"We what!??" Bruce's seven children all exclaimed with varying emotions ranging from shock, excitement and anger.
"Okay, you're going off-world I get that! But seriously? Babysitters!?" Dick, who was in his Robin suit, exclaimed as he stared at his father incredulously.
"Bodyguards but yes. They'll only be here for three days. Besides, I thought you wanted to meet them?" the bat smirked at his son as he went to change out of his Batman suit to greet the guests that were going to arrive soon. Dick and Barbara, who both wanted to meet their fellow teen heroes, couldn't find the words to respond. Yes they wanted to meet them but this is not how they expected their first time meeting to be.
Soon the children heard the doorbell ring and scrambled to get upstairs, Dick and Barbara having to change out of their Robin and Batgirl uniforms first since they had been training Jason to be the next Robin. As the two eldest got back up into the manor they heard something break and some shouting.
Knowing it was their siblings they simply sighed and headed towards the door where they found the third youngest, Cassandra Cain-Wayne, holding Damian on her back, and Tim trying not to fall asleep. From the doorway a tired sigh could be heard.
"Welcome to Wayne Manor."
~Earlier~
"Team to the mission room." The intercom resounded throughout the mountain. The teens that were there complied and filed into said room to find Batman waiting for them. "Where are the others?" He scanned the room to find Zatanna, and Rocket missing from the group.
"Zatanna and Rocket are away with their mentors right now, I apologize Batman." Aqualad answered him.
"Don't be, you will all do." He clicked a few buttons and a picture of two dark haired boys and a red haired girl popped up. "This is Richard Grayson, Jason Todd, and Barbara Gordon. As the oldest children of Bruce Wayne they've garnered a lot of attention from the Joker." This time a picture of Batman without the mask on and an older looking man replaced the pictures of the teens, "Bruce Wayne will be away on business in England and his butler Alfred Pennyworth will be with him to visit family."
Artemis, the blonde archer, raised her hand before asking a question, "Why exactly are you telling us this? I mean what does this have to do with our mission?"
"The Wayne's live in Gotham, I'll be off-world with other members of the Justice League. Your mission is to protect the three oldest from the Joker and his goons while I'm gone. Of course this will include their other siblings as well." This time a full picture of the family popped up to reveal four boys, three girls, along with Bruce and Alfred. "This will be your only mission in my city, don't do anything stupid. Pack your things you'll be staying at Wayne Manor for 3 days, you leave in 2 hours. If you wish to tell them your identities you can, they have sworn themselves to secrecy if you do. Dismissed."
"Wha-" to say Artemis was shocked was an understatement. She had seen Richard and Barbara at school before but never interacted with them.
"You okay there Arty?" the young Martian asked her friend who simply nodded.
"Whatever. Let's just get packed, it's going to be a long few days." Arsenal groaned frustrated. The teens dispersed to their rooms at the mountain and packed before using the zeta tubes to get to Gotham, all blissfully unaware of the utter chaos that ensues behind Wayne Manor doors.
~~***~~
The team were walking up towards the doors of the very large Manor, when they heard the sound of crashing and things being broken along with yelling from behind the doors. Sharing worried glances they sped the rest of the way to the door only for it to suddenly be opened by Bruce Wayne who had yet to notice them, his children surprisingly taking up all of his attention.
"Uh, sir, is everything okay?" Artemis spoke up a little intimidated by the man, even if he did seem exhausted. Bruce hearing the voice finally looked towards the group.
"Oh, you must be the team Batman mentioned please come in-" another crash, he sighed as the team entered, "Welcome to Wayne Manor." Looking at the man they could tell he wasn't in the best of moods so they simply looked around the large entrance and spotted a group of kids, five to be exact.
"Uhh... Didn't Batman say there were seven kids?" Wally, aka Kid Flash, questioned through the mind link.
"I think so..?" M'gann, Miss Martian, responded unsure.
"Jason! Stephanie! Get down here! Now!" Bruce shouted up the stairs to the two arguing kids. The Team didn't miss the red haired girl saying something to the black haired boy next to her, the two of them trying to stifle their laughter. "I'm sorry about them. I really have to get going though, Dick, Barbara, I leave this to you." Bruce sighed, turning back to the group as Jason and Steph stumbled down the stairs to join their siblings. "Make sure they don't kill each other." He whispered to the team as he walked out the door.
Barbara having caught what their father had said rolled her eyes, "Hi, I'm Barbara, the oldest-"
"Liar," Dick scoffed, "I'm actually the oldest, my name's Richard but please just call me Dick." he stepped forward reaching his hand out towards Aqualad accepting the handshake.
"It is a pleasure, I am Aqualad and this is my team." he gestured to the others who all said hi/hello.
"These are our siblings Jason, Tim.. Cassandra, Stephanie and the youngest is Damian," Barbara said pointing at each one and pausing as she saw Tim had actually fallen asleep with Steph having to hold him up. "Umm, well, how about I show you to your rooms and then give you a tour."
"That's fine with me, beautiful," Wally winked at her, earning a glare from Dick and Jason.
"Back off my sister, mustard bottle!" Jason exclaimed, earning an eye roll from said sister.
"Ignore him," Barbara stated, "Dick get Tim to his room, Jay, Steph clean up whatever it is you broke and throw it away and don't break anything else, got it?" She glared at the two as Dick picked up the scrawny ten year old and went upstairs, "Cass, Dami-" the 4 year old glared not liking most of his nicknames, "-Damian why don't you go find something to do for now."
Cass simply nodded the 9 year old not much one for talking and walked away Damian still on her back, "Well that was eventful," Artemis whispered to her teammates.
"Sorry about that, this family is a little.. Hectic." Bab's told them, deciding not to mention that it was also rather dysfunctional. "Come on this way." The 15 year old girl led the team up the stairs and down a few hallways until they reached the guest bedrooms the team would be using for the three days they're there. "Here you go, you can pick which room you want, they're all the same, my siblings' rooms are over here down this hall."
"Thank you," Aqualad, aka Kaldur'ahm or Kaldur for short, spoke up.
"Yes thank you very much!" M'gann replied happily. Bab's just nodded at them as she turned to see Dick walking up to them. Conner glared slightly confused as to how the other 15 year old could sneak up on them.
"It's no problem!" Dick gave them his signature smile that he gave the press, "Tim's knocked out cold, I don't know if it's exhaustion or if Alfred drugged his coffee to get him to sleep." Bab's sighed at that.
"Uh... did he just say..."
"That their butler might have drugged their brother? Yes, yes he did." Roy answered the shocked speedster, all of the team sharing equally shocked and concerned expressions.
"Um. What?" M'gann questioned out loud.
"Huh? Oh sorry, Tim has insomnia and tends to pull a lot of all-nighters so sometimes we kinda have to drug him," Dick answered sheepishly. The team simply nodded and went to pick out their rooms.
"We all do," Barbara whispered to him.
"They don't need to know that Bab's," Dick answered the two unaware that Superboy had caught what they said.
"They all have insomnia.'' The clone snitched to the rest of the team through the mindlink as he placed his things down on the bed in the guest room he had chosen. It was simple with light grey walls, dark wood furniture and deep blue sheets on the bed with matching navy blue curtains. There was a walk-in closet along with a connecting bathroom so he didn't have to share with anyone.
After the team was done, Barbara and Dick showed them around the maze-like manor. Afterwards they found their way to the kitchen where Jason was making lunch. "Hey Jaybird!" Dick chirped at his younger brother stealing an apple from the fruit bowl and sitting on the counter by where Jay was working.
"Hey! Get off. I'm trying to cook here!" Jason shoved the older boy off the marble countertops. Dick just laughed and moved over to where the team was. "What do you want, goldie?"
"Aw what I can't be in the kitchen now?" Dick whined, "Come on guys, clearly we're not wanted!" Dick faked tears before quickly ducking as a tomato was chucked at his head. They quickly left the kitchen and settled down in one of the living rooms where they found Steph and Damian playing chess, Damian winning, and Cass reading a book in one of the arm chairs. "So any questions?"
"Why do you have different last names?" Conner asked. Roy, who had technically met some of them before, hadn't thought to ask them that.
"We're adopted. Well except little D, he's the only one related to Bruce by blood," Dick answered simply, already wishing that they won't try to delve deeper into the subject. Before the team could ask anything else Damian asked a question of his own.
"Who are you?"
"Well I'm Kid Fla-"
"Behind the masks." Damian stared at them suspiciously but because of how small he was it was hard to take the glare seriously.
"Damian," Cass finally spoke, a warning in her tone.
"You don't have to tell us!" Steph interrupted, "I mean it would be cool if you did but like you don't have to, ya know? We won't tell anyone, promise!"
"Um, no it's okay! I'm M'gann but you can call me Megan," the Martian girl smiled warmly.
"Wally, Wally West, a pleasure to meet you," he took his mask off to show his green eyes and freckles winking at Barbara but Dick's glare made him turn away.
"Conner," the boy grunted, not caring who knew. Sometimes he thought about telling all of Metropolis out of spite for Superman.
"Don't look at me, I'm not telling you anything," Roy glared at them, not giving in to Steph's puppy eyes. Artemis also didn't tell them and Kaldur was debating since his name could be rather difficult to say especially for little kids.
"How about we find something to do?" Dick asked, ending the subject of identities, "How about a movie marathon or something?" No one disagreed with him so they spent the rest of the day watching movies, until it was late evening. Dick had left to go collect more snacks while the others were picking the last movie to watch.
"How about Spiderman: Far From Home?"
"No, we have to sleep after this too much action could keep us awake longer." Bab's shot down Wally's idea.
"What about Lion King-?" M'gann spoke.
"No!" The 6 bat-siblings refused quickly, surprising the team.
"Why-?"
"It's a trigger." Steph cut off Artemis, "It's forbidden to watch when everyone's home."
"Again, why?" Bab's sighed at Artemis's confusion.
"Come over here," Barbara got up and went over to the corner furthest away from the door Dick was most likely to enter from. "Have you all watched it before?" the team all nodded, "So you know the part where Simba's dad, you know, falls..?" they again nodded.
"What does that have to do-"
"Dick's parents died the same way," Bab's quickly cut off Roy, "He's from a family of trapeze acrobats, there was an incident and the ropes broke, and well.."
"Well what?" M'gann asked quietly, feeling Bab's sadness in waves.
"They never, and I mean never, performed with a net." Those words sunk deep into the team as they each pieced together what happened that fateful night.
They all went back to their seats just as Dick returned with snacks, "Hey so what are we watching?"
"What do you think about the Princess Bride?" Dick nodded happily and so they turned on the 1987 movie before they all drifted off to sleep.