Chapter Text
I:
Damian knows the mansion is haunted. And no, he’s not crazy and he definitely didn’t mean Jason either. (This joke is getting old, and it doesn’t even make any sense, because Jason would, if anything, be a zombie not a ghost, thank you very much!)
The only one who took him seriously was father. If you can even count that interaction as being taken seriously. It went well enough, but the moment he stated his cat Alfred as the evidence his father's tone… changed. He began to sound like an adult who tells his child, that yes, their rock friend did talk, because they don’t want to hurt the kids’ feelings.
Damian though is not a child. With 12 he was finally allowed to take over the Robin mantle. Would it have been easier if he were in the League? Yes and no, but it doesn’t matter, because after 7 years with the Waynes Damian came to understand his father’s perspective. Especially after Jason died, he could understand that his father wouldn’t want to lose another child. His guess is that the fact that there was still the 10-year-old version of him around, was the only reason why he hadn’t broken down. Or was it? Anyways that’s really not the point right now and he really shouldn’t get distracted thinking about the past. After all he has a glorious mission to complete.
And if Alfred would finally do something interesting that would best of all prove his point, he wouldn’t have to sit here with his camera, being bored out of his mind. Still, he supposes he is grateful that Todd is back, all though he would rather sell his pets than ever admit that.
Finally, the cat decides to have mercy on him and moves. He turns the camera on and switches to the video menu, starting the recording. Alfred seems to be rather determined to get somewhere, because Damian almost loses him in this big manor. Alfred slips through the slightly open door of an empty room, in the hallway where his room is. Although that one wasn’t occupied. Maybe Alfred liked being alone? Shaking his head, he goes into the room to get the cat back.
Five minutes later he is standing in front of the door, Alfred purring in his arms, the camera hanging loosely from his wrist, having the awful feeling that he forgot something, someone, important. A second later the feeling is gone, and Damian decides to give up on his ghost hunt and go back to the living room to see if Dick is there and to convince him to play a round of UNO with him (no he wasn’t a sore loser, shut up Jason).
The door behind him is closed, and the video has a five-minute recording of Alfred in an empty room.
II:
Dick is concerned. He usually is. After all, he’s often accused of being a worry head, (not that Jason has any say in this, given that he died), but something is different today with his youngest brother.
Damian came looking for revenge in UNO, and he indulged him, having nothing better to do anyway. But he seems entirely too distracted, to even stand a chance against him. “Baby bat, everything okay?”, he asks, fully anticipating the empty glare in his direction. “No progress in your ghost hunt?”, he guesses, hitting the jackpot, judging by Damian's reaction.
“I know that there is something in the manor. Why else would Alfred disappear the whole time? But following him around with the camera led to nothing”, he explains frustratedly. Dick looks at him sympathetically. He doesn’t believe in the ghost theory, but doesn’t like to see his brother so frustrated, nonetheless. “The room across mine, just seems so bland, why would Alfred spend his time there?”, he complains further. Oh, that seems to be the problem. The cat doesn’t pay enough attention to Damian.
He chuckles lightly. “Maybe it smells different? Why don’t you play with Titus in the meantime? I won, by the way”, he states, laying his final card down. Damian falls back dramatically. But instead of complaining how he clearly cheated, he just takes his camera out and shows him the recording.
And Dick sees his point? Something seems wrong with the recording, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what. Perhaps they are all just paranoid.
He gives a puzzled look to Damian. He huffs, clearly annoyed: “Something is wrong with that recording, Grayson! Why would I stand in a fucking empty room for five whole minutes.”
“Maybe you just dissociated for a while, baby bat. Or you got distracted filming Alfred”, deep down something nags at him, that that is not the reason, especially because Alfred is barely in the recording. The room feels eerie, like what they are seeing is wrong. But as fast as that accusation comes, it leaves, leaving Dick with a hollow feeling.
“You worry too much Dami”, he says before standing up. Damian stays back, contemplating over the recording, while absentmindedly stroking Alfred. Dick shakes his head.
On the way to his room, he sees his father calming down Jason, after what was probably a nightmare. He thinks of joining them for a moment but decides ultimately against it. Bruce has it under control and he is tired. The moment he falls into bed (because he doesn’t have patrol today) he falls asleep.
The wrongness of the recording, long forgotten.
III:
Jason is no stranger to nightmares. He had them on the streets, he has them now. Only that they got ten times worse after he died and came back.
Just because he is in therapy now, doesn’t mean they stopped. Which is annoying and inconvenient. He just wanted to take a short nap and then join Black Bat, Robin, Spoiler and Batman on patrol, but his mind clearly had other plans, because the moment he falls asleep the nightmares start.
The beginning is a cacophony of emotions and pit madness, pitched with Jokers laughter. But then the clearer part starts.
Logically, he knows that he is still sleeping, but that doesn't stop the rage coursing through his veins. Slightly amused, he notes, that while he is aware of the dream, he is somehow detached from the emotions he is feeling, giving him more space to think. On the other hand, he is right now a prisoner in his own body, not being able to intervene. He takes in his surroundings, only realizing after an embarrassing long time that he is in the Titans Tower.
Confused, he feels his body moving, his bloodlust getting stronger. He is haunting someone down. The scene seems too familiar to be a product of his imagination, but he can’t recall this memory at all. What is going on? He finally caught up to them. They are wearing a costume similar to Robin, and even though he can’t figure out their face, he just knows that they are wearing a smug smile. Or maybe that’s his own interpretation. They fight together, and the person seems to be pretty good, given that they are able to stand against him. They lose eventually, and the green gets a hold over his mind, and he’s beating them. Not killing, so it’s probably a kid, but he wants them to hurt. The face is now in view, but even though it’s not blurry, he can’t for the life of him, figure out what it looks like.
He wakes up, gasping. As his senses bring the world back into focus, he recognizes his dad sitting next to him, talking calmly. He’s never going to admit it, but it helps. When Bruce says he’s not going to patrol today, he doesn't protest. A clear sign of how much that nightmare affected him. The uneasy feeling lingers for a second longer and then disappears, never to be seen or remembered again.
It probably wasn’t important anyway, right?
IV:
Patrol was interesting. Not because something happened, but because everybody seemed distracted. Except herself, of course.
Steph was clearly the most focused one, which she would take pride in, if the others didn’t make it so easy for her. With Big B it's easy enough to tell why he was distracted. Jason has had a nightmare, and he was still worried. Damian was probably still hung up on the whole, the manor is haunted, story. Cass wass the real surprise here. She was out of it almost the entire time, like she missed something and didn’t know what.
Mah, who cares. Patrol is over and Alfred made cookies; she can worry about the others tomorrow if they are still out of it by then. She plans to pull an all-nighter and make sure to keep this promise. Except for Duke, everybody is already asleep anyway.
Equipped with Alfred's cookies, her chaos book and a new drama to watch all alone on the big couch, she gets comfortable. While watching the new series, she absentmindedly eats the cookies with one hand, while she writes some ideas for pranks with the other. Sadly, she seemed to be out of ideas lately, which is surely an emergency. Maybe she should prank Duke? She hadn’t done that in a while, and he is the only one still awake. She could make use of Damian's ghost obsession, although Duke would know it was her, and take all the fun out of it.
Sighing, she pauses the drama and goes into the kitchen to get more cookies and maybe a glass of water. Maybe she should stock up on her glitter bombs and prank the Justice League. That sounds perfect. She would get a free show of the world's greatest heroes losing a battle against the greatest enemy of all time (glitter, duh) and would get to see Bruce getting lectured for needing to get his children under control. Although she doesn’t fancy a patrol ban, the pictures, videos and future edits would be sooo worth it. With a new plan on wracking chaos upon the world, she turns to get a glass, because all that perfectionism makes her thirsty.
A blink later, and she is standing in front of the bin, a broken glass in her hand. She blinks again, but everything stays the same. She puts the broken glass in the bin and turns around. One look at the clock tells her that 2 minutes have passed. Weird. Did she knock over a glass and break it? Maybe someone else broke the glass. She shakes her head, what a silly idea, nobody is awake. She is probably just tired. Yeah, that should be it, she is tired and maybe slept a little bit, while walking, while breaking a glass. Shit happens, she supposes. The odd feeling disappears as well, so it was probably just her nerves. Damian infected her with the ghost story. Humming, she takes the cookies and a glass of water.
She doesn’t notice that 10 of the cookies are missing.
V:
Cass was… distracted. Over the years she has gotten a pretty good intuition for when one of her siblings needs her.
This particular gut feeling started shortly before patrol, so she had no time to check, but it didn’t feel life-threatening. At least not now? Yeah, she’s not good at explaining this either. Needless to say, she wasn’t paying attention during patrol and was lucky that today was a quiet day. The moment she got out of her costume, however, is the moment she makes a run to the stairs.
Her first stop, Jason. He is the most likely to activate her siblings’ radar, given the fact that he has had a vivid nightmare shortly before they had to go. It is bad enough that he agreed to stay at home. But when she slides into his room he’s sleeping peacefully. So not Jason.
Maybe Duke? She hasn’t actually seen him today. A look in his room crosses him off of her list as well, because he was loudly complaining about the inaccuracies in a fan game he found online. She makes a note to ask him about it later, because it seemed like it was fun.
Her gut feeling doesn’t disappear, though, so she quickly checks in the living room, where Steph is getting ready to watch something new, she got recommended by Damian. So also, not her, even though she already guessed that, after all they were together on patrol.
Damian is sleeping soundly already, so not him either. Although she makes the effort to take away his camera so that he doesn’t destroy it in his sleep.
The only one missing is Dick, who is… also sleeping peacefully. She checked everywhere. She sighs, knowing her feeling isn’t wrong.
Did she lose her touch? Does she simply not see one of her siblings struggling? Her steps lead her to the empty room opposite Damian's. Trusting her feelings and ignoring her mind, she opens it.
The moment she walks out of the room again, it’s 3 hours later. Shortly she wonders what she did in the meantime but dismisses the thought faster than it came.
The gut feeling stopped and that is all that truly matters.
VI:
Duke was having fun today. First, he helped Damian set up the camera he found randomly, listening to his rambles about a ghost. Yeah, he’s not really buying it, but as long as Dami is happy, he doesn’t mind.
Then he was allowed to help Alfred in the kitchen, although he suspects that was because Alfred didn’t seem to be here completely. Like he still listened, but his eyes seemed to be far away, like a memory he doesn’t possess any more, but still knows the emotions associated with it.
That… was way too philosophical for his taste. Speaking of taste, the cookies turned out great. If he marvells at them longer than necessary, then that was nobody’s business, but his own. After all, he didn’t even burn them. That was definitely the only reason he stared that long at them and Alfred's “Master Duke they’re not for you alone” was totally unrelated, he wasn’t Steph or Jason after all.
Schoolwork was a matter of minutes, so he has had the rest of the day for himself, because, according to Bruce, he is still too injured for patrol. He doesn’t buy it, but arguing is really not worth it. After doom-scrolling for a while through social media, he actually found something interesting. Somebody developed a new Batman and Robin game, for free! Of course, he downloaded it. And that’s how he landed here.
The start screen finally decides to show itself after what felt like an eternity of waiting. The game seems nice enough, the graphic surprisingly good for a game that you can get for free. The gameplay is absolutely fun, even though he has a few too many complaints about the inaccuracies in the plot.
He needs to show it to Cass, or [censored] to complain about it. He’s not sure which Robin this game presents. It doesn't seem to be his favourite one, so it can’t be Dick. Dick? He isn’t his favourite, though. It is probably Jason then. He pauses, who is his favourite Robin? Jason is way too aggressive for his taste, although he’s a fan of Red Hood, but him as Robin? Nope. Damian falls under the same category, as much as he loves the little gremlin, he isn’t his favourite Robin either.
Who is it then? There are only 3 Robins. He shakes his head, to will the weird feeling away. It distantly feels like he is using his power, though he knows he isn’t. What is going on today. Is there a Robin he forgot?
The matter not leaving him alone, he decides to go down to the Batcave. Bruce is still working on something, seemingly ignoring or not noticing his presence. As he logs into the Batcomputer he feels a presence behind him. “What are you still doing awake, Duke?”, Bruce asks, clearly tired. He doesn’t turn, still searching. “How many Robins did you have?”, he asks instead. “Three. Dick, Jason, and Damian. Could you imagine what kind of chaos Steph would have been?”, Batman answers. Duke snorts. Yeah, he loves his sister, but the city wouldn’t have survived that. Not finding something contradicting in the Batcomputer he goes to bed again.
It is probably something he dreamt anyway. He was once convinced that there was a secret eighth day in a week, just because he had dreamt about it.
VII:
Alfred prides himself in knowing everything. From Dicks obvious love for Cheetos to Bruce's homophobia of spiders {the poor queer spiders ☹ [I really didn't realise :)]}, he knows every secret of every single member of the Wayne household. He has an impressive memory and hasn’t once forgotten anything in his life.
So not knowing why he was making marshmallow cookies, had him in a slight panic. So much that he forgot to get Master Duke to leave the kitchen.
Thankfully the process of baking these cookies didn’t end in a catastrophe, for which he is grateful. After getting Master Duke to finally leave, he begins to make coffee. Then he blinks. Why is he making coffee? Oh, it’s the cookies all over again.
Maybe he needs a vacation? Dismissing that thought he just leaves it at that. He would find everyone half dead if he ever left, and realistically speaking he doesn’t want to. He isn’t paid enough to figure out this situation [he really isn’t, no amount of money can ever compensate the patience this man possesses, I want this patience as well please ☹]. He just leaves it like that, having a feeling it won’t be wasted.
VIII:
Bruce had an interesting day so far. Damian's obsession besides, he is still worried about Jason. It’s not like him to be so obedient, and he wonders what he dreamt about. Admittedly, he was, only for a short time, elsewhere with his thoughts, but just for a moment. Similar to his daughter, he had a feeling something was wrong.
Sadly, he got hold up by an urgent matter and lost track of time. Although the feeling faded in the meantime, so Cass, most likely got it under control. He sighs. He really is a failure for having his daughter deal with the emotional fall-out off this family.
Then he finds Duke standing in front of the Batcomputer. And even after he left (hopefully going to sleep, these kids are awful at rest, honestly [Mr. Hypocrite]) he still thinks the question over. He didn’t lie to Duke, so why does it feel like he did. He really doesn’t like this feeling. He feels helpless, because he doesn't even know why he feels like he told a lie. He, against accusations from the Justice League arguing the opposite, doesn’t lose track of his children. Shaking his head, he decides to go to sleep for once. The problem will still be there tomorrow, and it isn’t urgent enough to risk a scolding from Alfred.
The first of his kids he looks over is Dick (it doesn’t matter how old he is, he is still his baby). He seems to be asleep, so he lets him be, only adjusting his blanket.
Jason seems to be in a better position than before, leading to him letting out a breath he didn’t realize he held onto.
Cass is in her room, still reading. He doesn’t say anything, but she still turns out the light and signs “Good night”. He smiles and signs “Sweet dreams”, before closing the door.
Duke seems to have gone to sleep after he ventured to the Batcave, so there’s that.
Convincing Steph to go to bed went as well as one can expect, and he makes a note to look out for glitter bombs in the near future. Still, his other girl is safely tucked into bed, so the glitter in his hair will hopefully be worth it.
Damian’s sleeping peacefully and Cass seems to have looked him over, so he just closes the door.
His eyes fall to the opposite door of the hallway. Something pulls at him, something very urgent. He can’t figure out what it is.
Feeling guilty, he makes his way to his own bedroom.
He can’t shake the feeling he’s forgetting a child.
IX:
Barbara is in a good mood. After all, a patrol without any casualties is a win in her book.
Although something seems to be brewing in the Wayne manor right now. Curiously, she hacks into the cameras, keeping an eye out for any abnormalities, though nothing catches her eye.
Her stalking doesn’t last long anyway, because she got new information from…. Honestly nobody knows their name, and they seem to be perfect at hiding, because she has no clue who they are. So, she came to call them Whisper, because she has a feeling, she will never be able to catch them. Weird that even the most paranoid man on the planet of earth seems to trust them.
Something prevents her from thinking too hard about it.