek, and we certainly don’t want Tim against us. If we can barely stand a chance against Barbara, we can give up against those two right now.”
Jason sighed. “I hate to admit it, but Dick’s right. I’d say, Tim, you’ve got to look to get to the game zone as fast as you can. If you hurry, you’ll still make it in the next five minutes; if not, you’ll be disqualified, anyway. But it’s going to be next to impossible to find another good hiding place that Barbara won’t have in sight.”
Tim sighed, but jumped up and ran to his bikes. As soon as this round of the game was over, he would request that the Batcave also be counted as part of the field. They had ruled it out so far because of Alfred, but he would try anyway.
Duke would be really happy for once if this family would explain something to him before it became important. He hadn’t played hide and seek in years, but he was sure the Batfamily played it a little differently again. Bottom line: he didn’t have a clue about what he was doing.
“Get out of here Thomas! I was here first,” Damian growled at him as he climbed into the Ferris wheel’s gondola. Puzzled, he looked to the boy. What was the saying? Great minds think alike? But Duke had learned by now that it was better not to say such things out loud. Damian would only be mad to be compared to Duke and would call him stupid.
“Can’t we both hide here?”
“No. There really aren’t many rules. How do you still manage not to remember them all?”
Duke really wished they would explain the rules to him before the game started. He already didn’t to play anymore.
Dick would have loved to help Duke or Tim, but was busy pressing himself into the vent, making sure no camera was watching.
Only two more minutes. Then Barbara would start hacking all the cameras in this city and start looking for every single one of them. She only had sixty minutes to do this, but with Barbara’s skills, that was thirty minutes too many. Unfortunately, Barbara knew this too, which is why she made a point of ignoring clues about other players for now and just focusing on finding Dick first.
The ventilation shaft was barely big enough for Tim, but luckily, Dick managed to squeeze in any way. It had to be good for something to be able to fold up like you had no bones.
“Three,” Barbara’s voice now sounded in his ear and immediately everything inside him tensed. His hands were already starting to sweat. Maybe ... Maybe this time he would have a chance to win after all. “Two... one! Whether you’re hidden or not ... I’ll find you.”
Now it was a matter of waiting. Not exactly Dick’s greatest strength, but for the sake of this game, he would manage. If only there wasn’t that quiet voice in his head that they couldn’t win, anyway....
“Dick?”, Barbara asked him right after a minute, but Dick wasn’t fooling himself: Everyone was listening in. “Are you really hiding in the ventilation shaft on the roof of BigBelly Burger? How do you even fit in there?”
Dick’s face resembled a beaten puppy, but he was already sticking his head out of the vent. Except he still couldn’t spot any cameras nearby.
“Do I even want to know how you found me?”
It was mean how much he could pick out of her smile. “I think you can figure that out on your own if you take a quick look at YouTube.”
Dick slumped his shoulders. He really wasn’t wearing Robin's colors anymore now, so why did people still need to film him doing stuff like this? He took extra time to scowl at every single window nearby. If someone continued to watch him, then he deserved that look!
“Stop laughing,” Dick pouted, only making Jason laugh harder. It wasn’t often that Jason enjoyed himself in these games, but right now, he was having the time of his life. He could even relax and put his feet up and eat chips, while his siblings seemed far more helpless. Presumably Jason shouldn’t be so convinced of his hiding place, but that was hard to do, since he’d clearly picked the best one of all.
“This could take a while. I’ll stop as soon as it’s not funny anymore,” Jason replied, and would have given quite a bit to see Dick’s face now. But the radio exchange would have to do.
“Let’s see if you still laugh like that when Babs finds you,” Dick muttered, but everyone on the line had probably caught on. Unless someone had been hiding in a noisy place, but Jason could hardly imagine that.
“Trust me. It’s going to take time.”
Silence reigned briefly, and then came the question Jason had already been expecting. “Where are you?”
Jason grinned dirtily. “You remember my days as a crime boss?”
“Yessss,” Dick replied cautiously.
“Well, I got invited to a couple of poker nights back then, too, and I still have a few favors outstanding. Accordingly, Riddler has gratefully provided me with one of his old, undiscovered stashes.”
“What the heck?” came from Duke. Jason knew himself that his family was good at throwing one shocking piece of news after another into the room like it was nothing special. He hoped that Duke would not lose his normalcy - naivety - so soon. It was quite refreshing and reminded them that their family was anything but normal.
“Why am I not surprised?” asked Stephanie aloud to the group, but Jason could quite clearly hear her envy.
“This ...,” Dick finally agreed, “... is really a good place to hide.”
“Yep,” Jason replied, pulling his book out of his cargo pants. He was really glad he had chosen the ones with the extra large pockets today. At least this way he had a few minutes to read while his siblings were sweating in their stashes. The definition of a fulfilling evening.
Barbara was quite pleased with herself. She still had fifty minutes and had already found one of seven people. Not exactly her best performance, but you also had to factor in that her family was getting better at this game. They were thinking more, paying more attention to the various cameras in Gotham outside of the game, and becoming more cunning as well. With each victory more, Barbara became more and more unsure of how long her winning streak would last.
“You know,” she said aloud to the room, unable to keep from smiling. Her fingers continued to fly across the keyboard, causing new camera views to pop up on her screen. She had spotted a suspicious-looking purple fabric in one corner. Now she just had to figure out where it had taken Stephanie. But she also had to attend to another opportunity in parallel. “I used to hate it when Batman would suddenly appear next to you unannounced and without warning. For that reason, I put motion detectors on every gap in this bell tower.”
With that, Barbara glanced up briefly. Sitting motionless on one of the many beams in the clock tower, Cass lowered her head in disappointment.
“Don’t feel bad about it. It wasn’t a bad idea. After all, I actually didn’t hear you.”
Barbara knew it was small comfort, but in her own territory, it was now impossible to sneak up on her. She had seen to that a long time ago.
Before Stephanie could even ask Cass where she would hide, she had already disappeared. Stephanie hated this game. She had been bad at it since she was a child. Well, maybe it was because she always wore the most conspicuous color in the entire class or because her apartment didn’t offer many hiding places. Nevertheless, she had found out soon enough that she didn’t enjoy it. Especially with Babs as an opponent, one could only lose.
Dick would certainly say something about how you had to be willing to fight and not give up. But Dick also didn’t want to be caught first. Stephanie, on the other hand ... Stephanie didn’t care.
She grabbed a row of donuts and relaxed in a corner of the diner that wasn’t being filmed by a camera. Not the best idea in Gotham, but for a little one-hour break, quite appropriate.
Stephanie wasn’t going to win, she realized, but at least she had a donut break.
“Will you take one for me, too?” inquired Barbara, and Stephanie was proud that she didn’t flinch. Instead, she made a thumbs-up motion with her right hand and stuffed another donut into her mouth with her left.
Stephanie had no idea where the camera was, but from Bab’s giggles, she was pretty sure it didn’t go unnoticed.
Duke wasn’t thrilled. One day, he was sure, these “harmless” games would kill him. Exhibit numero uno: At the moment he was trapped in a fishing net and instead of trying to free himself so as not to be an easy prey, he concentrated on staying invisible so that Barbara wouldn’t find him.
In the past, he had thought he was one of the smarter ones in his class. By now, he feared that this family had rubbed off on him far too much.
He hoped Barbara would go after Damian first. He deserved it after throwing Duke out of the gondola. Perhaps it was important to note that the gondola had not been near the bottom.
“I hate this game,” he grumbled.
“Me too, but at least I got donuts for that.”
Duke groaned loudly. The only thing he had was a couple of dead fish that had also been in the net. He wouldn’t be able to get that smell out forever. He wasn’t kidding himself about that.
Before Damian heard the voice, he already knew that he had failed because the Ferris wheel began to turn.
“That I still live to see this sight: Robin in the Ferris wheel. Well, is it fun?”
“Tzz.”
Damian certainly wouldn’t be answering that question with a response. Barbara was a worthy opponent, but like every other opponent before, he would beat her sooner or later.
“We just can’t all turn invisible,” he muttered.
“Duke is invisible?” inquired Barbara, and Damian rolled his eyes. Duke’s ability to turn invisible was nothing special. If Damian became one with his surroundings, that was special!
“Oh, Robin. You really didn’t have to help her,” Dick sighed theatrically, while Todd just laughed. He hadn’t been found yet, but seemed to have no problem joining in the conversation.
“Well, you’re in mighty trouble then, Barbie! You sure you can find Duke?”
Damian wondered if he would ever see the day when Todd didn’t provoke someone unnecessarily. At least Barbara made sure he regretted it.
“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you, J. Do you really think I don’t know you’re in Riddler’s old lair?”
A cough sounded as if Todd had choked on something. Served him right!
“I have my connections too, you know.”
A truly worthy opponent, Damian decided anew.
Tim was about to fall asleep again, but was glad that he had still witnessed Damian being found. Maybe a little mean, but the little gremlin definitely deserved it. Otherwise, it was always “It’s really not hard now to be found only after Drake” and Tim could very well do without that statement this time.
“Only two players left in the race and only ten minutes left. Will Oracle manage to keep up her winning streak, or will she soon have to admit defeat?”
“Do we have to?” asked Stephanie, sounding as annoyed as Barbara was probably feeling right now.
“Hey,” Dick complained, “I just want to make this a little more exciting. Besides, I still think I make an excellent commentator.”
“The only thing you’re doing is annoying us all and goading Barbie to find people faster,” grumbled Jason. Tim might have joined in the conversation, too, but he was reluctant to give away where he was at the moment through background noise. It was bad enough that he had had to stoop to this hiding spot in the first place.
“Oh signal,” Babs muttered, and that sounded anything but good. If Tim was going to be honest, he had assumed until just now that Duke would definitely win the round. Even if Barbara knew she had to look for someone invisible, it was sometimes a very exhausting task. Especially since Duke could really stand anywhere without cameras noticing him.
“I ... I might be stuck,” Duke explained plaintively, and Tim understood very well that Duke didn’t feel like playing this game anymore. However, Tim couldn’t imagine Duke’s hiding place being any worse than Tim’s.
“N, I’m sending you Signal’s position. Instead of commenting, maybe you could try to free him from the fishnet.”
“All right. We’ll get it done, buddy,” Dick immediately volunteered, while Tim could clearly hear Damian’s laughter. What wasn’t quite fair was Stephanie and Jason holding back their silly comments. They would never do that for Tim, even if he were to win.
“Three minutes to go,” Dick said as soon as he had freed Duke.
Barbar started sweating inside. It had never taken her this long to find Tim before. Usually Cass was the hardest to find, just by her black outfit, but this time it seemed almost impossible to locate Tim.
She had found out so far that Tim had been in the Batcave at the beginning of the game and had had to travel to the game zone first. That narrowed down the locations, but not well enough.
“Hey, is someone getting desperate?”, Jason teased her, and Barbara used half a second of her precious time to mute his microphone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cass give her a thumbs up and Stephanie enter the bell tower through an upper window.
“Two minutes,” Dick continued counting down.
“We’ll be in the clock tower in a minute,” Duke commented, “And if I’m not mistaken, I just saw Jason, too. You’ll have a hard time muting him in Live.”
“Unfortunately,” Barbara thought to herself, but didn’t speak it, as it only broke her concentration.
“One minute,” Dick said much too quickly beside her. Damian had also found his way to the bell tower, which meant that everyone could follow her hasty typing movements. She was really trying to tap into any camera that could help her.
But not fast enough. The timer ran out.
Dick started cheering. Damian crossed his arms in a huff. Stephanie looked at the screens in disbelief. Cass seemed to be smiling proudly. Duke was generally just confused and Jason just shook his head at all the reactions and patted Barbara on the back.
“Don’t worry about it. You still won ten other games.”
Barbara smiled, but had to admit that she was still pretty disappointed in herself. Sighing, she turned back on the tracker locations screen to finally find Tim. She had actually narrowed down the radius correctly, but never in a million years would she have guessed that Tim was hiding in this, of all places.
“You... you’re at Red Robin? The restaurant?”
“Yep,” Tim replied, embarrassed.
Barbara couldn’t help herself and reached for the cameras. But even with them, she couldn’t see Tim. The others were also looking at the screens, and Dick leaned over her shoulder.
“Tim,” he said in shock, “are you in the bird costume?”
“... Yes.”
And Barbara couldn’t help it. She started laughing. An ingenious hiding place, truth be told, but the idea that Red Robin was in a Red Robin in a Red Bird costume was just too good.