-I was literally so excited to write this!! It's my longest and most intertwined part yet! I had to shift a few things from canon for dramatic purposes. Please meet the huge cast of siblings:-

Ages:

Terry - 28

Cassandra - 28

Damian - 26

Duke - 21

Stephanie - 20

Tim - 19

Carrie - 15

Jason - 10

Barbra - 9

Dick - 5

"Okay, they're on their way over, we need to lay down the rules." Bruce announced, pacing in front of his kids. "I know how these always go, and I'm not having it this time. I don't want any fighting, any trouble," He eyed Jason, and by extension, Barbra. "And I just want a calm, quiet, reunion."

"Duh!" Jason smirked. "We're the home-livers. Maybe you should review these rules with the others."

"I'm not going over these rules with them because they're better behaved." His father stated.

"It's just because they aren't here yet." Tim explained, he was just as paranoid about this as Bruce, Family reunions always ended with at least one person on life support. Yep, apparently if you gather eleven bat-themed dumbasses in one place, the results are shocking and angerous. who would've guessed.

Most of the clan was already at the manor: Dick and Jason lived at home, Barbra was having a weekend long sleepover, Damian was back visiting for a couple weeks, and Tim and Steph had carpooled over the previous night.

"I'm excited to see them." Steph mentioned. "I hardly know most of them."

"Well, they'll be arriving around four..."

"Tim!" Dick tugged on his brother's trouser leg. "They're coming!"

"Yeah, they are." Tim leaned over to his brother's height. "Are you excited?"

Dick nodded. "When are they coming?"

"About... twenty minutes." Tim said, checking his watch. "Do you know how long that is?" Dick showed his ten fingers, twice. "Yeah! You're so smart!" Tim ruffled the little boy's hair affectionately.

Jason was slumped against the stairs. "This is gonna be SO boring! We aren't allowed to do anything! Bruce took all the matches and lighter fluid! What are we supposed to do?"

"Sit?" Barbra asked. She'd become Jason's partner in crime because they're ages were closer than any of their other siblings in the city. "We could find where the hand sanitizer is?"

"Then what? We still don't have lighters."

"True."

There was a slight creak as a key was inserted into the lock. Someone shouldered the door open: a young teenage girl with short reddish hair and a gentle splatter of brown freckles. 

"Hey, sorry I'm late, I couldn't find my manor key." She closed the door after her to seal off the icy draft. "Hi everyone."

"CARRIE!" Dick squealed.

"Whoa! Hiya Dickie!" She kneeled on the tile and opened her arms. Dick ran over and stood on her lap, wrapping his arms around her neck. "WOW! When did you get so BIG?" She held the boy by his shoulders. "Did you get the slingshot I carved you?"

"YEAH!"

"Awesome! Sometime I'll take you on patrol and teach you to use it." Carrie looked up to the others. "Hi guys! Hi Jay! Hi Barb! Hi Tim! Hi Stephanie! How's it been, guys? What did I miss?"

"Not much." Tim admitted. "How was Pathfinders?"

"Awesome!" Carrie replied. "Bette and I scaled a cliff face!"

"Were you allowed to?" Stephanie asked.

"Sorta!?" Carrie laughed. "And Auntie Kate came up to visit us in august and got me a new swiss army knife."

"Knife?" Jason stood up sharply. "Can I see it?"

"NO!" Tim cut them off. "Jason isn't allowed to hold any knives until this function is over."

"LAME!" Jason flopped back on the stairs. "You're such a killjoy!"

"Am I the first?" Carrie asked Damian, still holding Dick  on her lap. 

"First to arrive today." Damian responded. "What grade are you in at school now?"

"Nine." She explained. "Sorry I wasn't able to come over earlier, I've been busy with school work."

"Let's go upstairs!" Dick sprung up, trying to pull her after him. "I have a new room!"

"Okay!" She pulled off her shoes and hung up her coat. "And then I want to say hi to Bruce and Alfie." She let the little boy excitedly pull her upstairs.

"I heard the door open, who arrived?" Bruce asked, entering the foyer and looking around for a new family member. 

"Carrie." Jason explained. "Remember, the one who had girl guide's over the summer?"

"Jason, I can remember which of my protégées are which." Bruce explained.

"You literally called me Tim yesterday." Jason frowned.

The door knob rattled behind them. twice. and eventually, the person just knocked on the door. Bruce opened it since he was closest. A handsome young man with coolest damn hair greeted them. He didn't have a manor key at the moment.

"Duke." Bruce observed. "Good timing, Carrie just arrived."

"Oh, nice." Duke Thomas shouldered in as invited.

"Duke!" Jason exclaimed. He'd had a bit of a connection with the elder recently. 

"Hey Jay!" 

"I thought you couldn't come?" Jason exclaimed, hopping up to high-five his brother.

"Plans changed." Duke explained.

"And you didn't tell us until now? Awesome foresight." Tim chided jestingly. 

"It's a surprise." Duke reiterated. "Hey Steph, Dami!" Barbra cleared her throat and also went into her own high-fives. "Sorry Barb." He high-fived her. "So are Terry and Cassandra here yet?"

"Not yet. Just Carrie and them." Jason gestured at his older siblings.

"CARRIE! CARRIE KEENE KELLY!" He shouted up the stairs.

There were a few seconds and Carrie rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, Dick on her heels. She bent over and picked the little boy up and looked down the stairs at the others. "Hey Duke!" She waved with one arm as she held Dick against her hip with the other.

"Hey Dick! Carrie, how was Scouts?"

"Awesome! I learned to sleep in a tree!" She exclaimed. She shifted her hold on Dick, the boy looked eager to say hello to Duke. "Come on, Dick!" She Hurried down the stairs and set him down, locking a quick hug with Duke before letting the kids have him. "Dickie has new bedroom. it's super cool."

"Really?" Duke humored, giving the five year old a high-five too.

"YEAH! It has a big bed! and a desk! and it's right next to Jason's!" Dick exclaimed, jumping from excitement.

"It's just my old room." Jason clarified. "Dickie didn't want to sleep in his old room cause he was too scared to sleep there alone"

"Cause you traumatized him, you little psycho!" Tim pointed out. "You guys are never going to believe this- Jason taped a rubber Halloween mask to the outside of Dick's window!" 

Before anyone could give Jason too much shit for scaring the hell out of their baby brother. There was another knock at the door, along with a ring of the door bell.

Bruce glanced at his watch. Five minutes early, you could set your watch by Terry and Cass. "Everyone's arriving at once." He muttered, pulling the door open. "Cassandra, Terry."

"Bruce." Terry exclaimed. "How's it been?"

"Different." Bruce admitted. "Torturous."

"I know what you mean, we took a fifteen hour flight last night!" Terry yawned. "Are we the last ones?"

"Yeah, but your still early." Duke responded. 

Terry shot forwards to greet him. "DUKE! How's it been?" He began greeting his siblings with vigor. Cass silently pulled both their bags inside, smiling a little as Terry gushed over all the others. 

Terry loved spoiling his baby siblings to death. He always brought presents when he came back to Gotham. Bruce was never psyched about it, but you can't disappoint the younger ones.

"Terry!" Jason shouted, running to his brother.

Barbra pushed past him. "Terry!"

"Terry!" Dick shouted, unable to push back either. 

"Hi guys!" Terry gave Barbra and Jason hugs. He saw Dick making grabby hands and picked him up. "Hi Dickie!" The boy hugged him as hard as he could, which wasn't very hard. "I brought presents!"

There was a cheer, primarily from the youngest three. Actually, entirely from the youngest three. Terry  caught a side-eye and a smirk from Bruce. "Do you think you can you get that done in the four hours before dinner?"

"if not we can run a little overtime." He joked. Setting Dick down. "Come on, let's go to the living room. Cass did you-" He looked over and saw she'd already broght everything in. "Oh, thanks. Hey you guys forgot to say hi to Cassie!" He told the kids

Cassandra gave him a look as children swarmed her. She loved all her siblings, but Terry didn't have to drown her in children all at once! 

"You're like the child whisperer." Tim commented. "How do you make them love you like that?"

"If they only see you twice or thrice a year, they don't have time to have fights with you." Terry commented. "Plus the age gap, they're so much younger, they just... trust me as an adult."

"I'm jealous." His nineteen year old brother helped him carry his bags into the living room. "You somehow get everyone exactly what they want."

"And exactly what they shouldn't have." Bruce commented, coming up behind the two.

"Come on! Let me spoil my kid siblings!" Terry smiled.

"Okay, and the fires that start are on you." Their father said reluctantly. 

"There won't be any fire this time!" Terry insisted. "Trust me! Guys!" He called the youngers inside. "Here we go, Damian, a sample of Damascened steel. It's a knife, but you probably won't want to use it since it's one of a kind and currently cannot be recreated or successfully reverse-engineered by scientists." 

Damian unsheathed the small knife and admired the thousands-of-years old knife in his hand. "currently."  He muttered, admiring the organic patter of the steel.

"Timmy, a laser trip-wire activated trigger. the trigger isn't attached to anything, but I'm sure you'll find something to do with it."

Tim admired the fragile system. "How'd you get this through airport security exactly?"

"I didn't we arrived at one last night and got a hotel room on the west side. Then I just hurried over to use the zeta beams!"

Tim admired the system. He turned excitedly to Stephanie. "LOOK! It usually takes forever to find and get all the required high quality parts from this, and it costs a TON to get a good lser that isn't for cats, and the trigger usually has a .5 second delay, but this one looks nearly instant!"

"That's great. Whatever you do with it, keep it in your dorm." She said.

"But look: You could connect anything, a silent alarm or paintball gun to the other side of the trigger, connect them, program in, and then you'd have a foolproof security system-"

"Tim, let me rephrase." Steph cut him off. "I'm excited that you're excited, but you caused a mass Evac of your dorm last month, so please don't involve me until it's been tested on something else."

"How was I supposed to know it would make chorine gas? I'm a Physics major, not a chem major!"

"How about you don't mix unlabelled chemicals in your dorm room at all?"

"Everything is chemicals!" Tim argued.

"Wow, I'd love to hear that story, after Dinner." Terry interrupted. "For Duke. and for Steph." He passed out two more objects.

"Earrings." Steph asked, a little disappointed, admittedly. "Chrome, cylinder earrings?"

Terry grinned, taking one from her, and stepping away from where the others sat on the carpet. "The safety's on, but if I just twist the cylinder, and press this tiny little button here..." 

Both ends of the cylinder shot out, about three feet in each direction. He pressed the button again to lock it, and smacked the side of the couch to show that the steel beam wouldn't collapse.

Stephanie gaped a little. "Pocket Bo Staff earrings?!"

"Just incase you need a weapon or two while out of costume." Terry smirked.

Steph stood up. "POCKET BO STAFF EARRINGS?!?" She twisted the other and pressed the button, it shot out to form a sturdy pole.  She giggled a  little, ecstatically. 

"Thought you'd like 'em." Terry turned to Duck. "And that is a... uh..."

Duke glanced inside he bag, read the title of the magazine, and swiftly shut the bag, eyes wide and cheeks burning a little. "Oh."

"Yeah." Terry agreed. "That was kinda my thought to, but since you're on the family plan here and use our wifi, and since incognito mode does almost nothing.."

"I get your point! I'll get a VPN!" Duke protested, embarrassed.

"Awesome! I already started setting one up for you." Terry grinned.

"So you got me a VPN,  but instead of just telling me, you gave me this?" He held up the black opaque plastic bag. 

"You keep that, it was Expensive!" Terry teased. This was the one time he'd EVER by porn mags for a sibling. He'd bought all of his non-adopted siblings VPSNs and such so they could use provided data and wifi and not have Bruce see all their shit on the bill. Duke had been the only reluctant one to have Terry buy stuff for him. Hence: the point.

"What'd he get?" Jason asked.

"Don't worry about it. We're getting to you." Terry smirked. "Carrie, I know what you needed." Terry tossed her a box.

"It's in a whole box?" Carrie asked, everyone else's were just in his carry on.

"I ordered in online, no point in taking it out."

She took out the pocket knife and cracked it open. He looked inside and grinned. "someone  knows that I needed new boots!" She exclaimed. 

"I was your post about loosing them over the summer, so I thought you could use some more since you live here: the world's Greyest, rainiest city."

"Thank you." She took out the knew boots and tried them on.

"And for Jay and Dick." He paused. "I'm kidding, I didn't forget you Babs. For Jay and Barbra: halogen flashlights for safety and spare house keys because from what I hear, you can't keep your keys in one place for more than a day."

"Is that it?" Jason asked suspiciously. 

"For now." Terry said. "I have other stuff, put you can't have it until you're older."

"Aw what?" Barbra whined. "What is it?"

"keyring Tasers."

Both kid's mouths dropped over. "YES!" Jason shouted.

"No!" Tim and Bruce objected.

"Awe come on! we can handle them!" Barbra complained.

"Not until you're in double digits." Bruce took the small tasers, checked the safety, and made a note to throw them in the safe.

"I'm in double digits." Jason whined.

"Barbra can't have it until double digits, you can't have yours until you're at least fifteen."

Jason pouted.

"And, Dickie..." Terry opened another bag. He removed a large stuffed Lion and stepped over his other kid siblings to reach him. "Here. Do you like 'em?"

Dick's face lit up. He grabbed the lion and hugged it tight against his chest. The lion was almost bigger than he was. "I love her." Dick grinned into the lion's main.

"That lion has a main, Dickie, that mean's it's a boy." Tim corrected.

"No." Dick replied. "She's a girl."

"Okay." Tim shrugged. Who was going to argue with a five year old over the gender of his plush lion.

Dick perked up again. "Terry! Cassie! I have a new room!"

"Really? Awesome!" Terry encouraged. 

"Come on! I wanna show you!" Dick grabbed Cassie's arm and began pulling her up.

--Save point #1! If you're lost, here's a checkpoint to help you find where you were!--

"I can't BELIEVE Bruce took them!" Barbra ranted. "I grew up in a police station, they didn't look high-voltage!"

"Yeah! They looked like stunners! They're probably safe!" Jason ranted. "They were definitely safe if Terry got them for us."

Barbra agreed. "It's fine! Why'd Bruce hafta take them? Doesn't he trust us?"

The preteens were in Jason's room, tossing a softball in the air, and at each other. Neither of them played sports, they'd stolen the ball from a jerk's gym locker last month.

"I'd suggest we play Minecraft, but Bruce took my phone and won't let me use my computer."

"What do we have to work with?" Barbra asked.

"A... soft ball?" Jason asked. "Everything here, but Bruce searched it before the reunion to make sure I had nothing interesting." He pouted. "Are we supposed to go his whole reunion? We can't make this interesting without supplies!"

"Maybe we just need creativity." Barbra said, doing that thing that little kids do where they roll back on their shoulders and kick their legs up in the air. "We could... steal whatever Terry got the Duke?"

"Naw." Jason said. "I think it's just porn."

"Huh?" Barbra asked.

"Pictures of naked women."

"Oh, right. I forgot what it was." Barbra said. She was intrigued, but decided to shelve it until the had a highschool sexuality crisis.

"I'm so BORED!" Jason whined. "Bruce took away the matches! and Everyone just wants to pay attention the family baby!"

"Yeah! Do they care that we live here too? ...Most of the time." Barbra added.

"Ehh, you basically live here." Jason reasoned. "You spend more time with our dad than yours."

"Yeah."

The exhaustedly continued tossed the ball back-and-forth, impatiently. 

"We have to do something! I love seeing everyone, but it's always 'aw isn't the baby cute'  and 'what does the baby want'. I'm here to!" He vented. Jason called Dick 'the baby' when ranting aloud to his friends.

"Well he's a heck of a lot cuter than you." Barbra pointed out.

"I'm glad to hear you say that, but still! I have value! Even if I'm not the cute little five year old." He ranted. "I'm not jealous of them giving him attention, it's just-"

"Yeah you are." Barbra said. "You are to jealous. But Tim was probably jealous when dad-I mean Bruce-  adopted you."

"Ew." Jason said. "I don't wanna be like Tim." She sat up. "Let's go see if we can convince Cassie to break into the safe for us."

Cassandra was downstairs with the older members of the adopted/unofficially-adopted Wayne child alliance. This consisted of everyone over twenty-One: Terry, Cass, Damian and Duke.

"Cassie?" Barbra asked innocently. "We can't get something open, but you're really strong. Can you help us open it?"

Cass gave an uncertain glance back at the others and followed Barbra from the room. "What?" She asked reluctantly. 

Jason pointed at the wall safe. "You're stronger than us, can you open it?"

She sighed the word: "Tasers.", shaking her head a little.

"Come on, please?" Barbra asked. "We know they aren't so bad! and we're responsible!"

Cass leaned back in the doorway and subtly signed something to Terry across the room. It was too quick for the younger kids to read.

"What'd you say?" Jason asked. "Are you telling? What the hell?" 

Cass watched Terry's reply and turned away. Barbra followed her sister as she headed across the room. "What did he say? Did you tell him? What's going on."

Cass sighed again, acting defeated. She pulled a photo off the wall and turned it around to she pencil marking on the back. She passed it to Jason and winked, leaving again.

"WHOA." Jason said. "Not only is she being chatty, she's being complicit!"

"What does it say?" Barbra pushed him out of the way to read the markings. "Numbers?"

"It has to be the combo!" Jason jumped with excitement.

"But what about these ones?" Barbra pointed at a barely-familiar symbol.

"I dunno. Who cares!" Jason exclaimed. "They look like the ones Tim used to doodle."

Barbra let out a groan. "Oh no."

"What?" Jason didn't like the sound of that 'oh no'.

"These symbols...this isn't the final combination! It's an advanced math question!"

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Cassandra left the kids and returned to the group in the living room. "All going well?" Terry asked. She nodded a little, neither were able to keep the mischievous looks from their faces.

"What are you doing?" Damian asked suspiciously.

"Nothing." Terry said quickly. "How's Gotham been since we were last here?"

"Are you asking about politics, poverty, school, crime, or crime fighting?" Damian asked.

"Yes." Terry said.

Duke sat there quietly on the sidelines. He wasn't used to being included in the older group of Wayne kids, and hadn't been part of the clan as long as some of the other members. It was weird being the youngest of the oldest group. He watched Damian summarize the depressingness of their city to Terry and Cass as they (Mostly Terry) interjected here and there with questions.

"So, uh." Duke interrupted without intending to. He was more just thinking out loud. "What do we do?" The room went quiet and awkward. "Like, what do we do?" Still nothing. "It's just... I spent the last three reunions with Tim and Stephanie..."

"Oh, right!" Terry smacked his forehead. He sprung up and locked the primary livingroom door. "I forgot for a moment." He reached into a duffle bag and pulled out two six-packs, one of cider, one of beer. "This is your first time sitting at our  side of the table during dinner." He put out the six packs. "Grab a drink, it makes family reunions so  much easier."

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So far the Adopted-and-unadopted of the Bat clan were so assembled: Terry Cass Damian and Duke were in the living room, Carrie was playing with Dick in the boy's bedroom, Tim and Steph were finishing some homework upstairs, and Jason and Barbra were on their way to se them.

"Define: Kinematics." Steph read aloud from the flashcards. Before Tim could answer, Jason kicked the door open.

"TIM!"

"What?" Tim almost fell of his bed. He was still super on edge about the family reunion. "What? Who's- Jason. Car to know next time?"

"It's important!" Barbra insisted. She held up her notepad. We found some weird math question and wrote it down, can you solve it for us?"

"We'll I'm a little busy with that kind of thing for school right now..."

"Yeah, but that's physics. This is math." Jason argued like it was the most obvious thing. Tim didn't know what to say.

"Well, let me take a look." He glanced at the equation: T(to the first power) + C(to the first power) + D(To the fist power) + D(to the second power) + T(to the second power) x S + C(to the second power) + J + B +D(to the third power).

"What does it mean?" Barbra asked eagerly. "What number does it make?"

Tim blinked several times. "Where did you find this again?"

"Just! What's the number?" Jason ordered.

"I can't find an exact number since none are given." Tim justified. "It's algebra. D probably stands for distance, T for time, J for Jules (The thing you use to measure work)... but in this context, I don't know why C or  B are here in this context, because it looks like a projectile or Work equation..."

"Wow, for such a know-it-all, you're real dumb!" Jason complained. 

"Well, there's this little A= on the side, that's been crossed out. I assume that'd be for Acceleration, but we aren't given initial OR final velocity!"

"So you CAN'T solve it?" Barbra asked.

Tim pinched between his eyes. "Look, I'm busy. I'll copy down some basic equations, and give you my highschool work books and YOU can try to solve it yourselves." He said impatiently, knowing that the nine and ten year olds would never be able to. 

surprisingly, they we're discouraged. "FINE! We'll do it ourselves! But when we figure it out, you'll pay for not helping!"

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"Have you made any friends in kindergarten?" Carrie asked, currently involved in colouring with Dick.

The boy contentedly coloured his dinosaur pink and yellow. "No."

"Oh, well, I's only October, I'm sure you'll make some."

"No." Dick said, in that same optimistic tone. "I don't think so."

"Why not?" She frowned a little, looking up from searching Dick's 64 pack of crayons. She thought that any kid with 64 pack of crayons would be popular.

"They don't like me." He answered simply. "Madam Genevieve likes me though. She said she's from Canada."

"That's cool." Carrie replied. "What makes you think the other kids don't like you?"

"Some of them call me bad words." Dick continued colouring contently.

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Usually, drinking alcohol with the bats was not exactly high on Duke's to-do list. actually, it was rarely up there considering that most of the time he was around the bats, they were either mid-fight, or around the kids.

And it wasn't exactly peer pressure that made him decide that mid-family-reunion day drinking was a good idea, it was more the thought that he was classed with the older bats now. He was currently classed with some of the most badass vigilantes, kicking back and having a drink.

He took a cider since in had a lower alcohol content. He hadn't drunk since he turned twenty one, and Damian forcibly took him to a pub for liquor training. He could barely stand for two days after.

He opened the can and took a sip. Weirdly, it tasted more like soda than alcohol. Honestly, it wasn't half bad. Screw beer, this was some good shit. He swigged the can and sat down comfortably between Damian and Cass. How could he be twenty-one and still feel so much younger than a twenty-six, or twenty-eight year old?

He finished hiss can, but felt uncomfortable without a prop. He grabbed and opened another can and opened it. Just to hold.

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"It's never going to work." Jason whined, discouraged. "We aren't mathematicians! We aren't even teenagers! We've tried everything Tim suggested. Just face it: We'll never get the tasers. Let's just go to the batcave and get some explosives." Barbra still wasn't replying. "Babs, aren't you listen-"

"SHH!" She stood up violently, staring dead into space. "SHH!! BIG BRAIN MOMENT!"

"Oh fun, you've gone crazy." Jason observed. "Me too after all that math-"

"NO! SHH! SHUT UP! I Have a lead!"

Jason stood up not believing it."What? Really? You solved it?"

She nodded, a grin spreading over her face. "It was so easy! It was in our faces the WHOLE TIME!"

"WHAT IS IT?" Jason ordered. 

"LOOK!" She held up the note-covered page. "What do these Letters mean?"

"Algebra. Distance and time or whatever? So what?"

She shook her head, fully grinning now. "NO! Look at the letters! T, C, D, D, T, S, C, J, B, D!"

"SO WHAT?" Jason yelled, infuriated at being left out.

"IT'S NOT MATH! IT'S US!" She pointed at the letters. "Terry, Cass, Damian, Duke, Tim-"

"Steph, Carrie, Jason, Barbra, Dick!" Jason finished. "OH MY GOD!" They hugged each other tight. They broke away, and then hugged again, squealing and bouncing with excitement. Eventually, they calmed down a little. "But what could the numbers be?"

"Well..." Barbra held up her calculator smugly. "If you add up all our birthdays, it has the same amount of numbers as Bruce's unknown passcodes.

The preteens smiled at each other devilishly.

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"What kind of bad words?" Carrie asked. She didn't know which bad words kindergarteners knew. 

Dick looked nervously. "I'm not allowed to say."

"Oh. okay." She said. "Do you get upset when you say those?"

"Yeah." Dick said briefly. "What colour is your dinosaur going to be?"

"Red." Carrie answered.

"Cool!"

Carrie coloured carefully inside the lines. "Have you told Bruce?"

"No." Dick said. "It's not bad because Madam Genevieve sits with me at recess."

"Okay." Carrie said. "Maybe let's tell him after we're done colouring."

"Okay!"

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Someone rattled the livingroom door, and when it didn't open, they just knocked. "Boys? Who's in there?" Bruce asked.

"Shoot-" Terry shoved the unopened drinks back in his duffle bag. 

Cass and Damian downed the rest of their cans, nudging Duke to do the same. He quickly swallowed the rest of his second drink, and through the empty can in the duffle like the others. 

Damian kicked Terry's bag under the couch as he hurried to the livingroom door. He unlocked it and let his father in.

"What took so long?" Bruce smirked, strutting in.

Terry put up his hands. "You caught us! We're shirking our babysitting duties!"

"As a family reunion? That's why I call you here!" Bruce joked.

"I know, I know, but Cass and I are just catching up with them." Terry clarified. "So much time away from home, I need to catch up on the local drama. The politics, and stuff."

"And I don't get to spend time with anyone in the family around my age." Damian said. "It's the closest thing to intelligent conversation here!"

Bruce looked at Duke and Cass, expecting one of them to justify why they were hiding in there. Duke was afraid that if he so much as opened his mouth, he'd give them away for drinking in the manor during a family reunion. But Bruce just kept staring at him. 

"Uh. Same." He murmured, keeping his eyes down. Luckily, the alcohol hadn't quite hit him yet. "By the way, Helena and Harper both say hi, but they didn't want to come."

"Oh yeah." Terry added. "I asked Max too, but apparently I'm the weird one for asking him to come have dinner with 'a bunch of weirdos that he doesn't know'."

"I guess that makes sense." Bruce reasoned. "Have you heard how Barbra and Jason have been running around and shouting stuff back and forth all afternoon."

"Yes, we heard them." Damian agreed.

"Oh, anyways, I came in here to tell you: Dinner is in about twelve minutes."

"Thanks." Duke said, a little too quickly. He knew that he wanted Bruce out of the room when the alcohol hit.

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"yes, yes, YES." Barbra inserted the last digit and stood back, watching the safe. the tension was like an ice bath. Her and Jason had spent all afternoon on this. They prayed  that it'd work. they stared at the safe for several long seconds. 

There was a subdued beeping, and the safe buzzed open.

"YES!" Jason shouted.

Barbra and he high fived. The girl hauled open the safe and they gazed in. "Mostly bank statements, the deed, business stuff..." She dictated. "What's this?" She pulled out a bottle of tinted liquid.

"Looks like an alcohol thingy." Jason glanced over his shoulder. He read the sticky note on the bottle aloud. "Damian, if you're breaking in here, and happen to see this: It's for the reunion."

They silently returned the bottle.

"Here!" Barbra pulled out two small devices. She passed one to Jason. "Let's see how strong they are-"

The door handle rattled, and there was a firm knock on the door.

"Hello?" Jason called out.

"Jason? What are you doing in there."

The two kids looked at each other. "Playing!" They called in tandem.

"Well can I come in, or do I have to get a locksmith?"

Barbra slowly leaned on the safe door until it closed with a soft click. Jason threw both tasers in a desk drawer. "Coming!" The redhead called out. She turned to Jason, and hissed: "Make it look like we were playing." 

Jason nodded and began kicking around the office chair, messing up Bruce's desk as she headed to the door. She unlocked it for Bruce.

"What is it with everyone locking doors? This is supposed to be a reunion!" He jested. "Ten minutes to dinner. You two go get Carrie and Dick, and the four of you wash up, okay?"

"Okay!" The kids chirruped innocently, still blocking the doorway.

"Can I come it? I need to get something from the safe to prepare for dinner." Bruce asked.

The kids glanced at each other. "Okay." Jason said. "But- don't come in yet.

Bruce leaned in and glanced around. He sighed at the mess they'd made. "You have two minutes to clean this up, and then go upstairs."

"Thanks!" Barbra slammed the door and ran to retrieve the Tasers as Jason cleaned up. This family reunion was about to get a lot less boring.

--Save point! #2 If you're lost, here's a checkpoint to help you find where you were!--

"Dinner! Dad says you have to wash up!" Jason shouted, nudging open Dick's door.

Carrie put away her crayon and stood up, stretching. "Come on, let's finish after dinner."

"Yeah!" Dick sprung up, racing out after her. They washed their hands with Barbra and Jason (Jason essentially just ran his hands under the tap for a couple seconds), and headed downstairs.

"Do you wanna talk to Bruce? Or do you want me to do it?" Carrie asked.

"I wanna go in with Babs and Jay-Jay." Dick announced.

"Sure thing, I'll do it then, but Bruce will probably want to talk after dinner."

"Okay!" The boy skipped off to the dining room.

Carrie glanced around, and was about to call out when she saw Bruce heading into his study. "Oh, hey! Bruce!"

He started a little, that was out of character. He ducked out of sight and quickly reemerged. "Hey... Carrie," He paused in between words, as if having forgotten which kid it was for a second. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Oh, I just wanted to say, before dinner: Dick mentioned that  some kids at school weren't very nice to him. It doesn't seem to bother him, but I thought I should tell you incase it gets worse."

"Oh, yes. Thank you." Bruce said quickly, not fully processing. "I'll be in to join you at dinner in five minutes."

"Okay." She skipped off the join the others, not noticing Bruce pick up the whiskey tumbler from behind the doorframe and take a sip.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dinner was grand, as everything at Wayne Manor (Barre the people) was. Bruce was at the head of the table, with the eldest hour around him. Tim and Steph were kin of in limbo, between the older siblings and the younger siblings, and Carrie, Barbra, Jason and Dick were at the other end. That side was kind-of the kid's table

The chatter was surprisingly low, even at the kids side. Barbra and Jason kept exchanging glances over their plates, trying to hide their big, stupid grins. 

Across the table, Duke was dead staring into Cass's eyes. She stared back. He didn't know why he was staring, only that if he tried to look away, he'd be blinded by nausea. Why did he think he could chug two drinks and then make it through a family reunion dinner? If Bruce found out he was drunk, then the other three would be caught too, and then... he didn't intend to find out.

Besides that, he felt weird. The alcohol was impairing his sight a little. He felt like he was supposed to be seeing something, but it was just out of focus, fuzzy and grey. That wasn't good, maybe he should tell someone about this.

And Terry was charming everyone, as he was apt to do whenever he came back to Gotham. 

Barbra and Jason were giggling down the table. "What's so funny?" Tim asked, glancing at them. "And since when do you to giggle?

The kids glanced across at each other and giggled. Barbra stood up. "Fun Fact: Water conducts electricity."

Jason immediately stood up too. He grabbed his glass of water and splashed it down the table. "Behold: Our science fair! Barbra, will you?"

Barbra pulled out  a small... something, and pressed button on the bottom. It was her taser, she was turning the safety off. But how on earth did the kids get-"

There was a deafening crack as the taser made contact with the water. Everyone let out shouts, darting from their chairs. Uh oh. Duke should not have stood up that fast. shit. 

Both kids broke into maniacal giggling, not even noticing that one of their brothers had collapsed to his knees, hand over his mouth. 

"NICE!" Barbra shouted over her own shocked hearing. She held the taser above her head and buzzed it.

"How did you-" Bruce stared at her. That was in the safe! How did the kids get in there. "Put those down!"

"Sorry, we already agreed to full send it!" Jason took out his own weapon.

"Not even ONE nice dinner?" Stephanie exploded. "This is the first night all week that I've eaten something that didn't have 'instant' in the title!"

"Sorry Steph!" Jason zapped his taser a couple times. "We can't surrender now."

"Oh no, you are not ruining our dinner!" She pulled out her earrings, sliding one to Tim. "PUT THE TASERS DOWN!" She snapped the earring into staff and charged Barbra, forcing the pole against the girl's throat. "Drop It!"

Tim slid the other staff out and knocked the taser from Jason's hand, sending the live taser flying.

Carrie grabbed her crying youngest brother and pulled him under the table. Crawling over to the adult side. She stopped just inches from where Duke was vomiting, and stopped to check on him.

"Drop it Barb! I'm Tired and HUNGRY AND BLEEDING! I am in no mood for  this!" Steph shouted, wrestling the staff against Barbra's neck and trying to take the weapon from her.

"Stephanie!" Tim shouted, putting the safety on, and confiscating, Jason's taser. "Metal conducts electricity even better than water!"

"Eh fuck it." Steph dropped her staff in Barbra's lap and grabbed Barbra's hand, wrestling the taser from the nine year old's grip. She pointed the taser back the child, retrieving her staff before lowering it. "Terry, you can have you're stupid child-weapons back!" She shouted, throwing it across the room at her big brother.

"STEPH THE SAFETY!"

Terry ducked and the live taser sailed over his head, past Alfred, and struck the electrical socket in the wall.

The whole room went black.

--Save point #3! If you're lost, here's a checkpoint to help you find where you were!--

"Hey." Terry leaned in Bruce's doorway, awkwardly.

"Terrence-"

"I'm just coming in to say: I'm sorry." He said. "What I did was stupid."

Bruce looked up, eyes full of suppressed rage. "Anyone could tell you that about buying children tasers.

"Oh, that's not what I'm apologizing for." Terry locked eyes with Bruce for a few seconds. "But sorry for that too. What I meant to apologize for is letting the kids break into your safe."

Well that sure as shit wasn't what Bruce expected.

"You what?"

"...Maybe I should explain." Terry said quickly. "So I got the kids low-voltage tasers, knowing you'd take them, so, I made a little quest for them. I thought it's keep them too busy to make trouble." He explained. "I had Cassie show them you're emergency passcode reminder, because I thought they wouldn't be able to get it, and it'd keep them busy." Terry gave a weak, frightened smile. "Guess you just raise smart kids."

"You let them figure out the combination for the safe, which is also most of my back up passwords, to keep them out of trouble?"

Terry wanted to object, but couldn't. "yeah. Basically."

Bruce nodded a little. "Yes. That was stupid."

"I told you it would be." Terry chuckled a little, awaiting a verbal smackdown. "Are... um... are we both a little drunk?"

"Yes." His father sighed.

"Oh nice. haha." Terry gave bisexual finger-guns. "Hey at least we can hold out liquor. poor Duke."

"I forgot to tell you not to get him drunk." Bruce agreed. The house was still completely dark, and the kids had been put to bed already. Along with those who were either too drunk, or too tired to stay up. "Apparently Dick's being bullied at school, but hasn't realized it yet."

"Ah damn." Terry said. He couldn't think of a better reply.

Bruce nodded a little. "Can we get back to this tomorrow?"

"I am SO glad you offered, I felt too bad to go to bed." Terry explained, heading out the office door. "I promise not to get them weapons next time."

"No matter what you get them, they'll make it a weapon."

Terry smiled a little. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

-6637 WORDS LONG!!-